Bell Media has announced programming and host details for its forthcoming Canadian content on new short-form mobile video platform, Quibi, which is moving forward with its planned launch Apr. 6.
Bell announced in March that it had signed on as Quibi’s exclusive Canadian content partner, with CTV News and TSN creating daily shows.
Boasting short-form projects from Steven Spielberg, Steven Soderbergh, Jennifer Lopez, Kiefer Sutherland, Lena Waithe, Anna Kendrick, Reese Witherspoon and LeBron James, among others, CTV News and TSN will supply daily Canadian content. Bell Media’s Quibi Daily Essentials is among 20 such offerings on the platform and will include Newsday by CTV News, Newsnight by CTV News, and Sports AM by TSN.
Available for streaming weekday mornings by 6:30 a.m. ET and weekend mornings by 9 a.m. ET, Newsday by CTV News will be hosted by Heather Butts. Butts has been with CTV News since 2014, as a reporter, host and anchor in both Barrie, ON and CTV Atlantic in Halifax, NS.
Newsnight, available weekday evenings by 5 p.m. ET, will be hosted by Reshmi Nair, who recently left CBC News Network after a decade and resurfaced this month filling in for Evan Solomon on Bell Media Radio. Lis Travers will act as executive producer of both shows.
Targeted at a millennial audience, the daily news program promises to cover important news stories and the biggest headlines of the day in “timely, digestible updates of the news that matters most,” according to a Bell Media release.
Sports AM by TSN, which will feature highlights and trending sports stories, will be available for streaming every morning at 6:30 a.m. ET weekdays, and 9 a.m. ET on weekends. It will be hosted by SportsCentre anchor Lindsay Hamilton weekdays, and SportsCentre anchor/reporter Kayla Grey on weekends. Steve Argintaru will act as senior producer and showrunner.
Despite being targeted at the on-the-go media consumer, Quibi founder Jeffrey Katzenberg, ex-Walt Disney Studios chairman and DreamWorks co-founder, told Deadline that he’s feeling confident about the launch.
Quibi will launch in Canada in two price tiers – an ad-supported version at CDN $6.99/mo. and an ad-free version with a monthly fee of $9.99/mo. The app will be on free trial for the first 90 days.
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