TV & Film News – CMPA unveils 2024 Indiescreen Award nominees

The Canadian Media Producers Association (CMPA) has unveiled the nominees for its annual Indiescreen Awards, recognizing excellence among Canadian independent feature film producers. This year’s winners will be announced at the 2024 Indiescreen Awards ceremony on Thursday, Sept. 12, during the Atlantic International Film Festival (AIFF). Read more here.

Boat Rocker will acquire the remaining 30% of Insight Productions it didn’t already own for CAD $7.5M. The deal was announced during Boat Rocker’s Q2 earnings call this week, six years after it acquired a majority stake in the unscripted prodco which produces shows like The Amazing Race Canada and Top Chef Canada. The transaction is expected to close within the next six months.

Videotron has announced it will consolidate its French-language entertainment offerings, Club illico and Vrai, under a single platform this fall. Dubbed illico+, the single subscriber-based video-on-demand (VOD) platform, will launch Oct. 23, promising a seamless transition for existing subscribers of both platforms on Helix and illico. Videotron says the illico+ catalogue will include scripted, unscripted and specialized content, as well as Quebec and international exclusives. Read more here.

CBC/Radio-Canada has released Numeris data indicating seven in 10 or more than 27 million Canadians tuned into the Paris 2024 Olympic Games over 17 days. CBC says it delivered the highest all-day audience share of any English-language network in Canada for the duration of Paris 2024, among both audiences 2+ and 25-54. The games set new digital viewing benchmarks as well, with Canadian audiences consuming a record-breaking 24.3 million hours of Paris 2024 content on CBC/Radio-Canada’s digital and streaming platforms, an increase of 170% over Tokyo 2020 and 121% over Beijing 2022. Connected TVs accounted for about 65% of the total time spent streaming Paris 2024 content on CBC Gem. The event’s most-watched moment was the conclusion of the Closing Ceremony, featuring actor Tom Cruise jumping out of a plane, viewed by 2.572 million viewers. Read more here.

Corus Entertainment has announced its fall lineup of Canadian original unscripted series with 12 new and returning titles, representing 95 hours of fresh programming. New series for HGTV Canada include House of Ali (8x60min), introducing viewers to luxury designer Ali Budd, beginning Thursday, Sept. 5. The HISTORY Channel delivers two new series, including paranormal offering Repossessed (8x60min) starting Friday, Sept. 6 featuring a team of experts, led by popular paranormal investigator Moe Sargi, as they travel across North America in search of the most haunted objects and the desperate owners who need their help. On Nov. 7, HISTORY Channel will debut new series Yukon Rescue (8x60min) following multiple emergency response teams in Canada’s rugged north. 

Corus Entertainment’s Nelvana has partnered with Peacock, to officially launch three of its redknot-produced animated kids’ television series in the U.S. Starting Aug. 15, U.S. viewers will be able to stream all three seasons of Agent Binky: Pets of the Universe, followed by The Dog & Pony Show in September and Super Wish in October.

Prime Video has released the trailer for upcoming four-part docuseries The Tragically Hip: No Dress Rehearsal, an unvarnished look at the 40-year journey of Canada’s most beloved rock band. Directed by Mike Downie, the series chronicles the triumphs, trials and bonds of brotherhood that defined The Hip’s rise from basement shows to arena rock legends. The docuseries will have its world premiere at TIFF before screening at film festivals nationwide. The Prime Video launch date will be announced at a later date.

Prime Video is also teasing upcoming reality series, Elisabeth Rioux: Unfiltered. Set to premiere Sept. 6 (6×30), the series follows the French-Canadian social media star and entrepreneur as she jet-sets the globe building her Quebec based international swimwear company, while trying to balance romance, family, and motherhood. Produced by Trio Orange, in association with Amazon Studios, and filmed in Montreal and throughout Quebec, the series travels to Miami, Costa Rica and Italy.

Crave has announced that production is underway in Sudbury on the six-episode, fourth season of Shoresy. Created by and starring Jared Keeso, and produced by New Metric Media in association with Play Fun Games and Crave, the hockey comedy continues to follow the fan favourite character and the Sudbury Blueberry Bulldogs of the Northern Ontario Senior Hockey Organization (NOSHO). The fourth season drops Winter 2025 on Crave with guest stars to include TSN hockey reporter Kenzie Lalonde; TSN reporter and Olympic gold medalist Tessa Bonhomme; Meghan Chayka, co-founder of Stathletes; and former NHLers Doug Gilmour, Marty McSorley, and Sean Avery. 

CBC has released a report from its study collaboration with CanChild, part of the School of Rehabilitation Science at McMaster University, testing three different captioning styles to determine which best supports comprehension. The research, which aims to ensure broadcasters provide the most effective captioning for those audiences, found that the traditional closed captioning style aimed at an able-bodied adult audience did not fall short of serving children with disabilities. It also found that while children preferred karaoke-style captions, that preference did not translate into better comprehension or increased reading time. Regardless of caption style, children’s learning outcomes from the videos remained consistent indicating that traditional bottom-placed captions are as effective for comprehension as the other styles tested. 

The Canadian Film Centre (CFC) and Canadian Society of Cinematographers (CSC) have launched a Cinematography Intensive, welcoming five female-identifying Directors of Photography (DOPs) for a comprehensive two-week workshop in collaboration with the 2024 Norman Jewison Film Program. They include Emma Djwa, Iris Ng, Claire Sanford, Kaalya Whachell, and Paola Contreras. The DOPs will take part in a series of workshops and meetings led by CSC cinematographer mentors Zoe Dirse and Arthur Cooper. Following the two-week intensive and over the next month, they’ll take part in a series of post sessions that will see them leave the intensive with high-quality, original material for their reels.