TV & Film News – Canada’s Oscar pick advances to next round of voting

Matthew Rankin’s Universal Language is one of 15 films shortlisted to advance to the next round of voting in the International Feature Film category for the 97th Academy Awards. Films from 85 countries and regions were eligible in the category. Universal Language is the first Canadian film to make the shortlist in the category since 2016. Oscar winner Torill Kove’s Mikrofilm/National Film Board of Canada (NFB) animated short Maybe Elephants is one of 15 films shortlisted for Animated Short Film. Nominations for the 97th Academy Awards will be announced on Friday, Jan. 17.

WildBrain is selling its majority stake in its TV channels in a deal valued at $40 million. The company announced Wednesday that independent, Halifax-based children’s studio IoM Media Ventures – led by former DHX Media CEO Dana Landry – will acquire 66 2/3% of its television broadcast business, including Family Channel, Family Jr., WildBrainTV and Télémagino, pending CRTC approval. Under terms of the agreement, WildBrain says it expects to receive more than $40 million over the next four years from the transaction. The deal is expected to close in three to six months, with WildBrain intending to use the proceeds to pay down debt. Read more here.

TV5/Unis is the latest channel to request an increase in its mandatory wholesale fee from the CRTC. The broadcaster is seeking an increase of $0.02 per month per subscriber to $0.30 in francophone and $0.26 in anglophone markets.

The 2025 IIHF World Junior Championship begins Thursday, Dec. 26 on TSN, TSN.ca, and the TSN app, culminating with the Gold Medal Game on Sunday, Jan. 5. For the first time, CTV joins TSN to deliver the New Year’s Eve rivalry matchup between Team Canada and Team USA, with pre-game coverage beginning at 7:30 p.m. ET. The puck drops with three pre-competition matchups featuring Team Canada, beginning with Canada vs. Switzerland on Thursday, Dec. 19 at 7 p.m. ET.

CBC has announced its New Year’s Eve original programming lineup, which kicks off at 8 p.m. ET (8:30 NT) on CBC TV and CBC Gem with the 22 Minutes New Year’s Eve Pregame Special, a one-hour satirical sendoff to 2024. Programming continues with the live CBC News special Canada Live! Countdown 2025, hosted by Adrienne Arsenault, Jann Arden, Ian Hanomansing and Ali Hassan, inviting audiences to count down to the new year in each of the six time zones across the country, beginning at 8 p.m. ET/5 p.m. PT on CBC News Network, CBC Gem, the CBC News app, and cbcnews.ca, the CBC News streaming channel and the CBC News YouTube channel, with live coverage beginning on CBC TV, CBC Radio and CBC Listen at 9 p.m. in each time zone (9:30 NT). 

George Stroumboulopoulos will host New Year’s Eve special, The Countdown to 2025, on CHCH-TV and CHEK-TV. The retrospective of the past year paired with live performances follows the success of last year’s broadcast—watched by 600,000 viewers across Canada and ranked as the second-most-viewed New Year’s Eve special of 2024. Filmed in front of a live studio audience, CHCH-TV will carry the special broadcast live for an Ontario audience at 11:10 p.m. ET, through both conventional TV and streaming at chch.com and YouTube.com/@CHCHTV11. CHEK will carry the broadcast for the B.C. audience at 11:10 p.m. PT on conventional TV and streaming on CHEK+.

Bell Media has partnered with Shopsense AI, a leader in shoppable TV technology, to bring second-screen shopping experiences to Canadian viewers. The collaboration marks Shopsense’s first expansion outside of the U.S. and the first integration of its Commerce OS into Canadian entertainment programming. Debuting on CTV’s The Good Stuff with Mary Berg and ETALK, The Good Stuff will offer foodie-focused gift guides, host-inspired fashion, and affordable home décor, creating a curated marketplace to recreate what viewers are seeing on screen. ETALK’s shoppable experience will feature accessible fashion, giving audiences the opportunity to recreate their favorite celebrity styles. Brands will be able to sponsor second-screen experiences across both series social media channels. Bell Media says it has plans to scale shopability across its content library.

Bell Media’s rebranded specialty channels will be available on nationwide free preview from Jan. 1 – Feb. 28 through participating service providers as the network moves forward with a major content and licensing agreement with NBCUniversal Global TV Distribution. Starting Jan. 1, Bell Media’s Investigation Discovery (ID) channel rebrands as Oxygen True Crime in Canada, and its former Discovery channel offering rebrands as USA Network, while Animal Planet, Discovery Science, and Discovery Velocity, become CTV Wild, CTV Nature, and CTV Speed, respectively, as Warner Bros. Discovery content rights move over to Rogers’ domain.

Corus Entertainment’s Showcase and W Network have announced their winter lineup of new and returning series, including the return of comedy series Based on a True Story, starring Kaley Cuoco and Chris Messina; new drama series Lockerbie: A Search for Truth starring Colin Firth; and previously-announced series Teacup, starring Canadian actor Scott Speedman. W Network will also air Season 3 of Hallmark Channel drama, The Way Home.

CTV has confirmed initial midseason premiere dates. New series include comedy Shifting Gears (airing Wednesdays at 8 p.m. ET/PT, beginning Jan. 8). Tim Allen stars as the stubborn, widowed owner of a classic car restoration shop, with Kat Dennings cast as his daughter, who moves her kids into his house. New ABC News Studios documentary series SCAMANDA (Thursdays at 9 p.m. ET/PT, beginning Jan. 30) is based on the podcast of the same name, while new survivalist competition series Extracted (Mondays at 8 p.m. ET/PT, beginning Feb. 10) features 12 untrained competitors attempting to survive extremely grueling conditions in the unforgiving Canadian wilderness as their family members watch them navigate their dangerous surroundings via a 24/7 live feed, begging the question: how far will their loved ones let them go for a chance to win $250,000? Also joining the schedule is spinoff series SUITS LA (Sundays at 9 p.m. ET/PT, beginning Feb. 23), starring Stephen Arnell (Arrow). 

Martin Sheen (The West Wing), Ally Sheedy (Single Drunk Female), Marie Avgeropoulos (The 100), Katie Findlay (Man Seeking Woman), and NXT North American wrestling champion Tony D’Angelo are set to guest star in Season 2 of CBC’s Wild Cards. Sheen stars in a recurring role throughout the season as “Joseph Edwards,” known in the con community as the greatest conman of all time. The procedural follows a by-the-book, sardonic cop (Giacomo Gianniotti) and a clever con woman (Vanessa Morgan) who are assigned by the Metro Police force to work together, using their seemingly opposing skills to solve crimes.

Pluto TV is marking two-years in Canada, purporting growth of up to 1.7 billion total viewing minutes (TVMs) per month, with its monthly average up 40% from last year. Pluto TV channels are now more than double the platform’s launch-offering, with 243 FAST channels and over 50,000 hours of movies, shows, documentaries, news, and music, available both live and on demand. Pluto TV says its success in Canada continues to be driven by new channels and content partnerships including NBCUniversal (NBCU) Global TV Distribution, FIFA+, IndiaCast, CBC, A+E Networks, and Fremantle. New and upcoming channel highlights include three new CBC News Channels (CBC News Toronto, CBC News BC, and Radio-Canada INFO) that join the previously launched CBC News Explore.

Alter Boys from writer/director and actor Jonathan Lawrence is currently streaming on CBC Gem. The six-episode dramatic series explores the nuances and challenges of queer love as a group of young men recover in a Northern Manitoba hospital after being rescued from a forest fire that tore through a conversion therapy camp. Filmed in Winnipeg, it features a predominantly Manitoba-based cast and crew. Lawrence directs, writes and stars. The series is produced by Ryan Cooper (Aberdeen), executive produced by Al Magee (Trailer Park Boys, Little Mosque on the Prairie) and Kyle Bornais (The Swearing Jar), with cinematography by Jordan Popowich (Querencia). The series is produced by Farpoint Films. 

Point Grey Pictures, the prodco founded by Seth Rogen and Evan Goldberg, is producing its first scripted show for the Canadian market, in collaboration with Bell Media. The deal was struck through Lionsgate’s first-look television deal with Point Grey. Details around the new project haven’t been divulged. In addition to this deal, Lionsgate and Bell Media have a separate co-development agreement to produce comedy and drama television series for the global market. Read more here.

Boat Rocker has announced an exclusive multi-year deal with The Weather Channel to distribute the American network’s extensive library of original content in global markets outside of the U.S. Offering over 400 hours of content, highlights include 18 popular series, including: Weather Gone Viral – now in its 9th season (22×60′) – featuring meteorological moments from around the world; Storm of Suspicion – now in its 5th season (22×60′) – where the high stakes of extreme weather meet the thrilling mystery of murder; and Fast Home Rescue (S2 10×60′), in which husband and wife duo Tre and Cierra Boston help families get back into their storm-damaged homes.