TV & Film News – Women still significantly under-employed in screen industries

The Women in View On Screen report finds that while the number of women employed on Canadian film and television productions is growing, they are still significantly under-employed, particularly when it comes to women of colour and Indigenous women. The 2019 report examined more than 5,000 publicly-funded contracts issued in television – between 2014-17 – and film between 2015-17. It found between 2014-17, women’s share of television writing, directing and cinematography contracts increased by 11%, from 17 to 28%. Between 2015-17, women’s share of feature film writing, directing and cinematography contracts increased 5%, from 20 to 25%. When it comes to women of colour, 1.18% of television contracts and 4% of film contracts went to women of colour in 2017. One of the report’s most revealing findings is that women’s creative leadership is key to unlocking gender balance and greater diversity. On TV series with women showrunners, 50% of the writing, directing and cinematography contracts went to women and 50% to men. When men showran, 86% of the work went to men. When teams that included a man and a woman showran, 41% of contracts went to women. Read more here

CTV says preliminary audience numbers for the series finale of the Big Bang Theory on May 16 came in at 4.33 million viewers. The network says that makes it the second most-watched broadcast of the year, along with the Super Bowl, and only behind February’s Oscars’ broadcast.

Canada’s Worst Driver, Discovery’s longest-running reality series, is coming to an end after 14 seasons. Host Andrew Younghusband revealed the news in a post to his Facebook page this week. “It is with equal parts pride and humility, sadness and joy that I am writing to inform you all that Canada’s Worst Driver is officially finished. Done. The great runaway hit has finally crashed and burned. I had really hoped we would get to do a “Goodbye” season to end the series with a tip of the hat to the faithful audience, but alas, we are simply done without any fanfare. Many, many, many thanks to the hundreds (yes hundreds!) of people who have worked on the show over the years. Your creativity and grit, both on set and behind the scenes, are what made CWD the longest running reality series in Canadian TV history. Thanks to Discovery Channel and all the good people there, too.”

Stingray has signed a three-year global licensing deal with music distribution company Northstar Media. Under the agreement, Stingray Festival 4K will be granted the license to 49 concerts filmed in 4K Ultra HD by artists including Imagine Dragons, Shawn Mendes, Playboi Carti, Beth Hart and Rae Sremmurd. The first titles will air in July.

CTV and TSN have announced the FIFA Women’s World Cup of France broadcast schedule, with the month-long tournament running Friday, June 7 through Sunday, July 7. The panel features host Kate Beirness alongside analysts Diana Matheson, who scored the bronze medal-winning goal at the London 2012 Olympic Games, and Canadian Women’s National Team alumni Clare Rustad and Kaylyn Kyle. Delivering commentary for all Canadian Women’s team matches are TSN’s Luke Wileman and Olympic bronze medallist Carmelina Moscato, with reports from SPORTSCENTRE’s Laura Diakun. TSN Radio will also deliver live coverage of every Canada match, featuring play-by-play commentator Peter Schaad and game analyst Andrea Neil.

The 2019 Stanley Cup Final broadcast schedule gets underway May 27 with the St. Louis Blues at Boston. Live coverage of the entire final round is available on Sportsnet and CBC and via live stream at Sportsnet NOW, Sportsnet.ca and Rogers NHL LIVE. Ron MacLean, Elliotte Friedman, Kelly Hrudey, and Nick Kypreos will be live each game night with Hockey Central: Playoffs Edition at 7:30 p.m. ET / 4:30 p.m. PT on Sportsnet and Sportsnet NOW. Don Cherry will also serve up regular installments of Coach’s Corner from Boston and St. Louis. Sportsnet will also air midday updates with the Hockey Central @ Noon panel, hosted by Jeff Marek. Select games will air on Hockey Night in Canada: Punjabi Edition with Harnarayan Singh, Randip Janda, Harpreet Pandher, Mantar Bhandal, and Gurpreet Sian on OMNI Television

HGTV Canada says Bryan and Sarah Baeumler’s new series Island of Bryan is breaking ratings records for the channel with the first four episodes becoming the most-watched individual episodes of any program on the network in over 10 years. According to Numeris data provided by Corus, the series is currently the #3 program across all of Canadian Specialty in Spring ’19. The new show, which sees the couple work to rebuild a beachfront resort in the Bahamas, follows the success of Season 2 of Bryan Inc. which ranked as the #1 program on HGTV Canada last spring.