YouTube star Lilly Singh is getting her own late night show on NBC. Scarborough-born Singh, 30, revealed the news on The Tonight Show on Thursday. A Little Late With Lilly Singh will take over the slot currently occupied by Last Call With Carson Daly, which the network announced last month would be coming to an end after a 17-year run. Set to debut this fall, the half-hour show will feature in-studio interviews and pre-taped comedy sketches. Singh aka “Superwoman”, has amassed 14.5 million YouTube subscribers over the last eight years. In 2017, she was ranked the Highest Earning Female YouTuber by Forbes Magazine, reportedly earning $10.5 million.
Netflix has agreed to remove images of the Lac Megantic rail disaster from the Sandra Bullock thriller Bird Box. The streaming giant initially rebuffed calls to replace the footage of the tragedy that killed 47 people in 2013. Quebec Culture Minister Nathalie Roy wrote to the company in January, shortly after the film’s release, calling for its removal. A similar motion was passed at the federal level in the House of Commons. The edited version of the film is expected to be released shortly.
Sportsnet and APTN are teaming up to make Canadian broadcast history with the first Cree-language NHL broadcast to take place Mar. 24. Coinciding with the Rogers Hometown Hockey stop in Enoch Cree Nation, AB, the broadcast will feature Plains Cree commentary and analysis with broadcaster Clarence Iron (CFNK 89.9 FM Pinehouse, SK) handling play-by-play, NHL alum John Chabot acting as game analyst, and Juno Award-winning musician Earl Wood on studio host duties. Live coverage of the Montreal Canadiens vs. Carolina Hurricanes will air on APTN at 7 p.m. ET / 4 p.m. PT. According to 2016 census numbers, there are about 97,000 Cree speakers in Canada, with the majority of those in the Prairie provinces and Quebec. Read more here.
New Metric Media, the Canadian production company behind Letterkenny (Crave, Hulu) and Bad Blood (Citytv), has plans to open an L.A. office. President Mark Montefiore will head the unit which is working on adapting several books into series, including Canadian writer Anne T. Donahue’s memoir Nobody Cares; Monster City, the true story of a number of serial killers who terrorized the Nashville music scene over three decades; and several books by Toronto Star reporter Peter Edwards, who penned Bad Blood: The End of Honour and served as executive producer/consultant on the tv series.
The 40th Banff World Media Festival (BANFF) has announced the nominees for this year’s Rockie Awards International Program Competition, a celebration of excellence in television and digital media from around the world. The Rockies Program Competition ceremony will be held on Monday, June 10. In addition to the $25,000 Rogers Prize for Excellence in Canadian Content, awarded to the top Canadian production, 26 awards are bestowed in the category streams of Documentary & Factual, Arts & Entertainment, Children & Youth, and Scripted. The BBC leads the nominations with 23, A+E Networks earned seven nods, while German public television subsidiary ZDF Enterprises has six nominations, followed by the CBC and Sony Pictures Television with five each. Find the full list of nominees here.
Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival will open with a film about the shooting death of Saskatchewan man Colten Boushie. Tasha Hubbard’s nipawistamasowin: We Will Stand Up will make its world premiere at Hot Docs, which runs Apr. 25 to May 5, in Toronto. The film is the first by an Indigenous filmmaker to open the festival. Find the full festival schedule here.
Daytime Emmy Award nominations are out with several Canadian-produced series earning multiple nods. Leading the charge is Toronto’s Sinking Ship Entertainment which earned 15 nominations, including eight for Dino Dana which is in the running for Outstanding Preschool Children’s Series and earned acting nods for Michela Luci and Bill Cobbs. Sinking Ship co-production Odd Squad earned seven nominations. British-Canadian animated series Hilda (Mercury Filmworks, Silvergate Media), which streams on Netflix, earned four nominations. Find the full rundown of Canadian nominations here.
Super Channel has acquired original Hulu documentary Fyre Fraud from Entertainment One (eOne), which takes viewers inside the notorious Fyre music festival fiasco. It will make its Canadian broadcast premiere on Friday, Apr. 12 at 9:30 p.m. ET on Super Channel Fuse and be available on Super Channel On Demand the following day.
Telefilm Canada is currently accepting applications by Canadian companies for accreditation at the Marché du Film in Cannes, taking place May 14-23. Telefilm, along with its partners, offers an array of services and special discount rates under the Canada Pavilion umbrella. Located at the heart of the Cannes Film Festival, the Canada Pavilion at the Marché du Film provides meeting areas and a program of events designed to promote the Canadian industry and talent. Deadline for Canada Pavilion registration is Mar. 29.
Discovery Canada will debut new original docudrama series Disasters at Sea on Tuesday, Apr. 16. Set to also air on Smithsonian Channel in the U.S. and Australia’s Seven Network, the six-episode, one-hour joins the slate of spring premieres announced by the network including new seasons of Last Stop Garage, Might Cruise Ships and Jade Fever.
Crave Original Documentary Sharkwater Extinction will have its television and streaming premiere on Monday, Apr. 22. Following multiple international film festival screenings including its world premiere at TIFF, the film follows filmmaker and conservationist Rob Stewart, who died in 2017 in a scuba accident while making the film. Crave Original Anthropocene: The Human Epoch makes its TV and streaming premiere on Apr. 20 From award winning filmmakers Jennifer Baichwal and Nicholas de Pencier, and world-renowned photographer Edward Burtynsky, the film is a cinematic meditation on humanity’s massive reengineering of the planet. It was named Best Canadian Film by the Toronto Film Critics Association.
CPAC began video broadcasting of Senate Chamber proceedings on Monday, Mar. 18, via a Senate Portal on its website. This is the first time in Senate history Canadians can regularly watch senators at work in the Chamber. For many years, debates in the Senate have been live streamed in audio format. When preparing for the move out of Centre Block, senators ensured that video broadcast functionality was incorporated into the design of the temporary Chamber in the Senate of Canada building. Most Senate committee meetings have been broadcast in video format and will continue to be available to stream via ParlVU.
Bell Media has granted WOW! Unlimited Media Inc. an extension of its option to obtain the broadcast licence for Category B specialty service Comedy Gold. The option timeline has been extended to May 31, which will enable WOW! Unlimited to pursue sponsorships and partnerships to support the launch of the anticipated WOW! branded service. The last date upon which the transfer of the broadcasting licence will occur has been extended to Aug. 30.
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