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Toronto Media Landscape and Personalities

Jonny5 said:
It's interesting what you wrote as wasn't it Global that gambled on the most recent attempt at a Canada "late night" daily show with Mike Bullard?
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The show began life on CTV where it aired for six seasons on both the main network at a late-night offering and in primetime on 'The Comedy Channel'.

Mike didn't like that CTV shut the show down in summers feeling it derailed the momentum, they did 140 original per year at CTV.

Mike signed w/Global and moved the show there under a new name, in a deal that was supposed to see it go original year round w/197 episodes per year.

But the ratings never carried over from CTV.

Jonny5 said:
However I recall that show was a total flop and cancelled after a year, though I think that had to be in part because Bullard was not a very scintillating personality, and they aimed too old on the demos, going for 40-somethings instead of 20 -somethings.
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As noted above, he had decent ratings on CTV, not barn-burning, but solid enough to last six years.

I think the difference at Global, other than a much smaller marketing budget and less reach was really the lead-in.

CTV's National News, especially back then, was a rating's machine, and CTV Toronto's local news is still the dominant player in the category.

They were able to set up Mike w/better lead-in ratings. Global's news couldn't do that, and the show tanked.
 
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Northern Light said:
... had decent ratings on CTV, not barn-burning, but solid enough to last six years...
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From what I recall, it started out quite small, being taped in the back of Gretzky's restaurant, but over the years it grew and aired on CTV as well as Comedy Network.
Jonny5 said:
... was not a very scintillating personality ...
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Like him or not, he and his limited writing staff -- mostly just Lawrence Morgenstern -- could produce a reasonably good show without requiring a squad of 15 or 20 highly paid writers like on the similar U.S. network shows.
Eventually they were getting most of the same big name Hollywood guests as the L.A. and New York U.S. network talk shows. A surprisingly large portion of the studio audience in the last couple of years were visiting tourists from nearby U.S. states (Michigan, Ohio, etc.) who I suppose could see the show on CTV.
Instead of trying to continue with a similar new show of their own, CTV took the easy route of replacing it with U.S. programming (The Daily Show), competition which also contributed to Global's attempt never getting a chance to establish itself.
 
The loss of ET Canada is bad for our very limited star system. I'm glad ETalk was so gracious about carrying the torch alone. I do have to wonder if they will make a grab for "ET" branding at one point in the future.
 
Not a human personality, but the daily CBC (NRC) time signal is no more, after over 80 years.


I'm an unapologetic listener the CBC Radio One, borne of my days in northern Ontario when it was usually the only game in town and the Internet didn't yet exist.. I used to work in an aircraft-based unit and one of the pilots would, if in the air and in range, dial in the NDB receiver to a CBC station to check his watch, and I got into the same habit to this day (well, last Monday).
 
Jonny5 said:
Per Le Journal de Québec and semi-confirmed by the Minister of Heritage, the CBC will layoff 600 to 700 staff by the end of the month.
Staff from every corner of the organisation will be terminated.

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CBC could certainly use some of its dollars more wisely; that said; its funded at a much lower rate not only than BBC, but even that the Australian pubcaster.

Here's a chart from 2020:

1701730397754.png


Source: https://site-cbc.radio-canada.ca/do...or-public-service-broadcasting-april-2020.pdf

A quick look at the current CBC funding envelope of 1.3B over 40,000,000 people suggests that the budget has remained consistent w/the above.

If CBC were as well funded as ABC (Australian) its annual funding envelope would be a bit over 2B.

That would buy a lot of good programing to attract viewers and the marketing to support it as well.
 
Northern Light said:
CBC could certainly use some of its dollars more wisely; that said; its funded at a much lower rate not only than BBC, but even that the Australian pubcaster.

Here's a chart from 2020:

View attachment 524757

Source: https://site-cbc.radio-canada.ca/do...or-public-service-broadcasting-april-2020.pdf

A quick look at the current CBC funding envelope of 1.3B over 40,000,000 people suggests that the budget has remained consistent w/the above.

If CBC were as well funded as ABC (Australian) its annual funding envelope would be a bit over 2B.

That would buy a lot of good programing to attract viewers and the marketing to support it as well.
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I suspect the CBC's newsroom only looks bloated compared to the meagre resources in private news media which have whittled down to the bone.
 
gabe said:
A huge part of my childhood. I loved Today's Special & Jodie RIP



https://twitter.com/x/status/1748399952580002097
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That was part of my childhood too. She had a very warm, engaging personality.

One of my first moments of realizing people age, LOL Was when her co-star from that show, became part of the Toronto Phantom Cast as the phantom (Jeff the Mannequin, aka actor Jeff Hyslop)

He's 72 now.
 
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