CBC shows off circus tricks and rescue pups, but no new dramas or comedies at 2025-26 upfront
Rescue dogs! Circus tricks! CBC put on a show about its upcoming 2025-26 season at its downtown Toronto headquarters on Wednesday.
Unfortunately, the overall impression left by the live performance was not of a national public broadcaster reinvigorated after a brush with death by defunding, but an institution spinning its wheels, especially in terms of scripted entertainment.
It's 'upfront' week in Toronto - with Corus and Rogers and Bell Media all showcasing shiny new wares to advertisers and the media. But unlike those private companies, the CBC didn't have any new English-language comedies or dramas for linear or streaming to announce.
Instead, the public broadcaster enlisted radio personalities Tom Power and Elamin Abdelmahmoud to promote the mostly already revealed renewals of a strong TV comedy slate, diverse in style and substance, and a less inspiring drama lineup overloaded with procedural cop shows.
Given that the CBC didn't have major news or interviews with talent for invited media - and there weren't many media buyers in attendance either - it was unclear what the two-hour dog-and-carnie show really was for. Mark Strong, who hosts a CBC podcast called Olympics FOMO, accurately described the atmosphere as 'very cubicle energy' when he came on stage and tried to hype up the staff-heavy audience about Milan-Cortina 2026.
If it felt pro forma, that's because it was. 'The way the upfront game works in Canada, everybody does it in the same week, right?' said Barbara Williams, CBC's executive vice-president English services.
'That's just been historically how it's been done in Canada.'
Any impression left, however, that the Crown corporation might have put the commissioning of new scripted work on pause as it awaited to find out its funding fate in the recent election would not be accurate, according to Williams and Sally Catto, general manager, entertainment, factual and sports, at CBC.
'We have green-lit more than a handful of dramas and comedies and would have loved to announce them today,' said Catto. 'Every show that we support now in the scripted realm needs a partner in order to complete its financing. So some of that is still in progress.'
So, what was new, fully financed and ready to reveal? CBC has three short new docuseries coming up - all centring on Montreal-area stories.
Running Smoke, a three-part docuseries about the Mohawk NASCAR driver Derek White and the biggest tobacco-smuggling bust in North American history, looks true-crime-adjacent and thrilling.
But if a series about Quebec's Tupperware queen Maria Meriano (Diamonds & Plastic) or a behind-the-scenes look at a Cirque du Soleil touring show that's been around since 2016 (Cirque Life; hence the circus performer) are going to have any depth to them, it wasn't apparent in the trailers.
Canadian comedian Jack Innanen pivots from social media to mainstream TV in new FX/Disney+ series Adults
On the front of factual entertainment - that's exec-speak for reality TV - Must Love Dogs, in which CFL All-Star Brady Oliveira and influencer and ex-Bachelor contestant Alex Blumberg, find forever homes for Manitoba mutts (a couple were present and, admittedly, cute) seems like something the private sector could have covered.
The Assembly, on the other hand, in which interviewers on the autistic spectrum have conversations with celebrities (based on an international format), was charming and moving in its sneak peak.
CBC's returning comedy lineup was rightly front and centre - with the always entertaining Mark Critch perking up the crowd as he talked about the perennially popular Son of a Critch, Anna Lambe charming as she spoke about finding international fame starring in North of North, and an amped-up Jennifer Whalen and Meredith MacNeill selling Small Achievable Goals, their menopause-themed workplace comedy that will be given a second season to find its legs.
If CBC is as proud of its dramas, it was less apparent as no stars were on hand from Heartland or its four case-of-the-week cop shows - Saint-Pierre, Wild Cards, Murdoch Mysteries and Allegiance. (SkyMed is not returning - or, at least, not on CBC.)
CBC-watching Canadians looking for anything a little more prestige and less procedural in the drama department currently only have the six episodes of season three of the time-travel anthology drama Plan B to look forward to - a solid remake of a Radio-Canada show that nevertheless would, with the addition of English subtitles to the original, be redundant.
Review: Jesse Armstrong's Mountainhead: Succession's successor sharply satirizes a new class of billionaire
While Williams hailed Saint-Pierre for its bilingual elements, she also defended the supposedly cash-strapped CBC/Radio-Canada essentially making the same show twice at a time when subtitled drama like Shogun and Squid Game thrives (and when Bell Media's Crave is bilingual by design). The two solitudes are still mostly siloed off even as streaming has allowed for shows to easily cross linguistic barriers.
'Partly it's about whether we think our audiences are really going to be as likely to engage with the show if it's got subtitles,' said Williams.
That the CBC struggles with allowing itself to find new ways of doing things was certainly another impression left by an upfront that ultimately could've been an email.
'We had to go this week with what we had,' Williams said. 'We would have been really happy to announce dramas and a couple of comedies today, trust me.'
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CTV News
20 minutes ago
- CTV News
‘The 401 is a nightmare:' Doug Ford doubles down on tunnel vision
Premier Doug Ford is doubling down on his vision to build a tunnel underneath Highway 401, telling reporters that 'just because it hasn't been done, doesn't mean it can't be done.' Ford made the comment during an unrelated news conference on Friday when asked to make his pitch on why the tunnel should be included on a list of new 'nation-building' projects that Prime Minister Mark Carney hopes to fast track with legislation tabled in the House of Commons earlier in the day. 'The 401 is a nightmare, I don't even have to sell this. You can't even get around this city and then outside the city when you start going west and you start going east it is jammed everywhere,' the premier said. 'It is jammed because the visionaries who built the highway should have thought of this 40 or 50 years ago but we are visionaries and we are going to get it done. We are going to build that tunnel as sure as I am talking to you today.' Ontario has already begun the process of seeking interested parties to help carry out a feasibility study on a potential Highway 401 tunnel, with the deadline for the initial requests for proposals passing just last week. However, some experts have questioned how realistic the project is, given that it would likely cost billions of dollars and take decades to build. Carney's legislation, tabled Friday, includes several specific criteria for 'nation-building' projects, including that they strengthen 'Canada's autonomy, resilience and security,' provide 'economic or other benefits to Canada, have a 'high likelihood of successful execution,' advance 'the interests of Indigenous peoples' and contribute to 'clean growth and to Canada's objectives with respect to climate change.' Ford was asked whether the Highway 401 tunnel fit that ball on Friday and argued that it does due to the billions of dollars in lost productivity associated with Toronto's crippling traffic. 'You can't just think of next year. You have to be thinking of a generation or two generations, down the road,' he said. 'I go back to the 1950's when the Bloor Viaduct was being built and one of the people in the works department here said 'Let's put a rail on there' and that was before the subways and everyone criticized him. Well thank God they put the rail on there. This is the exact same thing.' Ford previously sent a letter to Carney in March outlining several projects that he would like to see funded. The Highway 401 tunnel was one of five projects on that list. The other projects include the development of Ontario's mineral-rich Ring of Fire region, nuclear energy generation, a new James Bay deep-sea port and an expansion of GO Transit infrastructure in the Golden Horseshoe known as 'GO 2.0.' Ford first floated the idea of building a tunnel underneath Highway 401 to divert traffic in September. He has suggested the tunnel could span from east of Highway 410 in Mississauga to east of Scarborough.
CTV News
20 minutes ago
- CTV News
‘Absolutely ludicrous': Selkirk mayor sounds off on Trump doubling steel, aluminum tariffs
Mayor Larry Johannson weighs in on Trump's tariff hike and what it means for Selkirk's steel industry and local economy. The mayor of Selkirk believes newly beefed-up U.S. tariffs on all steel and aluminum imports will stop the city's mill from trading with the southerly neighbour altogether. 'At 50 per cent, it's just too expensive. It's just too much,' Selkirk Mayor Larry Johannson said Friday in an interview with CTV Morning Live Winnipeg. On Tuesday, U.S. President Donald Trump announced the U.S. will double tariffs on steel and aluminum imports from all countries, including Canada, hiking the imposed tax from 25 to 50 per cent. Trump claims the increased tariffs are aimed at stopping foreign countries from offloading low-priced, excess steel and aluminum into the U.S. market. The changes came into effect Wednesday. Gerdau Ameristeel Manitoba is one of Selkirk's largest employers, with roughly 550 residents working at the mill. According to Johannson, the company could still sell to the United States under the previous 25 per cent tariff. 'At 25 per cent, we were still seeing a lot of semi-trailers loaded with steel coming out of our plants, heading to other projects, into the U.S. and across Canada, but 50 per cent is absolutely ludicrous.' The move has forced the industry to seek out business across Canada, he said, bolstered by memorandums of understanding inked by Manitoba and other provinces to ease the flow of goods within the country. '(Tariffs) are kind of forcing us to absolutely do that. These interprovincial trade barriers, they look like they are starting to connect, and they're going to be coming down, which is a good thing,' he said. 'We're looking at a lot of other projects.' He also believes Americans are making their disapproval of the trade war known to their elected officials. The Selkirk mayor has spent time in the States as part of his mayoral duties and has heard firsthand how unpopular tariffs have become. Overall, Johansson said he remains optimistic as a lot of negotiations are happening behind the scenes. 'There's no room for failure here. We're not shutting down. We're not going to slow down. We have to make this work. We have to.' - With files from CTV's Rachel Lagacé, Lynn Chaya and Stephanie Ha
Globe and Mail
23 minutes ago
- Globe and Mail
Pitching in: Donating $11-million to support Canada's next generation of entrepreneurs
The organizers: Tim Price, Frances Price, Reza Satchu and Marion Annau The pitch: Donating $11-million The cause: NEXT Canada Tim Price has more than 40 years of experience in the business world, but he still remembers being impressed by the group of young entrepreneurs he met seven years ago. Mr. Price, who is chair of Brookfield Funds of Brookfield Corp., was attending an event at NEXT Canada, a Toronto-based charity that provides a range of programs to support entrepreneurs. During the event, the budding businesspeople had just four minutes each to describe their idea and their strategy to make it work. And then they faced feedback from the audience. 'I started to write down the names of the 12 that were presenting,' Mr. Price recalled. 'And I quickly couldn't tell one for each other, but the feeling I got was that these kids have in themselves the strength to carry on whatever they're going to face. Because they're going to be beaten down time and time again, and they're going to have problems, but they're going to be supported here so they know they get a feeling for what they can do.' Mr. Price was so taken by NEXT that he joined the board of directors and became a financial supporter. He and his wife, Frances, recently pledged $10-million over the next ten years. Their gift prompted one of NEXT's co-founders, Reza Satchu, and his partner, Marion Annau, to donate $1-million. Mr. Satchu, who has founded several ventures and teaches at Harvard Business School, said the objective of NEXT is to provide instruction, mentorship and opportunities for Canada's brightest innovators. 'The first thing we wanted to do was make sure this was the most rigorous, demanding, program in the country,' he said. NEXT has three branches aimed at young entrepreneurs, company founders and start ups that use artificial intelligence. All three are 'very competitive with high accountability, high standards, high expectations,' said Mr. Satchu. Mr. Price said he still gets a thrill when he attends NEXT's events and listens to the pitches. 'It's just so exciting to be part of this,' he said. 'There's no government involved. It's all philanthropy. It's all the kids and how they react. Everything is so damn positive.'
