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Industry News

Omni original Blood and Water sets November debut

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From a media release:

– Filmed and set in Vancouver, this Chinese crime drama series is available in Mandarin, Cantonese and English –

– The eight-part, 30-minute series is produced by Breakthrough Entertainment, with development on Season 2 already underway –

OMNI Television today announced broadcast details for the new, original series Blood and Water – a compelling, character-driven, crime drama that delves into the secrets and lies of a tightly-knit family. This half-hour, eight-part crime drama premieres with two back-to-back episodes Nov. 8 at 10 p.m. ET/PT and 10:30 p.m. ET/PT, and will air regularly Sundays at 10 p.m. ET/PT on OMNI Television (check local listings) with episodes airing next day on www.OMNITV.ca.

Produced in Mandarin, Cantonese, and English, Blood and Water follows the story of Jo Bradley (Steph Song, Everything’s Gone Green), an ambitious young detective who overcomes her personal challenges in order to find the killer of a Vancouver billionaire’s troubled son.

In the premiere episode, after Jo is hit with an unexpected diagnosis of cancer, she is given the assignment of lead detective in a complicated homicide. The drug addicted son of a prominent family has turned up dead and ritualistically buried in the endowment lands. With everything at stake, the pressure is on for Jo to quickly solve the crime and make the department look good in this high profile case, before the clock runs out.

Directed by noted Canadian director John L’Ecuyer (Curtis’s Charm), Blood and Water stars Peter Outerbridge (Orphan Black), Elfina Luk, Fiona Fu, Simu Liu, Oscar Hsu, Loretta Yu, Osric Chau, and Russell Yuen, with special appearances by Stuart Hughes, Joel Keller, Morgan Kelly, Maria Ricossa, Victor Chiu, and Richard Chevolleau.

Executive producers are Nat Abraham, Diane Boehme, Ira Levy, Michael McGuigan, and Peter Williamson. The series is produced by Yipeng Ben Lu and Neil Bregman, written by Al Kratina and Dan Trotta, and edited by Paul Winestock and Victor C.H. Fan.  From Rogers Media, Nataline Rodrigues is Director of Original Programming, Hayden Mindell is Vice President of Television Programming & Content, and Colette Watson is Vice President of Broadcast.

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Industry News, Rookie Blue, Saving Hope

Entertainment One expands partnership with Ilana Frank’s ICF Films

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From a media release:

Leading independent studio Entertainment One (eOne) today announced that it is expanding its relationship with award-winning producer Ilana Frank and her production company ICF FILMS (ICFF), and extending their partnership through a new three-year overall deal.

Under the deal, eOne will serve as the studio, deficit financier and distributor on all of Frank’s projects across all media.

Since joining forces on a first-look basis in 2008, ICFF and eOne have successfully delivered long-running series including 74 episodes of drama ROOKIE BLUE for ABC and Global and 67 episodes of drama SAVING HOPE for CTV. eOne has successfully sold Rookie Blue and Saving Hope to over 200 territories.

eOne produces and distributes a diverse slate of award-winning, critically acclaimed programming across all genres. In addition to Rookie Blue and Saving Hope and the upcoming polyromantic comedy You Me Her for DirecTV and drama Havana Quartet for Starz, hit original shows from the company include Welcome to Sweden, the half hour comedy series executive produced by siblings Amy and Greg Poehler, Hell on Wheels, Nellyville, Bitten, Haven and successful miniseries The Book of Negroes and Klondike, as well as a number of highly successful series coming out of its output relationship with AMC and SundanceTV including The Walking Dead and companion series Fear the Walking Dead, Halt and Catch Fire, TURN: Washington’s Spies and Into the Badlands.

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Featured, Industry News

No, Buzzfeed didn’t love 22 CBC shows, but that’s ok

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It’s hard to write this without coming across as sarcastic, but I mean it genuinely: It’s a stroke of genius that CBC paid to post their own Buzzfeed list “22 CBC Shows Every Canadian Needs in their Life” as a brand publisher and is now paying to promote it on Twitter as Buzzfeed’s list.

I’ve seen several examples featuring different listed shows, written as if it’s not CBC’s own content they’re shilling:

Advertorials aren’t new, though there are fancy new names for them, like branded content. But the CBC to Buzzfeed to Twitter path takes advantage of this new-fangled social media thing in a way Canadian networks and shows haven’t always done well. It also takes advantage of the fact that few people click on the link to read the actual story and even fewer pay attention to the byline. So most Twitter users who see the promoted tweets, whether they click or not, will assume Buzzfeed has endorsed the featured show instead of that CBC is paying both Buzzfeed and Twitter to imply Buzzfeed endorsed it.

With 22 shows to feature (22? seriously? isn’t that everything CBC produces?) they’re making sure they get a lot of bang for that advertising-dressed-up-as-earned-media buck.  This is the kind of advertising that could reach people who aren’t already the captive CBC audience.

And if you read the advertorial and didn’t realize it was one? There was no actual deception, and it’s caveat emptor on what we buy in our information-saturated lives. Plus the worst that can happen is it makes you check out a CBC show you might not have heard of before. And after all 22 start airing, maybe someone paid by Buzzfeed will like some of them enough to write about them, too.

 

 

 

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