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Canadian TV icon Mike Holmes joins CTV, announces new series Holmes Family Rescue

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From a media release:

CTV announced live today from the #CTVUpfront in Toronto that Canadian TV icon Mike Holmes and his family are coming to Bell Media. The new partnership is anchored by the development and production of the all-new original television series HOLMES FAMILY RESCUE, featuring Holmes teaming up with his children Mike Jr. and Sherry in their biggest show yet, a Summer 2020 tent-pole series for CTV.

Something never seen before from Mike Holmes, the CTV Original Series HOLMES FAMILY RESCUE is an all-new lifestyle program featuring the fan-favourite TV host and professional contractor taking on the biggest and most challenging journey of his career. Helping homeowners MAKE IT RIGHT® in epic fashion are Mike’s kids – Mike Jr. and Sherry – who join their father to change lives and turn this inspirational new series into a family affair. Over the course of the season, the Holmes family works tirelessly to drastically improve and transform the lives of homeowners with their trademark relatable, hilarious, and heartfelt family dynamic.

Also announced as part of this extensive new partnership and solidifying the Holmes family as CTV Life Channel’s foremost personalities is a second series, HOLMES 911, premiering this fall on CTV Life Channel. From Make It Right Productions, the show features Mike Holmes going back to where he started: helping homeowners. But this time, he’s being helped by his kids, contractors Mike Jr. and Sherry, who share Mike’s passion for helping people who have been the victims of unscrupulous contractors and bad DIYers. Over 12 episodes, Mike, Mike Jr., and Sherry fix five houses, and viewers see these “houses” become “homes” again.

CTV Life Channel will also feature a vast library of previous programming from the family’s Make It Right production company, including the 2018 series HOLMES: NEXT GENERATION, which will be available to Canadian viewers for the very first time.

HOLMES FAMILY RESCUE is currently available for customized brand partnership opportunities.

About Mike Holmes
With more than 10 record-breaking, top-rated, and award-wining series and specials under his belt, Mike Holmes’ no-nonsense approach and MAKE IT RIGHT® attitude has struck a chord with television audiences and industry leaders worldwide. He has changed the way people think about their homes and the building industry for good.  Mike has joined forces with the next generation of Holmes’ – his son Mike Jr. and daughter Sherry Holmes, both contractors who grew up playing, watching, and working with their dad.

About HOLMES FAMILY RESCUE
A CTV Original Production, HOLMES FAMILY RESCUE is produced by Make It Right Productions in association with CTV. Mike Holmes is Executive Producer. Paul McConvey is Producer.

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Featured, Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Jennifer Podemski tells stories of Indigenous communities in APTN’s Future History

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I can’t get enough of history, especially when it comes to Canada. What I dismissed as boring when I was in high school has become a fascination. And, thanks to APTN, I’ve learned a lot about Indigenous peoples and their stories.

A plethora of tales is told in Season 2 of Jennifer Podemski’s excellent Future History. Airing Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET, the program has really hit its stride in the sophomore go-round as producer-director Podemski follows Indigenous activist and artist Sarain Fox and archaeologist Kris Nahrgang through 13 half-hour episodes. For Nahrgang, this journey is deeply personal. He was raised not knowing anything about his First Nations roots and continues to gain knowledge this year. In the show’s May 14 debut, viewers learned how Nahrgang’s grandmother covered her skin with makeup to look white and joined what Nahrgang’s mother called “white clubs.”

“It’s not a story you often hear,” Podemski says. “Especially in this journey of reclamation, I think that many Canadians who see themselves as white, or non-Native, might never have considered they too might be a Kris.” The idea for Future History came about because of a meeting Podemski had with a production company working with Nahrgang on a possible archaeology project. The actress, writer, producer and director was intrigued at the idea of something historical, but with a future slant. Adding a younger co-host, Podemski reasoned, would polarize not just Nahrgang’s distance from his culture but his age and on-camera experience.

“That also helps people really understand that he is on a very uncomfortable journey,” she says. The uncomfortable feeling really comes through, especially when Nahrgang gamely agrees to attend an Ojibway immersion camp where no English is spoken for days. Fox and Nahrgang visit different areas of the country in their journeys, visiting Southern Ontario locales like Orillia, Peterborough, Kitchener and Manitoulin Island. Their segments are broken up by the Talking Stick, where Indigenous members of the community look straight into the camera to vent frustrations, give advice or voice concerns.

“We were only looking for a minute, but it started a lot of great conversations and I really wanted it to feel not necessarily thematically tied to the episode,” Podemski says. “I wanted it to be a voice from the community, another texture that may be totally unrelated to what we are talking about.

“When we’re telling stories through an Indigenous lens it’s so important to me that we don’t paint them with one brush.”

Future History airs Tuesdays at 8 p.m. ET on APTN. You can watch past episodes on APTN.ca.

Image courtesy of APTN.

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Industry News, Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Confronting prejudices and breaking down societal taboos, You Can’t Ask That debuts June 20 on AMI-tv

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From a media release:

Why are you blind? Do you ever use your disability to skip the line? What’s wrong with your face? Can you have sex? They’re the questions we’re sometimes afraid to ask. But they are asked—and answered—on You Can’t Ask That.

Debuting Thursday, June 20, at 9 p.m. Eastern on AMI-tv, the eight-part documentary You Can’t Ask That, from Pixcom Productions, confronts prejudices and breaks down societal taboos in an authentic and relatable way. Each week, Canadians with disabilities—whether they are blind, wheelchair users, little people or have a physical or neurological condition—read questions from an anonymous public out loud before answering them. Looking directly down the camera lens, the answers may be funny, serious or sad, but they are delivered honestly and candidly.

The English-language version of You Can’t Ask That follows the French-language Ça ne se demande pas, which premiered on AMI-télé this past winter.

In Episode one, viewers meet participants from across the country who share their challenges, frustrations and benefits related to being wheelchair users. Future instalments of You Can’t Ask That explore blindness, little people, facial differences, Down syndrome, Tourette syndrome and Autism Spectrum Disorder.

In keeping with AMI’s mandate of making accessible media for all Canadians, You Can’t Ask That utilizes Integrated Described Video (IDV) to make episodes accessible to individuals who are blind or partially sighted.

Season one episodes of You Can’t Ask That air Thursdays at 9 p.m. Eastern on AMI-tv beginning June 20. The series can be watched post-broadcast on demand at AMI.ca or via the free AMI-tv App.

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Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Hockey show Hit the Ice Season 7 starts on APTN June 12 with all-female Indigenous players

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From a media release:

The youth hockey series Hit The Ice will be returning to APTN for its seventh season! The 13-episode series, features female Indigenous hockey hopefuls, from communities across the country, as they and their team are put through the paces of a real NHL style training camp by a top professional coach, with one important difference: All the players are female, and led by Sochi Gold Medal winning coach Lisa Haley. The first episode airs on APTN East, HD and West feed on June 12, 2019 at 4:00 pm. Repeats air on June 15, 2019 East, West, and North feed at 11:00 am, and on June 16th East, West and North feed at 10:00 am. Complete broadcasting schedule details for Season 7 can be found on our website: www.hittheice.tv. Hit The Ice is also broadcasted in Cree and this schedule is also available online: www.hittheice.tv/index.php?g_int_AppLanguageId=2

Hit The Ice Season 7 recruited Canada’s most talented young Indigenous female hockey players and invited them to participate in a 2-week training camp that was a once-in-a-life-time opportunity to get recruited by various University teams from Canada and the US. The selected team experienced high level coaching and off-Ice preparations where lifelong friendships were made. This experience also allowed the girls to meet members of Team Canada. The two week long journey culminated with participation inthe Boston Beantown Classic in Boston, MA, the equivalent of a high level hockey showcase.

An elite coaching staff was formed and the team was lead by none other than current Ryerson Head Coach and Canadian Olympian Lisa Haley. Serving as assistant coaches were Canadian Olympian Brigette Lacquette, Margaret “MJ” Jennings and goalie coach Jenesica Drinkwater as the Goalie Coach. Off-Ice training was overseen by Aaron Paibomsai.

During the 2015-16 season, Lisa Haley served as the head coach for the Canada Women’s National Under-18 Team, capturing a silver medal at the 2016 IIHF U18 Women’s Worlds. Prior to the appointment, she captured gold as an assistant coach with Canada’s National Women’s Development Team at the 2015 Nations Cup. She is currently the head coach of the Ryerson Rams women ice hockey program, which competes in Canadian Interuniversity Sport.

The complete details with regards to the seventh season of the Hit The Ice TV show are available at www.hittheice.tv. On the site there are extra clips to get into the heads of season 7’s players and discover their fears, opinions, tips and tricks, and their funniest moments on the show!

Over the years, Hit The Ice has demonstrated its positive impact on young Indigenous hockey players with many of them now playing in some of the top Junior leagues in the continent. Recently, Brady Keeper, a Hit The Ice Alumni suited for his first NHL game this year with the Florida Panthers. Hit The Ice is produced by Nish Media, a multi-award-winning production company based in the Ottawa-Gatineau area. The past seasons of this series have been nominated in prestigious television festivals such as the Banff World Media Festival and by the FICTS in Italy.

About Nish Media
The series is produced by Nish Media, a multi-award-winning production company based in the Ottawa-Gatineau area. Over the past ten years, producer Jason Brennan has produced over 200 hours of television for various networks such as APTN, CBC, Radio-Canada, Ici ArtV, Canal D, TV5 and CBC Docs, including Mouki, Wapikoni, La Fosse aux tigres and six seasons of Hit The Ice. Its first feature film, Le Dep, was selected to play in several film festivals including the Karlovy Vary Film Festival in the Czech Republic, the Vancouver Film Festival, the Raindance Film Festival, ImagineNative and the American Indian Film Festival. Nish Media is currently adapting Marc Séguin’s novel Nord Alice for film, and is currenty awaiting the release of its second feature “Rustic Oracle” in late 2019.

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Featured, Reality, Lifestyle & Documentary

Preview: Property Brothers: Forever Home debuts on HGTV Canada

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Is there anything Drew and Jonathan Scott can’t do when it comes to renovation projects and television shows? From the original Property Brothers series, now in Season 13, to spinoffs like Property Brothers at Home: Drew’s Honeymoon House, the Scott brand means education, information and a healthy dose of humour.

Now the pair is back with another new series in Property Brothers: Forever Home. Bowing on Monday at 9 p.m. ET/PT on HGTV, the duo help couples who are settled into their existing home but seek a makeover to make it their forever property.

In the first of seven episodes, the lanky lads are in Las Vegas to meet Susan and Troy, who love their neighbourhood, the backyard and the home overall. But, with a third child in their midst, it’s time to update and upgrade, especially some needless ups and downs because of small steps on the main floor, a double island in the kitchen and a tiny laundry room.

The solution? Raise the entire main floor, nix the double islands for one big area and create a multi-purpose room.

While Drew focuses on manual labour, Jonathan shows Susan and Troy interior design options and inspirations. With a few swings of the sledgehammer, the job is underway. The results are, of course, stunning.

My only quibble with Property Brothers: Forever Home might be the locations they film in. I say “might” because I’ve only seen the first instalment, in Las Vegas, but I worry all of the homes featured are in the U.S. Call me a homer, but I really like to see Canadian locations featured, mainly so I can try and figure out how much it might cost to renovate my home. As I said, Episode 2 could very well be in Vancouver, Calgary or Halifax, rendering this whole paragraph pointless.

If you’re any kind of a fan of the Scotts, you’re doing to enjoy their latest creation.

Property Brothers: Forever Home airs Mondays at 9 p.m. ET/PT on HGTV Canada.

Image courtesy of Corus Entertainment.

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