From BBM Canada:
- Top programs – Total Canada
#1 Rookie Blue (1.805 million)
#27 Flashpoint rerun (928,000)
Ratings: July 19-25 – Rookie Blue at #1, Flashpoint at #27
18 to Life takes on teen marriage … now in the States
From Megan Angelo of the Wall Street Journal:
- CW’s ‘18 to Life’ Puts Spotlight on Teen Marriage  For Better or Worse
“A lot goes down in the premiere of the new CW series “18 to Life,†the drama adapted from a Canadian hit. In the first scene, eighteen-year-old Tom proposes to Jessie, the girl next door. By the end of the episode, they’re hitched.” Read more.
Mr. Young looks for Mr. Right
From Glen Schaeffer of The Province:
- Seeking Mr. Right for Mr. Young
“Stuart Aikins is casting about for something different this summer. The veteran Vancouver casting director is tasked with finding a group of quick-witted teens to star in Mr. Young, a new YTV sitcom from Thunderbird Films, created by one of the writer-producers behind the Disney Channel hit The Suite Life of Zack and Cody.” Read more.
Brent Butt reveals mixed martial arts passion
From Peter Birnie of the Vancouver Sun:
- Brent Butt’s other passion involves chokeholds and knockouts
“On his new series Hiccups, Brent Butt plays a mild-mannered counsellor whose sedate ways are a gentle counterpart to the mania of his client, portrayed by Butt’s wife Nancy Robertson. During the wildly popular six-season run of Corner Gas, Butt showed the same peaceful nature as proprietor of the only gas station in Dog River, Sask. Yet behind the calm facade of Canada’s favourite TV funnyman lies an interesting passion.” Read more.
TV, eh? interview with Peter Keleghan, Part 1: The good news and bad news on acting in Canada
By Diane Wild
At the Banff World Television Festival, actor Peter Keleghan (18 to Life) related the upside and the downside of being a Canadian actor.
Shooting a pilot in LA years ago, he was working with en executive producer who became a “mother figure,” as he said. She would ask about his family – he and his wife were expecting a child – and his new life in Hollywood. When it came time for the producers to decide if they’d pay the small fee to extend his contract while waiting for the pilot to be picked up, his agent was told they decided against it because “we heard from him personally about the auditions he’s going for and he’s not really close to anything, so we don’t think we’re going to lose him.”
“I was blown away that she used the information from me against me,” Keleghan said at the festival panel on Homegrown Canadian Talent.
“When I tell my American friends this story, they all say to me, ‘What are you, f***ing stupid? You don’t tell a producer your business.’ And my Canadian friends say to me, ‘Jesus Christ, that’s dreadful!’ And that to me is the difference between America and Canada, and that’s why I came back to this country.”
After the national pride applause and laughter had died down, Keleghan shared a national-pride-squashing anecdote.
After being recognized by a fan in his home country, another woman approached him to say, “Oh, you’re an actor? What have I seen you in?”
“Well, I don’t know,” he recalled telling her. “The Red Green Show? No. The Newsroom? No. Oh, Made in Canada? And she replied: ‘That’s the problem isn’t it? It’s made in Canada.'”
In our interview after the panel, where we talked about the state of the Canadian television industry, Keleghan turned the tables on me, asking: “Think of Jim Carrey or Mike Meyers. What would your mindset be if they came back to this country and starred in a sitcom or a movie?”
