TV, eh? | What's up in Canadian television
TV,eh? What's up in Canadian television

Banff’s 2024 Rockie Awards International Program Competition nominees announced

From a media release:

The Banff World Media Festival (BANFF) is pleased to announce the 2024 Rockie Awards International Program Competition Nominees, recognizing excellence in television and digital media from around the globe. The Rockie Awards ceremony will be held in-person as well as live-streamed during this year’s Festival on Tuesday, June 11th at 5:30pm MT (4:30pm PT/ 7:30pm ET).

The Rockie Awards Grand Jury chooses the coveted Grand Jury Prize, selected from the top-scoring programs across the entire field of nominees. This year’s esteemed Grand Jury includes:

Javiera Balmaceda
Head of Originals, Latin America, CA & AU at Amazon MGM Studios

Julie Chang (above)
EVP, Business Strategy & Co-Productions at Blue Ant Media

Prentiss Fraser
President, TV Distribution at Fifth Season

Nichole T. Roberts
Head of Unscripted at Hoorae

Michael Thorn
President, Scripted Programming at FOX Entertainment 

Morgan Wandell
Head of International Content Development at Apple TV+

“We’re delighted to unveil the nominees for this year’s Rockie Awards, a field that truly embodies excellence and innovation within our industry. This is the best of the best across international content. Deep appreciation goes to the esteemed members of the Grand Jury, whose discerning adjudication elevates the program immeasurably,” said Jenn Kuzmyk, Executive Director. 

In addition to the Grand Jury Prize, the $25,000 Rogers Prize for Excellence in Canadian Content, awarded to the top Canadian production and the Prix Francophone for the top French language production will also be awarded as well as other special awards. In total, 30 awards will be bestowed in the category streams of Documentary & Factual, Arts & Entertainment, Children & Youth, Scripted, and Podcast, in addition to the presentation of several Rockies Gala Awards to be announced soon.

Leading nominations by company are:

  • British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) – 22 nominations
  • 20th Television – 8 nominations
  • Sky – 5 nominations

Leading nominations by country are:

  • USA – 51 nominations
  • UK – 50 nominations
  • Canada – 40 nominations
  • France – 8 nominations
  • Germany – 7 nominations
  • Taiwan – 6 nominations

Additional countries represented in the nominations are:

  • Australia
  • Belgium
  • India
  • Ireland
  • Italy
  • Japan
  • New Zealand
  • Norway
  • Singapore
  • South Korea
  • Spain
  • The Netherlands
  • Wales

FOR THE FULL LIST OF NOMINEES, PLEASE VISIT: https://docs.google.com/document/d/16zvZwg34SHW190DzBYx35AY5RGtxcRrvMGnLa_nK5VQ/edit?usp=sharing

About the Rockie Awards:

With a 45-year legacy, the Rockie Awards International Program Competition is open to genres and platforms including drama, non-fiction, digital, kids, youth and podcasts. Timed in the heart of awards voting season, the prestigious Banff World Media Festival competition recognizes excellence in global television and digital content. Entries from more than 45 countries compete each year, and winners are selected by an international industry jury of 150+ senior entertainment and media professionals.

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T+E annual “Spring Shivers” programming event unveils a spooktacular must-see TV lineup, including new season of the hit series, Haunted Hospitals

From a media release:

It’s halfway to Halloween and T+E’s highly anticipated annual event ‘Spring Shivers,’ is emerging from the dark depths, bringing Canadians a full week of spine-tingling programming from Monday, April 1 to Sunday, April 7, 2024 as we celebrate the midway point to the best holiday. Now in its third year, Spring Shivers is set to deliver more ghosts than ever before with over 150 hours of chilling programming, featuring all-new premieres and themed marathons of T+E viewers’ favourite ghostly series. This must-see lineup will include the Season 5 world broadcast premiere of the hit original series Haunted Hospitals, bringing viewers fresh eyewitness accounts of paranormal encounters in hospital facilities recounted by nurses, medical staff and patients. Audiences will find themselves immersed in hair-raising stories with the premiere of Social Media Murder, featuring one of the most shocking murders in recent years, a tragic tale played out through social media of teenage infatuation and repressed sexuality; and Close Encounters, focusing on unique, often untold and unsolved UFO sightings, known to captivate experts and researchers for decades. Celebrity Help! My House Is Haunted and Unexplained Caught on Camera also return with new seasons.

From April 1 to 7, T+E’s “Spring Shivers” will be airing daily paranormal programming marathons, including episodes of Paranormal Caught on CameraHaunted Gold RushHistory’s Most HauntedGhost Hunters and more. Join the conversation on social media by following T+E’s FacebookTwitter and Instagram pages, and by using the hashtags #TEonTV #SpringShivers

Spring Shivers – Programming/Episodic Highlights (in order of date):

Social Media Murder
, Season 1 (1×60’; HD)
April 1 at 8 p.m. ET/PT
When schoolboy Alex Rodda received a flirty message from an older man he was flattered and excited. Unaware he was being groomed he thought this would be his first taste of love. Yet just six weeks later he was brutally murdered in a dark wood. 18-year-old Matthew Mason was not openly gay and after grooming 15-year-old Alex on social media he wanted to keep their relationship secret – and knew there was only one way he could really silence his young lover. Experts observe how social media acted as a catalyst for this dreadful crime and share their views on how the older killer’s grooming of Alex played out. 

Close Encounters, Season 1 (13×30’; HD)
April 2 at 10 p.m. ET/PT 
Every year countless UFO sightings are reported from thousands of regions around the globe. Many of these sightings are documented and investigated. Most of them can be accounted for by weather patterns, flight schedules or extraordinary imagination. But a select few are still considered unsolved–extraterrestrial puzzles that police investigators, government officials and even medical communities cannot explain. These are the unique, often untold stories that have captivated UFO experts and researchers imaginations for decades. These are the Close Encounters.

Celebrity Help! My House Is Haunted, Season 3 (6×60’; HD)
April 3 at 9 p.m. ET/PT 
Celebrity Help! My House is Haunted is back with six new celebrities allowing three of the UK’s leading paranormal investigators; Ian Lawman, Barri Ghai and Jayne Harris into their homes to investigate, cleanse and exorcize spirits that have left them living in perpetual fear. From royal revenants to lifelong spiritual attachments, our six celebrities including, Paul Chuckle, Chloe Ferry, Paul Burrell and Tina Malone, come face to face with terrifying supernatural entities, forcing the team to do whatever it takes to return their homes back to the land of the living. 

Unexplained Caught on Camera, Season 4 (10×60’; HD)
April 4 at 10 p.m. ET/PT 
The most eye-opening unexplained videos caught on camera around the world – from poltergeists caught on mobile phones, UFOs on dash cams or apparitions on CCTV. This series uncovers a multitude of weird and wonderful phenomena; all caught on camera.

Haunted Hospitals, Season 5 (8×60’; HD)
April 5 at 10 p.m. ET/PT 
Haunted Hospitals showcases eyewitness testimonies of paranormal activity inside hospitals and medical facilities. These chilling stories of ghostly experiences are first-hand accounts from nurses, health care staff and patients. It’s real people and their terrifying encounters in spaces occupied by the ailing, the recovering, and the undead. 

T+E is a Blue Ant Media specialty channel and the ultimate destination for totally entertaining programming, providing an escape into a world that is brimming with mystery, intrigue, and unforgettable storytelling. As the home to spine-tingling paranormal encounters, T+E combines thrills and chills with fan-favourite cult series and can’t-miss TV events.

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Paramount+ renews high-stakes medical drama SkyMed for a third season

From a media release:

Paramount+ has picked up a third season of SKYMED, the hit medical drama series that follows young medics and pilots who fly air ambulances across the remote skies of Northern Canada. Produced by Piazza Entertainment, production for the nine-episode third season begins Monday, March 25 in Manitoba and Ontario with the ensemble cast returning for more jaw-dropping rescues 20,000 feet in the air. The upcoming season will be available to watch exclusively on Paramount+ in the U.S. and internationally outside of Canada, and on CBC in Canada.

Season three of SKYMED picks up in the aftermath of the dramatic season two finale, when the mounting pressure within the tight-knit SkyMed team – and shocking medical emergency for one of its members – threatens to tear the group apart. Now, faced with more dangerous missions across the wilderness and a few newcomers who arrive at the crew house to shake things up, the medical responders must rely on each other more than ever as they experience heart-pulsing rescues, new love and hard goodbyes on the job.

Returning to SKYMED are series regulars Natasha Calis (Nurses) as Hayley, Morgan Holmstrom (Outlander) as Crystal, Praneet Akilla (Nancy Drew) as Chopper, Mercedes Morris (Ghosts) as Lexi, Thomas Elms (The Boys In The Boat) as Nowak, Kheon Clarke (Riverdale) as Tristan and Sydney Kuhne (Ginny & Georgia) as Stef. Aaron Ashmore (Ginny & Georgia) as Wheezer has also been upped to series regular this season. Returning in recurring roles are “Ace” Aason Nadjiwon (The Twilight Zone) as Bodie and Emilia McCarthy (Zombies) as Madison, with Braeden Clarke (Outlander)  returning to guest star as Jeremy.

Anthony Grant (Star Trek: Discovery, Polar) joins the cast in a recurring role as TJ, a fun-loving, social pilot who is easy to crush on but secretly carries some heavy baggage of his own. Nicola Correia-Damude (Shadowhunters, Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent) also joins in a recurring role as Marianne, an appealing city-slicker who struggles to fit in up north despite her electric chemistry with Chopper (Akilla).

SKYMED is produced by Piazza Entertainment in association with CBC and CBS Studios. The series is created by Julie Puckrin and inspired by her sister and brother-in-law, who met flying air ambulances. Puckrin also serves as executive producer, along with Gillian Hormel and Vanessa Piazza. From Manitoba, Rhonda Baker and Carrie Wilkins serve as producers. Outside of Canada, SKYMED is distributed internationally by Paramount Global Content Distribution.

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Season 2 of honest, unflinching, doc series Push debuts on AMI-tv

Bean Gill is no stranger to AMI-tv. She has been featured in an episode of the network’s runaway hit, You Can’t Ask That, which features members of the disability community answering questions about their lives honestly. The network’s flagship magazine series, AMI This Week, spoke to Bean about her life and business, ReYu Paralysis Recovery Centre. Bean and her friends were the focus of the AMI original documentary Wheel Girl Stories, a community of women in the Edmonton area who talk openly about their experiences as wheelchair users.

Now Bean is back with Season 2 of Push.

Airing Mondays at 8 p.m. Eastern on AMI-tv and available on demand on AMI+, Push is a genuine, unflinching look at life for wheelchair users and friends. From the logistics and stigmas of sex with a fellow wheelchair user, to navigating new motherhood as a “quad mom,” to facing the people and places who knew them pre-injury, Season 2 follows Bean and her friends as they confront their past, facing their demons and supporting new members of the group through the early days of wheelchair life.

We spoke to Bean while she was in Toronto recently.

What has it been like having the chance to meet with the media and talk about you talk your life and talk about Push?
Bean Gill: Honestly, super surreal. I don’t even have the words. I don’t have the words. Mostly I say it’s bonkers. I don’t think I’m anything special. I think I’m just a regular human doing regular things, but having these opportunities to talk to big media outlets, I am just so grateful for it because my goal has been to change the world, and now I get to do it on such a broader scale at a faster rate. So yeah, man, I’m here for it.

How did Push come along and how did it end up going to CBC and AMI?
BG: I’ve been blessed with a lot of opportunities that have come after having my spinal cord injury. And one of the things was I opened ReYu Paralysis Recovery Center in Edmonton. After doing that, I won a couple of awards and when I won Top 40 under 40, Kaitlin [Stewart], our executive producer, was flipping through the magazine and she said when she saw my picture that I jumped off the page to her and she said, ‘This woman has a story to tell.’ So she cold-called, sent me an email, asked me to go for coffee, and I jump at every opportunity. So I was like, ‘Yep, let’s do it.’ We talked and we didn’t really know what this was going to look like at all. And she also brought [executive producer] Sean De Vries into the fold. And then we had a bunch more meetings and Sean just asked me, ‘What do you want out of this?’ And I said, ‘I want a reality TV show.’ I’ve always wanted one for so long. I watched the show Push Girls, and that really inspired me and showed me that, wait a minute, I can be healthy. People will date me. What, you can have a job? Because I just didn’t think of these things. I had a stigma towards people with disabilities even though I was that person.

But one thing Push Girls missed was the transfers. I wanted to know the nitty gritty. Do you have bowel control? Do you have bladder control? Everything about living life with a spinal cord injury. That’s what I wanted to know, and that’s what I needed to know in the beginning. That’s what I really wanted for Push, is to show all those things. Because I’m thinking about somebody who’s newly injured, who’s Googling information and Push comes up and then they watch it and they say, ‘Wow, I can have friends. I can do all these things. I can have a family.’ I wanted to show people that your life can be such a beautiful, successful thing. It’s not the sad, depressed notion of what disability is or what people think is.

One of the most interesting and engaging conversations in Season 2 was about having sex when you are a wheelchair user. It was an honest and funny conversation as well as being educational.
BG: You just push yourself out of this comfort zone. And when you are talking to your friends, you kind of forget about the cameras. That’s just our natural behaviour with each other. We need to teach people. So this is how we get rid of the stigma is through education. So we’re happy to do it.

Are you seeing a big change about representation of the disability community in primetime television?
BG: Yeah, I think we are. It’s at a snail’s pace, but at least it’s happening. Is there room for more? Yes, always. Because there was a show a couple years ago where they had an able-bodied man portraying somebody with a disability. People with disabilities are the biggest minority in the world. There are billions of us, guaranteed. There are actors in the disability community.

Find the people who have the lived experience who want to do these things because they’re out there and not only do they deserve to get paid, they deserve to get paid well, and then also get that recognition and be able to have that kind of social change that we see. A lot of people get their stigmas and stereotypes and what they think disability is from media, and media is using the medical model of disability, which is archaic and nonexistent anymore. That’s not us. We don’t want your sympathy and we don’t want your pity. Let me tell you that very clearly. If you don’t understand me, get a translator. We don’t.

We don’t want it. We want to be treated with respect and dignity. That’s it. We are regular people just like you. And so why should we be treated any differently?

Season 2 of Push airs Mondays at 8 p.m. Eastern on AMI-tv and AMI+.

Image courtesy of AMI.

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Jay Baruchel returns in Season 2 of the Crave original docuseries, We’re All Gonna Die (Even Jay Baruchel)

From a media release:

After more than two years since the series debut, Jay Baruchel is still worrying about humanity’s demise. Crave announced today that Season 2 of its award-winning original docuseries WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE (EVEN JAY BARUCHEL) premieres with all six episodes on Friday, April 19.

In the Canadian Screen Award-winning, half-hour series about the various ways the world could end, Canadian actor, director, and author Jay Baruchel (Blackberry, Goon) is once again joined by top scientists, activists, and experts to explore the global crises that could cause civilization’s demise, all while trying to find the solutions and technological innovations to potentially save the world.

With his trademark wit, relatable discomfort, and deep curiosity, Baruchel continues his journey to dig below the surface of his own anxieties and fears, exploring artificial intelligence, coronal mass ejections, insect die-offs, nanotechnology, the simulation theory, and his own personal fear of death. Episodic synopses for Season 2 are outlined below:

Episode 1 – Jay – I

  • Artificial Intelligence is here. Is it going to take over? Jay finds out how much time remains before society bows down to its robot overlords.

Episode 2 – Scary Space Shit

  • Jay is terrified of outer space. Turns out, he’s right to be afraid. From gamma bursts to coronal mass ejections, space could severely mess things up on Earth.

Episode 3 – Insect Extermination         

  • Jay learns about a terrifying, and growing, problem: insects are dying off and it’s humanity’s fault. What happens if they become extinct? Can humanity survive without bugs?

Episode 4 – Nano Nightmare

  • This tiny technology may help to solve major problems, but Jay learns that it also comes with extraordinary risks to the environment.

Episode 5 – Simulation Schimulation

  • Jay explores the idea that reality is actually a computer simulation. But, if nothing is real, then should anyone even bother trying to save the world?

Episode 6 – The End of Jays

  • In the season finale, Jay confronts the ultimate existential threat: his own doom. Can he learn to accept the uncertainty of his inevitable, but unpredictable, death?

WE’RE ALL GONNA DIE is produced by 90th Parallel Productions in partnership with Bell Media’s Crave. Directed by Jay Baruchel, produced by Stuart Henderson and Javiera Quintana, and written by Stuart Henderson, Emma Kassirer, and Kirk Ramsay. Jay Baruchel, Stuart Henderson, Gordon Henderson, and Victoria Lean are Executive Producers.

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