TORONTO — Citytv detailed a fall schedule heavy on reality, franchises and U.S. imports. A look:
GRIP ON REALITY
Citytv touted the lead-in strength of fall reality shows including ABC’s “Dancing with the Stars” on Mondays and ABC’s “Bachelor in Paradise” on Tuesdays, and pumped up plans for its mid-season competition series, “Canada’s Got Talent,” which debuts a $1-million prize for its third outing.
An executive for parent company Rogers Sports and Media said the bigger purse seems to have already elevated the quality of applicants.
“The million dollar prize is huge. I think it’s the biggest prize in Canadian television history. It’s just a demonstration of how much we believe in the show,” Hayden Mindell, Senior Vice President, Television, Rogers Sports & Media, said.
Mindell also endorsed the addition of ABC’s “The Golden Bachelor” to its reality stable, an older-skewing spinoff described as a dating series for seniors.
“Golden Bachelor” is going to be phenomenal,” he said of the fall addition for Mondays.
“Off the strength of those great franchise nights we’re able to launch new dramas with great lead-ins.”
CANCELLATIONS
Rogers has cancelled its Canadian original “Wong & Winchester” after ratings for its target audience were simply “just too low,” said Mindell.
“It was a great series that just never hit what we needed to hit in terms of its audience number,” he said. “It was well under 100,000 in demo.”
And while not an outright cancellation, the often-wild “Bachelor In Paradise Canada” spinoff set in cottage country is also not coming back in 2024 because the producer has moved stateside, he said.
“We don’t have a ‘Bachelor In Paradise Canada’ next year even though we’ve had an amazing season this season,” said Mindell, musing on a possible 2025 return.
“Let’s hope we can bring it back the following year, because we really want to build on the success of it.”
ADDITIONS
Mindell touted new fall series including the NBC Jesse L. Martin vehicle “The Irrational,” in which the “Law & Order” alumnus plays a behavioural psychologist who helps solve “high-stakes cases involving governments, law enforcement, and corporations,” and NBC’s “Found,” starring Shanola Hampton as a woman who’s fed up with police inability to locate missing people from marginalized groups.
“Both are really compelling dramas, both work really well on our schedule are kind of on brand with what we do,” said Mindell.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 6, 2023.
