REVOLVING DOOR:
Corus Radio has made a round of sweeping layoffs that include the majority of on-air staff at its Ottawa stations, JUMP! 106.9 (CKQB-FM) and boom 99.7 (CJOT-FM). The cuts include Tim Morgan, who hosted the morning shows on both boom 99.7 and Big 101.1 (CIQB-FM) Barrie and worked with Corus for 17 years – the last nine in mornings; as well as JUMP! drive host Dayna Brez, who had been with the station for a decade; boom afternoon drive host Dylan Black, who’d been with the station since 2013; boom music assistant and weekend announcer Dave Nelson, who also hosted the morning show on BIG FM (CFMK-FM) Kingston; JUMP! weekend announcer Drew (Andrew Schofield); and boom personality Jimmy Kalaitzis. Also caught up in the Ottawa layoffs are longtime promotions coordinator Ryan Forsyth, who had been with the company for 13 years; music director Mike Lavallee, who had worked with Corus for 16 years; and show producer/board op Kayla Choules. In Vancouver, afternoon drive duo Tyler & Lynch are out at CFOX. Read more here.
View this post on Instagram
Rick Campanelli has departed the 98.1 CHFI Toronto afternoon drive show to join Citytv’s Breakfast Television as a live eye reporter. Campanelli, who started his new gig with BT on Monday morning, will be travelling across the Greater Toronto Area doing hits from various locations during the show. The former MuchMusic host first joined CHFI in March 2024, alongside co-host Brooksy. He’ll continue to be heard on the station every Sunday morning, starting at 10 a.m. ET, playing hits from the ’90s and 2000s on a new show dubbed Rewind with Rick Campanelli. Read more here. Greg Burns, from sister station KiSS 92.5 (CKIS-FM) steps into the 4 – 7 p.m. ET time slot on CHFI, while Pina Sama takes over his 10 a.m. – 3 p.m. ET midday daypart on KiSS.
Paul Harper is the new morning show host at JACK FM (CHST-FM) London, ON. Harper has been heard doing fill-in and weekends on Evanov Communications’ Z103.5 (CIDC-FM) Orangeville since late last year after parting ways with Stingray’s Today Radio (CFXJ-FM) Toronto in August, when the station flipped to a New Country format.
Alexandra Pinto will take up the role of Community Weather Host at CTV Kitchener, beginning in mid-June. Pinto was with the station for a decade, most recently as a producer, reporter, host and anchor for CTV News at Six, prior to stepping away last June to take a communications role with Home Hardware. Pinto’s appointment was announced by former CTV News Kitchener weather anchor Will Aiello, who is joining CTV Morning Live Ottawa.
Julian Carrington is the new Executive Director of the Documentary Organization of Canada (DOC). Carrington arrives from the Racial Equity Media Collective (REMC), where he’s been Managing Director for the last two years. He’s formerly held roles with Hot Docs, TIFF and previously worked with DOC part-time as Festival Concierge Manager.
Steven Foster is the new Director, Film Commission Services & Industry Development, at Manitoba Film & Music. Foster, who will take up his new position on July 2, brings over a decade of leadership experience in media production, labour relations, and business affairs, most recently serving as the Business Agent for the Directors Guild of Canada (DGC) in Manitoba and Saskatchewan. The newly-created role will see Foster promote Manitoba as a premiere destination for production.
Brett Mineer has joined the Canadian Mental Health Association Kamloops Branch as Communications and Engagement Coordinator. Mineer was part of layoffs at Stingray Radio last September when the company moved away from airing 24/7 news/talk programming on Kamloops heritage station, CHNL.
Bernard Cresencia is the new Managing Director of MDL Communications Inc., the Ontario-based distributor and systems integrator specializing in broadcast, OTT, and IP-video technologies. Cresencia succeeds MDL founder Stephen Sacks, who is retiring from the company after 19 years and four decades in the industry. Sacks will remain actively involved in a transitional role, ensuring a smooth handover of operations. Cresencia brings over 30 years of IT management and technical experience across enterprise IT infrastructure, cybersecurity, regulated online gaming, and financial services.
RADIO & PODCAST:
The Manitoba Day of Caring Radiothon has raised nearly $420,000 in support of the Canadian Red Cross 2025 Manitoba Wildfires Appeal thus far, including matching donations from both the federal and provincial governments. More than 30 radio stations participated, including those owned by Golden West Broadcasting, Pattison Media, Bell Media, Corus Entertainment, Evanov Communications, and Native Communications Inc. Read more here. Radio stations across Saskatchewan are participating in the Saskatchewan Day of Caring for Wildfire Evacuees on Thursday, June 12.
SiriusXM Canada is partnering with the Canadian Football League (CFL) to deliver full coverage of the 2025 season. All 81 regular season games, four Grey Cup playoff matchups, and the 112th Grey Cup, live from Winnipeg on Sunday, Nov. 16, will be available to listeners across North America. As the league’s Official Satellite and Audio Streaming Partner, SiriusXM’s Canada Talks (ch. 167) will continue to be the home of every regular season and postseason game, as well as the Grey Cup championship, while French-language broadcasts of Montréal Alouettes games will air on Attitude Franco (ch. 163). Additional programming includes Inside the Game, hosted by Scott Laughlin, taking listeners behind the scenes via interviews with top players.
The Ben Mulroney Show, heard on Corus news/talk stations, is expanding its reach with the launch of a YouTube channel. “The video show brings a dynamic new layer to the program experience, transforming the way audiences engage with each episode,” said Chris ‘Dunner’ Duncombe, Corus’ Director of Streaming and Podcasting, in an announcement. “The Ben Mulroney Show has quickly become one of the top podcasts on Curiouscast, with almost 1.3 million downloads in just the first few months. Now listeners can tune into the show and catch up on great conversation as if they’re in the room with Ben.” New video episodes are released daily on Youtube, with the audio podcast continuing to be available on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music and wherever you find podcasts.
CBC’s Upfront presentation included the announcement of two upcoming new seasons of Uncover. Tribeca Festival selection Dirtbag Climber is a five-part murder mystery hosted by Steven Chua and investigating the unsolved 2017 homicide of “Jesse James,” a rock climber and enigmatic con artist found dead in Squamish, BC. Unbranded: The Allison Mack Story returns to the NXIVM cult to tell the story of the former Smallville actress, high-ranking NXIVM member, and convicted felon over six episodes. Also announced was Forged, a new six-part series from CBC and ABC Australia, in which host Adrian Stimson, an artist from the Siksika Nation, tells the unfolding story of legendary Anishinaabe artist Norval Morrisseau and how fraudsters copied his work in a scheme that has become the largest art fraud in the world; in addition to eight-part CBC News podcast See You In Court, hosted by Falen Johnson, diving into the messy and memorable battles that shaped how Canadians live today, one court case at a time.
TSN Original podcast Park the Bus is a new weekly soccer show that unpacks how the game is shaping up ahead of FIFA World Cup 26. Hosted by the TSN Soccer panel of Luke Wileman, Steven Caldwell, and Kevin Kilbane, the show tracks how the world’s top players and national teams are building toward 2026. New episodes drop weekly. The premiere episode features a candid conversation with Canadian Men’s National Team Head Coach Jesse Marsch.
The Pro Bono Group has released another Pro Canada Project PSA, voiced by award-winning geneticist and broadcaster David Suzuki. Download the full “Shop like your country depends on it” PSA campaign here. The Pro Bono Group will be producing a special “Pro Canada” Canada Day message to air exclusively on July 1.
LISTEN: June is National Indigenous History Month. There are few audio programs that capture the spirit of the month more than Words and Culture, the Community Radio Fund of Canada-backed radio show and podcast, diving into Indigenous languages by sharing the stories of both knowledge keepers and those trying to reclaim their language and culture. Now in its second season, Kim Wheeler is the show’s executive producer. She joins Broadcast Dialogue – The Podcast to talk about Words and Culture, how she’s feeling about the current state of Indigenous representation in Canadian media, and her recent Canadian Screen Award.
LISTEN: Neil Veglio, the founder of PodKnows – a podcast production and coaching company out of the UK – is on the latest Sound Off Podcast. He shares his journey from radio to podcasting and why it’s important to create value-driven content rather than focus solely on monetization. He and Matt Cundill discuss the challenges of podcast marketing, including the pitfalls of buying downloads and gaming platform algorithms, the significance of websites, proper SEO, and audience engagement.
SIGN OFFS:
Juliette Powell, 54, suddenly on June 3, after contracting acute bacterial meningitis. Born in Manhattan, Powell moved to Montreal at the age of eight with her French-Canadian mother. She began competing in beauty pageants at a young age, going on to become the first Black Miss Canada in 1989 and later represented Canada in the Miss Universe Pageant. Powell transitioned into media in the early 1990s, initially as a VJ with MusiquePlus, while studying business at McGill University. She went on to host weekly dance show Bouge de là!, before moving to Toronto in 1996 to become the host of MuchMusic’s Electric Circus and French Kiss, while continuing her studies at the University of Toronto. She moved into business reporting in 1999 at CP24, going on to do work with Bravo, Biography, Star, CBC, and E!, among other networks. Powell more recently had turned her attention to technology, ethics and AI, teaching in New York University’s Interactive Telecommunications program and co-authoring The AI Dilemma: 7 Principles for Responsible Technology in 2023. Read more here.
TV & FILM:
The Banff World Media Festival (BANFF) has announced the winners of the 2025 Rockie Awards International Program Competition. This year’s Grand Jury Prize, awarded to the highest-scoring project across the entire competition, was UK feature documentary Hell Jumper, which tells the story of 28-year-old Chris Parry, who along with other civilian “evacuators” from all over the world, crowdfunded vehicles and equipment to help people escape their homes in war torn Ukraine. The Prix Francophone was awarded to Quebec’s KOTV for its docuseries Teenagers, Être ado, in which a film crew followed 10 teens for five years. Peacock Alley Entertainment doc, Leonard Cohen: If It Be Your Will was honoured with the Rogers Prize for Excellence in Canadian Content. Read more here.
The Canadian Media Producers Association (CMPA) has announced a new Indiescreen Awards category, recognizing excellence in Canadian independent television production. The Indiescreen Awards will now present three awards across both television and feature film production: The Feature Film Producer Indiescreen Award, presented in partnership with Telefilm Canada, celebrates a producer’s filmmaking accomplishments over the course of their career and includes a $20,000 prize. The TV Producer Indiescreen Award, presented in partnership with the Canada Media Fund, celebrating the achievements of an independent Canadian television media production company and includes a $20,000 prize. The Kevin Tierney Emerging Producer Indiescreen Award recognizes the potential of an up-and-coming producer and includes a $10,000 prize. Award applications are open until July 11.
The Canadian Screen Industry Statement of Values launched at Banff World Media Festival this week, with 73 media organizations signing on to the statement of shared values, including Representation, Reconciliation, Equity, Diversity, Access, and Sustainability. Among the signatories are Telefilm Canada, Canada Media Fund (CMF), CBC/Radio-Canada, Bell Media, APTN, CPAC, National Film Board (NFB), Canadian Media Producers Association (CMPA), and the Association québécoise de la production médiatique (APQM), among others. Read more here.
UPFRONTS: Bell Media and CBC have unveiled their 2025/26 programming lineups, including their respective slates of new original content. Bell Media’s 2025/26 lineup of English and French-language original content and documentaries features a total of 116 titles. CBC’s 2025/26 programming slate features over 50 new and returning original series from Canadian creators, producers and storytellers. Read more here.
Bell Media has announced enhancements to its flagship streaming service, Crave, that includes new content offerings, including an extensive free catalogue, in addition to an improved user experience. The network says by the end of the year, the platform will offer unprecedented access to Bell Media’s English and French-language libraries, giving subscribers access to an additional 10,000 hours of news, select sports, kids and entertainment content from CTV and Noovo, directly available through a Crave subscription. The expansion will see Crave’s content portfolio grow by more than 30%. Read more here.
Bell Media and the PGA Tour have announced a multi-year broadcast extension, ensuring continued coverage of its marquee golf events across TSN, RDS, and CTV. The new agreement includes rights to all final rounds of PGA Tour tournaments, including the FEDEXCUP Playoffs, The Players Championship, live coverage of The President’s Cup in 2026, 2028 and 2030, and PGA Tour Live feeds, featuring coverage of featured groups and holes from all four rounds of PGA Tour events through the season.
Bell Media and Disney Entertainment have announced new streaming bundle offers for the Canadian market that include Disney+, Crave, and TSN, slated to launch later this year. At launch, the new bundles provide savings for viewers when they combine services together, giving customers access to premium content, including HBO and Max Originals, Crave Originals, Disney, Pixar, Marvel, Star Wars, National Geographic, and TSN’s roster of live and on demand sports programming. Pricing and launch details will be announced in the coming weeks.
Bell Media is making a strategic investment in Blink49 Studios, the independent production company behind series like Wild Cards, Late Bloomer, Sight Unseen, and Run the Burbs. With offices in Toronto, Vancouver, and Los Angeles, Bell Media joins film and television financier, distributor and developer Fifth Season as an investor. Read more here.
Eagle Vision, which is celebrating 25 years of content creation, is launching two new sister ventures, including a business affairs service company and new content brand. Good Faith, to be run by longtime Eagle Vision partner and executive producer Kyle Irving, along with business affairs executive and producer Hannah Johnson, will help support creatives with contracting, legal and business affairs needs. Live From Winnipeg is a new content company that promises to feature a diverse slate of comedy, drama, unscripted and narrative programming. It will be helmed by veteran producer/writer/director Rebecca Gibson. Along with Head of Development Maxine Bruce, upcoming projects include adapting Maureen Jennings’ (Murdoch Mysteries, Bomb Girls) Paradise Café Mysteries book series. Read more here.
Telefilm Canada has announced the launch of a new initiative for the development and export of animated feature films. Telefilm Canada will establish a special envelope of $420,000 for animated features that will be integrated into the Development Program. The initiative aims to recognize the distinctive nature of animated films and support their early creative stages, particularly storyboard development.
Pluto TV is partnering with the All Women’s Sports Network (AWSN), launching a 24/7 stream on the ad-supported streaming television (FAST) service in Canada, the UK, the Nordics, and the U.S. AWSN’s dedicated Pluto TV channel will feature over 2,500 hours of live women’s sports annually, including games from the Athletes Unlimited Softball League; FIBA 3×3; FIBA 3XBA (a 3×3 basketball series featuring standout WNBA and NCAA talent); WNBL Basketball; H1 Field Hockey; WFA Tackle Football; ECC-W, Women’s European Cricket Championship; DGPT Pro Disc Golf Tour; WFTDA-sanctioned Roller Derby; and Women’s Football Weekly, featuring highlights from Serie A Italy, Bundesliga, Division I Féminine (French Premier League); and the Barclays Women’s Championship. Read more here.
Paramount+ has greenlit Season 4 of Canadian medical drama SKYMED with Paramount on board for the first time in the series history. Produced by Piazza Entertainment, the eight-episode season begins production later this summer in North Bay, ON and Manitoba, and will stream exclusively on Paramount+ in Canada, the U.S., Latin America and Brazil, UK, Australia, Italy, France, Germany, Switzerland and Austria. Additionally, Paramount+ in Canada will welcome SKYMED Seasons 1 – 3 to the platform this fall.
Nippon TV and Blue Ant Studios are entering into a strategic partnership to expand development and production of Nippon TV Gyokuro Studios’ unscripted formats in the North American market. The partnership builds on the success of Blue Ant Studios’ adaptation of Nippon TV’s global hit format Old Enough!, including its first season in Canada, with a second season planned for TVO and its YouTube channel. The partnership will be spearheaded by Tom Miyauchi, Head of the newly-established Nippon TV Los Angeles Business Office, alongside Matt Hornburg, Co-President and Diane Rankin, EVP, Content Development & Commercial Strategy, both of Blue Ant Studios.
Galafilm, the Montreal-based production company, has announced the premiere of its latest documentary, Implosion: The Titanic Sub Disaster. Co-commissioned by CBC, BBC and Discovery U.S., the film delves into the catastrophic implosion of the Titan submersible during its 2023 expedition to the Titanic wreckage. On the two-year anniversary of the June 18 tragedy that captivated the world, CBC will broadcast the Canadian premiere on The Nature of Things. The doc can also be streamed on CBC Gem and The Nature of Things YouTube Channel.
Accessible Media Inc. (AMI), in partnership with Summerhill Media and Fifth Ground Entertainment, has announced the debut of the eight-episode Collar of Duty Kids, Monday, June 23 on AMI-tv and AMI+. A spinoff of the successful original series Collar of Duty, Collar of Duty Kids takes young viewers into the lives of children who have been matched with extraordinary service animals.
The Shine Network Institute has launched its first web series, ReMATRIATE the Lens, available on the organization’s YouTube channel. Sponsored by Paramount+, ReMATRIATE the Lens is a series of candid, powerful conversations with 16 Indigenous women working in screen media.
The Directors Guild of Canada (DGC) has released its 3rd annual DGC Census. BIPOC representation stood at 25% among new respondents, raising the overall share of BIPOC members from 19.4% in 2023 to 19.9% in 2024. DGC membership recruitment trends show BIPOC filmmakers have made up more than 25.0% of new DGC members every year since 2020 and 50.0% of new directors who joined the Guild in 2023. Updated income stats reveal a sharp drop in yearly income of 22.4% on average across ethnic and gender lines.
The Canadian Film Centre (CFC), with support from Bell Media and Blink49 Studios, has announced the new Comedy Series Lab, a full-time professional comedy writing and series development initiative aimed at fostering the next wave of Canadian talent. Building off the CFC’s Prime Time TV model, the Comedy Series Lab will offer four emerging to mid-level Black, Indigenous, and/or racialized writers with the opportunity to be immersed in a professional comedy writing room while developing a new series under the mentorship of a top comedy showrunner. Running from Oct. 2025 to March 2026, applications are now open here.
The Disability Screen Office (DSO) is partnering with CBC for a third time on AccessCBC: A CBC Initiative for Creators with a Disability, a national program for Deaf and disabled creators that provides training, mentorship and financing support through four programming streams – scripted comedy/ drama, unscripted, kids and, new this year, podcasts. Submissions are open to producers and writers who self-identify as having a disability and are not employed by CBC. Applications are being accepted now through June 20.
Paramount+ in Canada has renewed the BANFF SPARK Accelerator for Women in the Business of Media: Producers Edition for a second year. Twenty-five women who own their own production outfits will participate in a series of customized, virtual sessions covering business strategy and planning, finance, and marketing best practices; one-on-one meetings, and curated sessions during the Banff World Media Festival. Participants receive a Banff World Media Festival pass and a travel stipend. The call for applications will be announced in August.
REGULATORY, TELECOM & MEDIA:
The CRTC has published a decision that will allow independent Canadian television stations to access more funding from the Independent Local News Fund (ILNF), including making Corus Entertainment’s Global News stations eligible. With base contributions from online streaming services now set to significantly increase the amount of money being distributed by the ILNF, the commission launched a consultation last year as part ongoing efforts to modernize its broadcasting framework. Based on those consultations, the CRTC has decided to maintain current ILNF eligibility criteria, but is adding Corus’s television stations to the list of eligible recipients. It will also now require ILNF recipients to make its local news and information content available online and has implemented an incentive for original audiovisual online content reflecting equity-deserving, Indigenous, and official language minority communities. Read more here.
Rogers Communications has received all league approvals to buy out Bell’s 37.5% stake in Maple Leaf Sports & Entertainment (MLSE). Rogers has received approvals from the National Hockey League (NHL), National Basketball Association (NBA), Canadian Football League (CFL), Major League Soccer (MLS), and the American Hockey League (AHL) to become 75% owners of MLSE. The $4.7B deal was previously announced in September. It’s still subject to approval from the CRTC to acquire an additional indirect interest in Toronto Raptors Network Ltd. (NBA TV Canada), representing a small portion of the transaction. Rogers previously received clearance from the Competition Bureau to proceed with the acquisition.
The Canadian Press (CP) reporters, editors, photojournalists, sales and IT staff have written an open letter to the wire service’s president Malcolm Kirk and its board of directors, appealing for a wage increase to match the rising cost of living. The 150 members of the Canadian Media Guild (CMG) have been trying to negotiate a new contract for the last six months, saying that some of its members “can no longer afford to live in the communities where they work and report.” CMG filed for conciliation in Quebec and Ontario last month. Read more here.
RTDNA Canada has unveiled this year’s nominees for its Regional Awards of Excellence, recognizing the best journalists, programs, platforms, stations, and newsgathering organizations across audio, digital and video. Find the East Region nominees here; West Region here; Central Region here; and Prairie Region here. Award winners will be announced in September.
The Atlantic Journalism Awards were handed out in Halifax last Saturday. CBC claimed 24 AJAs including 11 Gold, seven Silver and six Bronze. The Halifax Examiner, CityNews Halifax, APTN, and NTV News in St. John’s, NL were also among the multiple award winners. Pierre Richard of Radio-Canada Acadie in Moncton was this year’s AJA Hall of Fame Award recipient. Find the full list of winners here.
OP-ED: Momentum Media’s VP of Sales + Partnerships Rob Brimacombe shares his takeaways from Web Summit Vancouver, reflecting on the undervalued Gen Z demographic, AI, and missed opportunities for legacy broadcasters. Read more here.
BROADCAST TECH & ENGINEERING:
Bell Media and The Trade Desk have announced that key tools from the Bell Marketing Platform (BMP) are now integrated into The Trade Desk’s Kokai platform. The integration provides advertisers with access to Bell first-party data, custom audience-building capabilities, and, in the future, advanced measurement and analytics solutions. Fueled by Bell Audience Manager’s near real-time data tracking, the integration makes it easier for advertisers to leverage BMP tools and intelligence to optimize campaigns. Bell Media will also support Unified ID 2.0 (UID2), pioneered by The Trade Desk, to help advertisers target audiences with greater precision and addressability.
Toronto AES (Audio Engineering Society) EXPO25: The Future is Already Audible will bring together audio manufacturers, distributors, retailers, designers, innovators, educators, experts and evangelists shaping the future of audio technology on June 24 at The Creative School at Toronto Metropolitan University. This year’s keynote speaker is audio guru Michael Nunan, Senior Manager, Broadcast Operations (Audio) at Bell Media, who’ll tackle the question of “what’s the next big thing?” and “what comes after that?”
