brioux.tv: the podcast

Send us Fan Mail Part II in our series, "Battle of the Network Stars: Executives Division," features Daniel Eves, Senior Vice President, Broadcast Networks, Corus Entertainment. Eves helped guide the network to a breakthrough last fall when Global became Canada's No. 1 draw in Core Prime (8 p.m. to 11 p.m.). While CTV still won the full, Fall/Winter/Spring season, Global's Sept...

Send us Fan Mail Fresh off the Canadian Upfronts, we kick off our "Battle of the Network Stars: Program Executives Division" with Justin Stockman, VP Content Development & Programming and Pat DiVittorio, VP Programming, CTV & Specialty. They outline CTV and Bell's goals for the 2022-2023 season. New US imports include East New York, Rookie Blue: Feds and Alaska with Hilary S...

Send us Fan Mail When it comes to ratings and putting today's television landscape in context, I always call on the Programming Insider himself, Marc Berman. The New York native has been a friend and colleague since he began attending the Television Critics Association's semi-annual network press tours in 1999. Back then, Marc was reporting for Mediaweek; before that, he worked in the re...

Send us Fan Mail As fans old and new will discover, podcast guests Dave Foley and Mark McKinney, along with fellow troupers Scott Thompson, Bruce McCullough and Kevin McDonald, are sketchier than ever. Twenty-seven years after their last season, their brand-new re-boot of The Kids in the Hall, premiers Friday, May 13 on Amazon Prime Video.  That's also where to watch "The Kids in the Hal...

Send us Fan Mail Jay Baruchel, who visited here about a year ago, returns to talk about his latest project, We're All Gonna Die (Even Jay Baruchel) . The six-episode docu-series premiered April 30 on Crave and can be streamed now on demand. The 40-year-old actor-director-filmmaker returns to his roots, going way back to his teen years when he was a  correspondent for Popular Mechanics for Kid...

Send us Fan Mail  Billed as "The World's Slowest-rising Comedian," Ronnie Schell has been making people laugh for seven decades. His story began at The Purple Onion and the hungry i in the late '50s where Schell shared stages with The Kingston Trio and Phyllis Diller. From there, the now 90-year-old seemed destined for showbiz success. His TV history starts as a contestant on &...

Send us Fan Mail Are you ready to go Tripping with Mitch Azaria? The executive producer behind two very successful real-time travel documentaries for TVO is back with a third: "Tripping the Bruce." It premieres Friday, April 15 on TVO and repeats on Sunday the 17th.  Bruce Who? Bruce Peninsula, silly. That glorious, prehistoric Great Lakes land mass that separates Lake Huron from Georgia...

Send us Fan Mail Come on down Canada, says Phil Keoghan. The New Zealand-born host of The Amazing Race is throwing the doors open to any Canadian who wants to prove themselves on his other show, Tough as Nails. Canadian citizens 21 or older can now apply to be on the CBS series, which will be retuning next season on Global.  Tough as Nails features competitors at work sites who are challenged to p...

Send us Fan Mail Those stylin' siblings, Carolyn Wilbrink and Billy Pearson, are back with a second season of Farmhouse Facelift (Tuesdays on HGTV and streamable on StackTV).  They launch their ten new episodes by tackling a much-needed renovation on an Ontario farmhouse built in 1881. Shooting a second season in the middle of the pandemic was a challenge, they say, not just in having to obse...

Send us Fan Mail Since 2008, HGTV host and handyman Scott McGillivray has helped homeowners throughout North America turn their properties into income opportunities. In his latest series, Scott’s Own Vacation House (premiering March 14), he applies lessons learned on Vacation House Rules (returning in April for a third season) to his newly-acquired cottage property in the Kawarthas.  There Scott a...

Send us Fan Mail Last year, "Hearties" turned out in force to listen to our episode with two of the stars from When Calls the Heart , Pascale Hutton and Kavan Smith. With the Langley, BC-based series returning for a ninth season March 6 (on Super Channel Heart & Home), it's time to hear from Andrea Brooks. This is her eighth season as (now doctor) Faith Carter on the ever-popula...

Send us Fan Mail Ennis Esmer plays the grass is always greener guy on Children Ruin Everything. Unlike his married workmate James (Aaron Abrams), he’s the guy with no kids, no responsibilities, and no money worries. It’s a character that should be hard to like but, when it comes to Canadian TV shows and movies, Esmer is always welcome. Born in Turkey and raised in Toronto, the actor-comedian has b...

Send us Fan Mail Arnold Pinnock welcomes viewers to step back in time 100 years with The Porter . The historical drama premieres Monday, February 21 on CBC and CBC Gem (and later this year on BET). Based on true events, this is a little-known slice of Canadian history. This tale of Black porters working out of Montreal in the 1920s and battling to form their own union is a passion project for Pinn...

Send us Fan Mail When I heard who the ten comedians were for LOL: Last One Laughing Canada , my first thought was just give the trophy to Colin Mochrie now. Coming to Amazon Prime Video Feb. 18, the six-episode series follows similar LOL reality competitions featuring the best comics from Australia, France, Italy, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Spain and other countries. It features previous brioux.tv po...

Send us Fan Mail In March, Art Hindle will be saluted by his peers in the acting communuty with the Award of Excellence at the 20th anniversary of the ACTRA Awards. It is a well deserved salute to a much-admired actor and crusading guild member with close to 200 IMDb credits and at least as many stories to go with them. Over the years, I always sought out Art at industry functions just to hear aga...

Send us Fan Mail Malcolm McDowell has a knack for being in the right place at the right time.  Growing up in Liverpool in the early ‘60s, he took his girlfriend to see The “Silver” Beatles at the Cavern Club. By the end of the decade, he was one of the beautiful people swingin' through London as the star of Lindsay Anderson’s “If….” and "O Lucky Man." In 1971, he drew raves for his...

Send us Fan Mail Despite the title of his new comedy, Kurt Smeaton really does not believe that Children Ruin Everything . The Emmy-winning writer, exercutive producer and showrunner and his wife have, after all, three thriving young rascals of their own. In creating this series for CTV, he wanted to show that, yes, kids can ruin some things, but that life also enters a surprisingly rich and rewar...

Send us Fan Mail You would be hard-pressed to find a more impressive cross-border comedy resume than that of writer-producer Tim McAuliffe. The Montreal native’s list of credits includes The Office, The Last Man on Earth, Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, MacGruber, This Hour Has 22 Minutes and Corner Gas . His latest production is co-creating Son of a Critch , which is already off to an impressive st...

Send us Fan Mail When he was nine years old, Hamza Haq’s parents immigrated from Saudi Arabia to Ottawa. The young lad quickly acclimatized to Canadian culture. He turned on the TV and started rooting for WWE heroes such as The Rock, Stone Cold Steve Austin and many others.  “We’re going to be here for the rest of the day,” he tells me in a fun and rollicking podcast, “if you get me started on thi...

Send us Fan Mail Spread your tiny wings and listen to Canada's songbird, Anne Murray, as she looks back at her incredible 40-year career. The Nova Scotia native is profiled in "Anne Murray: Full Circle," a new documentary streaming on CBC and CBC Gem. Murray, 76, spins story after story, including the time John Lennon came backstage at The Grammys to tell her he thought her version...

Send us Fan Mail The dean of Canadian sports broadcasting, Brian Williams, looks back at his 50-year career after announcing his retirement from CTV Sports and TSN. Among the highlights: 35 years coast-to-coast on radio with Don Cherry on "Grapeline" -- and not one controversy!  Williams, 75, hosted Olympic Games broadcasts for both CBC and CTV. His first game as a reporter, covering wei...

Send us Fan Mail  Can you actually make a Christmas TV-movie for $1.5 million Canadian? Resourceful Robert Vaughn can and did. The Ontario-based director shot the charming holiday romance "Christmas Movie Magic." It is one of 24 new seasonal movie premieres streaming this month on Super Channel Heart & Home (one of our sponsors here at brioux.tv the podcast). The film stars Holly Dev...

Send us Fan Mail As a newspaper boy, Bill Vigars once almost set a school on fire -- which, in a bizarre way, eventually led to him running half-way across Canada with Terry Fox. That's just one of the amazing true tales you'll hear from a master storyteller who truly has a million of 'em.  When I first met Bill, in the late '80s, he was the publicist for Night Heat, a CTV cop...

Send us Fan Mail Graham Yost is the Emmy and Peabody award-winning executive producer and showrunner behind such Peak TV hits as Justified and The Americans . As a writer, he was the screenwriter behind the boxoffice smash "Speed" and episodes of "Band of Brothers." He is also, as he was called back in the day, "Son of Elwy," as in Elwy Yost, TVO's Saturday Night...

Send us Fan Mail If you’ve watched Hallmark movies in the past five years, you’ve probably seen several directed by David Winning.  The Calgary-born director made a name for himself early in his career for directing fantasy-horror films and shows – everything from Friday the 13th The Series to Are You Afraid of the Dark. He also was at home on sci-fi sets, including Gene Roddenberry’s Andromeda an...