EXCLUSIVE: “If it’s not the biggest hit out of Canada ever, it’s one of them,” says Sean Cohan about Heated Rivalry, the red-hot Canadian-produced ice hockey romance. Cohan is President of Bell Media, the media giant that owns CTV and Crave, the streamer that launched the Jacob Tierney show, which is produced by Brendan Brady under the Accent Aigu banner.
Bell Media now plans to capitalize on this distinctly Canadian content moment. “There is absolutely more coming post Heated Rivalry,” says Cohan. “In addition to the fact that Heated Rivalry will go on, we’ve got high hopes for Jacob and Brendan and the folks at Accent Aigu, and what they’re going to produce in that universe and elsewhere.”
In March 2024 and in his first interview after joining Bell Media, Cohan told Deadline that he was “pot committed” on content. When Bell bought UK-based distributor Sphere Abacus, he explained why the company was doing that deal as well as backing ‘Northern Lights’ – meaning Canadian creators with worldwide ambitions. When we sit down with the former Nielsen and A+E exec during the London TV Screenings he says: “We recognized that the Canadian market, the product and the creative brand was misunderstood and underestimated. It’s a very nice case study or proof of the point having an incredibly buzzy show like Heated Rivalry.”
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‘Beer, Lesbians and Baseball!’ & Yaga
Crave, along with the likes of Stan in Australia, is one of a new breed of domestic streamer that is making or co-producing international hits. Other Crave shows that have bubbled up include Empathy from Quebec-born actor and screenwriter Florence Longpré. The second season is a co-production with France’s Canal+. From the CTV side there is Sullivan’s Crossing, which airs in the U.S. on The CW.
In terms of the pipeline of new shows from Crave, there is Slo Pitch, which Bell Media announced with the headline ‘Beer, Lesbians and Baseball!’ From Shaftesbury, Boss & Co and Elliot Page’s Pageboy Productions, the half-hour mockumentary follows an underdog queer softball team. Buzz has been building around that one this week at the Screenings.
There’s also Yaga, a half-hour drama starring Carrie-Ann Moss (The Matrix), Noah Reid (Schitt’s Creek), Clark Backo (Letterkenny), as well as Heated Rivalry’s Hudson Williams. Kat Sandler is writer-showrunner on the mystery thriller, which is based on her play. For Bell Media, it’s an in-house affair with Blink49 Studios, which it backs, producing alongside Front Street Pictures, and Sphere Abacus selling it internationally.
Tom Green’s Funny Farm is coming out of a development deal with Tom Green Productions and there should be news soon of what’s coming out of a deal with Seth Rogen’s Point Grey.
‘Re-Heating’
Six of the top-ten most-watched shows on Crave were Canadian originals over the all-important holiday viewing period and the streamer has added about a 1.5 million subs over the last two years. It had 4.6 million subs at the last official count.
Cohan says there is a Heated Rivalry effect on the numbers, which can partly be discerned by analyzing what new customers tune into first after they sign up. “It’s definitely delivered an uptick,” he says. “There’s a decent number of subs that have joined for that.” He also talks about ‘re-Heating’, a term coined by Canadian press for the folks who have Heated Rivalry on repeat. “Roughly a third have watched it more than two times and I’m hearing about really amazing stats where some people are even getting into the double-digit viewing, which is wild.”
Heated Rivalry will not, however, be winning any Emmys – it not eligible. Cohan says: “People say: ‘The Emmys isn’t allowed to give Heated Rivalry an award. Is that a problem?’ Well, the show’s already got a fair bit of recognition, and the fans love it, and they’re re-watching it, and we’re going to continue to drive it.”
Awards aside, Cohan and Bell Media want to harness the buzz and use that to put a new generation of Canadian shows on the map. “It’s not just the Bell Media story, but we want to be at the center of it,” he says. Heated Rivalry may just be sparking a Canadian drama power play.