CBC sees “a huge opportunity” in the free, ad-supported TV (FAST) channel space and has a deliberate strategy to build upon that, say executives.

CBC EVP Barbara Williams (pictured left) and Sally Catto, general manager of entertainment, factual and sports at CBC (pictured right), spoke with Playback Daily on Thursday (June 1) after the pubcaster unveiled its 2023-24 lineup, which includes two new free streaming channels and plans for more.

“We really do believe that streaming is a critical piece of the future,” says Williams. “Connected TVs are a really big platform for how audiences are going to connect with content, and that’s all about streaming.”

The “so-called younger, more diverse audience that we keep talking about — 30 to 50 years old, roughly — is more and more finding their content on the non-traditional platforms, if you will,” Williams continues.

“So less and less for us it’s about the traditional television signal, and more and more it’s about sharing our content and streams that can be accessed, whether it’s on connected TVs, or on mobile or on whatever other devices.”

The 24/7 ad-supported streaming channels CBC Comedy and CBC News BC will land this fall, following last November’s launch of CBC News Explore, and will be followed by more local news channels, said a news release. Could there one day be a CBC Drama FAST channel as well?

“Yeah, I think there could be lots and lots of ways to think about exploiting the content that we have in Canada, where we have those rights to use that content on other platforms, and creating potentially many new streams that can can give our content not only a second life, but more importantly a life that’s relevant to audiences that aren’t finding us in those traditional ways,” says Williams.

“This is really all about recognizing that we have a whole segment of Canadians who don’t connect with television through a cable package. And it’s up to us, frankly, to find where they are and help them discover our content in the places and the ways they want to.”

The 2023-24 lineup has more than 40 original series from Canadian storytellers, which is the same number as last year.

Catto says they’ve “doubled down on drama,” an area they were focused on building up, “and there’s certainly more to come.” New drama commissions include two British Columbia-set procedurals: Allegiance (Lark Productions), about a Sikh police officer grappling with the justice system, and comedic Wild Cards (piller/segan, Blink49 Studios and Front Street Pictures), about an unlikely crime-solving duo.

“We really have been aware and wanting to make sure that we had scripted and/or unscripted content coming out of the West Coast,” says Catto.

The drama slate also includes two previously announced series that also have accompanying films: Marie Clements’ residential school drama Bones of Crows (Marie Clements Media, Screen Siren Pictures, Grana Productions), and the Matt Johnson-directed BlackBerry (Rhombus Media, Zapruder Films).

Williams says both the BlackBerry film and series are a result of Catto optioning the book from which the screenplay was adapted — 2015’s Losing the Signal: The Untold Story Behind the Extraordinary Rise and Spectacular Fall of BlackBerry by Jacquie McNish and Sean Silcoff — four years ago.

“She saw the story, she saw the opportunity, she saw that what it could be and she optioned that book. Then her team went and started to find the partners to build the whole vision around BlackBerry, which is now … a film that we’re excited about and a TV series that we will be very proud of,” says Williams.

“It would not have happened without the CBC, and I think sometimes that fact gets lost in the excitement around BlackBerry. But when we discover those Canadian stories at CBC and we get out ahead and we take the risk and take the plunge to option the book and then make it happen — I think we and Sally and her team deserve to be recognized for that.”

The comedy slate has new commission One More Time (Counterfeit Pictures). There are also a number of comedies in development “that will be coming, maybe not in this coming year but the next year,” says Catto.

“We’re still feeling the ripple effects certainly of COVID in terms of production deliveries and certain productions getting back on track,” she says. “We generally like to have a balance [of genres] but we also are drawn to: what stories are the strongest in this particular year, where is the talent, what is missing from the schedule? So it can vary from year to year.”

Newly announced CBC Gem originals include The Bannocking (Bad Bannock Productions). Williams says Fakes (Reality Distortion Field), which was the streamer’s first original series to earn a Best Comedy Series nomination at the Canadian Screen Awards, will not be returning. “That was a Netflix partnership and that one’s not coming back.”

The documentary slate is robust, with new programming including Black Life: Untold Stories (Studio 112 in association with Northwood Entertainment and Ugly Duck Productions); For the Culture with Amanda Parris, with Parris as writer, executive producer and host; Telling Our Story (Terre Innue); and Swan Song (Visitor Media, Mercury Films and Quiet Ghost).

On the factual side, new series include The Great Canadian Pottery Throw Down (Frantic Films).

Williams says the large amount of unscripted commissions is not a reflection of needing content amid the Writers Guild of America strike, as they were greenlit long before the labour action.

“It doesn’t impact us tremendously,” adds Catto of the strike. “We work with Canadian writers, Canadian producers, Canadian talent. So we are just keeping on. All of our shows have partners — we need them for financing, out of the U.S. or the U.K. Will that mean there’s more interest? It might. We’ve certainly seen that in the past. But generally, we find that is happening either way. If they like the content, then they’re going to come on board. So we’ll just have to see how it unfolds, but there are no specific plans to change anything because it’s not impacted in a significant way, at least certainly not at this point.”

Photos courtesy of CBC