As Canada’s national public broadcaster rolled out its 2024-25 programming lineup on Thursday, it was clear that CBC has stepped on the gas in its efforts to represent Canadians coast to coast to coast.

Literally put on the map during its live presentation, the pubcaster’s new lineup includes Vancouver-shot comedy Snotty Nose Rez Kids (Snotty Nose Productions, Grand Scheme Productions, Reality Distortion Field), about the hip-hop duo of the same name; Saint-Pierre (Hawco Productions; pictured), the Allan Hawco-led drama about the lesser-known French territory Saint–Pierre et Miquelon off the coast of Newfoundland; and North of North (Red Marrow Media, Northwood Entertainment), which is breaking barriers in Iqaluit, Nunavut to host production there.

“It’s a huge part of our strategy,” Sally Catto, CBC’s GM of entertainment, factual and sports, tells Playback Daily. “I have to give credit to our teams for being out there, meeting with producers from across the country… we have really made an effort to not only reach out, but then proceed to develop a number of series from different parts of the country.”

Some of those efforts include attending festivals and events, as well as holding one-stop virtual meetings with the business and rights teams to make it accessible for individuals across the country. “What we’re all very committed to is developing Canadian talent… and to be a part of their career path,” says Catto.

Many of the newly announced shows are from previously established CBC talents, including former Republic of Doyle headliner Hawco with Saint-Pierre, Baroness von Sketch Show alums Jennifer Whalen and Meredith MacNeill with Toronto-shot Small Achievable Goals (Sphere Media), and TallBoyz star Vance Banzo and Kim’s Convenience and Schitt’s Creek writer Matt Kippen with Snotty Nose Rez Kids.

Also announced were several shows that have been dropped from the lineup. In addition to the recent cancellation of Run the Burbs, Catto confirmed that scripted series Moonshine (Entertainment One, Six Eleven Media) and One More Time (Counterfeit Pictures), as well as competition reality series The Great Canadian Pottery Throw Down (Frantic Films) have ended their run at CBC.

The lineup news comes amid a turbulent time for CBC. The pubcaster announced last December that an anticipated budget shortfall of $125 million would see its English- and French-language programming budgets reduced by a total of $40 million. Since then, the pubcaster has received an additional $42 million from the federal government to support its news and entertainment programming.

When asked about the budget concerns, EVP Barbara Williams says it had little impact on the content strategy. Part of that is because CBC is already in a position where it has to work with partners to ensure series are fully financed, in the form of distributors, financiers or other broadcasters.

Fifth Season is a distributor on Saint-Pierre, as well as the renewed Vancouver-shot series Wild Cards (Blink49 Studios, Front Street Pictures, Piller/Segan), NBCUniversal Global Distribution is handling international sales on fellow Vancouver series Allegiance (Lark Productions) and Lionsgate Television reps rights for Son of a Critch (Project 10 Productions, Hawco Productions).

Both Wild Cards and Son of a Critch have been acquired in the U.S. for the CW Network (which confirmed on May 23 that Wild Cards will return to the network for season two), while new docuseries Paid in Full is a co-commission with BBC.

“The reality is that the money we hope comes to us is one piece of the financing challenge that Sally’s team faces,” says Williams. “It’s an ongoing part of our life for shows to come and go, to get renewed and cancelled, to do longer runs or shorter runs, to get them there for fall or for winter, and to find a financing partner here or there.”

As for development, Catto says CBC has maintained the number of shows it’s developing compared to last year, with a balance between scripted and unscripted content. She points to North of North as an example of a series that has been in development for several years at the pubcaster, as well as Tanya Talaga’s The Knowing and Paid in Full on the docuseries front.

Williams says CBC is also stepping on the gas on its push for CBC Gem, noting that getting all titles on the platform is a priority for the pubcaster, with plans for all content to live on digital and linear.

“We’ve really put the marketing dollars and the marketing effort behind a Gem-first strategy,” says Williams, adding that they’ve been experimenting with release strategies, including pacing episode drops and using YouTube for discoverability. The pubcaster will also be using the upcoming Paris Summer Olympic Games as an opportunity to promote CBC to new viewers tuning in to their coverage.

“We make fantastic amounts of amazing content, but getting people [to find it] in this very complicated world is hard,” she says. “We are using Gem as a discoverability platform to connected TVs and we’re using YouTube more and more. We just need to keep pushing our content out in a lot of places and then we really believe that the more people find it, the more they’ll love it.”

Photo courtesy of Hawco Productions