New reasons to watch CBC
Broadcaster unveils new broadcast, digital lineups and returning shows
TORONTO CBC-TV is making digital a big part of its strategy, with nine new online series complementing a broadcast lineup that includes a new daytime show and a Mennonite mob drama.
CBC announced details of its summer, fall and winter slate Thursday, with new titles including the series Pure and a daytime show featuring Canada’s Smartest Person host Jessi Cruickshank, design guru Steven Sabados and two others.
Also new is the animated children’s series Dot, produced by author Randi Zuckerberg, sister of Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg.
Pure follows a newly elected Mennonite pastor as he infiltrates the “Menno mob.” It will première in winter 2017.
The daytime series will launch in the fall. It marks Sabados’s return to CBC after last year’s death of his husband and Steven and Chris costar, Chris Hyndman.
Other new shows already announced include Kim’s Convenience, about a Korean-Canadian family and its convenience store. It’s scheduled for a fall debut.
Baroness von Sketch Show, coming this summer, is an all-female sketch comedy series focused on “the world’s narcissistic contemporary culture.”
Also coming this summer is Four in the Morning, a comedy about four 20-somethings who “navigate life at the unpredictable, emotional and bewitching hour of 4 a.m.”
In Shoot the Messenger, slated for fall, Elyse Levesque stars as a young reporter who witnesses a murder and gets caught up in a web of crime. Allan Hawco stars as an escaped Nova Scotia prisoner in Caught. It’s set for winter 2017.
The Arctic is the setting for two shows: True North Calling, premièring in the winter, and The Council, set for fall.
And in This is High School, debuting this fall, cameras follow students and their teachers at South Kamloops Secondary School.
Returning series include Mr. D, Dragons’ Den, Murdoch Mysteries, Canada’s Smartest Person, X Company, Rick Mercer Report, Still Standing, Exhibitionists, Heartland, Hello Goodbye and This Life.