← Mixed Signals from Semafor Media
Mixed Signals from Semafor Media
Heated Rivalry & 'Big C' Canadian Content, with Bell's Sean Cohan
00:53:20
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- [00:00]
A
Foreign. Welcome to another episode of the Mixed Signals podcast from us here at Semaphore, where we are talking to all of the most interesting and important people shaping our new media age. I'm Max Tawney. I'm the media editor here at Semaphore, and with me, as always, is our editor in chief, Ben Smith. Ben, it's very fitting. It's very cold outside. It's fitting. We have a Canadian media executive on the show this week.
- [00:36]
B
You're here to warm us up with a steamy. A steamy hockey show.
- [00:41]
A
That's. That's. That's kind of an understatement. This week on the show, we are talking to Sean Cohen. Sean is president of one of the biggest independent media companies in Canada. It's kind of like the NBC Universal of our friends to the north. They are owned by a big telecommunications company, but within Bell, they have a linear broadcaster. They've got some cable assets. They've got a streamer called Crave. They've got some radio stations still. But the reason that we're having him on the show this week is to talk about this surprise hit show that they have. Listeners of the show are mostly media freaks like me and Ben. And so obviously they have most likely heard of it. It's called Heated Rivalry. It's this gay hockey show that premiered at the end of last year and has become this surprise hit, going from this book series to now an international sensation. Kind of surprisingly. Ben, would you have predicted that the gay hockey show was going to be the show of the end of 2025 and of early 2026 for a certain cohort of people? Does that surprise you?
- [01:48]
B
Yeah, no, of course it surprises me. I mean, that's what's fun about culture is that the hits so often totally blindside you and are something that you wouldn't expect and, and we're never thinking about. And that's something I think. I mean, Sean, obviously, he had this very long career at a and e, 15 years. He's like a central casting American entertainment executive in a certain way, who's now sitting up there in Canada and just with a remarkable hit on his hands.
- [02:13]
A
Well, Ben, I've been to Canada many times, I have to admit. I'm not the world's biggest premier expert in Canadian media, but I've been fascinated by the success of this show. So I'm really interested to ask Sean what it says about the state of Canadian media, what its success abroad says about the journey from kind of viral cult book hit to television streaming sensation and also, you know, what he's seeing when it comes to the tensions between President Donald Trump and Canada. We're obviously at this really interesting moment in Canadian American relations. How that's impacting the Canadian media is also pretty interesting to me. Well, I'll stop rambling. We have a lot of questions that we want to ask Sean, and we'll get to them right after this.
- [03:07]
B
Hey, mixed signals listeners. If you have, like me, spent a bit of time listening to marketing podcasts, you will know that many of them are just a bit too on message filled with PR fluff and recycled talking points. That's why I'm excited by a new show from our generally quite blunt friend Josh Spanier, Google's VP of marketing. It's called Frontier cmo. It's from Think with Google. Josh is hosting unfiltered, honest conversations with the most disruptive minds in marketing and tech about what's really happening, what's failed, what's next, and the truths you need to know to stay ahead. These are your notes from the Frontier search for Frontier CMO from Think With Google, wherever you get your podcasts or watch on YouTube.
- [03:52]
A
Sean, thank you so much for joining us. We're so excited to have you on the show today. So you're here because you have one of the hit shows of the end of 2025 and the beginning of 2026, kind of this surprise hit, heated rivalry. I think we're really interested. Both Ben and I are fascinated by the process by which this show is, you know, comes into being and then becomes a hit of its stature. The stars are going to be carrying the Olympic torches. I saw this went from a show that was not promoted very much to this huge hit on hbo. But just walk us through the from the beginning to where we are now. When does this land on your desk? What are your first thoughts about it? Explain that to us.
- [04:37]
C
Yeah, first, thanks for the interest and thanks for having me. Max and Ben. You know, I'd say first, this comes when Jacob and Brendan from Accent, prodco&j, both of them we worked with extensively before Jacob in the kind of Sure Z and Letterkenny family, which were more cult hits but did well. It starts where Jacob reaches out to Rachel Reed, the author of six soon to be seven book series Game Changers, and says, hey, as you're jokingly in dms, I think, has your material been optioned? And she says no and starts a conversation. And then, you know, Jacob works through the process, options it and and develops a, you know, an approach brings it to us and we dug it. And when I say we, I'm going to give my team a ton of credit here, you know, and Rachel and Justin from, from our team, they've been looking for romance, right. Actually looking for the romance category as a category that's been underrepresented both in streaming and just kind of broadly in our eyes. And you know, some folks have talked about, well, our Bridgerton as. As one way to think about it, but I think it's more that just like we recognize that there's a vacuum or there's a gap in this category, but brought it to us. I think a bunch of things appeal from the outset to our team. One, obviously we've got all the trust in the world, you know, in Jacob and Brendan. It's kind of master of the obvious here. It's got built in ip, you know, IP with a built in fan base, I should say.
- [06:20]
A
Right.
- [06:20]
C
And it pretty rabid at that. Our team actually went rabbit hole really just studying the like this category of books because there are a lot of folks that didn't even really know that this genre existed or existed in such volume and that there was so much fandom around it.
- [06:39]
B
And what do you call what genre? What is this genre?
- [06:43]
C
I want to be careful here. No, it's.
- [06:46]
B
This makes me feel so old.
- [06:48]
C
You and me both. And we're not that old. And we're not that old.
- [06:52]
A
Right.
- [06:52]
C
So look, it's romance. It's, you know, I call this thing a gay hockey romance, but it's. I don't know that I want to call it anything that people have like, people have gone to like erotic or steamy. It's just kind of people have called it romantasy. And then you might say, well you listen, Sean, romance books have existed since the beginning of time. Ben, the old reference here that you and I would go with would be like a Danielle Steele or something, right? That's been, that's been around since the beginning of time. So I'm unfortunately unable to come up with a good label for it. But the team got really interested in, found a great deal of fandom in and it buoyed hope for the show. Then you add on the fact it's authenticity. There's such a great kind of longing and forbidden romance piece to this. And of course Canadians and there's a big population around the world that's crazy about hockey. And then you throw you layer on on top of that. We weren't looking for this necessarily, but a nice representation thread. I'VE always been a big fan of showing people themselves or parts of themselves on TV when they haven't seen it before. And I'm veering a little bit, but as a person of color, the first time I saw A Different World on TV and saw Dwayne, Wayne and Whitley, you know, it's. There's something. There's something to that. And so, you know, a lot of different elements. And of course, like I said, a trust in the creatives made us really interested. Now, of course, along the way, there was. There were flags that it was going to be pretty explicit, that it was going to show a lot of, you know, a lot of stuff that the perception is people haven't seen before. But as our creatives argue objectively and quite persuasively, we're not showing anything that anybody hasn't. It's just that it's. And I quote, it's just that it's Queer sex.
- [08:53]
A
Yeah, I'm kind of curious about this because as Ben and I were both preparing for the show, we were talking about this journal article which reported that instead of co financing the show with some other, you know, entity, you guys actually kind of went in alone here. And part of the reason for that was that as you were talking to other potential partners, that there was some concern about wanting to change some of the characters or maybe rolling back the eroticism a little bit. I mean, it is a fairly explicit show, but you guys felt really confident or confident enough in it that you wanted to invest on your own. And you weren't. You didn't have some of the same concerns that others had. What made you feel confident about this specifically when. When others didn't have that kind of vision?
- [09:37]
C
Well, it starts with the creatives that the partners who are playing with objective kind of side by side, thinking through what had been seen. There's no frontal nudity, for example, in the show. Right. And there was that. That gave us comfort. There is the recognition that one of our competitive advantages is that we can move a little faster and we ought to play to being a little bit more agile. So part of this is just that when we met with partners, they're moving slow.
- [10:07]
A
Now.
- [10:08]
C
Green lights in the US and around the world are moving slow, and people, you know, it's that slow. Maybe. I always argue that a quick no is better than a slow maybe.
- [10:16]
A
Well, Sean, can I ask, why are you able to move faster than some of your other peers in the space?
- [10:21]
C
You know, we've got maybe a few fewer layers. We're a Bit of a newer, slightly smaller entrant. We're the largest media and entertainment player by a country mile in Canada. But we're, you know, smaller than the other folks and you know, we're a little scrappier and so yeah, we can move faster. And I think I've, I've kind of gone out and said back to your process question. At a certain point it came to me and you know, we've been seeing the cuts and got more and more bullish on this thing, but at a certain point, you know, we, you have the moment where you look in the mirror and you say to yourself, is it good? Do you believe in it? To our creatives and to our creative partners, is it objectively defendable? And if it is, then we gotta roll. And the, the lack of a process does lack of like eight layers, the lack of, you know, fear or the, the desire to take on calculated risk I think made us different in this scenario and hopefully differentiates us going forward.
- [11:23]
B
When you were talking to potential co producers, like what were you hearing from them?
- [11:27]
C
I think there was a lot of love for the project. How many times have you folks heard somebody talk about a built in fan base and established ip, right? And then the fact that there's six books, soon to be seven books in this series and that it's a global thing. So there were a lot of reasons and the material and Jacob and Brendan, they adapted this with a lot of tlc. I mean it was well done and so there was a lot of love for it. But like I said, it was folks, it was a mix. Some folks were moving a little slow. Some folks wanted to dilute the Canadiana or the big C Canadian of it. You know, some folks really, a little.
- [12:07]
B
Bit forget the gay sex. The really divisive thing here is.
- [12:10]
C
Yeah, exactly. Like who knew Big C Canadian is a big problem or you know, and some folks, you know, wanted to maybe think about dialing back the. How explicit it was. And so in the end, obviously we're fired up to have taken the calculated risk, but I think it's part of a. I'm going to sound dull and business speaky, but like it's part of a program or a concerted effort over the last couple years for us to like aim and communicate, to make great global and profitable, to take big swings, to take risk and to work with what we think are some of the best creatives in the world. The Canadians, whether they live in la, New York or London or Guam or Toronto. Right. I mean I'll just Say, and I'll veer off for one second. One of the things for years people have been talking about up here in Toronto and Vancouver and everywhere in between is they rue the fact that Canadian talent leaves that. They move to la, they move to New York, they moved to London. And maybe because I'm an adopted Canadian, a neurotic, annoying New Yorker through and through, I don't really care where they live. I just want to work with great creatives. And it just so happens that the, wherever they live, there's some great Canadian talent, some that's really well known, obviously, like the Seth Rogens and Ryan Reynolds and the Tom Greens and Elliot pages and so on, and some that maybe until recently were slightly lesser known, like Jacob.
- [13:41]
B
So to switch to the sort of big C Canada question, as you put it, I mean, you're an American running a, you know, defining Canadian media company. At a moment when there's really gen, like just more animosity than probably in our life, maybe since like Benedict Arnold days between the US and Canada. Do you feel that, like, does that affect your day to day or do you kind of feel it around the office? Not directed you personally, but just in terms of how or maybe directed at you personally?
- [14:06]
C
Well, I'm cackling because I mean there's no, thankfully there's no team members here. No, I'm kidding. Do you really think there's animosity? Did you, did, did Carney and Trump have, have. Have some funny things to say I didn't hear about this week? Look, undoubtedly it is a very curious moment in the relations of two very long standing allies, right? Like there's people smarter than me that can talk about the quirks of this moment. You know, I will say that with my family. And so I call myself an adoptive Canadian and I am an unabashed, neurotic, annoying and unabashedly proud New Yorker as well. I will tell you, I'll relate to you that my family was there at a Leafs game. I forget if it was a Leafs, the Raptors, where the Canadian crowd booed the US national anthem.
- [14:57]
A
I saw that.
- [14:58]
C
And my, my girls, I've got a 4 and 11 year old, they turned to me and said, daddy, why are they booing us? Which was a very powerful moment for me, a very hard moment for me as a parent. But you know, of course it's, they're not booing us and so on and so forth. That all said, and the fact that it's a quirky and kind of hard moment between the two, there's a lot of great respect in the creative community in our business. You know, within Bell, there's great respect across the border between Americans and Canadians. I have been welcomed along the way, and certainly there are moments where maybe I'm a little bit raw or a little sharper than maybe folks are used to here. And there's definitely differences culturally. But I've been welcomed and throughout the creative community and the business community, I think there's been a let's get on with it kind of approach that. So it hasn't really been a factor to talk about.
- [15:55]
B
I was in Davos last week for Carney's speech, and, like, the. The thrust of it really was, you know, not that the US Isn't going away, but that the relationships changed forever. And, you know, he had just gone to China. And there's a sense, like us, obviously the most important import market for what you're doing, for whatever, for what most Canadians are doing, but also that they're trying to balance and find other relationships and look elsewhere. I'm curious, like you mentioned, that the heated rivalry was doing well in China. I mean, are you. Are you. Are you following Carney to look in that direction a little? I mean, Chinese micro drama is obviously this huge thing at the moment. I don't know, can you do stuff that American producers can't because the US Right now is in such a sort of more hostile relationship with China?
- [16:37]
C
Well, I probably stay away from the China of it, and I'm not going to come out and say we're going to be prolific in the, you know, the micro drama of it. There's a lot of folks active there. For me, maybe it's reductive or overly simplistic, but we want to tell great stories, right? And we want to, like, deliver great stories that people want to want to watch.
- [16:58]
B
And do you think maybe it's. I mean, just the success of this film project suggests to me that maybe, like, the broad brush we're living in this era of backlash and more conservative kind of cultural politics is perhaps oversimplified. I mean, like, even betting on this project suggests. You didn't totally buy that idea.
- [17:15]
C
Oh, I definitely. I did, because I think. I think if you look at the stats, there's a big part of the U.S. population, you know, they want to hide in their puritanical homes or caves. Right. So, yeah, and maybe I just. I came up. I was brought up professionally in an environment where you just. If your people believe in it and you think it's really good and you Think there's an audience out there for it, and you have a trust with great creatives that you're working with. You take shots, right? I don't know. That's, you know, and so I don't want to give us too. Too much credit in terms of, like, recognizing that the cultural seas or the. The current may be a little bit less conservative out there, but I'll say in retrospect, it's a slightly more progressive environment up here and a slightly more tolerant and, you know, I guess it goes both ways because we're also, as Carney said, we're, you know, we believe in the power of legitimacy, integrity, and rules, but we also, on the flip side, have a scrappiness and an ability to kind of go against the grain a little bit.
- [18:24]
A
You were saying that you felt that the kind of romance category was underappreciated, undervalued. Why do you think that that is? And when was that an observation that you guys had and an insight that made you kind of veer into this lane?
- [18:38]
C
Well, clinically or like, statistically, I think our team's been looking at that for 18 months. For me, I'll admit that I noted it, you know, anecdotally, when I looked at some of the hits, things that have broken through or been zeitgeisty over the last couple of years on different platforms. So I never, you know, it's like, I don't necessarily like to sell other people's book, but like, you know, when you think about Nobody wants this, or when you think about Bridgerton, I mean, they work. Cause they're very good, they're authentic, and they're specific. You know, there's a thirst or a hunger for romance out there that I think was underserved or has been underserved.
- [19:20]
B
That's obviously so true. I mean, nobody wants such, like a kind of pure classic romance film. Why do you think there's less of it being produced? That is an interesting observation.
- [19:30]
C
Smarter people than I would probably have to like, but I think we go through cycles. I mean, we're all. We go through cycle creative cycles where there's, you know, I'll make this. I'll make this observation, and then the next thing you know, a year from now, there'll be seven gay hockey dramas set in Canada. Right? Imitation, purest form of flattery, all of that. Right. Like, so I think we go through cycles, and that very cycle will produce an abundance in a certain category. And then along the way, we'll sleep on another category. But I do Think that romance has been underserved for a while?
- [20:05]
A
No, it's interesting and it's an interesting angle that you guys took. And it reminded me a little bit of Ben and I had coffee recently with the CEO of Tubi who was showing us their big hit teen show where everybody's just kind of making out and stuff. I had never heard of the show. I had no idea. I'm not kind of exploring the category, but it does also seem like, and correct me if I'm wrong here, that there is an opportunity to make those types of shows. They don't cost as much. You don't necessarily need recognizable stars, but if you're identifying the audience that feels underserved, you can kind of make this slightly lower budget hit out of nowhere. Because as we were talking to the Tubi CEO, she was saying essentially like, all we care about is audience. We don't care about, and this is my words, we don't really care about the quality. We don't really care about whether it wins awards. We just know that there's an audience which wants this thing and we're going to kind of serve it to them. Not saying that this show doesn't have that. A lot of people really like the show qualitatively as well.
- [21:01]
C
Yeah, look, and I, I don't know that I'd separate. Like, to me, quality can be part of the formula to get audience. You create something great. And to your point, it wasn't promoted. We didn't spend gazillions promoting this thing. But people, when you make something great, people find it. Or at least that's old school. But that's, that's just the way that I've always thought about it. But I think Anjali, I think you're talking about a great, very strong leader, but I tend to agree with her. And as a matter of fact, we're partners in Canada. We have a strategic partnership. We represent all of their inventory up here. And we think of what they're doing with Tubi, with some of the originals as complimentary or kind of fits in interesting ways. The audience is a little different, but also in the. There is a linkage to your point. And I do think back to your question. I do think there are these creative lanes that are somehow left behind by big players or by the kind of group think or the onrush into certain categories. So I think what Tubi's doing in YA and what they're doing maybe at a slightly different price point or, or execution style, a little bit grittier, you Know, I think those lanes are there. And it's amazing in a world where so much attention and so much capital flows into making great content, but there is empty space.
- [22:27]
B
And is the lane basically just like injecting TikTok straight into your veins?
- [22:32]
C
I don't know. I even have to ask her about that more so because we haven't quite gotten to that mainlining. Although the way that the ironic thing is in my TikTok, in my Instagram, in my. When I use it, my Facebook, in my LinkedIn feed, I will say heated rivalry is like an extraordinary proportion.
- [22:56]
B
Yeah. Unavoidable feeds.
- [22:57]
C
It's unbelievable. Now, obviously the algo is like, you know, they. They see that I love it, they see that I spend a lot of time on it, but it's. It is. So I don't know about mainlining, but I am enjoying the. The presence of that show and some of our other shows in those feeds.
- [23:14]
A
So, Sean, you mentioned before that you guys didn't put very many promotional resources behind this before you launched. I saw as well in some other piece that HBO decided to buy this two weeks before it was set to launch in Canada. Can you explain kind of when it was clear that it was taking off? And I mean, is this. Was this kind of a deliberate decision that you kind of were hoping for word of mouth, or was it like, hey, we don't want to spend that much marketing this show, so we're just kind of. Kind of like, hope it works. Talk a little bit about when you noticed a little bit of the shift there.
- [23:47]
C
Well, first when I say we didn't spend very much, I'm doing that on a kind of a relative basis with regard to how some of the bigger studios or bigger hyperscalers might have spent. We certainly were committed to the show and we did take a bit more social heavy in approach. And along the way, we're very careful to tap into what we saw as a pretty rabid fan base. But to your question, there were signs along the way that this was special. Not just in the cuts when they came in. There was a lot of the social activity that happened, whether it was driven or sparked by what we did or just kind of happened independent. And that was. That was before the show. The producers and the author were doing kind of book events and the lines were like several times around the block. You know, I'm sure we promoted them, but we didn't. It wasn't like, you know, we had an ad running every five minutes. And so you had these signs, a kind of A rising fervor in the weeks leading up. On top of the fact that every time we saw a cut of this thing, people use the cliche lightning in a bottle a number of times. And we had to maintain our enthusiasm. But like it scaled up as we went. In terms of your question about HBO getting on board a couple weeks before, we had originally envisioned this show airing in the first quarter of 2026 around the Olympics, which would have been a. You could see the association, but Hockey.
- [25:19]
B
Canada, the Olympics, the one time anybody in the States thinks about Canada or used to be.
- [25:25]
C
Yeah, but then I hope.
- [25:26]
A
I think we think about it a lot these days.
- [25:28]
C
I think about it a lot. But you're right, you're right. I have. For better or worse, for a very long time. But I'd say we love what we were seeing. We loved what we saw as the built in base. And so we made the decision to bring it forward. And in doing so we created some kind of tight time frames around about getting it out. But while it was closer to air, some of the distribution deals that we cut, we felt the love from a lot of different buyers. And I thought that it was very important to go day and date with this thing in most of the world. And so I would say it all kind of came together and we knew we had something. I'm not going to sit here and disingenuously tell you that this is exactly what we thought it was going to be. This level of zeitgeist. That's not a word. But I said don't, don't shoot me.
- [26:23]
A
Sure it is.
- [26:24]
C
My father's a retired English teacher and he's going to go nuts on me if he hears that. But you know, just how much it's in the zeitgeist, just how much buzz this has gotten, just how talked about. I mean, this is arguably people have said, the biggest hit that Canada has ever produced.
- [26:39]
B
How global is it? Is it hitting in places that maybe I wouldn't expect a gay hockey movie to hit?
- [26:43]
C
Like where it was, I believe it was number one on IMDb for a minute in China.
- [26:48]
B
Huh.
- [26:49]
C
It was number one on Sky now in the UK when it launched. And that was two or three weeks. That was one of the few places that launched a little later. It was number one in Australia and New Zealand on their platforms. It was sold throughout Europe, aired throughout Europe on HBO Max, and you'd have to ask them, but I think it's, you know, been a top show for them. So it is, I would say every continent it has driven outsized results. So that's a long winded way of saying we thought we had something special. But I'm not going to lie to you and say we knew everything has to line up for it to resonate and ripple through pop culture the way it has. I did not predict an SNL parody, heated wizardry or, you know, that it would be the toast of the Golden Globes or the Critics Choice Awards.
- [27:39]
B
Are you annoyed you weren't eligible for an Emmy?
- [27:43]
C
No. You know, I think ultimately as someone that straddles the US And Canada, my hope is that we'll look carefully at those rules going forward. And I say we the community. But in the end, what the kids would say, game recognizes game. And I think the to be CEO said about, you know, it's, it's not about awards. I mean, we like the recognition. It's, it's nice buzz for the show. But the biggest hit Canada ever produced and probably in the biggest, one of the biggest hits of 2025, 2026, and if the domestic Emmys doesn't want to recognize it as such, that's okay.
- [28:20]
A
Well, we need to take a short break, but we'll be right back with more from Sean after this.
- [28:31]
B
This week on our branded segment from Think with Google, I talked with Google's VP of marketing, Josh Spanier about YouTube and how marketers should be thinking about the platform. So as we discuss on the show a lot, YouTube had a banner year. Neil Mohan, the CEO, was, was named CEO of the Year by Time. Talk to me a little about why YouTube is on such a tear and what marketers should understand about the platform.
- [28:56]
D
So there's an incredible flywheel going on under the hood of YouTube. And forgive me, Ben, I'm going to reference Star wars to explain the flywheel. So you've got the Jedi, these superpower super charismatic beings, the ones with the lightsabers and the flowing capes, that's all the creators on YouTube making compelling content. And then you've got the Galactic Senate representing the millions of planets and in our case, billions of people who are going to YouTube every day to watch the Jedi, to watch the creators. And then a little more pedestrianly, but you've got the brands who represent the trade federations, the people who create the commerce between the Galactic Senate and the Jedi, between the creators, the brands and across YouTube, that flywheel, when it works, is incredibly powerful. They say in Star wars, may the Force be with you. When the Force is in balance, what we're seeing in YouTube is there is a three way partnership. The creators, the Jedi, the Galactic Senate, the people, the audience watching those creators and then the brands actually facilitating trade between the two are all working in concert. And that's really the secret to YouTube really performing so well. Everyone's win, win, win.
- [30:09]
B
So. So how should marketers around the galaxy be thinking about video opportunities in 2026?
- [30:15]
D
So YouTube is kind of a one stop shop. It's got everything, long form, short form. It's got branded content, it's got sports deals, it's got everything you need as a marketer and increasingly shoppable formats. That means as a marketer, as people scroll, search, shop and stream across YouTube, you actually can create, capture and convert demand on YouTube using all the tools and things that Google has built into the platform. It's really remarkable selling machine and that's why brands are really taking advantage of YouTube so well. So head on over to YouTube and get exploring, lightsabers and all.
- [30:55]
B
Where can people learn more about this?
- [30:56]
D
There's a great piece of on the changing video landscape on thinkwithgoogle.com and stay tuned for my upcoming conversation with Colin and Samir on Frontier CMO dropping in March.
- [31:08]
B
Thanks, Josh.
- [31:09]
D
May the Force be with you, Ben.
- [31:20]
A
So obviously this has been a big hit both inside and outside Canada, but what I'm curious about is I was reading a story where it said that HBO paid around $600,000 for each episode to license it in the US having a hit that is a global hit is obviously good for business in many ways. But beyond driving some revenue, how do you build on this? Where do you go from this? And is this a bigger cultural hit than necessarily like a financial one for you guys and for Bell and for Crave?
- [31:54]
C
Well, first I'd kind of take a step back and say for the last couple of years I've been running around trying to be like the equivalent of a rap hype man for Canadian creative Canadian productions and for Bell Media's ability to produce great, right? And I've ran around, you know, every partner I could find in Hollywood, in the UK and, you know, and elsewhere, and it's probably the best proof point, the best case study you can get, and the best cred you can get that we can produce great up here. And whether it's with us or with another Canadian player, it doesn't matter. So I think first off, it's a pretty big win and we've had other wins behind it. We're also, we're the commissioner behind Sullivan's Crossing. We're the Commissioner behind a really successful French Canadian show called Empathy. You know, there's other things behind it, but this is defining, right? You know, your question is, how do you build on this? Or what does this mean financially and culturally? Well, we produce a lot of originals and we last year bought a company, majority control in a company that distributes content around the world outside of Canada. And we'd set out, I'd set out when I came in a couple years ago to own more of our content, distribute more of our content around the world and be more ambitious, make more and make bigger. And so for us, it's a great calling card, great proof point. And we're making a bunch of original before and we're gonna make even more on the back end of this. It's a great cultural moment for Canada and for Bell media. But I'd also say the show itself is a pretty big financial success. And you folks would know that very rarely do shows show up season one and be material drivers. Right? It's like financially you got generally you gotta go deeper, there's gotta be more volume. You gotta be season three, season four, season five. And I know some of that is old world when there was syndication and there was lots of other streams. But in the end that like, I think having worked in content for 30 plus years, that's the kind of the historical model in this case. This is a driver today. This was a driver the minute it showed up on air. And we have more to come, having green lit season two and we're playing with the seven book series. So it's a, that's a long winded way of saying I think it has been financially strong and a success, it will be a pretty big play financially long term. And then it's a case study and street cred, if you will, for both Bell and Canada. And you know, while I'll bemoan the fact that there'll be like 800 gay hockey romances in three years because of it, I will say, you know what, it's a great thing for us and for the industry, short and long term.
- [34:51]
A
So, Sean, you mentioned that you were welcomed to Canada as an American, which is true. But I was in preparation for this interview reading an article in which I guess when you arrived a few years ago and you had to do some layoffs and had to do some cuts that Justin Trudeau or somebody pretty high up in the government had said, it was like a garbage decision or something like that. Curious if you've talked to Mark Carney at all recently. I'm curious what you think about him. And I, I'm curious if he has shared some of the sentiments of his predecessor.
- [35:23]
C
Well, so you're quite right about Justin Trudeau did call it garbage when we, we had some tough decisions to make early on as, as you know, all tech and media companies have made over the last couple years. We are in a well publicized transformation from a legacy Canadian broadcaster to digital media and content leader with global impact. And he did, he called it a garbage decision that he was very pissed off about and there were some other unkind things he said. And it was about two or three months into me being here. So yes, that was a great welcome to Canada. It was across every major media outlet here. And so that was fun. I would say we've not heard any similar pronouncements from Mark Carney, Prime Minister Carney. And I would say at least in the wake of the heated rivalry fanfare and its success, culture ministers and and other government officials alike have had some really kind things to say about the show and what it says about the Canadian creative community.
- [36:28]
B
Has Carney seen heated rivalry?
- [36:32]
C
I, I can't comment on it except I'm making a smug face because we're going to be doing some screenings with some key government officials in the very near future, as in the next few weeks.
- [36:44]
A
Very interesting. In an interview, you were talking about some kind of areas where you had some strategic advantages in navigating this kind of new media landscape and you mentioned news as one of them. Here in the US every major media company, a lot of the streamers are kind of trying to move far away from news or not talk about it or they see it as kind of this, this thing that, that makes their life more difficult. I think CBS News is a, is an example of that. I'm curious, is news a good business for you guys? And why, why do you think that that's different than how things are going down here where many of the big media companies do not want to remember if they have news, they don't want to talk about it at all.
- [37:26]
C
Yeah, Max, I understand your characterization and news in the broader ecosystem as like a bit of a third rail. I think for us I'll start 50,000ft and I'll dive in. I think for us, for the last couple years we've been talking in all these kind of. I'll go a weird digression, but it's related, I promise. Thanks for indulging me. But we've been talking to the regulators about making Canadian content. We've got rules that say that we've got to spend a significant part of our revenue on Canadian content. And we've got specific rules, you know, that say we've got to spend a significant bit and we've got certain requirements around news. And a lot of what I've been, I had at my first committee hearing last summer. And a lot of what I've been saying is forget the fact that it's required, it is Canadian content in all of its forms is the way that Bell Media in Canada is differentiated and well positioned to win versus the global streamers. Okay? And for many years executives have been, not necessarily Bell executives, but from elsewhere in the Canadian landscape have been saying, oh, these, these requirements, they're terrible. They're like attacks. Nobody watches these shows. And so part of our thesis here is when you talk about news or daytime very social shows or just a ton of Canadian content, this is what differentiates us, is relevance every day to Canadians. And so in the case of news where I drill in, we have a very strong relationship in local and in national news with a host of Canadians I always talk about, we reached. Bell Media reaches 98% of Canadians every month, 98% of all Canadians. Our local news reaches an aggregated over a million people right now that may not sound like a lot, but In Canada we're 41 million people. So local news in aggregate reaches over, you know, over a million people every night. And that's a hit even in the US and but we're talking about Canada. And so what, I guess that's a long winded way of saying, Max, that whether it's news or select sport or cultural events or these big, you know, buzzy shows or even small niche shows, we think this is the way that we win in the territory. And we have thousands of Canadian employees. These other folks, these other platforms, they don't. And so we've got built in relevance now. I'll build on that because we then think that if we make great Canadian content with a big C, things like heated rivalry, there is an audience outside of Canada for that because too many people are trying to make generic or diluted as opposed to authentic and very specific. Heated rivalry is a very Canadian show, as you recognize down to the loon references, Lon. Which I as a New Yorker would never know and I would have know about. And I would have had the same reaction as Ilya would have. I would have jumped out a window if I heard a loon, you know, in my life before now. But along with a way of saying, so, yeah, I believe it's part of the special sauce that helps us win in Canada. And if we deliver on the premise, the hype man, the thing I've been running around talking about for two years and we've been delivering on even before Heated Rivalry that says we can produce, we can tell great stories, you know, global and profitable. I think that we can take those big C Canadian stories around the world and people will see themselves regardless of whether they see Ottawa or, you know, insert Canadian city here.
- [41:24]
A
You had mentioned one of the challenges of the situation, you know, of having smaller audience size in Canada, having to compete against the Netflixes and the YouTubes of the world. I saw in another interview that you said that you had 4.3 million subscribers for Crave, your streaming service as of last year. Did you guys see a significant bump because of Heated Rivalry and how much were you guys at now?
- [41:46]
C
So I'd say first, I can answer, yes, we saw a bump. And I'd say, like the other streamers we look at, you know, when folks subscribe, what's the first thing they watch? And so if you use, you know, first views as a, as a proxy, we think Heated Rivalry had, had something to do with, with pretty good growth on Crave. I always quip that I, I like my job and so I don't want to scoop the parent co CEO with an earnings call a couple weeks away. But I'd say, suffice it to say, the platform continues to grow nicely. And I will give you just two contextual points. Two years ago, at the beginning of 24, so when back when Trudeau was calling our moves garbage, it was right around 3 million subscribers. And now as you mentioned, at the beginning of the fourth quarter, we called out 4.3. So we've grown pretty handily over a couple years off the back of a lot of strong work in originals, some commercial bundling, a change in the user interface and so on. And I'd say we've announced plans, very clear plans to get well beyond 6 million subs. Now, the second contextual point is there are between 15 and 17 million subscribers, households in Canada. You know, I'd say we're, we're in good shape, but we've got a bunch more headroom to go. And, you know, I feel pretty optimistic about our ability to grow meaningfully over the next several years.
- [43:13]
A
Can I ask one, just one final parting question? This is just for my, for the hockey people out there. And you've been really generous with your time here, Sean. Of course. But you know, one Thing that's notable in the first season of heated rivalry is this is not. It's supposed to be kind of like the NHL. It's not the NHL. NHL has kind of winked a little bit and clearly trying to navigate what to do with their fan base. But also the popularity of the show. Is there any chance we see any sort of collaboration between the NHL and you know, you guys going forward when it comes to the show like Will he did rivalry season two take place in a world where the NHL exists?
- [43:52]
C
Well, I don't want to, I don't want to speak for Gary Bettman, the commissioner of the NHL, but I will say beyond the wink, last week he came out, Gary came out and announced that he had binged the show in a night. He got the episode count right for those that are skeptical about him not watching it. And he also referenced two scenes. There was one an all star game in, in Tampa and there was another which was the Sochi Olympics. So and even the prior statement by the spokesperson said that this was one of the more unusual means over its 106, I think year history that they'd gained fans. So I think they're probably, there's probably a little bit more fandom and a little bit more recognition for what we've been doing with hockey. And I think the other thing I'd say is we've had a long standing relationship with the NHL and we're the biggest sports player in the territory as well. We haven't talked about that all that much but we're, you know, it's a long standing relationship where the broadcaster streamer for lots of friends franchises like the Habs, the Leafs and the Senators and the Jets. But as for whether there's a collaboration or whether they, they express their affection more vocally going forward, I'm going to defer to Gary on that. But look, there's. It's a hockey, a great game. Obviously you can't like as an adopted Canadian, you can't have not drank the Kool Aid, you know. And there is inherently there is a global love for the game. And this show is not necessarily about hockey, but hockey is a character and there's a really nice undercurrent of fandom I think for the game that comes from this. And we've had a long standing tradition of a lot of shows that were hockey related or hockey adjacent, Shorzy being one of them.
- [45:42]
A
Sean, we really appreciate you taking the time and congratulations on this big hit. We'll be looking forward to whatever public officials in Canada may or may not be watching, doing some sort of heated rivalry partnership sometime soon. So thanks for taking the time.
- [45:56]
C
Thank you, folks. Thanks. And thanks for your interest in it. It's been fun.
- [46:00]
B
Yeah. Thank you, Sean. Marketing used to change by the year. Now it changes by the week. And if you're trying to keep up using last quarter's logic, you're already behind. Think with Google is there to help. Think with Google is a company compass for the modern marketer. It's the place to learn how AI is evolving. Search to see exactly which creators are shaping culture on YouTube and to transform your measurement. It's where you go to ensure your 2026 strategy isn't stuck in 2025. Don't just keep up, stay ahead. Head over to thinkwithgoogle.com today.
- [46:43]
A
So, Ben, before the show, you were positing that maybe the success of heated rivalry meant that there has been another cultural shift back away from the backlash to Woke. Woke is back once again. And heated rivalry proves that. What do you think it says about culture that this show has is having the moment that it's having? Because I gotta say, I am surprised by how popular a gay hockey show from Canada that wasn't made with very much money has become.
- [47:13]
B
Well, thank you for airing, like, my dumbest pre show comment that you then were like, that is too dumb. I think you told me that was too dumb to ask and I shouldn't ask him that. No, no, no, no. But it was a good.
- [47:24]
A
It was good that you. It was nice.
- [47:25]
B
No, but I do think, like, there is just sort of, I mean, you know, the famous kind of nobody knows anything line about Hollywood. This is a moment when like, everyone is kind of like, let's make some programming with conservative cultural values. But of all the spaghetti that got thrown at the wall, like, this is the one that hits for reasons that are, like, totally orthogonal to politics and sort of, you know, Washington. This is just. It kind of obviously, like, it's just like this deep vein of culture coming from, you know, rooted in TikTok in particular and fan fiction and Romantasy and, you know, and it's a great show and it hit. But I do think it's like, it is a good reminder that whatever the consensus is on what's gonna hit, what's gonna make good tv, like, that's almost always just incredibly boring. And the thing that hits is the thing that surprises you. I don't know. And culture changes really fast. And so I feel like this sort of interesting thing that came through and Blindsided everybody.
- [48:18]
A
Yeah. You know, one thing that struck me while Sean was talking, and I think the big takeaway here is that in this show has a. Has a big audience, but obviously this is still something that is hitting among a certain niche. I was reading before the show that a lot, you know, much of the early audience was almost split 50, 50 between men and women, but now the audience later on has become, you know, overwhelming women. And it's particularly a hit among a certain kind of subset or cohort. And what I think that Sean really understood, and he was talking about it a little bit with his team's research into these romance stories and search for romance ip, is that you can find very specific audiences now that can kind of propel you to having these cult hits. And as long as you don't spend too much money on these shows, and as long as you have a clear idea of maybe who you're trying to reach, you can have this confident, steamy, gay hockey hit at a moment when the paramounts of the world are trying to do these, like, big masculine hits.
- [49:21]
B
This was pretty masculine, Max.
- [49:22]
A
That's true. It was masculine, but in a slightly different. Yes, an alternate interpretation of masculinity, which former GQ editor.
- [49:32]
B
I mean, as you say, and, like, this is honestly the kind of fun thing about talking just to, like, veteran entertainment executives. And, you know, Sean's been with A and e for 15 years, been kind of making TV and movies so long that the way they talk about it, I mean, you can, like, close your eyes. And the way he was talking was the way people in that industry were talking 20 years ago and 40 years ago and 60 years ago. Just in terms of, like, we got some ip, we got a rabid fan base, plus, like, add on people like hockey, plus, you know, like, it's this sort of funny, like, paint by numbers. We got this element and this element. Let's add a popular sport.
- [50:05]
A
Cool.
- [50:06]
B
Throw it all in there. And then, of course, usually it doesn't hit.
- [50:09]
A
Yeah.
- [50:09]
B
And then sometimes it does, but it's this funny combination of a real, almost kind of like hacky paint by numbers. Add together popular things, discover a subculture, and then you just sort of, like, have to have talented people and hope it hits and hope it works.
- [50:25]
A
What do you think is the best case for Bell Media here? Do you think it's becoming, like, another version of kind of the BBC or Channel 4 or any of those places in the UK that produce these shows that they then license and become big hits, hits overseas? It seems to me like that's kind of the thing that Sean is, is trying to do. We didn't get to talk about it on the show, but he has something called this project that they call internally Northern Lights, which is of which heated rivalry is probably the best example where they are creating these shows that they can, you know, find their audience in Canada, but then maybe find a hu. A larger global audience that can kind of help their business back home. Because I mean, I think the main challenge for them, it's both a challenge and an opportunity, but it's something that kind of puts a ceiling on them is the fact that there is only 40 something billion people in the country. Right. So that kind of means that your audience is going to be kind of limited at a moment when they are competing with the YouTubes and the Netflixes of the world. As hard as that job might be, that task might be for companies like Paramount and NBC Universal in the US There's a much smaller audience in Canada and they're still trying to compete with these big global tech giants. Do you think that, do you think that the BBC is kind of the best model?
- [51:39]
B
I think, I mean, I think the British TV production industry is remarkable and has these sort of cost advantages that right now and tax advantages that make American producers very excited to go there as the US industries and Hollywood are having all these problems.
- [51:53]
A
But isn't that the same thing with Canada though? They do the same thing, but also.
- [51:55]
B
Americans are like deeply interested in English, British culture. And actually the sort of saddest thing somebody once said to me about Canada, it's this famous saying that the Canadian border is the world's longest one way mirror. And the Canadians spend all their time looking down at the United States and Americans look north, just see a reflection of themselves, don't realize there's a different culture up there. And so I do think that these British companies are able to tap into this Anglophilia and foreignness and you know, obsession with England that I do not think there's a parallel with, with Canadian culture. Although honestly, love Tim Hortons, you know, love Montreal. No, no offense to my Canadian friends.
- [52:36]
A
There are definitely moments of peak Canada though. You know, you have Wayne Gretzky, these types of. There are moments when it.
- [52:42]
B
Mark Carney is the.
- [52:44]
A
No, but that's what I mean.
- [52:45]
B
Kind of resistance hero at the moment. Maybe, maybe they, but I, but I just don't think Americans like, Americans like look, you know, are going to watch Downton Abbey because they, you can take a trashy soap opera and dress it up with a British manner and suddenly it's like, it's sort of, it's sort of elevated culture. Like you just put an English accent on anything and suddenly it's, you know, you've sort of meta enabled it and turned it into some kind of, you know, cultural moment, Masterpiece Theater thing. I don't think there's a parallel with Canada.
- [53:11]
A
Interesting. So you think you should tell Sean that you think it's not going to work, the Northern Lights project, because it's a one way.
- [53:16]
B
I wish him well, it seems. I mean, you know, if they just, I mean, there are the other strategies. Just if they can just, you know, make a bunch of hits, that works too.
- [53:24]
A
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Exactly. Well, that is it for us this week. Thank you so much for listening to another episode of the Mixed Signals podcast from us here at Semaphore. Our show is Produced by Chris McLeod of Blue Elevator Productions and Josh Billenson of Semaphore Media, with special thanks to Anna Pizzino, Jules Zern, Chad Lewis, Rachel Oppenheim, Tori Kaur, Garrett Wiley and Daniel Haft. Our engineer is Rick Kwan and our theme music is by Steve Bone. Our public editor is Jesse Brown. Jesse Ben has some opinions about Canada. What do you think? Let us know.
- [54:02]
B
And if you like the show, whether in Canada or the United States, please follow us on your favorite podcast platform and subscribe on YouTube.
- [54:10]
A
And if you want more, you can always sign up for Semaphore's media newsletter, which is out every Sunday night.