Paul McCartney helps Stephen Colbert say goodbye to ‘The Late Show’ in ambitious final show

NEW YORK (AP) — Stephen Colbert chatted with Paul McCartney and joined him on stage for a raucous performance of “Hello, Goodbye” on the final broadcast of CBS' “The Late Show” on Thursday night, a bittersweet farewell for a canceled show that still had a few barbs left for the network that ended its 33-year run.

At the top of his last show, which grew more surreal and absurd as it went on, Colbert highlighted the “joy” that he and his team felt creating more than 1,800 episodes of “The Late Show.”

“The energy that you’ve given us, we sincerely need that to have done the best possible show we could have for you for the last 11 years,” Colbert said. “You’ve given it to us. We’ve given it all right back to you.”

Colbert pretended that Pope Leo XIV, the first U.S.-born pope, was his final guest, but the pontiff refused to come out of his dressing room because he hadn’t been supplied the correct kind of snacks, especially hot dogs.

Stephen Colbert’s long goodbye is coming to an end, leaving a void

NEW YORK (AP) — On his very first time hosting “The Late Show” back in 2015, Stephen Colbert ripped into Donald Trump while gorging on Oreos, likening his inability to resist the cookies to his inability to resist going after the then-presidential candidate.

“Look, you don't own me. I don't need to play tape of you to have a successful TV show,” he warned an image of Trump. “Someone on television should have a modicum of dignity and it could be me.”

Over the next 11 years, Colbert couldn't curb his appetite for making Trump barbs, often turning his show into a full-throated rebuke of MAGA policies. Trump would call him a “dead man walking.”

The on-air feud between the two men seemingly ends Thursday as Colbert's top-rated late-night TV program goes off the air for the final time, effectively silencing a high-profile White House critic.

CBC pausing production on satirical Indigenous show

OTTAWA - The CBC is pausing production on a satirical show on Indigenous issues after blowback from some who claimed false pretences were used to lure high-profile guests.

CBC spokesperson Chuck Thompson says the public broadcaster is halting production on "Northland Tales" to ensure it doesn't negatively affect the news brand and so existing footage can be assessed.

Several current and former Conservative politicians have gone on social media to denounce the production of the show, which was being produced for CBC and APTN.

The show is described by the Indigenous Screen Office – which works to increase Indigenous media representation using federal funding – as a satire program meant to “flip the script” on modern and historical injustices against Indigenous Peoples.

Tatiana Maslany on the taboo of porn in Apple TV series ‘Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed’

TORONTO -  

Scam culture takes centre stage in Tatiana Maslany's new series "Maximum Pleasure Guaranteed." 

It's an issue she thinks audiences can relate to, as the trappings of online fraud become harder to avoid, from romance scams to banking hacks. 

The Regina-born star said images and video are often not real, doctored or "created by an algorithm" and it's hard to distinguish what is true and what isn't.

Shot-in-Manitoba films ready to screen, stream

This has been a big year for film and TV shot in Winnipeg, with fare such as the comedic gangster film Mike & Nick & Nick & Alice topping the streaming charts when it debuted in March on Hulu/Disney+, with more than 300 million views worldwide.

Smaller indie films, such as Johnny Ma’s The Mother and the Bear, and James McLellan and Alexandre (Sasha) Trudeau’s dramatic feature Hair of the Bear also got long-awaited screen time in the first quarter of the year, as did Rhayne Vermette’s experimental feature Levers.

After the Bob Odenkirk thriller Normal becomes available Tuesday, expect more locally shot fare to come to cinemas, or your TV screen, in the months ahead.

Tories question CBC funding of spoof-style Indigenous show on residential schools

OTTAWA - Conservatives are questioning why CBC is funding a spoof program that used false pretences to lure high-profile people accused of downplaying the damage caused by residential schools into sitting for interviews.

Several current and former Conservative politicians have gone on social media to denounce the production “Northland Tales." The show is being produced for CBC and APTN.

The show is described by the Indigenous Screen Office — which works to increase Indigenous media representation using federal funding — as a satire program meant to “flip the script” on modern and historical injustices against Indigenous Peoples.

Frances Widdowson, who has described herself as a “known controversial figure” and has publicly questioned the history of residential schools and unmarked graves of children at the site of a former school in Kamloops, described her interview for the show in a video posted to social media this week.

TV that brings you home, whether you like it or not

Divorce is hard. Divorce with children is monstrous. For Paula (Tatiana Maslany, Orphan Black), newly divorced from Karl (Jake Johnson, New Girl), those challenges pale after she witnesses what she thinks is a crime and falls down a rabbit hole of violence, blackmail, possibly murder and … youth soccer?

Bell Media deal allows Québécois dubbing of ‘The Simpsons’ to continue

MONTREAL - For Thiéry Dubé, who voices Homer Simpson in the Québécois version of the animated television series "The Simpsons," news this week that Bell Media reached a deal with Disney Entertainment to save the local adaptation came with celebration and grief.

Dubé gave an interview to The Canadian Press on Monday, hours before the funeral for Benoît Rousseau, who had voiced several recurring characters in the Québécois French dubbing of the show, including Grampa Simpson, Mr. Burns and Lenny Leonard.

“It’s a difficult day because we’re saying goodbye to our friend Benoît,” Dubé said. "But at the same time, we’ve received this fabulous news — it shows that life goes on.''

On Monday morning, Bell Media announced it had reached an agreement with Disney for the rights to air and dub "Les Simpson," ending months of uncertainty surrounding the future of the long-running adaptation. Season 36 of the show will air in the fall on Bell's Noovo television channel and stream on Crave.

Quebec television personality calls for tougher legislation on identify theft

QUÉBEC - A Quebec television personality is calling for tougher laws against online fraudsters and identity thieves after she and other public figures were victimized.

Marie-Claude Barrette told a legislature committee in Quebec City that some victims have even taken their own lives.

She testified Wednesday at the start of consultations on a bill aimed at protecting consumers against the misleading or fraudulent use of a person’s identity or image.

Barrette is one of several Quebec public figures who have recently experienced identity theft, including Véronique Cloutier, Normand Brathwaite, Maripier Morin, Claude Legault, and Ève-Marie Lortie.

Ted Turner’s vision of news as global and continuous changed both the industry and society itself

NEW YORK (AP) — When the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded in 1986, Beth Knobel, a future TV news correspondent, was in graduate school. Emerging from class, she saw TV sets had been set up in the lobby. They were tuned to CNN, the 24/7 news channel that Ted Turner had launched about five years earlier, which was carrying the launch live.

“Shuttle launches were just kind of routine and the broadcast networks weren’t even covering them anymore,” says Knobel, who worked for CBS News in the 1990s and now teaches journalism at Fordham University. “CNN did. So when things went so tragically wrong, there they were on top of the story like no one else.”

That, says Knobel, who now teaches a class on TV’s biggest innovators, is just one example of why Turner was the biggest of them all — huge steps ahead of anyone else in his understanding of how news needed to be delivered.

Turner’s death Wednesday comes at a fraught time for cable news, which has struggled to retain viewership in an era of countless media choices and abundant streaming video. CNN has not been immune; changes in the media ecosystem, the company’s financial picture and multiple editorial resets over the years have left it a markedly different entity than the one Turner built.

CNN founder Ted Turner, a brash and outspoken television pioneer, has died at age 87

NEW YORK (AP) — Ted Turner could never be defined by just one role. He was a media mogul, philanthropist and conservationist. A yachtsman who won boating’s most famous race and owner of a baseball team that captured the World Series trophy.

The brash television pioneer who died Wednesday made his greatest mark on the news business when he launched CNN nearly a half-century ago and with it, the 24-hour cable news cycle — a revolutionary moment that transformed the industry.

His media empire grew to include CNN International, the Cartoon Network, TNT and Turner Classic Movies. Then he used his riches to become one of America’s most extensive landowners, dedicating his final years to preserving natural habitats, saving endangered species and reducing nuclear weapons.

Turner died at age 87 while surrounded by his family, according to Turner Enterprises, which oversees his vast businesses and investments. A cause was not released. He was diagnosed in 2018 with Lewy body dementia, a progressive neurological disorder.

‘Bon Cop, Bad Cop’ TV reboot is here sans Colm Feore, with Henry Czerny stepping into the role

"Bon Cop Bad Cop" creator Patrick Huard knows fans of the film have had a passion for the franchise ever since it came out in 2006. So he can understand the skepticism around the recasting of one half of the dynamic duo.

Colm Feore is not returning for the Crave TV series launching this week due to his commitment to Taylor Sheridan's "Landman," which made him unavailable, said his manager.

But Huard says the show has maintained the fun, volatile relationship of the main characters with Henry Czerny stepping into the role of Detective Martin Ward.

"A lot of people who saw the first episode told me, you know what, after 60 seconds I was with this guy. Like, they knew him forever and discovering a new one at the same time," Huard said during a video interview from Montreal.

Matthew Perry’s ‘Friends’ keepsakes and artwork go up for auction for foundation named for him

LOS ANGELES (AP) — “Friends” memorabilia, artwork and other valuables from the estate of Matthew Perry are being put up for sale at an auction to benefit the charitable foundation established in the actor's name soon after his 2023 death.

The June 5 event put on by Heritage Auctions will benefit the Matthew Perry Foundation, which works to destigmatize addiction and aid in recovery from substance abuse.

“Matthew believed addiction should be met with compassion and science, not stigma and silence,” the foundation’s CEO Lisa Kasteler Calio said in a statement. “This auction fuels the Foundation’s work to expand access to evidence-based care and confront stigma. It is one more way we ensure that no one has to fight this disease alone.”

Items from Matthew Perry's collection that will be sold

Netflix’s ‘Lord of the Flies’ is a harrowing descent into horror. The cast had a ball

NEW YORK (AP) — Put 40 boys alone on an island and what do you get? Harmony or chaos?

British author William Golding predicted not good things in his harrowing 1954 classic novel “Lord of the Flies,” and a new powerful, kinetic TV adaptation makes an inspired case that he was probably right.

The Netflix series premiering Monday follows more than two dozen British boys in the mid-1950s stranded on a tropical island after a plane crash as they descend into tyranny and violence, making an indictment about the fragility of democracy and the shallow veneer of civilization.

“We’ve advanced socially or we’ve advanced technologically, but those issues are still there,” says David McKenna, who plays a sensible boy nicknamed Piggy. “I would say put 40 boys on a tropical island today, and the same thing would probably happen, sadly.”

A real WKRP radio comes to Cincinnati, decades after the sitcom about a fictional station

WKRP isn't dead — as of Monday, it's living on the air in Cincinnati.