Canadian drama ‘La Médiatrice’ wins International Emmy for best short-form series

A French-language Canadian drama about a family mediator whose own life implodes has won an International Emmy.

"La Médiatrice” (“The Mediator”) took home the award for best short-form series Monday night.

Created by Marie-Hélène Lebeau-Taschereau and Marie-Élène Grégoire, the drama stars Mylène Mackay as a Quebec-based mediator who specializes in conscious uncoupling. 

After her own husband cheats on her, she decides to avenge clients who have been wronged by targeting their partners.

Quebec Liberal Leader Rodriguez struggles to manage crisis within party

MONTREAL - As the turmoil engulfing the Quebec Liberals enters its second week, leader Pablo Rodriguez is facing questions about his ability to manage his caucus — let alone a provincial government. 

Rodriguez gave a combative performance on popular Quebec talk show "Tout le monde en parle" Sunday night, capping off a week spent trying to get ahead of the worst crisis he has faced since winning the Liberal leadership in June. 

"I'm going to fight to the death for my party," he said. "I don't like what's happening right now, and it's hurting the party."

But from the start of the 20-minute segment, the former federal cabinet minister faced a barrage of questions about how he'd let the situation get so badly out of hand. "The question everyone is asking right now is, if you can't manage 20 Liberal caucus members and all hell is breaking loose, how are you going to manage crises (as premier)?" asked guest co-host MC Gilles. 

Mexico’s bullied pageant contestant gets payback by capturing Miss Universe crown

BANGKOK (AP) — Fátima Bosch Fernández of Mexico was crowned Miss Universe 2025 on Friday, a dramatic victory for a 25-year-old at the center of the turbulent 74th staging of the popular beauty pageant in Bangkok who stood up to public bullying from one of the hosts.

The first runner-up was 29-year old Praveenar Singh of Thailand and 25-year-old Stephany Adriana Abasali Nasser of Venezuela placed third.

Rounding up the finishers were Ahtisa Manalo, 28, of the Philippines, and 27-year-old Olivia Yacé of Ivory Coast who came fifth.

When Bosch was announced as the winner, cheers and screams erupted from the audience, with Mexican flags waved by elated supporters.

Trump steps up attacks on ABC and Jimmy Kimmel, says network should ‘get the bum off the air’

NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump stepped up his attacks against ABC and late-night host Jimmy Kimmel on Thursday, urging the network to “get the bum off the air” in a social media post sent shortly after the comic's latest episode ended.

The president this week had also expressed anger at the network's chief White House correspondent, Mary Bruce, for questions she asked in an Oval Office meeting, which his press staff followed with a 17-point memo listing grievances against ABC News.

Trump's latest attack against Kimmel came two months after ABC temporarily suspended the comic for remarks made following the assassination of GOP activist Charlie Kirk. ABC lifted the suspension following a public outcry.

Kimmel's show Wednesday night began with a blistering monologue about Trump, the first 10 minutes concentrated on the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein and Congress' vote this week to release more material from Epstein's correspondence. He noted the country was carefully following the movements of “Hurricane Epstein.”

Not everyone sees the new Cancon rules as a win. Five takeaways from CRTC’s decision

An overhaul by the federal regulator of how Canadian content is defined has been met with mixed reaction from some of the country's biggest film and TV players this week.

The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) issued its long-awaited expansion of the range of creative roles that qualify a film or TV show as Canadian, setting new rules for foreign streaming companies that operate in the country.

However, not everyone sees the changes as a win.

MORE ROLES, MORE POINTS — AND MORE WORRIES FROM DIRECTORS

Numeris: Grey Cup had average audience of 4 million, reach of 10 million

Last week's Grey Cup had an average Canadian audience of nearly four million viewers, according to data released Wednesday by audience measurement company Numeris.

Numeris said an average audience of 3.985 million watched the Saskatchewan Roughriders defeat the Montreal Alouettes 25-17 on Sunday in Winnipeg in the 112th edition of the CFL's championship game. The game was broadcast on TSN, RDS and CTV.

The number is an increase over the average audience for the previous two Grey Cup games (3.572 million in 2023, 3.529 million in 2024).

Numeris also said the game’s reach — the number of unique viewers potentially exposed to the broadcast — was 10 million.

CRTC updates definition of Canadian content, says AI doesn’t count

OTTAWA - The federal broadcast regulator has released a new definition of Canadian content — and it says artificial intelligence can't qualify.

The new definition maintains the same approach as the previous one by using a system to determine whether something is Cancon based on the number of Canadians occupying key creative positions in a production.

The modernized definition expands the list of positions that count toward the total to include jobs like showrunner, special effects director and head of costuming.

The CRTC says those roles must be staffed by humans, not AI. 

Sentimental journeys into holiday season

Confounding weather patterns aside, we are slipping into winter. Our screens are happy to oblige our hibernation urges with movies and series that might give the gift of a smile or a wee sniffle. Plus a sexy hockey drama! Whoa. Let’s have a look at some new viewing options.

Too cringe to binge? Go for slow-drip trip

In the fragmented, hypercompetitive viewing universe of 2025, streaming services are constantly strategizing on which viewing models to use. The bountiful all-at-once release? The measured week-by-week approach? The excruciating gap of the split season? The teasing three-episode kickoff to get you hooked?

Viewers, likewise, have their own preferences. I tend to go on a case-by-case basis. This week I devoured The Beast in Me, an overstuffed but extremely bingey new series starring Claire Danes and Matthew Rhys, while also watching a single doled-out dose of the Tim Robinson cringe comedy The Chair Company, which I’m really liking, but can only take week by week.

All eight episodes of The Beast in Me were just released on Netflix, the streaming service most identified with immediate gratification and the frictionless ease of autoplay. Netflix uses the release-all model for most — but not all — of its shows.

Free Press TV writer Denise Duguay previewed this series by saying The Beast in Me “sounds like a ‘maybe just one more before I go to bed’ binge,” and she was dead on.

Shawn Levy to exec-produce Netflix series about town recovering from hockey bus crash

TORONTO - Shawn Levy is lacing up for a Netflix hockey drama that follows the story of a small town picking itself up in the aftermath of a devastating high school bus crash.

The Montreal-born filmmaker is executive producing the eight-episode series, starring "The White Lotus" actress Michelle Monaghan.

Set in a working-class Minnesota town, the as-yet-titled project tells the story of a successful young hockey team that's racked up state championships and fostered future National Hockey League stars, under the leadership of its legendary coach Sully.

When a bus crash claims the lives of several players and Sully himself, the town turns to his widow, played by Monaghan, to lead the team forward as their new coach.

Trump threatens to sue BBC over edited speech that sparked resignations by news bosses

LONDON (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened legal action against the BBC over the way a speech he made was edited in a documentary aired by Britain's national broadcaster.

BBC chairman Samir Shah on Monday apologized for the “error of judgment,” which triggered the resignations of the BBC's top executive and its head of news.

Director-General Tim Davie and news chief Deborah Turness quit Sunday over accusations of bias and misleading editing of a speech Trump delivered on Jan. 6, 2021, before a crowd of his supporters stormed the Capitol in Washington.

The hourlong documentary — titled “Trump: A Second Chance?” — was broadcast as part of the BBC’s “Panorama” series days before the 2024 U.S. presidential election. It spliced together three quotes from two sections of the 2021 speech, delivered almost an hour apart, into what appeared to be one quote in which Trump urged supporters to march with him and “fight like hell.” Among the parts cut out was a section where Trump said he wanted supporters to demonstrate peacefully.

How realistic are Canada’s prospects of joining the Eurovision Song Contest?

TORONTO - Canadian fans of the Eurovision Song Contest have reason to hope that a homegrown act might one day take part in the outlandish music spectacle.

Speculation is brewing over whether Canada could join the 71-year-old song contest after the Liberal government announced in Tuesday's federal budget that it is "working with CBC/Radio-Canada to explore participation in Eurovision."

The proposed spending plan offered no further details, but the mere suggestion that a Canadian delegate could compete for the Great White North raised questions about how this could be achieved and why it's being considered.

The Eurovision Song Contest is renowned for its wild performances, which often feature impressive stage design, eccentric outfits, and ridiculous lyrics.

Jae and Trey Richards turn hard labour into comedy hit ‘The Office Movers’ — with help from Drake

TORONTO - When Jae and Trey Richards were younger, their dad would scold them for skipping shifts at his moving company to pursue careers as content creators.

“We spent years and years, from ages 12 to 25, just working against our will, man,” says Jae. 

“I’d be like, ‘I’m trying to make YouTube videos.’ He’d say, ‘No, come to work now!’”

Years later, those same videos would lead the Brampton, Ont.-born brothers to create "The Office Movers," a Crave comedy series that’s become a local hit and even brought new customers to their father’s business.

On the set of the first Agatha Christie show where mysteries are solved with the internet

LONDON (AP) — The scene: Outside a stately English home, a man and a woman attempt to solve a mystery. What's unusual about this picture?

They're using the internet.

In a departure from what could be the logline for many a cozy English mystery before it, “Agatha Christie's Tommy & Tuppence” marks the first time Agatha Christie's work has been modernized for an English-speaking TV audience. In this six-part drama premiering next year, there are phones, social media and TikTok alongside the usual murky secrets, red herrings and nefarious crimes.

Speaking in late October on the set of the BritBox contemporary series shooting in the U.K., writer and executive producer Phoebe Eclair-Powell says the makers were thrilled to get permission from Christie's estate and have been careful not to “simplify” solving classic puzzles, like a locked room mystery, with new tech.

David Common named next host of CBC News Network’s ‘CBC Morning Live’

TORONTO - Veteran CBC journalist David Common says he’s well aware that many Canadians gripe about the public broadcaster’s news coverage.

Long-standing complaints are as varied as the groups they come from – some malcontents point to perceived political bias, others bemoan a preponderance of doom-and-gloom.

It’s a big reason Common says he’s approaching his newly announced gig as the next host of “CBC Morning Live” as an opportunity to deepen the reach of CBC News Network’s early morning show.

He links that goal to the public broadcaster's broader efforts to expand news coverage and better capture the country's stories.