TORONTO — Corus Entertainment touted new stars and returning hits set to roll out across Global and its specialty networks on Monday, while making the case for loosened CanCon spending rules that would let it lean further into unscripted content.
The broadcaster's 2025/26 slate includes the first full season of programming for newly branded cooking channel Flavour and design and renovation channel Home. Both launched in December after Corus lost rights to carry Food Network Canada and HGTV Canada, now with Rogers.
Among the previously announced shows on the Home lineup are "Building Baeumler," starring renovation stars Bryan and Sarah Baeumler, and "Life is Messy," a series from Scott Brothers Entertainment about overwhelmed homeowners.
Over on Flavour, reality culinary contest "Top Chef Canada" returns for a 12th season, a long-running success that Corus co-CEO Troy Reeb suggested can be as "culturally relevant" as CRTC-mandated scripted fare.
"That show has helped to create celebrity chefs in almost every province and territory. It has featured celebrity chefs and the cuisine of this country in a way no other program has, and it's created not just an entertaining show but an entire ecosystem around it," he said.
Reeb appeared before a CRTC committee last month to call for reforms to spending requirements on so-called "programs of national interest" -- or PNI -- which include scripted dramas and comedies. Last year, the CRTC granted Corus its request to reduce the amount the media giant spends on PNI, freeing up about $35 million it said would go towards news, lifestyle and reality fare.
"We want to have the flexibility to commission and air the kind of Canadian content that works best for our platforms and our audiences. What we're really talking about is getting rid of some of the most prescriptive regulations around PNI programming and allowing us to lean into our lifestyle and our factual reality slate," Reeb said in an interview Monday.
"(We want) to ensure that it is our programmers and our audiences who are in charge of what gets seen on our airwaves, and not bureaucrats in Ottawa."
Still, Reeb stressed that Corus isn't abandoning scripted content, noting that Global announced a second season of Canadian-made "Murder in a Small Town" and "Private Eyes West Coast," a Vancouver-based spinoff of the drama "Private Eyes" starring Jason Priestley.
The fall schedule on Home includes two budget-friendly offerings from Canadians -- Natalie Chong with “Rentovation” and self-taught DIYer Kristen Coutts with “Beer Budget Reno.”
Flavour Network's Canadian shows include “Halloween Bakeshop” and “Holiday Bakeshop,” hosted by Canadian actress and comedian Lauren Ash.
The Corus plans come as Rogers’ detailed programming for HGTV Canada and Food Network Canada that it described as “bigger and more impactful” than what came before.
Last June, Rogers announced it had scored “milestone” multi-year deals with Warner Bros. Discovery to secure rights to several lifestyle brands from Corus Entertainment and Bell Media, including HGTV, Food Network and Discovery.
"We're not really concerned with what our competition wants to do," said Reeb, noting Corus' channels boast recognizable stars like the Baeumlers.
"We're going to do what we've always done, and that's win. And beat them."
In December, Corus launched Flavour Network and Home Network to replace the channel positions for Food Network Canada and HGTV Canada, which debuted under the Rogers banner in January.
Corus said other returning Flavour shows include “Morimoto’s Sushi Master,” “Adam Richman Eats Britain,” “Kitchen Nightmares” and “Wild Game Kitchen.”
Over on Showcase, Corus' deal with NBCUniversal will bring the Greg Daniels mockumentary “The Paper,” starring Domhnall Gleeson; the espionage thriller “The Copenhagen Test” with Simu Liu; and the spy thriller “PONIES” with Emilia Clarke and Haley Lu Richardson.
High-profile U.S. imports are also headed to Global, including CBS' new hour-long crime drama "CIA," from executive producer Dick Wolf and starring Tom Ellis as a “loose cannon CIA case officer.
Also new is the ensemble comedy "DMV" with Tim Meadows, the singing competition “The Road,” in which country star Keith Urban tries to discover the next big artist and “Sheriff Country,” starring Morena Baccarin in an expansion of CBS’ “Fire Country” universe.
Reeb said that Corus was trying to "lean into our Canadian identity" while also acknowledging that audiences still crave international fare.
"We know the kind of mood Canadian audiences are in: the elbows up movement is at an all-time high. At the same time, we know that Canadian audiences want the best of the world. They don't just want Canadian content," he said.
"You can have an all-Canadian network that has nothing but Canadian on it and you would have to give it $1.3 billion because that's what we do to the CBC."
W Network highlights include the Peacock mystery “All Her Fault,” with Sarah Snook as a mother whose son goes missing while on his first playdate, and the dark comedy, “The ‘Burbs” starring Keke Palmer, in which a young couple reluctantly move to the husband's childhood home.
Celebrities anchor several new shows including the History Channel's “WWII with Tom Hanks,” “History’s Deadliest with Ving Rhames,” and “Hazardous History with Henry Winkler,” while Ryan Reynolds narrates the National Geographic animal series “Underdogs,” and Slice adds the six-part docuseries “Tiffany Haddish Goes Off,” which follows the star and her three girlfriends on a trip to Africa.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 2, 2025.
Alex Nino Gheciu, The Canadian Press
