Amazing Race and Big Brother dominated Canadian TV

Most of Canada’s major media and entertainment companies have released their year-end total for their most-watched Canadian shows (Rogers Media was unable to provide totals at press time). The top Canuck series was The Amazing Race Canada on Bell Media’s CTV with an average total of 1.86 million viewers per episode. Following closely was the fourth season of Big Brother Canada on Corus-owned Global with an average of 1.85 million viewers. Other big winners included MasterChef Canada on CTV (1.41 million), Murdoch Mysteries on CBC (1.35 million) and Saving Hope on CTV (1.26 million).

All totals are 2+ AMA with data from Numeris.

Medium overhauls its model

Blogging platform Medium announced a change to its business model this week, resulting in the layoff of approximately 50 staff members (one third of its workforce). Founder and CEO Ev Williams announced the changes in a blog post Jan. 4, stating that he considers the online ad-driven revenue model to be “broken.”

While Williams could not say what the new model would look like, he said it will be one that “rewards” writers and creators for creating quality content.

BBTV expands internationally

Vancouver-based MCN BroadbandTV (BBTV) earlier this week launched its online video platforms in Singapore, Malaysia, Taiwan, South Korea, Vietnam, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates and Egypt. It is now recruiting creators within those local markets. According to MCN ranking system Socialblade, BBTV is the world’s largest multi-channel network in terms of subscribers (with more than 74 million subscribers and 16 billion views across its network in the last 30 days) and the second-largest behind Sony BMG in terms of creators (85,000). Its most popular verticals are music and gaming, with top Canadian creators including Typical Gamer (4.2 million subscribers) and Team Epiphany Jake (1.8 million subscribers).

Sephora adds National Public Relations to agency roster

Following the renewal of its PR agency assignment last year, Sephora Canada has selected National Public Relations as its new PR agency of record. The assignment will include media and influencer outreach in English and French Canada, along with communication strategies and production communications. Sephora previously worked with Zak Communications on the file. The beauty retailer’s other agencies include Cossette on direct response and CRM work and Bleublancrouge on creative.