‘Entertainment Tonight Canada’ to Shut Down After 18 Seasons

Entertainment Tonight (ET) Canada, the flagship show of Canadian media company Corus Entertainment, will end after 18 seasons. “The costs of producing a daily entertainment newsmagazine show in a challenging advertising environment have led to this decision,” the company said in a statement on its website Wednesday.

“We recognize the impact this decision has on the dedicated team who have worked on the show and we thank them for their meaningful contributions over the years.” The show’s final episode will be aired on Oct. 6, followed by reruns showing in the same slot on Global TV until Oct. 31, a Corus spokesperson told CBC News.

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According to the rules established by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC), the cancellation won’t affect Corus’s obligation to produce Canadian content. The show’s website and social media platforms are also expected to be shut down due to the closure. The spokesperson declined to disclose how many people were laid off and said the hosts were among those impacted. There are no plans for a second entertainment news show to be broadcast by the network in the near future. 

A magazine-style hour-long program focusing on entertainment, celebrities, film, and TV news, ET Canada first began airing on Global TV, of which Corus Entertainment is the parent company, in 2005. Since its inception, the show has been hosted by Canadian media personality Cheryl Hickey, who is joined on a regular basis by entertainment reporters such as Sangita Patel, who has been a co-host of the show since 2022, as well as Carlos Bustamante, Keshia Chanté and Morgan Hoffman.

As a result of this cancellation, CTV’s weekly entertainment news show, ETalk, is the only major entertainment news program in Canada. The founder and CEO of entertainment publicity firm Touchwood PR, Andrea Grau, told CBC that ET Canada stands out in the highly U.S.-centric entertainment landscape because it provides a Canadian perspective.

“There was this great Entertainment Tonight brand that was going on in the U.S. — we all watched. And the idea of a Canadian arm of it was very special because it could give a different slant,” she said.

ET Canada’s dissolution coincides with a time of great change in the industry, she said, since publicists are struggling to find outlets that can provide a platform for emerging Canadian artists and projects to shine. “Even though we share a language with the U.S. and we share pop culture, we are still Canadian, and we have a different perspective,” Grau said, noting that ET Canada’s hosts were a mainstay on the U.S. press circuit.

“You see those relationships that have been built over the years of having Sangita [Patel] standing on a red carpet interviewing someone, or Cheryl Hickey interviewing someone. They’re recognizable to [celebrities] after all of these years, too,” she said. “They’ve created such a strong brand.”