I watched an enormous amount of TV growing up: talkshows, comedies and MuchMusic. Raised in London, Ontario, I always felt removed from big city life, as if Toronto was a million miles away. Television was a window into a world beyond where I was growing up.  

After high school, I moved to Toronto to study fine arts at York University, taking classes in video editing and web design. On a whim, I applied for a job at the CHUM building on Queen Street. I walked in and handed my resume to the receptionist, thinking I might land a job selling T-shirts in the gift shop. But a mix-up—I think my resume went to the wrong department—led to a phone call about a tour guide position instead. I almost turned it down, but my roommate convinced me to give it a shot. That decision changed everything.

Later that summer, I moved up from being a tour guide to working on events. By my fourth year of school, I got hired to work in what was then called the Interactive Department, building websites. The internet was brand new, and because I had learned web development in school, I had the necessary skills. By the time I graduated, I had a full-time position lined up building MuchMusic’s first website—a plain, gray page with a little logo in the middle of the screen that took forever to load.

In media, people tend to specialize in one specific area. Many of the colleagues I’ve worked with in different roles are still in those roles today. Specializing was never my thing. I’ve followed opportunities as they’ve come up, seeking to learn more about how the whole business runs. For the next 15 years, I moved through different roles, from web design to live production. I steadily climbed the ladder until I was the creative director of MuchMusic in 2006—think back to when Nelly Furtado was the biggest Canadian artist at the time. I’ve touched nearly every part of the business—marketing, sales, distribution, digital and content creation—so I have a pretty holistic view of how it all fits together, which helped me move into management. 

CHUM was absorbed by CTV, which was later acquired by Bell. Through each transition, I took on new responsibilities. After 15 years at MuchMusic, I decided to get an MBA—a joint program between Queen’s and Cornell—to complement my industry experience. In 2009, I became the director of marketing at MuchMusic and MTV, and then in 2011, executive director of specialty channels at Bell. 

It was around this time that Bell began laying the groundwork for what would become Crave. We acquired Astral Media, which brought The Movie Network, or TMN, under our umbrella, and we expanded a deal with HBO to have exclusive access to their content. In 2014, we formally launched Crave and shortly after I started managing content for Crave and TMN in my first big role as a content leader. 

Today I’m the VP of English Content Development for Crave, CTV, and Bell Media’s English specialty channels. A small part of my role is hands-on, especially during buying season, when I’m in LA watching pilots. I also read a ton of new scripts on my own time for fun. But a lot of what I do now is high-level strategy, which typically means securing the right mix of content.

We always thought Canadian content would be a key driver for our growth and expansion, as a brand and service. Canadians want to see themselves reflected in the content they consume. This was evident in our second year, when Letterkenny took off. We expanded the roster from there. The key question we always ask ourselves is: what job is Canadian content doing that American shows aren’t? 

The major streaming platforms, like Netflix, Apple TV and Amazon Studios, capture a significant share of the audience but, for the most part, don’t produce anything Canadian. Canadians are more eager than ever to see themselves represented: not in a way that feels like taking their vitamins, but in something fun and engaging, something that feels like dessert.

Our focus is on understanding the role of Canadian content in relation to successful U.S. series—not duplicating them. We lean into uniquely Canadian stories, while ensuring they’re relatable enough to sell internationally. That balance is key to making these projects financially viable.

Take Little Bird, for example. It tells an important but largely untold story about the Sixties Scoop, when Indigenous children were taken from their families and adopted into white households. It’s as Canadian as it gets, produced with HBO-level quality—strong writing, high production values, and incredible performances. So Long, Marianne followed a similar philosophy, telling the story of Leonard Cohen and Marianne Ihlen. Projects like Letterkenny, Shoresy, and The Trades—some of our biggest hits—let us stand alongside major international series with a clear and distinct reason for existing. In comedy, we aim to tell stories with strong characters and quirky, uniquely Canadian elements. Office Movers, for example, has a running bit about Country Style that might not register with U.S. audiences, but it doesn’t stop the show from being universally relatable. 

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Day-to-day, you don’t always remember how much influence our work has on Canadian culture. But when you travel outside your usual circles, you realize that by portraying varied realities in lifestyles, relationships, and jobs in our programming, we are shaping conversations and how people view the world. TV started as a way to feel connected to a bigger world, and somewhere along the way, I became part of the industry shaping what Canadians watch. You would think I’d get sick of it, but I never have. After work, late into the night, and on the weekend, I still do the same thing I always have—sit back and watch TV.  

— As told to Liza Agrba