2026 in Canadian television
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This article lists notable events affecting Canadian television in 2026. Events listed include television show debuts, finales, cancellations, and channel launches, closures and rebrandings.
Notable events
February
| Date | Event | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 6–22 | The 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy airs on CBC and streaming on CBC Gem in English, Ici Télé and streaming on Ici TOU.TV in French, and cable networks TSN and Sportsnet in English, and RDS in French. |
June
| Date | Event | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 11 – July 19 | The 2026 FIFA World Cup airs on all the Bell Media networks including CTV, TSN, and streaming services Crave and TSN+ in English, as well as Noovo and RDS in French. Jointly hosted by sixteen cities in Canada, Mexico and the United States, the 23rd edition of the tournament is the first to be hosted by three nations, the first FIFA World Cup to be held in North America since 1994, the first to feature 48 teams, and the first to be held in Canada with host cites Toronto and Vancouver. | |
| 16 | CBC Television announces it would no longer sublicense National Hockey League game rights from Sportsnet for Hockey Night in Canada, marking an end to NHL games on the public broadcaster that began with the network's launch in 1952, and continued through the 2025–26 season via sublicensing deals with Sportsnet owner Rogers Sports & Media (who has possessed exclusive national media rights to the league since 2014). The decision effectively ends the public broadcaster's involvement in major professional sports, as the network's contract with the Canadian Football League ended in 2007, and its rights to the Toronto Blue Jays expired after 2008. Rogers also announced at the same time that it was withdrawing all NHL games from its own over-the-air outlets, Citytv and Omni Television, and making the league exclusive to subscription platforms. | [1][2] |
| 25 | The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation is approved for full membership in the European Broadcasting Union. In addition to newsgathering and content-sharing with European broadcast networks, this is followed on July 1 by the announcement of Canada's participation in the Eurovision Song Contest 2027. | [3][4] |
August
| Date | Event | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 22 | CBC Television airs a tenth anniversary rebroadcast of the 2016 Kingston concert by The Tragically Hip, which marked the end of their farewell Man Machine Poem Tour and was one of the most widely watched television broadcasts in Canadian history when it was originally broadcast. | [5] |
| 31 | Streaming platform Victory+ shuts down. The platform, a joint venture between the Dallas Stars (a United States-based hockey team) and Canadian media company A Parent Media Company, was an attempt to adapt a free ad-supported streaming television model to major professional sports. The venture had largely begun to collapse in July following the cancellation of many of its rights contracts and the failure of A Parent Media Co. (otherwise doing business as Kidoodle.TV) to cover rights fees or produce some of the non-major sports telecasts in its portfolio that had been scheduled for August. | [6][7] |
Programs
Programs debuting in 2026
| Start date | Show | Channel | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| January 6 | Hoop Nations | APTN | [8] |
| January 7 | Searchers | ||
| January 8 | Animal Nation | [9] | |
| January 9 | Pitago Stop | [8] | |
| January 22 | Finding Her Edge | CBC Television | [10] |
| February 2 | The Legacy Lounge | CBC Gem | [11] |
| February 8 | The Borderline | CTV, Crave | [12] |
| March 10 | The Price Is Right Tonight | Citytv | [13] |
| March 19 | Cirque Life | CBC Television | [14] |
| March 27 | Blue Collar | Crave | [15] |
| April 3 | The County | HGTV | [16] |
| April 9 | Life Is Messy | Home Network | [17] |
| April 10 | Andy's East Coast Kitchen Crawl | Food Network | [18] |
| May 6 | Small Town Escapes | HGTV | [19] |
| May 7 | Bon Cop, Bad Cop | Crave | [20] |
| May 14 | All In | AMI-tv | [21] |
| July 6 | Canada's Drag Race All Stars | Crave | [22] |
| July 17 | Young Farts RV Parts | Prime Video | [23] |
Programs ending in 2026
| End date | Show | Channel | First aired | Status | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| March 28 | Family Law | Global | 2021 | Ended | [24][25] |
| April | Hockey Night in Canada: Punjabi Edition | Omni Television | 2008 | Cancelled | [26] |
| June 21 | The Way Home | W Network | 2023 | Ended | [27] |
Specials
| Date | Show | Channel | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| March 30 | Juno Awards of 2026 | CBC | [28] |
| May 31 | 14th Canadian Screen Awards | CBC CTV Global |
[29] |
| September 13 | 2026 Canadian Country Music Association Awards | CTV | |
| November 15 | 113th Grey Cup | CTV, TSN | |
| TBA | 28th Quebec Cinema Awards | Noovo |
Networks and services
Network closures
| Network | Type | Closure date | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| BabyTV | Cable/satellite | August 7 | [30] |
| Documentary Channel | Cable/satellite | September 1 | [31] |
Deaths
| Date | Name | Age | Notes | Sources |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| January 1 | André Provencher | 76 | Former president of programming for TVA | [32] |
| January 30 | Catherine O'Hara | 71 | Actress (Schitt's Creek, Second City Television, The Studio), Emmy winner (1982, 2020) | [33] |
| June 24 | David Clayton-Thomas | 84 | English-born Canadian singer (The David Clayton-Thomas Show) | [34] |
| July 2 | Tommy Hunter | 89 | Country musician (Country Hoedown, The Tommy Hunter Show) | [35] |
| July 7 | Marc Messier | 78 | Actor | [36] |
| July 29 | Scott Hylands | 83 | Actor (Night Heat) | [37] |
| August 4 | Lloyd Robertson | 92 | Journalist (CTV News) | [38] |
| August 5 | Tedde Moore | 79 | Actress | [39] |
| August 26 | Peter Cullen | 85 | Announcer and voice actor | [40] |
| August 27 | Jacques Doucet | 86 | Sportscaster (TVA Sports) | [41] |