{"id":917050,"date":"2026-10-01T21:36:10","date_gmt":"2026-10-01T21:36:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/917050\/"},"modified":"2026-10-01T21:36:10","modified_gmt":"2026-10-01T21:36:10","slug":"jason-priestley-says-theres-a-global-appetite-for-canadian-made-tv","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/917050\/","title":{"rendered":"Jason Priestley says there\u2019s a global appetite for Canadian-made TV"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

Private Eyes West Coast makes its Victoria setting a star alongside leads Cindy Sampson and Jason Priestley.darko sikman\/Supplied<\/p>\n

Jason Priestley says Canadian TV has \u201cnothing to apologize for.\u201d The Vancouver-born actor, who grew up in the American star system thanks to his early fame in Beverly Hills, 90210, has since established a solid reputation in Canada both in front of the camera, and behind it, as a director.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s had a front-row seat to plenty of shifts across the Canadian and American screen industries over the years, and he believes the acclaim Canadian series have been receiving at home and abroad is long overdue. These days, the industry isn\u2019t just willing to use Canadian geography as part of a show\u2019s identity, but it recognizes the market value of doing so.<\/p>\n

Priestley\u2019s latest foray into television is alongside Cindy Sampson for Private Eyes West Coast, a spinoff series featuring the same private detectives from Private Eyes, the Global TV series that ran from 2016 to 2021. The new iteration moves from Toronto to Victoria, B.C., where married couple Matt Shade (Priestley) and Angie Everett (Sampson) are now raising a family.<\/p>\n

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Just as Private Eyes was set in Toronto and didn\u2019t hide that fact, the West Coast edition doesn\u2019t shy away from its Victoria setting. Throughout the first season\u2019s 10 episodes, the cameras embrace the B.C. capital\u2019s natural beauty through the eyes of the leads, who are new to the area.<\/p>\n

Locations featured throughout the series and in the Sept. 30 premiere on Global TV and STACKTV include the Victoria Butterfly Gardens, the Fairmont Empress hotel and the Breakwater District. <\/p>\n

When Shade and Angie return, it isn\u2019t just the location that\u2019s changed \u2013 their relationship enters new territory, too. Gone is the will-they-won\u2019t-they romance. Now, it\u2019s all about what happens after that happily ever after.<\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

The spinoff finds Angie Everett (Sampson) and Matt Shade (Priestley) navigating family life while working as private investigators in a new city.Supplied<\/p>\n

Private Eyes West Coast makes history as the first Canadian spinoff to feature the two original leads and the first time Corus Entertainment has greenlit a new series based on one of its original scripted series.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe thought our show would never make it past them getting together,\u201d Sampson says. \u201cNow it\u2019s a whole new community and a whole new life. Everything is starting fresh. We\u2019ve shrugged off the old Angie and Shade and everything\u2019s new and fresh and breezy and grown up. We\u2019re adulting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Priestley, who also directs an episode and serves as an executive producer, adds that the premise lends to comedy within the drama.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a new iteration,\u201d he says. \u201cHow do you work and live with your spouse at the same time?\u201d<\/p>\n

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That fresh start also mirrors a shift in how location plays a part in content, where specificity is part of the sell and disguising locations is no longer the status quo.<\/p>\n

\u201cEven when I did Call Me Fitz, we never talked about where we were, we just said it was this side of Detroit. Which side? Nobody knew what that meant,\u201d Priestley says. \u201cAs the world is becoming smaller and people travel more, people are interested in different regions and places they haven\u2019t explored.\u201d<\/p>\n

His theory is backed by the more recent success of location-specific, Canadian-set series such as North of North, Heated Rivalry, Letterkenny and its spinoff Shoresy. In October, Netflix is launching the Newfoundland-set limited series Below, and is currently filming the PEI-set This Summer Will Be Different, which has been described as a love letter to the province.<\/p>\n

Canadian producers are looking beyond the traditional production centres in Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver, and making less-familiar locations central to the story.<\/p>\n

Notably, in October, Private Eyes West Coast is also launching on The CW in the U.S., alongside the second season of Law & Order Toronto: Criminal Intent. The network\u2019s president, former Bell Media executive Brad Schwartz, has a history of bringing Canadian television to American audiences. While presiding over Pop TV, he helped introduce viewers to Schitt\u2019s Creek. His current CW lineup has included Canadian shows Family Law, Sullivan\u2019s Crossing, Run the Burbs, and another Priestley-led series, Wild Cards.<\/p>\n

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\u201cFor years, American networks would never touch anything that was Canadian because they just assumed their audience didn\u2019t understand there was a world outside America,\u201d Priestley says. \u201cBut audiences are smart and switched on, and more accepting of shows that are shot in different places.\u201d<\/p>\n

Where a show is set no longer limits how far its influence reaches. For Priestley, the original Private Eyes already proved as much.<\/p>\n

\u201cCanadian television has nothing to apologize for,\u201d he says. \u201cThe first Private Eyes was unabashedly Canadian, and we sold that show in 180 territories around the world. There is definitely a global appetite for the content we create here in Canada.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: Private Eyes West Coast makes its Victoria setting a star alongside leads Cindy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":917051,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[49,48,361,75,2922],"class_list":["post-917050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-noastack"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=917050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/917051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=917050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=917050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=917050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}