{"id":452105,"date":"2026-02-06T07:43:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T07:43:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/452105\/"},"modified":"2026-02-06T07:43:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T07:43:07","slug":"why-did-heated-rivalry-strike-such-a-chord-top-tv-and-streaming-execs-have-some-ideas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/452105\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Did ”Heated Rivalry” Strike Such A Chord? Top TV And Streaming Execs Have Some Ideas"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tHeated Rivalry<\/a>, the sensation produced by Canada\u2019s Bell Media<\/a> for its Crave<\/a> streaming service and eventually scooped up by HBO Max<\/a>, doesn\u2019t dilly-dally.<\/p>\n

\n\tWithin the first seven minutes of the premiere episode of the gay hockey romance, Bell VP of Content Development and Programming Justin Stockman noted, there is a sex scene. \u201cA lot of shows wouldn\u2019t have done that,\u201d he said. But Bell execs and the show\u2019s creative team, he added, figured \u201cthis is a spicy show. People are gonna talk about it because there\u2019s sex.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tStockman and three other senior scripted programming executives examined the Heated Rivalry phenomenon, the dynamics of subscription streaming and many other aspects of the viewing landscape at a panel Thursday at NATPE<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tThrough the Heated Rivalry production process, Stockman said, the team was \u201cfocused on not watering down the creative.\u201d There was never a thought along the lines of, \u201c\u2018Let\u2019s introduce a lot of straight characters and we\u2019ll round this out.\u2019 No, like, just let it be what it\u2019s gonna be. And if you really let it be the best version of that thing as supposed to be, then people will find their entry point because it\u2019ll be more relatable because it feels more real.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSuzanna Makkos, head of comedy for ABC Entertainment and Hulu Originals, said the \u201cpace of the storytelling\u201d was the key to the show\u2019s effectiveness. \u201cI really appreciated that it was like very fast. It\u2019s like, \u2018We\u2019re at the Olympics. Now we\u2019re in the trophy thing.’\u201d She said The Pitt has a similarly propulsive quality. \u201cI do think that faster-paced, the audience wants that. You don\u2019t need long scenes of them ramping up.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe fact that Heated Rivalry is based on Rachel Reid\u2019s successful series of \u201cGame Changers\u201d books helped it make its mark, Stockman said. The series, he noted, is \u201csuper-sanitized\u201d compared with the \u201creally filthy\u201d series of books on which it is based. (Showing how zeitgeist-y the show is, as the panel was happening, HarperCollins parent News Corp. was reporting a 6% uptick in sales at the book division, citing Heated Rivalry as a driver.)<\/p>\n

\n\tLaughed Stockman, \u201cI wanted to go back and listen to all the books. I\u2019m on the first book still, and I have to turn down the volume when I\u2019m at a red light. It\u2019s just graphic depictions of sex, and then a little bit of plot.\u201d And yet, he added, \u201cthere\u2019s a huge audience for it, and it\u2019s been dismissed as smut. But people like smut. And there\u2019s a way to elevate it and make it into a show that will have more appeal.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe panel\u2019s two other participants, Darren Melameth, SVP, Programming Strategy at Hallmark Media, and Robert Schildhouse, president of BritBox, said Heated Rivalry was indicative of broader efforts to increase viewer engagement.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cI think there\u2019s a lot of theme here, whether it\u2019s smut, or murder, or Christmas movies,\u201d Schildhouse said, all programmers are on a mission to find what will keep audiences satisfied and subscribed. At Britbox, he noted, \u201cWe see almost no correlation between budget and audience consumption and engagement. And we see incredible engagement on shows that cost very little.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBeing able to take risks on shows like Heated Rivalry also requires a strong corporate foundation. Stockman said \u201cdecision paralysis\u201d can result from an environment fixated on consolidation. Netflix, Warner Bros. Discovery and Paramount are in a merger showdown involving three major producers of television, and other companies (A+E Global, Starz, Lionsgate, et. al) are looking at options. \u201cThere are all these mergers and a lot of companies are sort of frozen and not able to make all the decisions they want to make, because they\u2019re not sure what the direction is.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Heated Rivalry, the sensation produced by Canada\u2019s Bell Media for its Crave streaming service and eventually scooped up…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":452106,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[136025,162092,88,1010,162094,90140],"class_list":{"0":"post-452105","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-entertainment","8":"tag-bell-media","9":"tag-crave","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-hbo-max","12":"tag-heated-rivalry","13":"tag-natpe"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452105","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=452105"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/452105\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/452106"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=452105"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=452105"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=452105"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}