The Business of Heated Rivalry
3/4/202628 min
Heated Rivalry, the steamy hockey romance show, was made for about $2 million per episode. That is remarkably cheap for an hour-long drama.
Today on the show, a conversation with Heated Rivalry creators Jacob Tierney and Brendan Brady about their television miracle on ice.
It’s not just that the show was made efficiently and cleverly. Heated Rivalry comes from a Canadian economic system of making TV and movies that is completely different from how we do things in the US.
In this episode of Planet Money, in partnership with the Pivot podcast co-hosted by Kara Swisher, we hear about a Canadian production model for making TV and movies and how it’s different from the U.S. model. And we learn what the experience of making Heated Rivalry teaches us about the current state of both industries.
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The original Pivot episode from New York Magazine and The Vox Media Podcast Network was hosted by Kara Swisher, produced by Lara Naman, Zoë Marcus and Taylor Griffin and engineered by Brandon McFarland. Nishat Kurwa is Vox Media's Executive Producer of podcasts. This episode of Planet Money was hosted by Kenny Malone, produced by James Sneed, edited by Jess Jiang and fact-checked by Lara Naman. Alex Goldmark is our executive producer.
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Clips
Transcript preview
First 90 secondsJacob Tierney· Guest0:01
This is Planet Money from NPR.
Kenny Malone· Host0:04
The other day, I saw an item of clothing I was very tempted to buy, possibly the most I would have ever paid for an item of clothing. It was a Montreal Metros hockey jersey, a hundred and fifty dollars. The Metros are a made-up hockey team from the TV show Heated Rivalry. Official replica jerseys were on sale for a hundred and fifty dollars, but totally sold out. In fact, every single item on the official Heated Rivalry merch site is sold out, a sign, I suspect, that the TV show's creators were not expecting this level of success. Heated Rivalry is a Canadian television show based on a Canadian romance book series. It's streamed in the US by HBO. It's about a pair of professional men's hockey players, rising superstars, star-crossed lovers, very steamy, TV-MA rated, and it has been a giant hit.
Kara Swisher· Guest1:01
I started watching it with my wife. Um, I think we did it in two tranches, and, uh, we loved it.
Kenny Malone· Host1:06
I love that in your house, you refer to binges as tranches. I feel like that's- Tranches.
Kara Swisher· Guest1:10
Thank you. Yes, we're very fancy people.
Kenny Malone· Host1:12
That's the perfect Kara Swisher. [laughs] Yes. Kara Swisher, journalist, podcaster, media icon, I dare say, and Kara has sort of owned the subject area of technology and business for the last 25 years, but today, she is here to talk Heated Rivalry and business.
Kara Swisher· Guest1:29
I think one