Bell Media Chief Sean Cohan on Risky ‘Heated Rivalry’ Bet Paying Off: “You Got to Take Shots”

Sean Cohan, president of Bell Media, says big risks on the steamy gay hockey drama Heated Rivalry paid off and helped put Canada’s top media giant on the global stage.

“It’s the biggest global hit that Canada has ever produced,” Cohan told the Access Canada Summit, powered by The Hollywood Reporter, on Wednesday during a session moderated by Maer Roshan, editor-in-chief of THR.

The A&E Networks veteran became president of the Canadian media giant in late 2023, having relocated from New York City to Bell Media’s headquarters in Toronto. “I’m a neurotic New Yorker. I’m also a proud adopted Canadian,” Cohan said after being in the job for three years and more recently facing an escalating North American cross-border trade and tariffs war that has heightened demand among Canadians for homegrown shows like Heated Rivalry and Empathie in French-speaking Quebec.

“There’s a number of dynamics that a trade war and a war of words between the two countries invokes, whether it’s shocks to the economy or an unusually and delightfully patriotic time in Canada,” Cohan said after President Donald Trump’s 51^st state taunts and other jabs at his northern neighbor.

Calling the TV business “a repetitive game of calculated risks,” Cohan recalled taking a crunch meeting with his top programmers over possibly developing Heated Rivalry. “My programming team told me there’s this risky thing. ‘You know, what should we do with it?’ People were afraid they’d lose their jobs over this show because they thought they may have a giant hit,” he recounted.

Cohan had questions for his top programmers. “Is it good? Do you believe in it? And in the case of a steamy (show), is it explicit? Is it objectively defensible according to standards?” he remembered. After his programmers defended Heated Rivalry as great creative and a potential hit series, Cohan told them: “Alright, then let’s roll. You got to take shots. You got to ride with great creators, both in house and otherwise. And we did.”

The bet with the gay hockey romance series picked up by HBO Max in the U.S. was on Letterkenny director Jacob Tierney and a six-part first season drama based on the novel series by Rachel Reid. Heated Rivalry was brought to Bell Media by Tierney and Brendan Brady through their production banner Accent Aigu Entertainment.

A second season of Heated Rivalry is in production. Cohan has also taken creative bets as Bell Media doubles down on bringing homegrown stars in Hollywood back to Canada to make TV series for its Crave streaming service. That’s meant unveiling development and production deals with Seth Rogen, Elliot Page and Will Arnett, among others.

“We should be a leader in driving the storytelling and marketing the Canadian creative brand around the world. In doing so we feed Crave and we differentiate Crave from other streamers. In doing so at an Elbow’s Up patriotic moment, we help a country drive its cultural sovereignty effort and export Canadian culture around the world,” Cohen said during his Access Canada Summit keynote with a reference to a hockey term about putting up elbows to defend yourself on the ice.

Bell Media is partnering with Rogen and his Point Grey Pictures and Lionsgate to revive the classic 1980s family drama The Littlest Hobo for Crave in Canada after the breakout success of The Studio; Page and his Pageboy Productions signed a deal to create content for the CTV network and streamer Crave, starting with the Slo Pitch comedy from Shaftesbury; and Bell Media and Fremantle partnered on the return of Match Game, hosted by Canadian Martin Short and shot in Montreal.

Bell Media pivoting to the international market has also been done via London-based Sphere Abacus, in which Cohan’s company acquired a majority stake in March 2025. The strategy to expand the reach of Canadian content and creators worldwide followed Canadian producer Sphere Media, in which Bell Media already had a minority stake, acquiring U.K. distributor Abacus to create Sphere Abacus.

Back in Canada, Cohan said his wish list for the local TV industry is to become leaner and quick-footed on the regulatory front. “I’d just make us move faster, make it clearer, quicker. And that’s not to pick on people that are trying to even the playing field or create the conditions… But just give the good or bad news, and let’s just roll,” Cohan said.