BTV- Business Television recently celebrated their 25th anniversary on as one of the longest running business shows in Canadian history with broadcast in the US. This half hour national business show is hosted by Taylor Thoen and Jessica Katrichak and highlights publicly traded companies on location with executive interviews showcasing their product, services, and investment opportunity.
BTV’s slogan “Discover Investment Opportunities” includes third party comments from analysts and experts. The resulting program highlights companies to a targeted investor audience looking for savvy stocks and investing advice.
We recently had a conversation with founder, co-host, and Executive Producer Taylor Thoen about her journey and experience.
HNMAG: How did you get involved in Television?
Taylor Thoen: I’ve always been an entrepreneur – I started my first company at 19. When I was in between businesses and on mat-leave with my oldest son, a colleague asked me to help with his TV production company. That’s where I was first introduced to the TV industry. Unfortunately, that business didn’t last long and went bankrupt, but I took some concepts plus connections and knowledge I gained and created the show BTV – Business Television. BTV focuses on the business, not the entrepreneur which was likely the demise of the previous company. That production company had amazing, experienced, and talented crew that were now available. So I created a pilot with them, funding that first episode with sponsorship from companies including Blenz Coffee, Ainsworth Lumber, and a plastic molding company essentially starting the company with no debt.
HNMAG: Did you create the pilot on spec?
Taylor Thoen: Yes, I created that first episode but we didn’t have a broadcast deal! So I flew to Toronto with a VHS tape of the pilot and met with Global TV’s head of programming, Howard Slutsken. Global was launching a new network called Prime TV so they were open to new ideas. When I was in Mr. Slutsken’s windowless office, there were stacks of VHS demo tapes from the floor to the top of both sides of his desk. I remember him asking me, “Why should I take this show?” I replied that there was no other show like it and it filled a void for viewers interested in business. There was one other business focused show on TV at the time, CBC’s Venture, which mostly focused on mom-and-pop businesses. When I got back, I sent him a window blind I bought at Kmart to hang on his wall and a thank you note saying “Thank you for the meeting, hope you consider the show. If you hang the blind, you’ll have a window”. Shortly thereafter, we received our first license agreement and check from Global TV and in 1998, BTV-Business Television’s premier episode aired Sunday nights at 8 pm.
HNMAG: What made BTV – Business Television more appealing to Global as opposed to Venture?
Taylor Thoen: For one, they didn’t have Venture, since it was on CBC. Also, Venture would take one or two businesses and do investigative reporting. It was more like 60 Minutes for business. We didn’t do any of that. We were more of a platform for a company to tell their story, highlighting what made them unique, where were they going, etc. After the first season, we really started focusing on publicly traded companies in the markets. Fast forward, the more suited broadcaster became BNN, which later evolved to BNN Bloomberg. That’s where we have been since.
HNMAG: Is BTV -Business Television also broadcast in the US?
Taylor Thoen: Yes, we have been on BIZTV for over a decade which is national cable in 30 million US households plus we broadcast on Fox Business News on the weekends.
HNMAG: Is there a difference between the show broadcast in Canada and the one in the States?
Taylor Thoen: Yes, we cut a different version for FOX. We have tips from financial analysts that are Canadian centric that we remove and if a company isn’t listed in the US and trading there, then it’s not relevant to American viewers and advertisers so that doesn’t make the FOX broadcast. As well as vice-versa. If there is a company that doesn’t want a Canadian audience, we’ll accommodate them with just a US broadcast hence we cut different versions for Canada and the US.
HNMAG: Please give us a quick rundown of the show.
Taylor Thoen: It’s now fully sponsored programming. We typically feature five different companies in a half-hour show (22 minutes) with commercials the broadcaster inserts. The premise of the show is for investors to discover companies to invest in, so we go on location, interview the execs, film at their facility, plant, mine site, etc.
For example, we recently were at a mine site in Chile. We’ve filmed in thirty-plus countries.
HNMAG: What else besides the TV show does BTV offer?
Taylor Thoen: We’ve evolved into a TV production and Digital Marketing media agency. The TV show now represents around twenty percent of the company’s revenue. We create TV ads, lead generation digital campaigns, articles, etc all servicing companies in the capital markets and financial community. Today if you tune into BNN Bloomberg you’ll see our clients’ ads that we produced dominate primetime. Conversely if you’re in the States, you’ll see our US and dually listed Canadian clients’ ads on CNBC, FOX Business News and Bloomberg TV across the US. Online our content is fed to 40+ sites including Yahoo Finance, Market Watch, Thomson Reuters and more.
HNMAG: What kind of impact have you seen on Canadian & US businesses from BTV?
Taylor Thoen: Some of our episodes on YouTube alone will get north of a hundred and fifty thousand views. When a company works with us, depending on their package, we showcase them on the BTV show, a TV ad or online and drive thousands of investors to their brand. Our audience is very targeted toward the investment community. You can’t help but have a positive impact on a company when you give them that kind of exposure. With all our campaigns we provide a comprehensive ROI – return on investment report which many agencies don’t do. This shows clients how their investment with us performed in stats, views, clicks, leads, etc. Although we’ve seen volume and stock prices increase – we can only guarantee the exposure.
HNMAG: Are there companies that specifically want to promote a Canadian business in a specific way?
Taylor Thoen: For sure, especially in the financial market. Often wealth managers are just seeking Canadian investors. We write articles, create videos, and sometimes explainer videos inside an article, to describe the difference of the financial product they offer then push that through to a comprehensive online investor audience.
HNMAG: BTV Business Television has been on the air for twenty-five years. How many episodes is that?
Taylor Thoen: We are coming up on our four hundredth episode. I’m not aware of any independent TV production company in the country that has had more TV episodes of a single program than that! There are still so many stories to feature on the show – so it’s hard to ever be bored! I’m still having fun.
BTV -Business Television is an important and successful television program that has helped thousands of Canadian and US companies by highlighting their stories and providing insight to thousands of investors over the years. Taylor Thoen used her experience, intelligence, and savvy to bring an idea to the network without being intimidated by a discouraging insider process. The company has no debt and all the TV episodes have been produced completely through business sponsorship. Taylor has bootstrapped the business with no outside investment or government grants. The business has grown way beyond the BTV show even though the program is a long-running and consistent force. If you would like to find out more about BTV – Business Television, check out their website: https://www.b-tv.com/