Speaker Robin Johnston

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Robin Johnston

Director, Original Programming, Factual & Reality

Bell Media

As Director, Original Programming - Factual & Reality at Bell Media, Robin Johnston develops and oversees the production of unscripted projects for all of Bell Media’s services including, CTV, CRAVE, and Discovery Canada.

Robin and her team of production executives are part of Bell Media’s national Original Programming team, working with producers from across Canada. They oversee production on Masterchef Canada (Proper Television), and The Amazing Race Canada (Insight Productions) which is the highest-rated Canadian series on record, as well as many documentaries including: Once Were Brothers: Robbie Robertson and The Band (White Pine); You are Here: A Come From Away Story (Moze Mossanen/Peter Gentile/Bill House) Sharkwater - Extinction (Rob Stewart) and Carmine Street Guitars (Ron Mann). During her tenure at Bell Media, Johnston has been the production executive on a variety of drama and documentary programs, including How to Change the World (Insight Productions/Met Film/Daniel Film), which was longlisted for an Academy Award; Engraved on a Nation (eight original documentaries commissioned in celebration of the 100th anniversary of The Grey Cup) which won Best Documentary Series at the Hot Docs Festival; and Eight Days to Live (Shaftesbury), which, at the time it aired, garnered the largest audience for an original movie in Canadian TV history. She is currently overseeing production on Canada’s Drag Race, the Canadian adaptation of the wildly successful RuPaul’s Drag Race series.

Robin rejoined Bell Media in 2010, having worked for CTV as Head of Independent Production for Atlantic Canada from 2001-2008. Prior to rejoining Bell Media, she was a producer and story editor. Her credits include 52 episodes of Artzooka! for CBC and Nickelodeon Germany (the series won the Youth Media Alliance Award of Excellence and was sold internationally) and Street Cents for CBC which was twice nominated and won one International Emmy Award during her tenure. She also worked on the first two seasons of This Hour Has 22 Minutes as a researcher (before Google) looking up things like ‘how many cans of spam can you buy with the national debt’.


Speaking on: Speed Meetings - Bell Media, Super Channel, TRVL

At the Banff Media Festival, we met with Netflix and took a ride up Sulphur Mountain on the gondola. That’s where we made the pitch.
- Naveen Prasad, EVP and GM, Elevation Pictures

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