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The Business of Heated Rivalry

4 March 2026·28 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,…

The Business of Heated Rivalry artwork

The Business of Heated Rivalry

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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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