Acorn TV Sets February Debut for 'Murdoch Mysteries' Season 18
We are a full quarter of the way into the 21st century. However, not everyone is quick to embrace the future, not even in television, even though most would assume those who work with filming tech would be the first to adopt any new technology bandwagon. Murdoch Mysteries is a perfect example. Most shows have spent the last decade reducing episode counts, but not Murdoch, which has increased its installments in the past few years. Most series are abandoning linear for streaming or releasing shows on streaming and then on broadcast, but not Murdoch, which has held firm on giving the CBC show a four-month exclusivity window, only to finally abandon that for the first time this season... to air simultaneously on Ovation, a zombie cable network with only a tiny, little-watched website-based streaming platform (which is, nevertheless, free).
When the CBC revealed that Murdoch Mysteries, one of the most popular period mystery police procedurals from the mid-aughts, despite never officially airing on PBS, would go "day-and-date" with Ovation starting with Season 18, allowing fans to watch the series legally in American before February of the following year for the first time, we checked with Acorn TV (which traditionally has started streaming Murdoch Mysteries on a weekly schedule two weeks after it started on Ovation) but heard nothing back.
That's apparently because it was not included in this deal. Acorn TV is still stuck in the past, waiting a full four months (120 days!) before it can stream the first episode. While Ovation will air and stream Episode 12 of 22 for the first weekend of February 2025, Acorn TV will be premiering Season 18, Episode 1.
