Heartland is a Canadian family dramatelevision series which debuted on CBC on October 14, 2007. The series is based on the Heartlandbook series by Lauren Brooke and follows sisters Amy Fleming and Lou Fleming, their grandfather Jack Bartlett, and Ty Borden through the highs and lows of life at the ranch. With the airing of its 139th episode on March 29, 2015, Heartland surpassed Street Legal as the longest-running one-hour scripted drama in Canadian television history. In May 2020, the series was renewed for a fourteenth season.
Much of the series is filmed on location in and around High River, Alberta, with additional filming in studio and on location in nearby Calgary. A June 2013 flood in High River swamped the standing set for Maggie's Diner. The main Heartland sets escaped damage, and seventh season scripts were rewritten to move shooting locations for the fictional town of Hudson to Inglewood, a historic neighborhood in downtown Calgary. A month after the flood, the show's Calgary studios offered behind-the-scenes tours to paying fans for a one-day "Heartlanders for High River" fundraiser, providing $80,000 to help the town recover. Heartland filmed some of its interiors at an abandoned military base, Currie Barracks, scheduled for redevelopment.
Home media
has released the first seven seasons of Heartland on DVD in Region 1. The standalone TV movieA Heartland Christmas was released on DVD in Canada on November 1, 2011 and in the USA on October 29, 2013. Season 8 was released in Canada on October 6, 2015. In Region 2, 4Digital Media has released the first 6 seasons on DVD in the UK. In Region 4, Season 1 and Season 2 Parts 1 and 2 have been released by Roadshow Home Video.
Ratings
In its series premiere, Heartland beat out Global's comedy Da Kink in My Hair with 513,000 viewers in a battle of two new series. After four episodes, Heartland had an average viewership of 464,000. In its first-season finale, Heartland attracted 625,000 viewers. The third-season premiere brought in over 1 million viewers, a new record for the show. The 100th episode "After All We've Been Through" was watched by 945,000 viewers.
A 6-part spin-off web series titled Hudson with Jade Verani as the protagonist was released on CBC Gem on March 31, 2019. It won the Best Web Series award at the Calgary Society of Independent Filmmakers's 2nd annual Stinger Awards.
