CBC Television has decided to cancel the midday Gill Deacon show, InsideCBC.com has learned. Apparently, ratings were not large enough to sustain the program.

“The program didn’t really seem to attract an audience,” CBC spokesperson Jeaf Keay told InsideCBC.com. “Gill’s wonderful and she’ll be working on a number of projects wth us for a while. I guess it’s one of those things were sometimes shows work and some don’t.”

Deacon’s last show will be the end of May; the first week of June, the program will enter a “Best Of” cycle, then the program will air re-runs through the summer.

Keay says it’s too early to tell what kind of program might replace the Deacon show, but said it was likely to be a lifestyle-oriented “factual entertainment” program. “We have to go back to the drawing board and see,” he said.

The Toronto Star says the new Gill Deacon show is on hiatus to fix some elements of the show’s content and set. Says Antonia Zerbisais:

Last fall, Gill Deacon’s face was smiling down from every other billboard in town. CBC-TV spent a small fortune promoting her new daytime show, at the expense of other programs – except for The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos.But Deacon, who is a terrific and intelligent host, was woefully miscast as a lifestyle twinkie and I just hated her chirpy “We’ll have tons of fun!” promos every morning during CBC Radio One’s The Current. It all was so wrong for CBC, a public network, which should be tackling riskier fare.

Well, seems the audience hated it, too. The show, telecast three times a day, averaged some 32,000 viewers per outing. It is on hiatus until March 12.

Said Julie Bristow, head of fact-based programming, “We are making some changes to the content, the animation and the set to better reflect the mandate of the show.”

More money spent when CBC can ill afford to spend it.

A CBC spokesperson told me this pause was always in the cards, and this is just a scheduled break.

Did you ever catch it? Did you like it? What would you like to see different on it?

EDITORIAL

First, let me say these three things.
1. I really like the Gill Deacon show.
2. God knows, we need the money.
3. t’s not like our competitors aren’t doing it.

With that out of the way, let me confess that I gently shudder when the Cranium product-placement comes up on Gill Deacon’s show. For those of you who haven’t seen it [video example], it’s a regular segment where an audience member plays a question from the Cranium board game.
     Seems only yesterday when when CBC contents were ones that we made up ourselves (though, honestly, if I hear another “Make Your Own Regional Limerick” contest on any radio morning show, I’m going to keel over). But now, why make our own when we can charge a company for it.
     Actually, it’s not the product-placement itself that gets to me. As I mentioned, we need the money — Gill’s show is otherwise excellent, and the CBC just isn’t well enough funded to produce that kind of material on its own.
     Rather, what bothers me is we seem to have taken a page from (read: “stooped to the level of”) the private broadcasters and are no longer even trying to be transparent about the financial transaction going on. Gill recently introduced the game recently like this: “It is time to play Canada’s favourite game, Cranium for Cash. You all know why I love this game: Because it asks you to think from all four corners of your brain.”
     Great description. Er, perhaps little too great. I have a feeling the Cranium folks could use that as a tagline on their next box printing. And, really… is Cranium for Cash really Canada’s favourite game? Is even Cranium? Somehow, I think even Monopoly still outsells Cranium. (Even though Settlers of Catan should. But that’s another story.)
     There’s nothing wrong with product placement these days, imho. But — call me old fashioned — I think the line between paid-placement and genuine editorial recommendation should be made much more obvious. Especially on the CBC.
     Remember, in the minds of our viewers, they do not separate the CBC into its programming divisions like we do (News and Current Affairs vs. Arts and Entertainment). They just see CBC Television as one entity. And if viewers begin to think that on Arts/Entertainment programming we’re willing to say or air things because we’re paid to, that affects the credibility of the entire brand. If we blur that editorial vs. promotion line in one branch of our programming, who could blame the viewer for wondering why Peter Mansbridge did two stories about a particular vacuum cleaner company in one week.
     And that — not funding, not mandate issues, not regime changes — will truly be the CBC’s undoing.

     Then again, I could be way off base here. What do you think?

CBC’s brand new daytime talk show, Midday 2.0 The Gill Deacon Show is looking for an “amazing, unsung hero in their community.” (Note: Bruno Gerussi is no longer eligible.)
     As the CBC’s over-capitalized news release says: “Is someone making a difference in your community? Has someone thought of an ingenious way to help others overcome adversity? THE GILL DEACON SHOW wants to know about it.”
     (Seriously, who decided that all show and company names in news releases need to be ALL CAPS? Blech.) I digress.
     ”As well, the show wants to know what Canadians are curious about. No matter how big or how small, what are the questions you want to ask? It could be something as simple as what is the best way to peel a mango-to more complex queries such as how do I deal with my out-of-control daughter? No question is too big or too small for us to tackle…Gill is incredibly curious by nature!”
     Are you the one? Email gilldeaconshow@cbc.ca.

Maybe they’ll have better luck finding a guest than the mild mocking that Derek Stoffel received after he was trolling the Internet looking for an interviewee.