CBC cancels Street Cents; will focus on interactive ways of reaching teens
CBC Television has cancelled Street Cents, the popular youth program about consumerism and marketing. The last episode will air October 1.
CBC spokesperson Jeff Keay told InsideTheCBC.com: “Street Cents has been an exceptional success over the past 17 years and CBC is proud of the show’s award-winning reputation and focus on innovative stories, news and entertainment for its youth audience.
”However, research has demonstrated pretty clearly that its demographic (pre-teen and teen) is increasingly and quickly moving to interactive digital platforms for news, info and entertainment. We’re in the process of refocusing our youth strategy to specifically address this trend.”
Let me first say this. Street Cents rocked. It was a shining jewel in CBC Television’s crown.
But CBC has it absolutely right in this case. Pre-teens and teens are simply not watching television any more — certainly not in the volumes that they do. Instead, they get their information through YouTube, MySpace, instant messagers, and more.
This does not have to mean, of course, that CBC stops presenting the same outstanding content that Street Cents offered. I have no inside knowledge of what these interactive initiatives are, but I sure as hell hope the CBC keeps that unit together, bolsters it with people who “get” online social media, and starts pumping out even more content online. I’ve only been at CBC for six years or so, but I’ve already seen too many “clean sweeps” occur, where perfectly functional teams are swept aside in the desire for a fresh change.
This shouldn’t happen here.
The content was always bang-on. It’s just the medium we’re switching.
I hope.
UPDATE: From a posting on Mark Black’s blog:
I was part of that “unit” and there’s been no talk of keeping it together. It is indeed a clean sweep. The notion of keeping the unit together is much too Pollyanna for me. When we hadn’t heard whether we were going to be renewed in the spring, the writing was on the wall.
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When I was a teen streetcents was the only show on the CBC I would watch on a regular basis . I still tune in to watch it today. Hopefully the content and audience doesn’t get lost in a switch to a more interactive medium.
Man, I’m sorry to see it go, that was such a good show. It was one of the few ways that CBC was cool to me when I was a teenager. But I can understand them cancelling it, if I were a kid now I’d probably have a computer in my bedroom instead of a TV (as I did back then), and that says it all, doesn’t it?
Still, my heart bleeds a little.
My heart is bleeding too. I loved SC as a kid and you know what? I STILL watch it. It was cool and hip while being informative! I know “Marketplace” is marketed to the demographic I reluctantly moved into, but I found the info on SC to be relevant to me even in my older years. I hope the people behind this decision are not the ones behind “The One”. R.I.P. Street Cents, you will be sadly missed.
I can’t the believe the show was still on. I enjoyed watching it as well; but it seemed that every season, it had a new day and timeslot. Eventually, I got tired of trying to keep up.
Any word on what they’ll do with the archived shows? Maybe release them as DVDs?
I didn’t even know that the show was still on. I agree what you said at the end of the post. The should keep the group together and focus how to best deliver the content on the web.
It’s sad, another show that I grew up watching coming to an end. Is it true that they’re getting rid of Mr. Dressup as well?
That’s what I heard Lyndon. They are going to stop running Mr. Dressup.
To me is was a bit disconcerting that they would run a show long after the man had passed away. It seemed like a sad reminder to me that the wonderful Mr.D. would not be doing new shows. How do you explain to kids that that man on tv they love is gone in real life. I guess we can be thankful to him that he left us that legacy.
Sounds fine… so long as CBC actually DOES make it a priority to deliver the show on the web. Their online track record has hardly been what you’d call consistent so far.
If it is true that “pre-teens and teens are simply not watching television any more,” why is the CBC -and every other broadcaster- hell-bent on attracting younger viewers? Isn’t that the reason for the flash, the dumbing down, the lack of content in current TV shows, done to attract younger viewers who, broadcasters claim, have short attention spans?
Tod,
I can’t believe that you wrote this garbage about Street Cents.
There is no new youth initiative, every programmer in the CBC wanted this show to remain on the air, except Richard Stursberg. Your blog looks like it was written by Stursberg’s office not by someone who claims to be a “futurist and journalist”.
I know you’re a freelancer and have to eat, but show a little self respect instead of parroting the corp’s mumbo-jumbo on why they killed an excellent program.
Do you think a web-only show would pay for the same sort of excellent team that created Street Cents every week? Of course not. You need a TV show, a time-slot and a budget first, what platform it is then watched on is irrelevant.
The fact is that Stursberg couldn’t keep his grubby fat hands off the $800K that it cost to produce Street Cents and it didn’t fit his “vision”? I guess that means more shows like “The One”. Kristina Layfield must be wondering what kind of an idiot factory she joined. The truth is that Stursberg couldn’t program his way out of a wet paper bag and will drag the CBC down with him.
So Mr. Maffin, show some spine and dig beneath the surface like a real journo
instead of being a mouthpiece for the naked Emperor.
Paul.
Paul,
I think you’ll find lots of instances here where I’ve either disagreed with the hand-that-feeds-me or posted things that the CBC would probably rather not publicize.
Uh, the story about the cancellation of Street Cents, for instance?
P.S. Rest assured I make enough money outside the CBC to not worry too much about having to eat. Thanks for your concern, though.