Steven and Chris Make A Big Debut
The CBC’s Steven and Chris are gearing up for a massive launch in the U.S.
According to the TVNewsCheck site, the show is launching in a bunch of test markets in the States in September:
Steven and Chris will make its U.S. debut in broadcast syndication on Sept. 13, with clearances on stations in 50 markets covering about 40% of the country.
This is according to Ritch Colbert, a principal at Program Partners, the company representing the show in the States.
The CBC in-house production is set to roll out in several U.S. markets including San Franciso, Austin and Hartford.
“It’s a phased rollout,” says Colbert. “The fact that we have 50 markets is a legitimate test to see how the show performs in a variety of competitive situations and environments.”
|
Email This Post |
| Steven and Chris |
Big?
Here is another attempt to baffle brains with BS. This CBC “flagship” daytime show and exemplary effort to promote Canadian “culture and sensibilities” routinely draws audiences of 60 to 80,000 viewers across Canada. In its timeslot, the show gets hammered by the competitions’ soaps and reruns but in spite of this abysmal record; the program was renewed for 2010 after a brief hiatus.
In order to justify this fiscally irresponsible decision, we are now made to believe that a sale of rights to a potential 40% of U.S. households makes everything okay. When one digs a bit below the surface, we discover that the deal is on an “all barter basis” (8 local and 6 national minutes). CBC will undoubtedly record the deal at their estimate of the value of the advertising time exchanged and the value of the advertising time exchanged will be estimated by applying average historical rates for specific time periods.
Since the potential reach has already been highly overstated due to market overlap among the participating station chains (40% is more likely around 20%) and the fact that a program that doesn’t draw flies in its home market is unlikely to break records in the U.S., it can be expected that down the road when nobody is looking, the CBC will write down the estimated rights value when projected future net revenue associated with the program is less than the stated carrying amount due to the failure to meet or exceed historical rates.
This “big deal” is in reality a fine example of how the CBC management continues to pull the wool over the eyes of the Canadian taxpayers who fund this nonsense.
To be sure, the boys will do well in the San Francisco market
Hopefully some Oprah and ‘the view’ fans will also watch this show. Then CBC can recover some of their huge losses. Maybe this could be a trend! The CBC could survive on people actually watching its shows, rather than on taxpayer money grabs!
Insider – do you really believe that none of the other broadcasters work this way? ALL big business plays with the facts to make things look the best they can for them. This is not new – why should the CBC be any different? If they don’t look good, they’ll have no support whatsoever and will be shut down.
There is no doubt that creative accounting and deception are staples in today’s corporate culture. Just consider the fiasco of credit default swaps and derivatives that nearly brought down the world’s financial infrastructure and created an economic crisis that will take generations to recover from. It is one thing, however, when this happens in the private sector and the victims are shareholders or individual owners who either should have known better or were blinded by greed. In the case of the CBC applying questionable practices, it is the taxpayer who is getting screwed over.
The CBC mandate, as set out in the 1991 Broadcasting Act, calls for programming to “to actively contribute to culture and to contribute to shared national consciousness.” Do we recognize any of this in CBC’s “flagship daytime show?” Before you point to Wheel of Fortune as an example of programming that also clearly falls outside the mandate, in its defense one could argue that at least advertisers are willing to pay good money to run their commercials on a show that draws over 800,000 viewers, making it a money maker. The “flagship” draws less than 10% of that and for that reason ad income will be minimal, if any. Considering that it is also an in-house production, you can bet the mortgage that this show is revenue-negative. Hence the feeble attempt to justify keeping this mess on the air through questionable business practices.
Creating a show for which there is no viewer appetite and is outside the CBC mandate while renewing it (for a fourth season!!) in spite of a money-losing record, is at best a blatant example of incompetence and a waste of taxpayer money. Anywhere else but at the CBC, this boondoggle would be construed as fraud and investigated.
Well said Insider, time to privatize the CBC!!
Baloney. Sounds like one disgruntled employee and one CBC basher talking here.
Austin and Hartford? Who needs New York, LA or Chicago.
Next market to conquer Myrtle Beach, SC.
I heard Richard is running the cable access channel for snowbirds channel, HoserVision, 139 on digital cable in the Grand Strand.
Amongst the re-runs of The Beachcombers, King of Kensington and The Forest Rangers, Steve & Chris should be a hit.