Non-cents

Just catching up with some CBC news items I didn't blog last week because, well, because.

They cancelled Street Cents! They cancelled Street Cents! They cancelled Street Cents!

AAA.

Yes, that's me screaming. Why? Because in TVland, which is all about selling as much crap as possible to as many eyeballs as possible, and which is also about suckering your kids into becoming consumeristic greed heads, Street Cents was, for 17 years, a boob tube oasis for teaching kids about what not to buy and why. The award-winning media literacy show -- seven Geminis plus an International Emmy -- had its roots as a regional production in Halifax and from there it grew and grew. Reports Inside the CBC, where Tod Maffin agrees with the cancellation:

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.”

But I don't buy that. For one thing, a public broadcaster is a public broadcaster, not a webcaster, and it has an obligation to broadcast programs that are non-commercial and even anti-commercial. For another, not every kid has a computer, or easy access to one -- but just about every kid watches TV and too damn much of it.

This anonymous CBC employee guest-blogging on The Teamakers sees things more my way.

A quiet death Friday for one of the remaining slivers of CBC-mandate programming. Street Cents, the cheeky consumer affairs show aimed at teenagers, was finally snuffed out. It wasn't much of a surprise as no commitment had been made to launch a new season. After 17 years of edgy and fearless programs, the Halifax-based production was killed because - according to the information passed on to staff from (CBC-TV executive vice-president Richard) Stursberg via Atlantic Regional Director Ron Crocker - it's not attracting a big enough audience.

For those who watch these things, the program has been bounced around the schedule for years before being dumped to die on Sunday afternoons. It's amazing that it managed to attract even the 100 thousand viewers that it did.

A hundred thousand? Cripes. That's more than some of the shows that Stursberg has launched.

In other CBC news, Avril Benoit has left the building. She will be head of communications for Doctors Without Borders (Canada).

Benoît, a bilingual native of Ottawa and Mont-Tremblant, was dubbed “Gzowski’s hip replacement” when she co-hosted (with Michael Enright) CBC Radio One’s now defunct This Morning. Before that she was a top open-line host at CJAD in Montreal and a political commentator for other media outlets. She worked at CBC-TV in Montreal for five years, as a current affairs writer-broadcaster as well as host of the network’s award winning sports and recreation program, Busy Bodies.

Benoit bounced around CBC a lot after This Morning was cancelled. She ended up hosting the local 4-6, Here and Now until she took a Southam fellowship. Last year, she did some radio documentaries in Africa, and told me that she was very much interested in what was going on there. But she didn't get to keep traveling and, in May, landed as host of Ontario Morning. I guess she wasn't happy there and bailed.

Comments

[Krister]

She sure want's happy at Ontario Morning - that came through loud and clear in the way she did the program whenever she was there. So instead we had the rotating host for the last year. I'd say bring in Kevin Silvester - he is a laugh and sure knows how to conduct an interview. Martina Fitzgerald would be another of the rotating hosts who should be given a chance to be there permanently.

[Big G]

which is also about suckering your kids into becoming consumeristic greed heads.

Sorry to hear about the show being cancelled, it wasn't bad but, to be honest, I will bet dollars to donuts that it could have been produced for half the money if a private broadcaster produced it.

as for your "But I don't buy that. " comment, I have to agree with it.

As a parent it's my duty and responsibility to inform my children about media and salesmanship etc. the cbc can't be the parent of Canadian youth.

No offense to AZ, but the show was mediocre at best, it tried and it died.
Maybe it's a show best suited for TVO?

[Randy]

The CBC axing Street Cents confirms the crappy, myopic, funnel-vision view of TV execs and programmers in Canada. I'm 42, and watched the show regularly. Why? BECAUSE IT WAS INTERESTING! As a kid who grew up reading the U.S. mag Consumer Reports and the Canadian counterpart Canadian Consumer [Antonia, remember that one?], it helped me question just about everything to do with advertising, and how to spend -- or better still, save -- my money.

At the risk of sounding my age, does anyone question why today's teens seem to have no concept of how much things cost? Guess how hard mommy and daddy have to work to pay $300 in after-tax dollars for that crappy iPod, which will become technologically redundant in three weeks?

Street Cents was also a fantastic way to bring up-and-coming young talent into the fold from all parts of Canada. Street Cents, we'll miss you!

[None]

CBC is slowly learning that people are tuning out to their shows. Leftwing television is more and more passée. Hopefully Harper will conduct an extensive review of the CBC and trim the fat so to speak.

[PhantomObserver]

Definitely a boneheaded decision -- refocusing on new media shouldn't mean you abandon the old.

But at the same time, AZ, I have to question this statement of yours:

"A public broadcaster is a public broadcaster, not a webcaster, and it has an obligation to broadcast programs that are non-commercial and even anti-commercial."

This breaks down into two lines of examination.

One: why *shouldn't* the CBC be a webcaster? Is there anything in its mandate that says "Thou shalt continue to broadcast on the radio spectrum and *only* on the radio spectrum, in perpetuity or until the return of the Holy Frum"? If the CBC can come up with interactive programming via the web, then shouldn't it get the chance?

Secondly, how does the public nature of the mandate translate into this "obligation" that you speak of? If the CBC is meant to provide quality programming, then how that programming is actually paid for shouldn't enter into the equation. Yes, it would matter for Street Cents, which is current affairs / journalism programming (and needs to be free of commercial sponsoring so as not to compromise its journalistic nature), but the content is not the medium.

[Antonia Z.]

You're right Phantom. I mis-wrote myself. Of course a public broadcaster can also be a webcaster. What I meant to say is, that a public broadcaster is still a public BROADCASTER, the one PUBLIC space on the PUBLIC airwaves.

On CBC right now, very few non-news programs fit the PUBLIC INTEREST bill. Market Place, The Nature of Things and Street Cents are three that I can think of.

[rob]

Anybody who has scanned the dial on a Sunday afternoon, and who only has the basic cable package, knows there isn’t much out there.

There might be a football game or a B-movie. All the rest is fluff designed to fill the space between the commercials. So it makes sense that Street cents would stand out as something different, and you could get 100,000 viewers.

But anti-advertising means anti-corporate, which means it’s got to go. Everybody knows that tv isn’t supposed to be for education. It’s supposed to make a profit and sell stuff. Even the news is designed to sell, which makes the trend towards infotainment a natural progression.

[JDot]

Well I always hate on the CBC and never really watched street cents.

But they have come through with that Planet Earth documentry, that aired sunday. This is the stuff CBC should be picking up. I hope they play the whole thing.

[Mark Black]

I worked on Street Cents as a researcher and one of our chief concerns wasn't so much creating "consumeristic greed heads" as it was creating programming that forced our viewers to question marketing campaigns and consumer desires. I think we often aired pieces that demonstrated ways in which teens could circumvent consumer culture, as well as tradition pieces that tested products and questionned ad campaigns.

[Jonathan]

Nooo!!!

The Simpsons is the only television show of which I've been a continuous viewer for longer. I watched Street Cents for over a dozen years - until this season, when it was "dumped to die on Sunday afternoons." But even then, I made sure to check its website on Sunday evenings in order to read and watch most of the content they posted online.

Well... that's it for me watching the CBC then. After having been a viewer for as long as I can remember, I believe that that was the last decent thing they were still airing.

But really now.... What else does the CBC have anymore? All of the good series have been cancelled. It's lost the Olympics, it's probably going to lose hockey. And now Stursberg wants to f-ck with the news. Not to mention that the CBC website is getting crappier and crappier... they no longer post CBC News clips online and when they do the picture and sound quality render them unwatchable.

(I'm really sorry to hear about your dog.)

[True North]

"its demographic (pre-teen and teen) is increasingly and quickly moving to interactive digital platforms for news"

Wonder how many other (CBC) shows that would apply to. Shall we cancel them all?!?

[CapitalCat]

Maybe you're right, Big G. Possibly a private broadcaster could have produced Street Cents for half the dough.

But we'll never know, since none of them tried it. All these anti-CBC types who scream about how the private sector could do it cheaper fail to notice that the private sector doesn't produce anything it doesn't have to. I'm convinced the third circle of Hell is being sentenced to watch each episode of "Train 48" over and over again.

[Antonia Z.]

Mark, we don't disagree. I wonder if there isn't a typo in your comment.

[Mark Black]

Read the first line of Big G's comments. It would seem that s/he is implying that Street Cents doesn't so much attempt tocreate an alternative to consumerism as it does churn out greedy consumers.

[Dave Ruddell]

Ever since they got rid of Ken Pompadour and the whole BuyCo bit, it just hasn't been the same. Sure it was cheesy, but it was good cheesy. It was CBC cheesy.

[arthurdecco]

I loved Avril Benoit on Here and Now. She didn't take any guff from the trying and usually lying conservative-type guests she was often forced to interview and she did it with a self-deprecating sense of humour and the courage to ask hard questions. I'm certain her own management both despised and feared her.

I got interested in her as a radio host after hearing her give it back in spades to that smug stuffed shirt Michael Enright one morning just as I was bouncing from somewhere else on my radio dial. She left him harrumphing, grumbling and incoherent. She left me laughing out loud at her courage and wit.

She had to go - it was obvious she wasn't buying the kool aid the shit heads in management were shilling.

And as for that stuttering, always incoherent, self-centred twit, Matt Galloway(?) they replaced her with - what an embarrassment he's turned out to be for the CBC! Why is he still there? Couldn't they find someone who could ask a single question without inserting ummms and ahhhs after every, ummm, second, ahhh, word? mmmm... And couldn't they find someone with the intelligence to ask real questions as opposed to the fluffy-whuffy ones he obviously considers clever?

But I suppose that’s the whole point, isn’t it? Get rid of anything and anyone with any substance. Destroy seems to be their mantra.

Grrrrr…

[sanj]

I'd like to see CBC do a 1 hour special with
all the older hosts from the 90's .. with lots of old clips . Seasons 1 to 8 aren't online. they are stuck in some archive somewhere. a lot of hosts became actors - not
huge famous ones but still ..impressive from
going from a teen show.

my guess is it'll take 1 year for cbc to take out the streetcents website with all the video clips.
17 years worth of tv shows will be in archives and won't be seen again. it's not like MTV can air any of this .

[Alex]

AZ I'm surprised you posted the comment by arthurdecco disparaging Matt Galloway. Sure, he stutters SOME time and his questions at times are not the most azerbic, but, hey, he gets the job done and is an entertaining presenter most of the time. Stuttering is a handicap and is not a reason for denigration.
I liked Avril Benoit hosting Here and Now and enjoyed her presentation. She was a lively host. I also enjoy listening to Michael Enright on sunday and I am puzzled as to why Avril had to spar with him. I missed that interview.

[Antonia Z.]

Alex, I doubt the reference was to stuttering in the clinical sense but in the professional radio voice sense. I think arthurdecco is entitled to his opionion that CBC announcers should meet certain standrads. Personally I am less concerned about tics such as Galloway's (on whose show I have often guested) or Andy Barrie's cough than I am about bad grammar. I expect CBC to be the paragon of the language.

[arthurdecco]

"Alex, I doubt the reference was to stuttering in the clinical sense but in the professional radio voice sense." posted by Antonia Z.

That was exactly my point, Antonia. Matt sounds like a kid on his first radio gig, all disorganized, flustered and lacking in substance. If you can't ask a question without the uhms and ahhs, I believe you shouldn't be a host on what used to be Canada's premier radio broadcaster. And if you're going to ask a question - ask a QUESTION! Is it really necessary to kiss the ass of every guest on your show?

And as far as Alex's contention that "he gets the job done"... well, what exactly is the job if not to be a professional, informed and well prepared radio voice? All lacking from his skill sets as far as I've been able to determine.

Maybe he's the son of a politician or something...

Grrrr.

[sooey]

i got really messed up about time of day when michael enright switched from as it happens to the morning show. gawd. my nerves were pretty jangled after a few seconds of him in the a.m. i mean, i was used to gzowski, camp, kierans, and lewis droning on about their... i dunno... greatgreatgreatgreat grandkids? and then suddenly there was michael enright snapping at some poor old lady phoning in to report the last gooseberry sighting for the summer.

[sooey]

okay. it was me. and i'm not even old. just lame. and i've never even seen a gooseberry. i was just lonely, i guess.

[Saskboy]

What's my beef?
I think CBC's Maritimes Regional Director is fit... for the pit.

[CBCFan]

Just catching up on my reading after long holiday ... that is great news about Benoit. I couldn't abide her on the radio. I only heard one of her African documentaries but it was pretty appalling. She actually opened it by saying something like "At least I don't have to live here." During her Here and Now years, she could barely hide her contempt for Toronto at times. And on Ontario Morning, she sounded completely pissed off that someone somewhere in the CBC hierarchy wasn't recognizing her brilliance.

She was also one of those interviewers who didn't seem to listen sometimes to the answers she was getting, but was just keen to get on to the next question she had written down on her notepad. And so many "ahhhhhs" and "ummmmmmms."

I don't think the CBC Radio is any worse for losing her, and I actually think Matt Galloway is fantastic.

[E Ingram]

Taking Street Sense off the CBC is a dumbass move. It was actually doing good, teaching kids (and parents even! I am/was one) how to spend their money wisely.
So, it had to go. There is no room in the "new economy" or the Harper way for such a program. The so-called capitalists can't stand competition. They prefer the prey to be dumbed down, lackadaisical and mute(d).
It's a shame for Canada to lose such a good program.