In Canada, Coronation Street airs on the network CBC every week night with a repeat omnibus on Sunday mornings. Most Canadians know that we're about two weeks behind the UK air dates for the show. In the UK, on ITV, Coronation Street airs for one half hour per episode, with commercial ads at the start and end, and one break in the middle for ads. Just one. It seems astonishing to us North American viewers when network television breaks for ads every 5 to 8 minutes (it seems like more!). Coronation Street in the UK is filmed for the way ITV airs the show, sometimes with cliffhangers just before the mid show break.
In Canada, though, because of the extra ad breaks, there is too much Coronation Street to fit in 30 minutes. How do they fit it? CBC cuts out scenes or the last bits of scenes. Many of us have been aware of this for years. If you watch Corrie through the week and again on the Sunday omnibus, you may see something on Sunday that you didn't see on the weekday episode. The reason for that is CBC doesn't have to fit the start and end show credits in for each half hour segment like they do through the week so there's a little more room though there are still things that stay missing.
That's why some of us are left scratching our collective heads in puzzlement, wondering how the storyline got from A to C. CBC cut has out the B. There doesn't seem to be very much we can do about it but help is at hand.
There's a new YouTube channel that airs all the bits that were cut from the show each day. It's called Coronation Street Canada Extra. In the evening after the episode airs, or the next day, you can check it out and see what you missed and fill in all those B scenes. No more will we Canadians wonder how we got from A to C. I don't know if a concerted campaign of complaint all over social media can persuade CBC to show more Corrie and less advertising, because that advertising dollar is life's blood to tv stations
This is the video for the scenes that were missing from January 12's broadcast in Canada.
Check out the YouTube channel and support their efforts. They're big stars for doing this for the Canadian fans! And thanks to the folks at Conversation Street who alerted me to the Youtube site.
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Thanks for the information. Great news.
ReplyDeleteI'm vacationing out of Canada for a few weeks and I used to get full episodes of CS on YouTube, now I can only get 1-2 min. clips. Going thru withdrawals. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
PS CBC does not allow out of Canada viewing
I have always watched the Sunday omnibus. It's a bit of a ritual going back to my childhood. I didn't realize that if you watch through the week you miss little bits, but it makes sense. On a more positive note, I remember when the Canadian show was months and months behind the English feeds so I am happy to be closer to where they are.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the information. I watch the omnibus whenever possible but even with that, there are bits in the weekly summary of the British version that I never see. It hadn't occurred to me that our Corrie was edited differently.
ReplyDeleteSuddenly Bethany is in the hospital and I have no idea what happened to get her there???
ReplyDeleteThanks for the heads-up about this site - much appreciated.
ReplyDeleteNot only does Coronation St. break for commercials their Sunday morning is just awful...I tape it so I can fast forward through the 10-12 commercials at every break..there are two breaks about 11 minutes into the first episode then again at the 5 minutes left mark...another 10-12 commercials that go right into the beginning of the next episode...sometimes it's cut off right in the middle of a scene and you must go to the next episode to see the remainder of the episode...it's a nightmare...but what can you do...here in Canada we are at the mercy of the CRTC which is supposed to oversee how Canadians watch tv and what we watch...it's disgusting as their policies favour big business not the viewer. And to make things worse the CBC is a publicly funded network. I would also argue that we are more than two weeks behind in our viewing..as CS get's cut for every other event, hockey, olympics, telethons etc etc. But I guess as a diehard CS fan I have to put up with this nonsense.
ReplyDeleteWish they would just cut out the Phelan scenes and leave the other stories intact.
ReplyDeleteMy fear now that the 'Cut Canadian Scenes' have been mentioned on here, is that ITV will see this blog, and remove them. I hope that doesn't happen! Please please ITV, if you're reading this, just let it go and give us Canadian fans a pass with any copyright rules etc.
ReplyDeleteIn fact, viewing the cut scenes, leaves me with a better impression of the Corrie PTB. It proves it is CBC who is responsible for leaving the shows scene disjointed! It's so frustrating!!!!!
Anon you are absolutely right to be concerned about ITV pulling the plug on that site. They seem to take absolute joy on making sure any non-UK viewers are kept out of the loop. Shame on them.
ReplyDelete