Degrassi High Goes Into Syndication!- Sept 25, 2006

Here’s something you may not know about me. I’m a thirty-something who has an unnatural love of adolescent TV programming. Disney Channel and Nick are on as much as all other channels combined. And the idea of Degrassi coming to a non digital cable channel near me… Well, tv just got that much more addicting.

Syndication company Program Partners has acquired the U.S. broadcast syndication rights to Canadian teen series “Degrassi: The Next Generation” to run as a strip beginning in fall 2007.

The series, the latest edition in the 25-year-old “Degrassi” teen relationship franchise, has been enjoying a successful run on cable network The N.

Program Partners is marketing Degrassi” as an outgrowth of its worldwide distribution agreement with Vancouver-based Thunderbird Films. “Degrassi” is produced by Epitome Pictures in Toronto.

The series will “fill the void created by the declining availability of off-net half-hours,” Program Partners said in a statement announcing the deal.

“‘Degrassi’ is lightning in a bottle,” Josh Raphaelson, one of Program Partners’ founders, said in a statement. “The N has built a terrific franchise, and we’re excited to bring it to syndication.”