Survive This

ight kids, one Survivorman: Who will endure in YTV's new adventure series, Survive This?
Thu. March 12, 2009; Posted: 02:00 PM
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TORONTO, Mar 12, 2009 (Canada NewsWire via COMTEX) -- CJR | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- e> << Survive This, hosted by real Survivorman Les Stroud, airs Tuesdays at 7:30 p.m., beginning April 7 >>

Corus Entertainment's YTV presents the real Survivorman, Les Stroud, as he mentors eight teens on how to survive the wilderness in YTV's new original series Survive This. Leaving civilization behind to face the challenges of finding food, shelter and safety, each teen puts their resourcefulness, skills and character to the test to see if they have what it takes to survive the great outdoors. Produced by 9 Story Entertainment in association with YTV, Survive This premieres Tuesday, April 7 at 7:30 p.m. ET/PT.
"Bringing more than two decades of wilderness experience to the series, Les acts as a mentor and judge to eight teens embarking on a tough wilderness adventure that ultimately encourages them to challenge themselves and test their capabilities," said Jocelyn Hamilton, Vice President, Programming and Production, Corus Kids. "With some teens more equipped than others to handle the obstacles, the series makes for compelling television. It's impossible not to get drawn in, to find out which of these teens has what it takes to make it all the way to the final one-hour episode."

Chosen for their unique personalities and readiness for adventure, the participants, all between the ages of 14 and 17, are tested physically, emotionally and intellectually throughout each half-hour episode of this 13-part series. Leaving all the amenities of home behind, including cell phones and IPods, the teens are tested with rigorous challenges, including: building a shelter; finding food and water; starting a fire; signalling for rescue; coping with hypothermia; and treating an injury. The teen who is willing to learn and grow under the most difficult situations will make it through to the show's one-hour finale episode, as the rest can choose to drop out, one by one.

The group of teens that have signed up for this adventure includes 16 year-old Jennifer, a.k.a. The Hunter, known amongst the group for her outdoor experience; Becca, a 17 year-old who gives new meaning to the word princess; the artistic 17 year-old Becky a.k.a. BT; 17 year-old tough girl Catarina; competitive Kareem at 16-years old; 16 year-old city slicker Holden; 15-year old Adam who is terrified of bugs and venomous snakes; and lastly the youngest of the group at 14 years-old, over-achiever Zac.

In the first episode 'Impact', premiering Tuesday, April 7 at 7:30 p.m. ET/PT, eight eager teens, fresh out of Survival School, are thrust into their first survival challenge: an extreme crash situation in the deep woods. Les gives the group five minutes to gather what they can from the crash site to use for camp. How they handle the situation will be up to them. However, the group must overcome the initial shock of being stranded and realize that, in order to be successful, teamwork is everything.

Viewers can use YTV's online video player at YTV.com to catch clips of the show as well as view full episodes after their broadcast premiere.

As Canada's leading kids broadcaster, Corus Entertainment's YTV, Treehouse and Discovery Kids Canada collectively have the highest 2-11 audience of any broadcaster, and reach 91 per cent of kids each week in English Canada. Seen in over 10 million homes and connecting with 2.2 million kids per month, YTV also publishes Whoa!, a successful kids' magazine, travels to communities across the country with its WOW tour, conducts a highly respected annual survey, The YTV Observer, and has a highly interactive website that averages over 90 million monthly page views.

Corus Entertainment Inc. is a Canadian-based media and entertainment company. Corus is a market leader in specialty television and radio with additional assets in pay television, advertising services, television broadcasting, children's book publishing and children's animation. The company's multimedia entertainment brands include YTV, Treehouse, W Network, CosmoTV, VIVA, Movie Central, HBO Canada, Nelvana, Kids Can Press and radio stations including CKNW, CKOI and Q107. Corus creates engaging branded entertainment experiences for its audiences across multiple platforms. A publicly traded company, Corus is listed on the Toronto (CJR.B) and New York (CJR) exchanges. Experience Corus on the web at www.corusent.com.

For high-resolution images, please visit: http://mediacentre.corusent.com/mediacentre/tv/YTV/details.asp?caption=Survive+This

SOURCE: CORUS ENTERTAINMENT INC.

SOURCE: YTV Canada Inc.

SOURCE: News - Media

Molly Ray, Publicist, Corus Entertainment, (416) 530-2247, molly.ray@corusent.com

For full details for CJR click here.

http://www.tradingmarkets.com/.site/news/Stock%20News/2220507/

Cool. I will look out for this Cool

Thanx Lara Mr. Green

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A Knifeless Man is a Lifeless Man
Canadian To The Core
Carry Less by Knowing More
Knowledge Weighs Nothing

You're welcome....Far as I know it won't be aired in America... Crying or Very sad

Thast poopy Confused

... im sure at some point it will get out on a Torrent or U-tube Smile

_________________
A Knifeless Man is a Lifeless Man
Canadian To The Core
Carry Less by Knowing More
Knowledge Weighs Nothing

thats great thanks lara gonna watch for it on utube Very Happy

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	Drummer Dave wrote:
	Thast poopy ... im sure at some point it will get out on a Torrent or U-tube

I hope so Dave if not I can watch the episodes on the website after they are on TV...hopefully...lol Cool

Nobody watched this?

My kids loved it. I loved it. At a half-hour, it's too short, especially when the first episode has to set everything up and do the intros.

Doing a show like this with kids was a stroke of genius. You're dealing with kids who've probably never spent a night anywhere without adult supervision before. Although there is a camera crew, and (as the Globe & Mail disparagingly noted) the kids "know that medical help and a ride home is only a freak-out away," these are 14-16 yr olds, little life experience, much more easily overwhelmed than adults. So what this has, which Survivorman lacks, is a real illustration of the psychological challenges of an emergency situation. Since there are no BS challenges, voting people off the island, etc., the only person these kids have to beat is themselves.

You can see some rise to the challenge, and some don't. You can see leadership and lack of leadership in a small group. If you were teaching a survival course, this would be a good training aid.

Unfortunately it doesn't show in America otherwise I would have watched it. Thanks for the incite of it Andrew. You can keep us up to date on it...lol
Hopefully it will air in America if not maybe on line some where? I know if you click on the link above you can view images from the show.

Andrew_S wrote:

Nobody watched this?

My kids loved it. I loved it. At a half-hour, it's too short, especially when the first episode has to set everything up and do the intros.

Doing a show like this with kids was a stroke of genius. You're dealing with kids who've probably never spent a night anywhere without adult supervision before. Although there is a camera crew, and (as the Globe & Mail disparagingly noted) the kids "know that medical help and a ride home is only a freak-out away," these are 14-16 yr olds, little life experience, much more easily overwhelmed than adults. So what this has, which Survivorman lacks, is a real illustration of the psychological challenges of an emergency situation. Since there are no BS challenges, voting people off the island, etc., the only person these kids have to beat is themselves.

You can see some rise to the challenge, and some don't. You can see leadership and lack of leadership in a small group. If you were teaching a survival course, this would be a good training aid.

Yes, i did watch it last night, a 2 part show from the looks of it.

_________________
A Knifeless Man is a Lifeless Man
Canadian To The Core
Carry Less by Knowing More
Knowledge Weighs Nothing

Oh, but Lara, I don't want to spoil it for you. Wink

It'll be No problem Andrew. Probably won't get to watch myself.So go ahead..lol Laughing

Interesting Article about "Survive This" asking Les how and Why he chose the location and all for the show.

Q & A with Les Stroud on tough love in the wilderness
Posted: April 07, 2009, 12:20 PM by NP Editor
Survivorman, Northern Ontario, Survive This, Les Stroud, YTV

By Clare Hill, National Post

Les Stroud, or "Survivorman," is trying to break down the wall between children and the wilderness. The hugely successful survival expert has devised a new adventure series, Survive This, in which eight teenagers, aged 14 to 17, with varying degrees of survival experience, are thrown into the Northern Ontario bush and forced to survive with nothing more than the clothes on their backs. Stroud hosts the show, which premieres tonight on YTV at 7:30 p.m. ET/PT, and issues all of the challenges. He took some time to speak with us about what he was up to when he was a teenager and how you can tell Northern Ontario is such a tough place to survive.

Q: How did the show come together?
A: It’s a natural progression from Survivorman. When I first pitched Survivorman, I actually pitched it as a kids' series. It was still just me in it, but at that point I thought it was perfect for kids. But all of the kid networks didn’t think that kids and the wilderness go together, which I thought was really stupid. Of course they do. They go together fantastically. Then Survivorman became the big hit that it is and kids all over the world are watching it….So (I thought) 'Let’s do this.' Let’s get kids out there doing what I do and then I can come in with my cameo roles and issue the challenges and so on. But they’re the ones that have to go through it -- not me holding their hands, not me being Uncle Les. I don’t even want to teach them. I’ll just issue the challenge and they have to go through what I go through.

Q: Why was Northern Ontario chosen as the show's location?
A: The reality is, is that Northern Ontario is a very tough place to survive. There are places that are easy to survive, there are places that are medium and there are places that are hard. Northern Ontario is hard survival. If you look at the Montagnais in Northern Quebec, which (has a) similar forest -- it’s a boreal forest -- they have no artwork. Why don’t they have any artwork? All cultures have art. Why don’t these people have art? Because they’re too busy surviving. They just had to eat, never mind make a carving. So why do the Haida in B.C. have art? Because they can just go and catch some salmon and come back to the carving. They had food at their doorstep every single day, so ‘Let’s make a totem pole.’ That’s usually how you can tell whether an area is really tough to survive or not, ask: how much art does the original culture have? If there’s a lot of art, you can bet there’s a lot of fruit hanging off those trees. If there’s no art, you can bet the whole time is spent hunting down some rat to eat. Northern Ontario is like that. It’s a tough place to survive.

Q: Did you have any say in which kids were chosen?
A: I didn’t want to. I didn’t want to be there, picking my favourites or inserting my bias into that process. It wasn’t needed. It’s better that my approach to the kids be an unbiased approach because I may see a favourite in one of those casting calls and that kid might be my favourite right until the end, and I didn’t want that.

Q: So you don’t provide any kind of mentoring while they’re out there?
A: Yes and no. They were trained for a few days with Dave Arama – an instructor and friend of mine for a lot of years. So they were given a lot of the tools they needed to do whatever they had do out there. Of course, some of them listened and some of them didn’t. Out there and during it, I gave them pretty much nothing, saving a few nods and a few comments here and there when I would be issuing a challenge (such as), ‘You might want to think about this,’ and then I'd walk away...However, often in my synopsis of what they’ve gone through and what I’ve seen them do over the last 48 hours, within the body of that I would go into a bit of a mentoring role, maybe explaining why I’m issuing the next challenge, or why they didn’t do so well or did do well. And I suppose in that role, some mentoring did seep through.

Q: How did you think the kids actually did? Were you ever impressed or worried about their safety?
A: Never worried about their safety. I was underwhelmed, took it for granted and overwhelmed all at the same time...I think that there were certain kids where this was not their thing and they came in for the experience and they got out. And some of them came in -- this was not their thing -- but they came in for the experience, pushed themselves a little bit beyond their comfort zone, but then they got out. For some of them, this wasn’t their thing and they pushed themselves and they pushed themselves and they made it to the end. And some of them came in where it was their thing and they just made it to the end. But within the body of making it to the end, they were challenged in ways that they didn’t expect to be challenged, which would be more in terms of the group dynamics or on a personal or psychological level because they had the bush thing down. That was not a problem for them. Was I surprised? Sure. I think you can’t have eight people, children or otherwise, go through these situations and not experience surprises.

Q: What was it that you wanted them to get out of the experience?
A: I grew up as a kid in love with the wilderness…Did you know little kids are not afraid of spiders and snakes? None of them are. Until mom or dad tells them they’re supposed to be. The first time that mom or dad jumps away from a dock spider is the first message to a young toddler who is just barely out of diapers, that ‘I’m supposed to be afraid of that thing.’ Up until then, they don’t care. And up until then, a kid out of the middle of the city loves the wilderness. You put them in leaves -- watch them in leaves. They love all of that. They love getting dirty. And then we take them out of that. I think that trying to break down the wall between the concrete jungle and the forest jungle would be one of the things I’d like the kids to get out of this and everyone doing it to get out of it, as I did with my own show. You don’t have to be some kind of survival guru to do this kind of stuff. You can just be a regular person. And you can get through this. And if you can break yourself down and survive at the basic level with food, water and shelter, it’s a metaphor for life. Everything else will follow after that.

Q: When did you become interested in survival techniques? What were you up to when you a teenager?
A: Just before their age, I was into it big time. I used to watch Jacques Cousteau and Tarzan. I would go to Bracebridge, where I had a cottage, and build little shelters and stuff. It was all just on my own, not with boy scouts or anything like that. And I loved all of that sort of outdoor adventure. I wanted to be a National Geographic photographer. But when I was 14, just as I got to their age, I really truly sunk my teeth into and discovered rock and roll and became a musician for a long time. So I didn’t get back to it until I was in my mid-twenties and that’s when I went full circle -- right back into wilderness adventure and ended up with the life I have now.

Q: How did you teach yourself how to survive?
A: I just took courses, went on outings, went on trips. A lot of it was self taught. I read the books and went out in the field as much as I could. Then I became an apprentice, then I become a guide, then I’m teaching white water and sea kayaking and dog sledding and survival. So it was just a natural progression of getting into that activity of outdoor adventure.

Q: What are you hoping that kids watching the show at home get out of it?
A: I know, right now, I have hundreds to thousands of emails and letters from people about how their kids now go back to the wilderness and they go camping with them because of my show. And I think this will only further that ten fold because now they’re actually seeing kids their own age out there doing it. If it breaks down that wall and gets people to understand that it’s a beautiful, powerful positive place to be and thing to do -- I don’t mean surviving, but just being out there -- I think at that point the mission is definitely accomplished and the rest is all beautiful experiential gravy to enjoy.

[Photo: Les Stroud. CTV]

http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/theampersand/archive/2009/04/07/q-amp-a-with-les-stroud-survivorman.aspx

Link for the site suppose to have videos of the show and all but the videos don't seem to be working now,but the photos are.

http://www.ytv.com/programming/shows/survive_this/index.asp

I enjoyed it. I'll likely watch all 12 or however many episodes it is. I agree with Andrew that the first episode should have been a full hour. For those of you who want to know more, and don't expect to be able to see it, I'll tell you more about it.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
Les sent the 8 teens on a survival course taught by Dave Arama. Then he took them into northern Ontario on a school bus, as far into the bush as the bus could go. Then he transferred them to another bus. This one was laying on it's side, wrecked. Les told them that they would not be going home tonight, or the next night, or the night after. He gave them 5 minutes to salvage what they could from inside the bus. Then he told them see ya later. He left them to figure out to do next. The teens were from varied backgrounds. Two of them, a guy and a girl, had outdoor experience and an interest in survival skills. They emerged as early leaders. They actually had a lot of stuff available: a day or so worth of food, tarps, fishing rods, etc. They got a good shelter up and a fire going. One girl had a somewhat minor but really embarrassing injury. Show paramedics had to finally step in after two of the other girls were unable to help her. Les returned before dark and told them that anyone who wanted to bail out could do so now. No one took him up on the offer. He will give them this chance from time to time. I think one of the most interesting aspects of this show will be watching the ones who are not having a good time and seeing if they will walk or if their desire to not be a quitter will be strong enough to make them tough it out. I bet many of us here would think it would cool to be out there with much more equipment than our tin cans of survival stuff holds. But with such a mixed group as this, the ones who are into it will have to learn how to delegate and motivate teamwork among the others.

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"The monkeys are throwing stuff at me again."
-Survivorman in Costa Rica

Man, I would love to see this show!

Thanks for the interview from Les, Lara. Cool

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Using dial-up is like riding a tricycle at Indy.

thanks guys for the interview and the overview can't wait to watch it. lara I hear it might be coming to the Cartoon network, I don't know when I'll keep my eyes and ears open. Very Happy

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Thank you Bushrat for the telling us about it. Cool

Yw Flash..... Very Happy

That would be great if it does come on there Kim.I'll keep and eye and ear out for it too.Thanks Wink

I've now seen the 2nd and 3rd episodes, and the quality and interest remain high.
In episode 2, Les divided the camp into the girls and the guys. Each group had to build a shelter. Les returned to judge the shelters. Both were not too bad, but both had flaws. The winners got a bunch of edible greens that Les picked.
In episode 3, Les took away all their fire making implements. With rain coming, they had to keep the fire going or else start another one with strictly natural materials. They kept it going, but barely. I think they should have been putting some large pieces of wood on that would burn longer. Another challenge in ep 3 involved food. Les divided them into pairs and assigned each a pair a food gathering task. One pair was sent fishing (with rods and reels), one pair was sent to catch frogs, another insects, and the other pair edible plants. The results were pretty meagre until they got incredibly lucky when a pheasant that hadn't gotten the email about the show wandered into the camp. The various personalities and attitudes are becoming more pronounced, and as Les said, there is a laziness in the group that is contagious. The main problem seems to be that some people are content to sit and mope while others do the work. I'm surprised that so far no one has tried to organize the group better and tell the slackers that they have to pull their weight if they want a share of the limited food.
So far, no one has accepted the daily invitation to leave. It seems that there is an injury or medical situation each day. That can't continue if they are all going to stick it out to the end.
Les tells them that the survival challenges will get increasingly more difficult. Sure enough, in a preview of the next episode, he comes in the middle of the night and chases them out of their camp, telling them they have to treck through the darkness to try and rendezvous with a rescue evacuation. Shocked

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"The monkeys are throwing stuff at me again."
-Survivorman in Costa Rica

Oh I can hardly wait till it comes to the States. Very Happy

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Thanks Bushrat for the update.Sounds great.
Like Kim I can't wait for it to come to the states too. Cool

Love that smilie your using in your sig area Kim...LOL Laughing

I remember doing that to marshmellows while camping .... Laughing

Acording to this article it will be here in America soon along in other Countries as well.....YEAH Very Happy

http://www.worldscreen.com/articles/display/20690

9 Story Clinches Survive This Deals
By Mansha Daswani
Published: April 22, 2009

TORONTO: On the heels of scoring a Cartoon Network U.S. slot for Survive This, 9 Story Entertainment has shored up a trio of international deals for the live-action show currently airing on YTV in Canada, including one with Boomerang in Latin America.

The series has also been acquired by YLE in Finland and Teleview in the Middle East. Created and produced by 9 Story Entertainment and wilderness survival expert Les “Survivorman” Stroud, Survive This features eight participants between the ages of 14 and 17 who endure a range of challenges during the 13 episodes.

“The challenges these teens face make for some of the most compelling television for kids and adults alike resulting in an authentic co-viewing entertainment experience,” said Natalie Osborne, the executive VP of business development at 9 Story Entertainment. “This show has already made a strong impact on young Canadians who’ve seen the first episodes on YTV and we are thrilled that these new and valued broadcast partners on Survive This are equally excited about sharing this program with their audience. The anticipation of seeing each challenge’s outcome is something that easily translates globally and we are looking forward to the audience reaction in every region of the globe."