Years before TeenNick set the bar pretty high for Degrassi promos with Shark In The Water, no promotional campaign got me more hyped for a new season of Degrassi than what The-N did to promote season 7.
Season 7 was during that period where Degrassi started deviating from its original yearly timeline, with this season happening within the same school year as season 6. This was also the first season where they integrated more than just two or three new faces, shifting toward the current model of rotating in new characters as older ones are frequently phased out.
An important arc for 7A (701-707) involved the transfer of Lakehurst students to Degrassi after their school burned down. I don’t know who was working at The-N at the time, but they sure as hell knew how to set the scene at Degrassi with the seasonal promo. To compliment Degrassi’s darker tone going into season 7, the promo made the school look like a place of pure chaos.
Can’t see the video? Watch it here.
Another element of The-N’s Season 7 promo campaign involved releasing “Look who goes there now” character promos for several of the new kids from Lakehurst.
While TeenNick did a more-extensive campaign for season 9, those promos were nowhere near as intriguing as the season 7 ones for Holly J, Johnny DiMarco and Jane.
Can’t see the video? Watch it here.
Can’t see the video? Watch it here.
Can’t see the video? Watch it here.
Even if the Johnny/Spinner feud was very short-lived, the promo for it is one of my favorite Degrassi promos of all time. The season 7 promo campaign utilized the show’s greatest asset by emphasizing that Degrassi is a place of both internal and external conflicts, a concept that explains why I also think Bite Your Tongue is the best music video promo TeenNick ever produced.
On top of the season 7 promos, that same year The-N also aired a couple of summer promos involving actors from some of the network’s teen shows (Degrassi, South of Nowhere, and what was the upcoming series, The Best Years).
Can’t see the video? Watch it here.
Can’t see the video? Watch it here.
Through all of the The-N/TeenNick’s changes it was never able to match that level of network synergy in any other network promos; pair that with show promos that treat Degrassi as if it’s a show that “Goes There,” the 2007 promo year is one I’ll never forget.
Kary's Degrassi Blog 
Those character profile promos were fun, but so misleading. We never got a Peter/Darcy/Holly J. triangle, and Jane wasn’t the mysterious seductress her promo set her up to be.
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100% agree Kary, i really fell in love with Degrassi during season 3 when the promos were also very BOOM in your face vibe… like that alex/emma fight and rock & roll high school promos were everything. I just can’t deal with the way they ushered the series out of TV but it is what it is…When Degrassi went darker in season 7 it was also a really good time for them The-N was the only channel i ever kept my TV on. I miss that essence of “teen tv” now there is barely anything that matches it..maybe to younger people yeah like that nonse on teennick or some new web series’ but nothing lives up to what we experienced during that time!
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I wish the show still had this color scheme and tone, though I’m biased because as a older viewer it makes the show seem more mature lol
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Yes, the show looked grittier and more real, and matched the “it goes there vibe.” Now it looks a little to polished and sanitized which makes the action on screen seem more melodramatic than it actually is.
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I think I started watching degrassi shortly before this season started when it seemed like the n played degrassi nonstop just going through seasons 1-6 completely then doing it again. It was a lot of fun watching six seasons over a period of a few days or week maybe. And then season 7 seemed pretty exciting and a darker tone. From what I remember though the 2 school drama didn’t last too long and didn’t seem to get to the level of intensity that the promos seemed like it would. I don’t really remember what all happened during the season other than spinners issue and more importantly Darcy’s.
More than just this particular season it’s making me miss degrassi on tv with a normal schedule, finishing up in the early summer and then coming back in october. And or all the various schedules it had, and then the couple years of it on 4 days a week during the summer. Seems like a lifetime ago. It’s great it’s in Netflix now just hopefully it won’t have toooo long of gaps between seasons. For me and a lot of people it’s the first time watching it in hd, teennick at least on directtv was never in hd.
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Remember how awesome people expected Season 7 to be and remember how disappointing it was? Me too. Other than Darcy’s storyline, the writers didn’t even try.
Season 7 is around the time that I really started to notice the-n’s bias against “nerdy” characters and the actors who played them. Notice how Liberty and Toby weren’t in any of those promos? And remember how they were left out when they did individual little “extra credit” profiles during Season 7’s Every Episode Ever marathon?
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I forgot to mention that even friggin’ Ashley, who was basically a nonentity when she returned, got to be in the promos.
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Lol damn didn’t even realize that but true! I think season 7 was good not the best season but NOT the worst.
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Yes, I’m still puzzled why they didn’t do anything with the heaps of storyline potential they had leftover from season 6. I’m not surprised they didn’t give any attention to Liberty and Toby in the aftermath of JT’s murder since they always gave them the shaft, but why wasn’t Holly J mixing it up with Parcy? Why not have Marco go into sex work to pay his bills? Paige sleeps with an HIV positive guy and it goes nowhere. This was the longest season up to that point and rather than tackle these relevant issues that hadn’t been covered in depth, they opted for a lot of forgettable to down right awful filler plots (Danny and Derek’s shoplifting racism, Emma’s Purple Dragon fiasco,etc.).
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I loved the promotional material for season 7. it’s too bad that the actual season was one of the worst in Degrassi history, save for the Darcy and Spinner plots.
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