CBC Television Series, 1952-1982
by Blaine Allan
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This Hour
Sun 10:00-11:00 p.m., 4 Oct 1964-9 May 1965
Sun 10:00-11:00 p.m., 3 Oct 1965-8 May 1966
On Sundays at l0:00 p.m., a one-hour show of such vitality
and urgency that it will recapture public excitement in public
affairs television and become mandatory viewing for a large
segment of the nation.
Describing the show's scope, they wrote:
Items can qualify in terms of urgency, controversy, national
interest, human condition, satire, beauty or art. Seven Days
will range Canada and the world. Reporter-cameraman teams will
pounce on significant events wherever they occur, looking not
only at the news but at the reasons behind it.
Their proposal was marked with overreaching ambition, but it also
brimmed with enthusiasm and drive, and described with remarkable
foresight the shape of the show.
Leiterman had worked for the CBC since 1957, after training as a
newspaper reporter in Vancouver, and had been closely involved
with the network's main public affairs broadcasts, including
Close Up and Background. Most recently, he had produced
Document, the series that had formed the centre of the CBC's
involvement in direct cinema filmmaking. Watson had been with
the CBC since 1956 (though he had started as a radio actor when
he was a teenager) and, like Leiterman, had worked for Close Up,
as well as producing and contributing to other programs,
including Mr. Fixit, Tabloid, and Junior Magazine. Most
recently, he had produced the hard-hitting interview show,
Inquiry, where he had collaborated with two men who would also
play major roles in the production of Seven Days, Laurier
LaPierre and Warner Troyer.
As Troyer has noted, the show was a "natural extension" of
Document and Inquiry (The Sound and the Fury [Toronto: John
Wiley, 1980], p. l53). The former employed current techniques in
documentary filmmaking to cover issues of public interest in
depth through hourlong film essays. The combination of the
direct cinema ethos and television as the medium of transmission
invested the broadcasts with the important quality of immediacy.
Inquiry, in addition to the zeal of its reports and interviews,
also brought new life and pertinence to television discussions
with makers of public policy, and helped establish television as
a medium of public accountability. The two types of public
affairs television put the viewer into two different roles, as
witness and as participant, that Seven Days combined.
Leiterman and Watson divided the show into different components,
which varied in length and weight from broadcast to broadcast.
As a review of the week's events, Seven Days would rely on film
reports, linked with contexts and updates from the studio hosts.
Although advocacy did not form an explicit part of the show's
plan, intervention did; the manifesto describes the show's
investigative reports with a keen eye for television's power to
uncover and compel reaction:
Using special camera techniques we will probe dishonesty and
hypocrisy. By encouraging leads form our viewers and inviting
their alertness, we will provide a kind of TV ombudsman to draw
attention to public wrongs and encourage remedial action.
The producers also planned to include background commentary by a
range of Canadian and foreign broadcasters and writers; among
them they proposed Alistair Cooke, James Reston, Blair Fraser,
Rebecca West, Grard Pelletier, James Wechsler, Simone de
Beauvoir, and Pierre Elliott Trudeau. Interviews, drawn from the
style of Inquiry broadcasts, were labelled the "Hot Seat," and
proposed as a "tough encounter with a prominent guest who is hot
in the news and prepared to be grilled." The "Small World"
segment added the element of a studio audience for interview
sessions.
Seven Days was also to reach out and involve audiences as active
participants, not least by including a studio audience for the
Sunday night broadcast and by responding to viewer mail. The
show was also to include access segments, which directed,
"Crackpots to be sorted, not too carefully, in advance," and to
be taped at local CBC. In addition, the show permitted viewers
to phone in their comments to the show's hosts.
Finally, Seven Days was also to provide a network venue for more
creative "film essays" and for items from foreign news and public
affairs television sources. While the CBC had long provided
public affairs coverage for Canadian television viewers, it is
clear that the ambition and international scope that underscored
the Seven Days project indicated that the network intended to
produce world-class television.
A number of other factors led to the turning point in public
affairs television that Seven Days represented. Canadians had
already made programs such as Close-Up and Tabloid television
staples, and made stars of announcers and interviewers, including
J. Frank Willis, Percy Saltzman, and Joyce Davidson. Television
news was also building importance for its coverage of such
developments as the elections that made John Diefenbaker and
Lester Pearson our first TV-era heads of government. With the
l960 Presidential election in the United States and the coverage
of the Kennedy assassination and its aftermath in 1963, U.S.
network news--to which Canadian viewers along the border could
tune--was propelled into a new stage in its evolution, which was
marked not only by the breadth of its coverage but by the depth
of its penetration, where its success was measured not only by
the quality of reporting in the Edward R. Murrow tradition, but
also by the numbers of audiences in the ratings war between
Walter Cronkite and Huntley-Brinkley. Television news offered a
vantage and shaped public views of such developments as the Quiet
Revolution in Quebec, as well as such international developments
as the Cuban missile crisis and other elements of the Cold War,
the civil rights movement in the U.S.A., and the Vietnam War.
Developments in popular and mass culture, such as the folk music
revival and the currency of satirical comedy (such as Mort Sahl,
Lenny Bruce, and Vaughn Meader's "First Family" records in the
U.S., and Beyond The Fringe and David Frost's BBC-TV series, That
Was The Week That Was in the U.K.) indicated the level of
conscience and awareness in audiences, and the different means by
which news could be transmitted.
The CBC gained impetus to revamp its schedule and hype its
programming to compete with the still new broadcasting
organization, CTV. The private network had challenged CBC's
Sunday night public affairs programming with its own show,
Telepoll, and had lured veteran Southam reporter Charles Lynch
away. (A year later, CTV would also attract Peter Reilly away
from the CBC to create and produce W5, a show that competed more
directly for viewers of Seven Days.) For two turbulent seasons,
however, Seven Days assembled the news and current events into a
variegated magazine that for many Canadians--over three million
near the end of the show's run, as a matter of fact--did become
"mandatory viewing."
The Seven Days studio was arranged like a control module, with
scaffolding, film projection screens, television monitors, and
crew all visible to the studio audience and to home viewers, all
directed toward the central set of desks for hosts John Drainie
and Laurier LaPierre. Probably Canada's finest radio and
television actor of the period, Drainie anchored the broadcast
and gave it an immediately recognizable charismatic authority. A
professor of Canadian history at McGill, LaPierre augmented his
academic persona by sometimes wearing spectacles and smoking a
pipe on camera. He was an understated and puckish, yet forceful,
commentator, and a knowledgable, incisive, and passionately
interested interviewer.
In the tradition of the so-called "talking doll," the women
interviewers who seemed both staples and adjuncts on CBC talk
shows, Seven Days had its own female presence. Though typically
"spunky" enough, she generally served as little more than stylish
decoration and perhaps represented a kind of optimism and humour
in contrast to the more sober and serious looking Drainie and
LaPierre. If so, she also represented a distance and irony in
comparison to the committed engagement of the male hosts. The
first season ran through a roster of young women to fill this
spot. By the second season, Dinah Christie held down the job on
a weekly basis. She started the show by singing the opening
theme, a parodic reading of the week's headlines to the tune of
the folk song, "Worried Man Blues," and read some of the links
between segments on the show.
The show had a production staff of as many as forty people, with
a roster of producers responsible for separate segments. During
the first season, Leiterman and Watson alternated from week to
week as the show's producer. However, the hierarchy of the show
was left more amorphous than most productions. Production
personnel were hired and dismissed fluidly, depending on whether
they worked out on the show or fit in with the production method.
Virtually all levels of staff had access to the executive
producers, generating a high sense of responsibility and
creativity. Known at various times as story editors, writers,
directors, and producers, contributing staff included Charles
Backhouse, Donald Brittain, Cecily Burwash, Jim Carney, Roy
Faibish, Beryl Fox, Tom Koch, Heinz Kornagel, Sam Levene, Brian
Nolan, Charles Oberdorf, Peter Pearson, Alexander Ross, Warner
Troyer, and Larry Zolf. Robin Grove-White, formerly a writer for
That Was The Week That Was, was hired to write satirical
sketches. The studio director responsible for coordinating the
complicated patchwork of film and live action was David Ruskin.
The so-called Seven Days Crisis involved the friction between CBC
management and the show's own producers and methods of
production. (See Helen Carscallen, "Control in a Broadcasting
System," M.A. Thesis, University of Toronto, 1966--an invaluable
source.) Seven Days was itself devoted to the idea that news and
public affairs were vital, controversial, and often
confrontational. During the testing period of the first season,
the Seven Days production style strained the established
bureaucracy and standards of the CBC, and at various times H.G.
Walker, General Manager of the English Networks, and Reeves
Haggan, General Supervisor of Public Affairs, prohibited
sensitive items from broadcast. Before the opening show, for
example, they vetoed a segment on the upcoming Royal visit to
Quebec. A satirical sketch, which depicted the Queen as a
housewife with hair in curlers, was deemed inappropriate, and a
sequence of interviews with Quebec citizens on the subject of the
monarchy was quashed without being screened.
Seven Days played a major part in bringing to public attention
issues that had been suppressed or taboo both in television and
society as a whole. As such, it exemplified the informational
and cultural revolution that erupted in the 1960s, and paid a
price for its adventurous stance. The issues that caused the
greatest dispute were, all too predictably, the subjects that
polite people avoided discussing simply in order to keep peace at
the dinner table, because they were the subjects that commanded
the strongest and most deeply rooted opinions: politics, sex,
and religion. For Canada, this meant the specific cases of Quebec
nationalism, developing sexual freedoms represented most
explicitly by the birth control pill, and specific cases such as
the Munsinger scandal and the Horsburgh affair.
In November 1964, the show planned a report on the case of United
Church minister Russell Horsburgh, who was charged and ultimately
convicted of contributing to juvenile delinquency for encouraging
sexual relations among young churchgoers in Chatham, Ontario.
The story was scheduled to air between the verdict and the
sentence. Though there was discussion about whether the item
fell into a sub judice category, subject matter and taste were
even more important issues for debate among the producers and
management. When the item aired, the producers knowingly
contravened the decision of the Program Council not to present
programming on the Horsburgh affair, but with the support of
local managers. As Walker explained to Helen Carscallen, this
specific case taught management to keep their from the producers,
particularly such persuasive and enthusiastic advocates as
Leiterman and Watson, to maintain control.
The next spring, a feature on a patient at the Ontario Hospital
for the Criminally Insane caused controversy not for the subject
matter, but for the production methods, which Walker judged to
have contravened CBC policy. To interview inmate Fred Fawcett,
after a first request was turned down, a Seven Days crew
accompanied his sister on one of her regular visits to the
hospital at Penetanguishene, carrying their equipment in picnic
baskets. The guards assumed that they were relatives, and made
no attempt to keep them from entering or to stop their interview.
Although the Director of News and Public Affairs objected
strongly to the means by which the interview was procured, he did
not prevent the item from airing, and Fawcett was seen to be sane
or to have been rehabilitated sufficiently not to be
hospitalized, emphasized when he admitted to the camera, about
the trial and commitment, "The doctors said I was insane... I
was satisfied for the court to make that decision." (Quoted,
Douglas Leiterman, "You Can't Tell TV: 'Don't Peek,'" Maclean's
[23 July 1966], p. 30)
Also during the first season, Patrick Watson, President of the
Toronto Producers' Association, had submitted a brief that was
critical of CBC management policy and procedures to the Fowler
Committee on Broadcasting Policy. Although CBC President
Alphonse Ouimet seemed interested and somewhat sympathetic to
Watson's grievances and to his discussion of Seven Days, Walker
condemned the report as "improper," claiming that it represented
grievances that had not been reported up to management (Quoted,
Carscallen, p. l05).
While Watson was branded a troublemaker for his complaints and
Leiterman for skirting established CBC policy to produce a type
of journalism that the policy did not envision, Laurier LaPierre
also encountered criticism for his supposed emotional involvement
in the interviews he conducted, and for dominating the subjects.
The second season marked changes in on-camera personnel, as well
as administrative adjustments behind the scenes. Patrick Watson
replaced John Drainie as co-host, leaving Douglas Leiterman as
the sole executive producer. Previously the corporation had
resisted Watson's proposals to host both Inquiry and Seven Days
and thus wield editorial influence over the production of the
show and on the air. Watson also became executive producer of
Document, the documentary film series, which continued throughout
the run of Seven Days, replacing it once a month. The nebulous
chain of command and alternation between two producers was
replaced by a structure of two production units, one under the
direction of Robert Emmett Hoyt and the other under Ken Lefolii.
Hoyt, whom Leiterman had met when they both attended Harvard in
the 1950s, had contributed interviews to Close-Up and the first
season of Seven Days, and had left a job in civic administration
in Ohio to join the staff. Lefolii had formerly worked as editor
of Maclean's.
September 1965 saw the release of the Fowler Report. Critical of
CBC management, it had benefited not only from the testimony of
Patrick Watson, but also from the work of Roy Faibish, the Seven
Days producer who had taken a leave of absence from the CBC to
join the staff of the Fowler Committee. The start of the second
season also coincided with an anticipated federal election in the
autumn and with the end of Ouimet's term of office. The Prime
Minister's office evidently had not wanted Lester Pearson to be
interviewed by LaPierre, and, for his part, Ouimet presumably had
reason to accede to the Prime Minister's wishes. The demand
became an issue as the program staff made plans to invite the
leaders of all the political parties to be interviewed by Watson
and LaPierre. LaPierre had also declared his own political
sympathies for the New Democratic Party, and had added his voice
to the criticism of CBC management.
Management wished to forbid LaPierre from participating in
political interviews, and threatened to cancel the opening show
of the new season, on October 3, if Leiterman did not give his
assurance. The producers argued the importance of uniformity
among the interviews as well as the importance of having a
Francophone interviewer to talk to Francophone politicians, and
the implicit political importance of LaPierre's presence in
relation to the corporation's image and the issue of cultural
prejudice. Furthermore, the issue itself cast shadows on
LaPierre's own reputation and threatened to erode his
responsibilities to Seven Days. Insulted and impugned, he
threatened to resign. Seven Days finally won the skirmish, and
management let the show return to the air as scheduled. However,
Leiterman, Watson, and LaPierre worked under straitened
circumstances and an increasingly watchful eye thereafter. Seven
Days did issue their on-air challenge to the party leaders to be
interviewed (having previously apprised them that the invitation
would be extended on the program and that they would be welcome
to accept on the air), but only NDP leader T.C. Douglas
responded. Only he and Creditiste leader Ral Caouette were
finally interviewed on the program, and LaPierre's interview with
the Caouette came in for severe criticism from management, again
for LaPierre's supposed emotional involvement.
This internal dispute was perhaps the most central in Seven Days
history. Unfolding at the start of the second season, it marked
the chronological midpoint of the series' life, and it put one of
the crucial political issues in the country at the heart of the
show.
As if that were not enough, however, the first Seven Days of the
season encountered added controversy over a different type of
issue. With Pope Paul VI scheduled to visit New York the next
day, and deliver a mass at Yankee Stadium during his stay, Seven
Days included a sketch in which network television executives
proposed an exhibition baseball game--between the Yankees and the
Cardinals, of course--that the pontiff would umpire infallibly.
Although the sketch was approved by General Supervisor Reeves
Haggan, no one predicted the phone response of the audience.
Watson judged that the pattern of response suggested an organized
phone campaign. Later CBC research indicated that the negative
response had a narrower base. However, a month later the CBC
Vice President for Corporate Affairs apologized by mail to
viewers who had objected to the sketch. He admitted an error of
judgment that the producers of the program had never
acknowledged, and allowed that there were no "positive and
serious reasons" for risking offending a significant number of
viewers.
In a November meeting with Leiterman, Watson, and other
management personnel, H.G. Walker demanded that the Seven Days
producers cease their challenges to management authority or be
taken off the air. Two days later, Leiterman put the dispute
into a public forum, in a press conference on the apology for the
Pope sketch. He told reporters that he would not comment on the
CBC apology, but implicitly refuted the Vice President's
objections, endorsing the sketch, affirming that the majority of
viewers had enjoyed it and found it not offensive, and refusing
to let the possibility of offending some viewers obstruct the
production of "intelligent, pointed and controversial satire."
The ultimatum had also been precipitated by another controversy
over perceived standards of broadcast journalism. Robert Emmett
Hoyt had conducted an interview with two officers of the Ku Klux
Klan in which, in Watson's perception, the two Klansmen had come
across as "reasonable guys," and consequently more dangerous than
if they had seemed dismissible as "'a bunch of nuts'"
(Carscallen, p. ll7). After they had declared their admiration
for Negroes, Hoyt put them on the spot and asked them if they
would shake hands with a black minister, also in the studio, and
they refused. Management objected to the interview tactics, but
also resented the fact that the interview had been taped so late
that it could not be vetted before air time. Seven Days
producers offered further challenges, when Leiterman consulted
lawyers independent of the CBC's own counsel for an opinion over
whether an interview with a former Miss France was subject to an
injunction acquired by private station CFTO, trying to protect
its rights over coverage of the Miss Canada Pageant, and CBC
management's decision to veto other items pertaining to beauty
contests. Moreover, Leiterman had also disputed a decision not
to permit Seven Days to cover a Peace March in Washington, D.C.
on the grounds that it was the responsibility of the network news
department (a division of news and public affairs that would
arise again, later in the season).
The position of management in the continuing dispute was
reinforced when Ouimet was renewed as President of the CBC for
another term, an appointment that appeared to defuse the
criticisms of the Fowler Report. Finally, H.G. Walker issued an
ultimatum on l8 November, and declared that Seven Days would not
see the new year if the producers did not henceforth
unquestioningly abide by management's decisions and did not talk
to the press (about disputes that presumably, by the first term
of the agreement, would never arise)--a deal that had to be
accepted that very day. Having won the first conflict over
LaPierre, Leiterman and his colleagues now found themselves
forced to accept the terms for the sake of the life of the show.
The mavericks did seem to settle down, although later in the
season LaPierre admitted, "I don't think I could last in Seven
Days much longer... This year the show doesn't seem to care as
much. It's falling into the same trap as all CBC public-affairs
shows: it's losing concern with matters of real social
consequence" (Alan Edmonds, Maclean's [5 March 1966], p. 26).
If LaPierre grew doubtful about his future with the show,
management had already made up its mind. In December 1965,
Haggan had been told that the show would live through the end of
the broadcast season, but advised that he should concentrate on
developing another public affairs show for the new season. In
January, the Program Council modified its decision: Seven Days
could return in the autumn, but only without Patrick Watson,
Laurier LaPierre, Larry Zolf, and Roy Faibish. LaPierre's
problematic position for management had been clear from the first
season, and Watson and Faibish had courted the disfavour of the
upper echelons for their connections with the Fowler Committee.
Zolf's transgressions remained less clearly defined. Curiously,
too, Douglas Leiterman's name was not on the hit list. The fact
that three of the gang of four were on-camera personalities
suggests the power that the corporation executives recognized in
the hosts and reporters on Seven Days, as distinct from the less
publicly visible members of the production staff.
The decision to fire LaPierre and Watson as hosts of Seven Days
made its way down the line of corporate command in January, but
several incidents in March created controversy that is often
directly connected with the decisions that ended the show's run.
LaPierre's statement to Maclean's on the show's dissolution into
typical CBC fare, which was run in a sidebar to a large article
on the series, exacerbated the friction between management and
the Seven Days unit. The article itself rang alarm bells about
the impending cancellation, and highlighted the taboos and
exoticism that the corporation was trying to tone down. Alan
Edmonds wrote:
The methods Seven Days has used to attract its mass audience have
left The Corporation (which is what its employees call the CBC)
in the position of genteel, bourgeois parent who produced a
rambunctious, intellectual vulgarian--and are ashamed of the
fact.
...It doesn't pontificate; it agitates and irritates. It is
impossible to simply watch it; you become involved in it, and
even when it's lousy (and it can be as bad as it can be
magnificent) it remains, for millions who would otherwise switch
channels at the start of a public affairs show, something to talk
about come Monday. You watch it to see what it will come up with
next--just to see whether there's another Pope sketch..., or to
see whether Laurier LaPierre will lose his temper (as he did once
when interviewing opposing groups of French- and English-Canadian
students), or Pat Watson his unflappable urbanity. (p. 9)
Maybe LaPierre did not lose his temper, but he did cry. He
watched an item on the trial of Steven Truscott, a fourteen year
old Ontario boy when he was convicted of killing a girl. The
report included a discussion with Isabel LeBourdais, the writer
of a recent book that disputed the verdict, and an interview with
Steven Truscott's mother. When the film segment ended and the
cameras turned to LaPierre at his desk, he had to wipe away a
tear before he could continue. The moment underscored both
LaPierre's own committed personality and the view from above that
he became too "emotionally involved" in his interviews (although
the interview was conducted by Roy Faibish, not LaPierre. LaPierre and Watson hadn't seen the interview before air time.)
Seven Days again found itself in a contentious position regarding
journalistic methods over the Munsinger affair. Reports had
revealed that prominent Canadian M.P.s, including a member of
Cabinet, had been involved with a German call girl, Gerda
Munsinger, and a phone call to Seven Days on the afternoon of
Saturday March fifth tipped producer Robert Hoyt that the Cabinet
member in question was Associate Minister of National Defense
Pierre Svigny. Hoyt immediately dispatched Larry Zolf to Montreal
for an interview. In a manner that has since become customary,
though still arouses controversy, Zolf approached the Svigny
front door with the camera rolling. Mrs. Svigny answered and
replied that her husband was not home. As the crew walked away,
the door opened again, and a hand motioned for them to return.
With the camera still running, the politician emerged from the
house and began to hit the reporter around the head with a cane,
chased Zolf and the camera crew, and continued to swing at their
car as it drove away. Later, he tried to locate the camera and
the film with the help of the Westmount police, but Zolf was
bringing the evidence back to Toronto. Although the story itself
was clearly of interest--whether it actually had anything to do
with the Munsinger affair, it did concern a violent outburst by a
Government official--the producers decided not to air the footage
the next night. After the incident, Svigny read a prepared
statement to CBC cameras, and later discussed Munsinger with a
reporter. (See Leiterman, pp. l0-ll) Seven Days had four items
on the Munsinger affair, but the only one to air on the show of
20 March, while the story was still current, was an interview
with some Upper Canada College students on the subject. The
Svigny footage, one of the three segments to be scotched was seen
by management to constitute an invasion of privacy and contravene
CBC policy.
Finally, the issue of Laurier LaPierre's and Warner Troyer's
interview with Qubec Attorney-General Claude Wagner precipitated
a series of ultimatums that would result in the final chapter in
the life of Seven Days. LaPierre's position against capital
punishment was evident, producer Leiterman agreed (Carscallen, p.
l3l), and he and Troyer both took adversary positions in order to
draw a strong argument for the Qubec government view out of
Wagner. Nevertheless, LaPierre was seen to have dominated the
interview, a situation that he attributed to the interview of the
Francophone Wagner in his second language. The eight minute
segment had also been selectively edited--a process over which
LaPierre had little or no control--from a much longer interview.
Nevertheless, LaPierre's methods and integrity were again
questioned. LaPierre had for several months defended his
positions on public issues--he was still a member of faculty at
McGill, not solely a CBC announcer--and criticized CBC policy and
management. Yet he was cited for "Disloyalty to Management."
Two days later, on the fifth of April, Walker met with the
Director of News and Public Affairs William Hogg and General
Supervisor of Public Affairs Reeves Haggan and discussed the
proposal for a new public affairs show, a French and English
language collaboration, and the possibility of Patrick Watson as
producer. Helen Carscallen concluded that at this point Haggan
had accepted as a fait accompli Watson's dismissal as a host and
sought a positive alternative (p. l34). The next day Walker
talked with Watson to sound out his suitability to continue
producing for the CBC, and to work on this proposed series,
Quarterly Report. A day later, Watson apparently informed
Leiterman, who was on holiday in Florida, that his and LaPierre's
contracts for Seven Days would not be renewed. On April
fourteenth, the day after Leiterman returned to Toronto, Walker
issued the directive that by five that afternoon Haggan assure
him Seven Days would return, but without Watson or LaPierre;
Haggan consulted with Leiterman and Leiterman finally--at four
o'clock--met with Walker.
Late that night, with several weeks left in the television season
and Seven Days reportedly enjoying over three million viewers,
about one-third of the viewing audience in its time slot,
Leiterman decided to go public and leak to The Globe and Mail the
news that the CBC wished to dump the show's co-hosts. While the
Seven Days had challenged the limits of CBC journalistic policies
and tested management's tolerance of its methods and decisions,
Walker had erred by approaching Watson directly, when contracts
determined that producers retained responsibility for hiring and
firing production personnel, a principle that had been endorsed
in a dispute over the cancellation of Eye Opener a year earlier
(Carscallen, pp. l37-38).
After the Globe report, a "Save Seven Days" campaign arose that
kept the show in the public eye for weeks thereafter. The Save
Seven Days Committee was organized by writer and producer Stephen
Patrick, paid by the Seven Days producers (Carscallen, p. l48).
It elicited response from across the country to bring the issue
to broader public attention--it received an estimated seven
thousand telephone calls of support in its first two days--and to
the eyes of the Parliamentary Broadcasting Committee. Within a
month and an half, 780 supporting communications including four
petitions signed with 9,563 names, had also made their way to the
office of the Prime Minister, and 875 communications including
2,973 signatures on twenty-three petitions arrived at the office
of Secretary of State Judy LaMarsh, to whom the CBC reported.
When the Toronto Producers' Association threatened to strike on
the first of May if Watson and LaPierre were not renewed, Prime
Minister Pearson appointed Stuart Keate, publisher of the
Vancouver Sun as a mediator. Keate upheld the producers'
grievance over Walker's abrogation of the managerial chain, but
Ouimet and the CBC stood by their decision to remove Watson and
LaPierre. As Warner Troyer has indicated, the efforts to revive
Seven Days could hardly succeed, because the show was already
dead, with its staff disbanded and its activistic energy
dissipated (The Power and the Glory [Toronto: John Wiley, 1980],
p. l64). The Parliamentary Broadcasting Committee held six weeks
of hearings on the matter, but with no immediate remedies or
effects. The Save Seven Days campaign failed to
bring the show back to the air; though it also brought CBC
management tactics to public and professional light--disclosing
concealed agendas as the show itself had--it did not result in
the kind of substantial changes the producers and viewers of
Seven Days had seen was possible through television.
Other sources on Seven Days include Percy Saltzman's discussion
with Douglas Leiterman and Patrick Watson, "How to Survive in the
CBC Jungle...and Other TV Tribal Secrets," Maclean's (6 February
l965), pp. l2-l3, 39-44; Robert Fulford, "The Lesson of Seven
Days," Canadian Forum (May 1966), pp. 25-26; Eric Koch, Inside
Seven Days (Toronto: Prentice-Hall, 1986).
Photo (courtesy of CBC) shows Bob Hoyt, Ken Lefolii,
Doug Leiterman, Patrick Watson.
Tue 10:00-10;30 p.m., 3 Jul-7 Aug 1956
Broadcast live from Ottawa and produced by Michael Hind-Smith,
this series of six, half-hour programs featured on-the-spot
reports by Robert McKeown from the nation's capital. The show
visited the Supreme Court Building for a look at the National
Capital Plan, a model of the city for the future, Laurier House,
the National Gallery, the Dominion Bureau of Statistics, the
Embassy of France, and the Parliament Buildings.
Mon 8:30-9:00 p.m., 21 Jun-13 Sep 1971
Mon 9:30-10:00 p.m., 3 Jul 1972-
Mon 9:30-10:00 p.m., 17 Sep 1973-24 Jun 1974
Mon 8:30-9:00 p.m., 9 Sep 1974-1 Sep 1975
Tue 8:30-9:00 p.m., 9 Sep 1975-6 Apr 1976
Mon-Fri 4:00-4:30 p.m., 11 Jun-7 Sep 1979 (R)
Mon-Fri 1:30-2:00 p.m., 26 May-21 Aug 1981 (R)
The panelists were Hart Pomerantz, himself a barrister and
solicitor, though better known to CBC audiences as one half of
the comic team from The Hart and Lorne Terrific Hour,
broadcasters and actors Larry Solway and Madeleine Kronby, and
acerbic businessman William Charlton. Kronby left the show
effective August 197l, and was later replaced by Susan Keller.
fIn addition to appearing in the filmed segments, Soles acted as
the show's host for the first summer season. He was replaced for
the remainder of the show's run by Austin Willis. Well known
lawyers, such as Roy McMurtry, and other figures related to the
law, including Dr. Morton Shulman, appeared frequently to explain
the transgressions. During the final season, Julie Amato became the sole female panelist, and Larry Solway was replaced with celebrity guest panelists. The series was produced by Nigel Napier-Andrews, who also directed the filmed comedy sketches.
Photo (courtesy of CBC) shows Hart Pomerantz, Larry
Solway, Susan Keller, Bill Charlton, Austin Willis.
Mon-Fri 5:00-5:30 p.m., 27 Sep-15 Oct 1965
The 1965 program called This Land was a half-hour travel
documentary presented on weekday afternoons. The fifteen
programs included productions by the National Film Board, and
started with Trans Canada Journey, narrated by Christopher
Plummer, which surveyed the country by air from Newfoundland to
Vancouver Island. Among the other films were My Island Home, on
Prince Edward Island; The Water Dwellers, on the lumber workers
of Simoon Sound, British Columbia; Northwest Neighbours, on the
people of Yellowknife; and My Financial Career, the animated
adaptation of Stephen Leacock's story.
This series should not be confused with This Land Of Ours, which
started the next season, or its successor, also called This Land
(q.v.).
Wed 10:00-11:00 p.m., 23 Sep 1970-10 Mar 1971
Wed 10:00-11:00 p.m., 14 Jul-15 Sep 1971
Wed 8:00-8:30 p.m., 20 Oct 1971-27 Mar 1972
Wed 8:00-8:30 p.m., 1 Nov 1972-28 Mar 1973
Wed 8:00-8:30 p.m., 26 sep 1973-27 Mar 1974
Wed 4:30-5:00 p.m., 3 Apr-12 Jun 1974 (R)
Thu 8:00-8:30 p.m., 1 Aug-29 Aug 1974 (R)
Wed 8:00-8:30 p.m., 1 Jan-26 Mar 1975
Wed 8:00-8:30 p.m., 7 Jan-25 Feb 1976
Sun 1:00-1:30 p.m., 4 Apr-13 Jun 1976
Sun 10:30-11:00 p.m., 27 Mar-19 Jun 1977
Mon 5:00-5:30 p.m., 19 Sep-19 Dec 1977 (R)
Sun 10:00-10:30 p.m., 28 May-18 Jul 1978
Sun 9:00-9:30 p.m., 16 Jul-13 Aug 1978
Mon 10:30-11:00 p.m., 28 May-
Mon 10:30-11:00 p.m., 30 Jul-10 Sep 1979 (R)
Mon 10:30-11:00 p.m., 2 Jun-25 Aug 1980
Mon-Fri 1:30-2:00 p.m., 26 May-18 Jul 1980 (R)
Mon 10:30-11:00 p.m., 8 Sep-22 Sep 1980
Mon 10:00-11:00 p.m., 15 Jun-
Mon 10:30-11:00 p.m., 29 Jun-31 Aug 1981
Thu 2:00-2:30 p.m., 28 May-10 Sep 1981 (R)
Sat 10:30-11:00 p.m., 5 Jun-
Tue 10:30-11:00 p.m., 6 Jul-31 Aug 1982
After the acclaimed series of documentaries on nature and
resources, This Land Of Ours, moved into a prime time slot for a
summer season with a new host, it stayed there and expanded to a
one hour format. (It later retracted to a half-hour, though it
stayed as a regular and welcome addition to the prime time
schedule.) The adjustment in the show's title reflected the
broadened scope of the program, as well as the departure of host
John Foster, who had been identified with the earlier show.
One of the principal television outlets to explore environmental
issues and policies of conservation, This Land evolved as the
central production of the CBC Agriculture and Resources
department. The series opened with programs on pollution, and
introduced the importance that music would play in the show, with
songs by Dee Higgins, Brent Titcombe, and Bruce Cockburn to
illustrate the discussion. Although the program was in one sense
devoted to celebrating the land in visual terms, it also carried
a strong sense of commitment to the social issues of the
environmental movement, and consequently documented conflict as
well as the harmony of nature.
Frequent contributors to the show have included naturalist Tommy
Tompkins, reporter Stanley Burke, arctic authority Doug
Wilkinson, Bruno Engler, and Dr. Donald Chant. The executive
producers of This Land were Murray Creed (l970-7l) and John
Lackie (l97l-86), and the contributing producers included Lackie
and Foster, Neil Andrews, Terry Richardson, Jack Kellum, Bob
Hutt, David Fulton, Eric McLeery, Robert Fripp, Ray Burley,
Garnett Anthony, Dick Donovan, John LaPointe, Ed Sanders, and
Dave Quinton. The hosts were John Hopkins (l970-72) and Phyllis
Gorman (l970-7l), Laurie Jennings (l973-78), Mary Chapman (l976-
78), John Foster (l977), Mike Halleran (l977), and Don Francks
(l978-82).
Through the late 1970s and 1980s, the costs of producing the kind
of location documentaries that This Land demanded grew and the
show's budget eroded. Each year saw fewer and fewer new shows in
the series, and the program ended in 1986.
Sat 6:00-6:30 p.m., 8 Jan-26 Mar 1966
Sat 6:00-6:30 p.m., 7 Jan-25 Mar 1967
Sat 6:00-6:30 p.m., 7 Oct 1967-30 Mar 1968
Sat 6:00-6:30 p.m., 7 Dec 1968-31 May 1969
Sun 5:00-5:30 p.m., 4 Jan-29 Mar 1970
Tue 10:30-11:00 p.m., 7 Jul-1 Sep 1970
This Land Of Ours replaced Countrytime and, as the change in
title suggested, represented an expansion of the vision of what
the Farms Department might contribute. Issues of the human uses
of nature grew beyond farms and fishing to include other forms of
resources. Fuelled by the germinating environmental movement and
by the self-examination that the Centennial celebrations focused,
This Land Of Ours started as a thirteen week series of half-hour
programs that aimed to explore issues of agriculture and
renewable resources. (The show's title came from the theme song,
"Something to Sing About," performed by the Travellers.) Over
the show's four and a half year history, before it was
transformed into This Land, it presented many distinguished
documentaries that showed us our rural and natural heritage, as
well as feeding our appetites for nature and science information
television.
Each program in the first series concentrated on a specific
resource, such as agriculture, fishing, forestry, water and soil,
and wildlife, and included both film segments and studio
sequences with discussions and demonstrations. Programs
concentrated on such subjects as a visit by suburban Toronto
students to the Albion Hills Conservation School; the Northern
native people and their dependence on the goose as a food source;
and pollution in the river and lake systems of southern Ontario.
The host of This Land Of Ours was John Foster, who had started as
a commentator on farms with CFTO-TV in Toronto and moved to the
CBC in 1962. Subsequently, for his work on This Land Of Ours and
its successor, as well as his highly successful series, To The
Wild Country, produced with his wife Janet Foster, he has become
one of the country's best known producers and voices for issues
of nature, the environment, and nature on television.
Producers for the show included Murray Creed (l966-67), Jim St.
Maire (l967-68), John Lackie (l968-70), Gerry Richardson, and
Jack Kellum.
Thu 5:00-5:30 p.m., 10 Oct 1959-16 Jun 1960
Sat 5:00-5:30 p.m., 21 Oct 1961-18 Aug 1962
Mon 5:30-6:00 p.m., 1 Oct 1962-27 May 1963
Mon 4:00-4:30 p.m., 14 Oct 1963-25 May 1964
This half-hour, afternoon program for young people adapted for
the English CBC audience the formula of the Radio-Canada series,
La Vie qui bat. Both were produced by Adelin Bouchard on the
same set at CBC Montreal. Steve Bloomer presented films on
wildlife in their natural habitat and showed animals in captivity
in the studio. The show also included a weekly quiz, and had
contests to name frequent visitors, a gorilla in 1962 and a
cheetah in 1963.
Sun 7:30-8:00 p.m., 14 Sep-21 Sep 1952
This Week, a Sunday night broadcast originally produced by Harvey
Hart, was a panel discussion of the week's events. The moderator
was R.A. Farquharson, the editor of Saturday Night magazine, and
the three member panel included John Dauphinee, J.B. McGeachy and
a guest. In 1953, Wilfrid Sanders, the head of the Canadian
Institute of Public Opinion, took over the job of moderator. For
the 1954 season, the show altered its format somewhat, and moved
its emphasis from discussion on several subjects each week to
commentary and interviews on a specific issue. The program's
length varied according to the length of the show that followed
it on the schedule. This Week was replaced in 1959 by
Background.
Tue 10:00-11:00 p.m., 1 Nov 1966-7 Jan 1967
Tue 10:30-11:00 p.m., 6 Aug-10 Sep 1968
Warner Troyer and Knowlton Nash were co-hosts on This Week, a
collaboration between the units that presented Newsmagazine,
produced by Donald Cameron, and The Public Eye, produced by
Richard Nielsen. Airing on the average once a month, the program
comprised the reportage of the former program with the commentary
and background of the latter. Subjects included the U.S.
elections and labour dissent and its bearing on inflation in
Canada.
The next summer, This Week returned. Although the program had a
different format and host, it still had ties with The Public Eye.
Don Cumming was the show's executive producer for the first half
of the eight week series, and Richard Nielsen for the second
half. Don McNeill produced the show, which actor Don Harron
hosted. Essentially an interview program, This Week concentrated
on such subjects as the Miami convention of the U.S. Republican
Party and the violent Chicago convention of the Democrats; the
growing liberalism and its ultimate suppression in
Czechoslovakia; and the national leader of the New Democratic
Party, David Lewis.
See This Week In Parliament.
Sun 10:00-11:00 a.m., 23 Oct-18 Dec 1977
Sun 5:00-6:00 p.m., 29 Jan-
Sun 5:20-6:00 p.m., 15 Oct 1978-25 Mar 1979
Sun 5:20-6:00 p.m., 14 Oct-13 Dec 1979
Sun 5:20-6:00 p.m., 20 Apr-8 Aug 1980
Sun 5:20-6:00 p.m., 12 Oct 1980-17 May 1981
Sun 5:20-6:00 p.m., 17 Oct-19 Dec 1981
Sat 6:30-7:00 p.m., 30 Jan-11 Sep 1982
Sat 6:30-7:00 p.m., 24 Jul-
This Week In Parliament reviewed the proceedings of the House,
with hosts John Drewery (l977) and Bill Casey (l978-82).
Starting as an independent program, produced in Ottawa, from 1978
the series was incorporated into the Sunday national news
broadcasts.
In 1982, the CBC revived the generic title This Week--which
replaced This Week In Parliament during the House's summer
recess--for a discussion of public affairs, hosted by reporter
Don Newman. Produced in Ottawa by Don Hearn, the show was
directed by Ray Lachance and Joan Woodward.
Sun 2:00-3:00 p.m., 9 Jan-10 Jul 1966
Sun 4:30-5:00 p.m., 8 Jan-18 Jun 1967
Sun 4:30-5:00 p.m., 21 Jan-30 Jun 1968
Sun 3:30-4:00 p.m., 23 Feb-
Sun 4:30-5:00 p.m., 20 Apr-29 Jun 1969
The CBC tried to respond to the growing youth movement and market
with Through The Eyes Of Tomorrow, a magazine show that included
music, variety, and drama, as well as coverage of current affairs
and social issues. The hosts of the program, which ran a full
hour in its first season, were Paul Saltzman, then a student at
the University of Toronto and formerly a researcher for This Hour
Has Seven Days, and Janet McQuillin, a recent graduate of York
University and a CBC radio researcher and writer. Each program
concentrated on a particular subject or area. The first program
concerned music, with appearances by jazz drummer Ed Thigpen,
composer Aaron Charloff, and a folk music group, the Mark IIIs.
Subsequent programs included Saltzman's interview with actor
Peter Kastner and a panel discussion with Globe and Mail
columnist Richard J. Needham; a talk with a young person who had
worked with CUSO in Ghana; and a series of panel discussions on
sex and teenagers. The series was produced by Perry Rosemond,
with music and variety segments directed by Neil Andrews and
drama directed by Herb Roland. Joan Soloviov supervised the
show's writing.
When the show returned the next year, as a half-hour broadcast,
Andrews was executive producer, and shared the job of producing
individual shows with Rosemond. Saltzman returned as a writer
and reporter. The hosts included a number of students and young
performers and models: Wilf Fournier, Wayne Thompson, Rex Hagon
(formerly of The Forest Rangers), Jennifer Leak, Sheri-Lee Hall,
and Ann Wright. They reported on young people in London, the
National Youth Orchestra's 1966 European tour, and Expo '67, as
well as more controversial subjects, such as the Vietnam War and
the activities of the Company of Young Canadians. For its third
season, the hosts were Wayne Thompson, Brant Frayne, and Carol
Hunter, and in 1969 the host was Stephen Foster.
Thu 10:00-11:00 p.m., 2 Oct 1969-10 Sep 1970
A series of one hour documentaries, most of the film reports on
Thursday Night were original CBC productions, though the program
did feature some British productions. The executive producers of
the series were William Harcourt and Robert Patchell, with a unit
that consisted of producers Donald G. Cameron, Gordon Donaldson,
Jeannine Locke, Martyn Burke, Jesse Nishihata, William Stevenson,
Bob Evans, Don McQueen, John David Hamilton, and Cameron Graham,
and directors Murray Hunter, Nick Bakyta, and Garth Price. The
series opened with The Last Best West, Locke's and Price's
examination of the contemporary west. Other productions included
Nishihata's Behaviourism, Hamilton's American Gothic '69, a
report from the Nixon U.S. heartland, and Graham's The Left In
Canada. In addition, the program presented Michael Maclear's
production, Ho Chi Minh's People, his report on North Vietnam at
the time of Ho's death, when Maclear was the only western news
representative in the country.
After one season, the documentary program moved to Tuesdays, and
changed its title. See Tuesday Night.
Return to CBC Series Index
Thursday
Executive producers Douglas Leiterman and Patrick Watson outlined
their initial plans for what became the most famous and notorious
series in the history of CBC television, This Hour Has Seven
Days, in a manifesto that proposed:
This Is The Law started as a summer replacement, in 197l and
l972, for Front Page Challenge, and proved popular enough to earn
a prime time slot of its own in the 1972 season. Another half-
hour quiz show with an underlying educational premise, it asked
panel members to spot the obscure statute that was violated in a
filmed, wordless sketch. Paul Soles played the hapless
lawbreaker and Robert Warner the constable (from 1974, when he
was promoted, the sergeant) who put the arm on him after the deed
was done. Other members of the repertory company who played
supporting parts in the sketches included Paul Bradley, Robert
McHeady, Dougal Fraser, Eric Clavering, Monica Parker, Valri
Bromfield, Trudy Desmond, and Jo Penny.
