FRONT PAGE CHALLENGE GOES ON AIR

One of this country’s best-loved shows, Front Page Challenge, is integral to Canadian television’s legacy. The interview-game show’s format was simple: A fourmember panel would interrogate a mystery challenger, who was a newsmaker, in order to identify that person or the news story associated with them. Afterward, the panelists would interview the challenger. The first episode featured panelists Gordon Sinclair, Toby Robins and veteran broadcaster and Globe and Mail columnist Alex Barris, with sportswriter Scott Young as a guest. Journalist Betty Kennedy (who was later appointed to the Senate) eventually replaced Mr. Robins to serve as the show’s only female panelist for 33 years. Along with Pierre Berton, Mr. Sinclair and Ms. Kennedy became regular panelists over the show’s nearly four-decade run. Notable figures who appeared as mystery guests included Eleanor Roosevelt, Martin Luther King Jr. and several former Canadian prime ministers. The show brought a uniquely Canadian perspective to the news and newsmakers, both national and international, and was the longest-running program of its kind in North America. In 1995, CBC cancelled the show, much to the public’s dismay, owing to rising production costs, competing networks, an aging panel and evolving viewer demographics.