''The Way It Is'' is a Canadian public affairs television program which aired on
CBC Television
CBC Television (also known as CBC TV, or simply CBC) is a Television in Canada, Canadian English-language terrestrial television, broadcast television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcasting, p ...
from 1967 to 1969.
Premise
Following the cancellations of ''Close-Up'', ''Sunday'' and ''
This Hour Has Seven Days
''This Hour Has Seven Days'' was a CBC Television public affairs program that ran from 1964 to 1966, offering viewers in-depth analysis of the major social and political stories of the previous week.
The show, inspired by the BBC and NBC-TV s ...
'', this new journalistic program occupied the traditional Sunday night current affairs time slot on CBC.
The set included three screens which displayed images projected from behind.
Jan Tennant
Jan Tennant (born January 5, 1937) is a Canadian television journalist, news anchor, and announcer.
Early life
Tennant was born January 5, 1937 in Toronto, Ontario in 1937, growing up in the High Park North neighbourhood, attended Runnymede Pu ...
was a script assistant who later became one of the network's announcers. Story editors included
Barbara Amiel
Barbara Joan Estelle Amiel, Baroness Black of Crossharbour, DSS (born 4 December 1940), is a British-Canadian conservative journalist, writer, and socialite. She is married to former media proprietor Conrad Black.
Early life and career
Amiel wa ...
and Tim Kotcheff.
John Saywell, a Toronto professor, hosted the program. Other presenters included Warren Davis,
Peter Desbarats
Peter Hullett Desbarats, Order of Canada, OC (July 2, 1933 – February 11, 2014) was a Canadian author, playwright and journalist.Ken Lefolii,
Percy Saltzman
Percy Philip Saltzman, (March 15, 1915 – January 15, 2007) was a meteorologist and television personality best remembered for being the first weatherman in English-speaking Canadian television history.
As a pioneer in weather forecasting ...
Moses Znaimer
Moses Znaimer (; born 1942) is a Canadian media executive. He is the co-founder and former head of Citytv, the first independent television station in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, and the current head of ZoomerMedia.
Early life and education
Znai ...
.
Pierre Trudeau
Joseph Philippe Pierre Yves Elliott Trudeau (October 18, 1919 – September 28, 2000) was a Canadian politician, statesman, and lawyer who served as the 15th prime minister of Canada from 1968 to 1979 and from 1980 to 1984. Between his no ...
was among the program's guests.
The program often featured long-form documentaries. "Mr. Pearson", a profile of Prime Minister
Lester B. Pearson
Lester Bowles Pearson (23 April 1897 – 27 December 1972) was a Canadian politician, diplomat, statesman, and scholar who served as the 14th prime minister of Canada from 1963 to 1968. He also served as Leader of the Liberal Party of C ...
, was originally completed in the mid-1960s. It was not broadcast until this program, after director Richard Ballentine made minor edits, added some narration and adjusted the audio mix.
Douglas Leiterman
Douglas Leiterman (1927 – 19 December 2012) was a Canadian television producer.
Early life
Douglas Stone Leiterman was born in 1927 in South Porcupine, Ontario. In 1945, before his 18th birthday, he joined the Canadian Merchant Navy and becam ...
(''This Hour Has Seven Days'') produced "Fasten Your Seatbelts: A Report on Airline Safety" as a co-production with the US
Public Broadcasting Service
The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) is an American public broadcaster and non-commercial, free-to-air television network based in Arlington, Virginia
Arlington County, or simply Arlington, is a County (United States), county in the ...
.
Donald Shebib
Donald Everett Shebib (27 January 1938 – 5 November 2023) was a Canadian film and television director. Shebib was a central figure in the development of English Canadian cinema who made several short documentaries for the National Film Board ...
produced films such as "San Francisco Summer 1967" and "
Good Times Bad Times
"Good Times Bad Times" is a song by the English rock band Led Zeppelin, featured as the opening track on their 1969 debut album ''Led Zeppelin''. The song was Led Zeppelin's first single released in the US, where it reached the ''Billboard'' ...
" for the program.
Beryl Fox
Beryl Fox (born December 10, 1931) is a Canadian documentary film director and producer.
Biography
Beryl Fox was born in 1931 in Winnipeg, Manitoba. She dropped out of high school a year before graduating and worked a series of selling and cleri ...
's documentary "Vietnam, Last Reflections on a War" was also featured.
Joni Mitchell
Roberta Joan Mitchell (née Anderson; born November 7, 1943) is a Canadian and American singer-songwriter, multi-instrumentalist, and painter. As one of the most influential singer-songwriters to emerge from the 1960s folk music circuit, Mitch ...
wrote a theme son (page 5)
''The Way It Is'' was cancelled in 1969 by
Knowlton Nash
Cyril Knowlton Nash (November 18, 1927 – May 24, 2014) was a Canadian journalist, author and news anchor. He was senior anchor of CBC Television's flagship news program, '' The National'' from 1978 until his retirement in 1988. He began his ca ...
when he became chief of the CBC's news and public affairs.
Scheduling
This hour-long program was broadcast on Sundays at 10:00 p.m. (Eastern). Its first season ran from 24 September 1967 to 23 June 1968, then its second season was from 29 September 1968 to 29 June 1969.