This long-running Canadian game show started on 24 June 1957 as an inexpensive summer replacement for The Denny Vaughan Show before eventually spanning 38 years and nearly 1,000 episodes.
The show adapted the basic structure of popular American panel games like What’s My Line? but infused it with a heavy focus on hard journalism, current events, and history.
Before a hidden “mystery guest” was introduced, the studio audience and home viewers were shown archival news footage outlining a major historical or contemporary news story.
A panel of prominent Canadian journalists then had a limited time to cross-examine the hidden guest using yes-or-no questions to guess the exact “front-page” news story with which they were associated.
Once the panel successfully guessed the story (or ran out of time), the game portion of the show ended, and the panel then conducted an unscripted, serious – and often hard-hitting – news interview with the guest.
Broadcast journalist Fred Davis served as the master of ceremonies for virtually the entire run, anchoring the show from late 1957 all the way to its eventual cancellation in 1995.
Legendary Canadian author and historian Pierre Berton sat on the panel for all 38 years of the show’s existence, instantly recognisable by his trademark bow ties. The notoriously blunt and controversial journalist and radio host Gordon Sinclair was also a permanent fixture on the panel from 1957 until his death in 1984.
Acclaimed journalist and broadcaster Betty Kennedy joined the regular panel in 1962, adding sharp insight and staying with the series until its final curtain in 1995.
In the show’s later decades, high-profile columnists Allan Fotheringham (joined 1984) and Jack Webster (joined 1990) filled out the permanent roster.
Mystery guests throughout the 28-year run of the show included Martin Luther King Jr, Malcolm X, Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, Eleanor Roosevelt, Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, Ella Fitzgerald, Boris Karloff, Errol Flynn, Lois Maxwell and Ed Sullivan.
CBC officially cancelled “Front Page Challenge” on 10 February 1995.
Host
Fred Davis Panelists
Pierre Berton
Gordon Sinclair
Betty Kennedy
Allan Fotheringham
Jack Webster
Video
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Before a hidden “mystery guest” was introduced, the studio audience and home viewers were shown archival news footage outlining a major historical or contemporary news story.
In the show’s later decades, high-profile columnists Allan Fotheringham (joined 1984) and Jack Webster (joined 1990) filled out the permanent roster.
