Network: CTV Television Network
Broadcast Run: 1985 to 1988
Broadcast Medium: Television
After first Alan Hamel, and then Alan Thicke and Don Harron, had hosted a string of daytime strip talk shows from Vancouver – a location whose proximity to Los Angeles helped the producers access a series of Hollywood celebrities – the start of the 1985-85 season saw CTV’s daily one-hour series in this genre originate from Toronto. The series was titled Lifetime, and was conceived as an ‘information talk show’, which like its predecessors featured both celebrity guests and unknowns with interesting stories to tell, but also dealt with topics like health, high-tech, finance and lifestyle. One ‘media week’ featured a discussion on television news with both Lloyd Robertson and Peter Mansbridge in the studio.
In year one, the one-hour series was hosted by Peter Feniak, a former CBC writer-producer and host of Global Television’s “That’s Life”. In years two and three he was joined by Liz Grogan, who had enjoyed earlier success on CTV’s Live It Up, with guest hosts Maureen McTeer, Dinah Christie, Susan Hogan and Kirsten Nielsen filling in when Grogan went on maternity leave. Rae Hull co-hosted in the fourth and final year.
The daily gabfest featured theme music composed by guitarist Domenic Troiano, a former member of Robbie Lane’s Disciples, The Mandala, Bush and the Guess Who. Troiano was later to provide the theme music for CTV’s hit series Night Heat.
Produced by Stan Lipsey in the studios of Toronto CTV affiliate CFTO-TV, Lifetime debuted in September 1985, and occupied the Monday to Friday 1:00 – 2:00pm time period (with some local scheduling variations) for four years until its cancellation at the end of the 1987-88 season.
Written by Pip Wedge – May, 2003