Network: CBC Television Network
Broadcast Run: 1953 to 1960
Broadcast Medium: Television
Aired: Mon-Sat : Mar 1953 – Jun 1954; Mon-Fri 7:00-7:30 p.m July 1955-1963. Later re-named 701 in 1960 because a drug company registered the trade name.
Hosts: Dick MacDougal [1953-58], Percy Saltzman [1953-63], Max Ferguson [1958-61], Elaine Grand [1953-56], Joyce Davidson [1956-61], Betty Jean Talbot [1961-62], Alan Miller [1961-62]
Newscasters: Gil Christy [1953-54], John O’Leary [1954-62], Rex Loring [1962-63]
Contributors: Allan Anderson, Gregory Clark, Earl Cox, Blair Fraser, Trent Frayne, Robert Fulford, Sydney Katz, Paisley Maxwell, Robert McKeown, Dave Price, Wilfred Sanders, John Saywell, Lister Sinclair, Jean Templeton and Bruce West.
Tabloid was originated by producer Ross McLean at Toronto’s CBLT, and was a half-hour of news and public affairs and interviews. Percy Saltzman delivered the weather forecast. The program debuted March 9, 1953, less than a year after CBC Television began broadcasting.
The newsreel was assembled by Gunnar Rugheimer, from international news footage from such news services as United Press and Movietone News in the U.S.A., the BBC in the U.K., and from news organizations in the Netherlands, West Germany, Denmark, Italy, Switzerland, and Japan, as well as the Canadian armed forces.
The program opened auspiciously with the following: “a program with an interest in anything that happens anywhere, bringing you the news at seven.”
Written by John Corcelli – December, 2002