Network: CTV Television Network
Broadcast Run: 1961 to 1962
Broadcast Medium: Television
This half-hour variety show was shot in the studios of CHAN-TV (rebranded BCTV in 1975) and on location in British Columbia. Studio production numbers, which featured Dal Richards and his orchestra, and vocals by his wife Lorraine McAllister, were interspersed with such scenes as rock climbing at Squamish and salmon fishing at Horseshoe Bay. West Coast was produced and directed by Rai Purdy, who had just returned from spending three years in Britain working for Roy Thomson, to get his “license to print money” station Scottish Television off and running in the mid-1950s.
The series ran on Fridays 7:30 – 8:00pm in CTV’s first year, 1961-62, but high costs and low audiences precluded a renewal, and the show was replaced by Roy Ward Dickson’s latest quiz show, Try For Ten.
Written by Pip Wedge – November, 2002