History
The televised Reach for the Top series was first shown on CBC Television affiliate CBUT in Vancouver, British Columbia in 1961, based on the BBC series Top of the Form. In that first year, a team from three high schools in Burnaby, BC - Fred Affleck, Robert French, Lynne Mader and Marilyn Pelzer - defeated every other team and took all the prizes. The first national Reach for the Top tournament took place in 1965, and was won by Vincent Massey Collegiate Institute from Etobicoke, Ontario. The series was filmed at locations across Canada with the national championships held in Montreal, Quebec. In 1968 a short-lived Trans-World Top Team series was created by the CBC and BBC, in which teams from the United Kingdom played teams from Canada.
Alex Trebek hosted the Toronto version for several years. In Vancouver, the show was hosted by Terry Garner (1961-1982). In Montreal, the show was hosted by Bob Cadman and by Marc Coté. Shelagh Rogers, later a host for CBC Radio, was a contestant on the original broadcasts of the show. Bill Guest hosted the National Finals on CBC from 1969 to 1985.
The CBC stopped airing Reach for the Top in 1985, but it continues to be shown under the aegis of Reach for the Top Inc. From 2000-2008, the national finals were aired by CLT (now OWN: the Oprah Winfrey Network), hosted by Graham Neil of CFRN-TV in Edmonton. In 2009, the national finals were not aired except for the final game which was filmed in the TVOntario studio. It is unknown whether or not TVO will air the 2010 national finals in its entirety. Until 2009, games at the provincial level were broadcast on stations unique to their respective provinces, among them Ontario on TVO with Nicole Stamp of TVOKids (and produced and directed by Sidney M. Cohen), British Columbia with Tamara Stanners on Knowledge, and Alberta with Graham Neil on Access. However, only Ontario provincial level games are now aired (by TVO).
In 1985, Reach for the Top Inc., a private company, was established by Sandy Stewart, on agreement with CBC. Mr. Stewart then joined with his wife, Patricia Stewart, in partnership with Robert Jeffrey and Paul Russell of Paulus Productions Inc. to create Schoolreach, an in-school version of Reach for the Top available across Canada by subscription. Schoolreach is organized among the different school boards in Canada, and monthly tournaments are played, culminating in a district final each spring. The winner in each district participates in the provincial finals (which are televised in Ontario), and the provincial winner competes in the national championship.
Reach for the Top Inc. produced a season of programming out of Toronto in 1986 and 1987. The Reach for the Top National Finals were revived in 1988. In 1995, Sandy and Pat Stewart retired from Reach For The Top. Reach for the Top and Schoolreach were then taken over by Paulus Productions Inc. under the direction of Paul Russell and Robert Jeffrey.
CBC revived the format in the program Smart Ask which was cancelled in 2004. From 1973 to 1997 the CBC's French language network, Radio-Canada, aired a program called Génies en herbe ("Budding Geniuses"), which was the French language equivalent of Reach for the Top. Competitions continued after the cancellation of the program, and teams from other francophone countries around the world often participated.
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