History
Speakers' Corner began in 1990 with the original booth outside the Citytv studios in Toronto. The booth was used for everything from heartrending pleas for assistance in locating missing children or pets, to humorous rants on things that annoy the speaker. It was used by musicians looking to get exposure — most famously, the then-unknown Barenaked Ladies reached their earliest audiences, prior to the release of The Yellow Tape, by performing their future hit single "Be My Yoko Ono" in the Speakers' Corner booth.
Versions of the show began on other regional CHUM-owned television stations such as CHRO in Ottawa and CFPL in London. Citytv Bogotá (which licensed the brand from CHUM) also launched its own Speaker's Corner booth called Citycapsula when it signed on in 1996; unlike the Canadian versions, Citycapsula is free.
An Alberta version, Speakers' Corner Alberta, aired on Access TV from October 2003 until April 2008. In the fall of 2006 the Citytv stations in Calgary and Edmonton started airing the AccessTV Speaker's Corner Alberta as they were both owned by CHUM. Speakers' Corner Alberta was cancelled in April 2008 due to changes in both companies.
A French version of Speakers' Corner, called VoxPop, operated at MusiquePlus in Montreal. It operated from the early 1990s until the early 2000s.
Read more about this topic: Speakers' Corner (TV Series)
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