Big Ideas is a Canadian television series produced and broadcast by TVOntario, on the air since 2001. The program showcases public intellectual culture. It was conceived by Wodek Szemberg who continues to serve as producer of the program. The show presents public lectures by acclaimed university educators and other distinguished guests. The show is intended for a general audience. The original host, Irshad Manji, was succeeded by Canadian actor/director/playwright Andrew Moodie on 2006-01-07.
Big Ideas airs on TVOntario on Saturday and Sunday at 5 PM, with repeat airings at 5:00 AM on Sunday and Monday morning.
In 2007, Big Ideas held its Best Lecturer competition for the second time. Dr. Michael Persinger, from Laurentian University, received the best-lecturer award.
Podcasts of the current lectures are available through the Big Ideas website as well as from iTunes.
Big Ideas is also the name of an unrelated PBS series that originally aired in 2003, as well as of a radio series on Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Radio National.
The show will be terminated in spring 2013 as a result of budget cuts at TVO.
Famous quotes containing the words big and/or ideas:
“My first big mistake was made when, in a moment of weakness, I consented to learn the game; for a man who can frankly say “I do not play bridge” is allowed to go over in the corner and run the pianola by himself, while the poor neophyte, no matter how much he may protest that he isn’t “at all a good player, in fact I’m perfectly rotten,” is never believed, but dragged into a game where it is discovered, too late, that he spoke the truth.”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)
“Those great ideas which come to you in your sleep just before you awake in morning, those solutions to the world’s problems which, in the light of day, turn out to be duds of the puniest order, couldn’t they be put to some use, after all?”
—Robert Benchley (1889–1945)