The Fifth Estate

the fifth estate (always branded in all-lower case) is a Canadian television newsmagazine, which airs on the English language CBC Television network. The name is a play on the fact that the media are sometimes referred to as the Fourth Estate, and was chosen to highlight the program's determination to go beyond everyday news into original journalism. The program has been on the air since September 1975, and its primary focus is on investigative journalism. It has engaged in co-productions with the BBC, The New York Times, the leading Canadian newspapers The Globe and Mail and The Toronto Star, and often with the PBS series Frontline.

The fifth estate has won many awards, including Gemini Awards – among them ten for Best Information Series, numerous domestic investigative journalism awards, many New York and Columbus awards, International Emmys, and in 2000 and 2010 the Michener Award, Canada's top journalism prize, which is open to all media and has only one annual winner. One recent co-production with The New York Times and PBS's Frontline was recognized with the Pulitzer, Peabody, Polk and other awards.

The fifth estate is one of two television series (with The Twilight Zone being the first) to win an Academy Award, a prize presented to theatrical films: Just Another Missing Kid, originally a the fifth estate episode, was released in theatres in the United States and won the 1982 Academy Award for Documentary Feature.

The series will begin its thirty-eighth season in September 2012.