In 1968, As It Happens premiered on CBC Radio, with what may have seemed like a gimmicky premise: so many other shows rely on a call-in format – what if we call out? It was so simple it was brilliant. It enabled the program to interview people across the country and around the world, just by dialing a number: Canadian and world leaders, regular people in extraordinary circumstances, excited scientists, and proud eccentrics of all kinds.
And it proved prescient as well. We no longer have to reach people via rotary phone in their living rooms or offices — As It Happens can get hold of anyone, anywhere, who's got a story to tell. Night after night, host Nil Köksal brings you in-depth, conversations with the people near, or at, the centre of the day's news.
As it Happens. Radio that found its calling: calling.