CTV Television Network

One of the earliest Canadian television series to seek public opinions on key issues, Telepoll was hosted by Royce Frith, and featured a weekly guest panel who debated currently hot topics on each program. A preselected group of members of the public were then polled by telephone by an independent research group for their yes or no answers on the questions which had been debated, and the responses were tabulated and aired on the following week's show.

Roy Ward Dickson started life in London, England in 1910 as Richard del Valle.
He emigrated to Canada at age 16, and after a varied career which included jobs as farm-hand, chemist, stores manager and teacher, he one day persuaded the Vancouver Sun to publish a series of puzzle competitions. These proved very successful, and launched him into what was to be a lucrative broadcasting career as host of many game and quiz shows, first for radio and later for television.

Another of several game shows to appear in CTV’s schedule in its first season, and one of many to come from the Goodson-Todman stable in New York, Showdown was hosted by Hamilton radio broadcaster Paul Hanover. It featured contestants competing to answer general knowledge questions, and the announcer was Nick Hollinrake, later the Voice of CTV on many Network shows and promotion spots.

Showdown was produced for CTV by Screen Gems at the studios of CFCF-TV in Montreal. It lasted only one year on CTV, in the 1961-1962 season.

Colorful producer Syd Banks, who was responsible for producing several of CTV's early shows, gave the nation this weekly compilation of various country music acts taped in different parts of Canada. It was the forerunner of several similarly styled country shows that ran on CTV over many years, and took advantage of the significant array of talents available in this genre.

The one-hour program ran on Saturday nights at 11:00pm in the network's first season, 1961-62.