OutfrontJoined PRX: April 7, 2005
Each 13 minute episode of Outfront presents a first person documentary. There is no host or reporter. Typically, the storyteller is an ordinary soul exploring something personal in his or her life, someone searching for insight. Their stories run the gamut of emotion and human experience.
Outfront's unique voice comes from putting microphones in the hands of ordinary people who use them to tell their real life stories. For most it is their first try at making radio. The show selects its stories from approximately 1000 pitches submitted every year. Anyone in Canada can pitch. Once a pitch is accepted, an experienced producer guides the novice through the process. This willingness to mentor, this openness to giving people their own voice, has reaped an extraordinary reward for listeners -- intimate access to the lives of their fellow citizens. As the eminent Canadian broadcaster Patrick Watson has said, Outfront’s approach yields radio that “rings with emotional truth.”
Outfront searches out the diversity of Canada by presenting the personal stories of people not usually heard on the radio. Sometimes their stories are rooted in what sets them apart from the mainstream. Just as often the issues they explore -- family ties, loss, loyalty, coming of age, faith and home -- resonate across boundaries.
Launched in 1998, Outfront has won international recognition from the very start. It is the only CBC Radio documentary program to win the Prix Italia (twice) and Spain's Premios Ondas. It has won numerous gold medals at the New York Festivals, and the Gabriel Awards.
Outfront is broadcast in Canada on CBC Radio One, Monday to Wednesday at 8:43 pm It is streamed live on www.cbc.ca
