CBC Radio's Ideas

Ideas is eclectic in form and content. We cover social issues, culture and the arts, geopolitics, history, biography, science and technology, and the humanities. Most of our programs are documentaries in which thoughts are gathered, contexts explored, and connections made.

The 1965 premiere broadcast of Ideas (at first called The Best Ideas You'll Hear Tonight) was on the CBC-FM network, amalgamating two former series titled University of the Air and The Learning Stage. The first three programs featured a discussion of Darwin's theory of evolution and an interview with members of the CBC Galapagos Expedition, a series called  the music of Villa-Lobos, and a talk by Earle Birney about poetry and creativity. Back in 1965 The CBC Times announced that "full-attention programming is what CBC-FM radio offers its listeners. IDEAS is a series prepared for people who just enjoy thinking."

Ideas also plays host to The Massey Lectures, sponsored by CBC Radio in partnership with Massey College in the University of Toronto and House of Anansi Press. The series was created to honour The Right Honourable Vincent Massey, former Governor-General of Canada, and an energetic advocate for the humanities in Canada. Inaugurated in 1961 and heard on IDEAS since the program's creation in 1965, the CBC Massey Lectures "enable distinguished authorities to communicate the results of original study on important subjects of contemporary interest".