{alltv} 'Daily Planet' celebrates 15 years

Co-host Jay Ingram describes Daily Planet's 15th anniversary special as "sort of a science show goes spectacular."

But really, that always has been Daily Planet's mission statement, hasn't it?

The two-hour special, officially titled Daily Planet's Greatest Show Ever, airs Sunday, Oct. 10 on Discovery. The bulk of it was taped before a live audience at the Ontario Science Centre in Toronto last week.

"From the TV point of view, we had a fantastic set, great lighting, amazing camera angles -- none of which I experienced, of course, because I was just standing there," said Ingram, who co-hosts Daily Planet with Ziya Tong. "But it's pretty incredible that way.

"We had the usual Daily Planet mix, a certain amount of humour, we brought back two former co-hosts, we had some really cool physics demos and then had a Canadian Idol-type panel rate them. It's two hours but it's really fast paced."

For the past decade and a half Daily Planet has probed the scientific aspects of current events and thus has become a Discovery staple in Canada.

"When something happens in the world that has some sort of science and technology component to it, we have to make two decisions," said Ingram, who has hosted since the beginning. "One, can we do a Daily Planet take on this that adds to what already is out there? And two, is it going to be good TV? Maybe those are the same questions, in a way."

Not always. Therein lies the challenge.

"In the past, maybe in our eagerness to be all things to all people and to say, 'We have to cover this,' we might have ended up with a fairly ordinary back-and-forth talk with somebody," Ingram continued. "We're much better now at finding someone with an opinion that's different."

As an example, Ingram pointed to the catastrophic earthquake in Haiti last January. While most news shows were looking for geologists to explain what had happened, Daily Planet actually tracked down two geologists who had done field work in Haiti, so they could put a human, emotional face on the tragedy.

"To me, speaking more broadly even than Daily Planet, that always has been the challenge in communicating science," Ingram said.

"Some of the stories we did at the beginning we simply would not do now. And in 2010 we'll tell certain stories in 35 seconds instead of six minutes.

"You can just talk data and that will interest 10% of the world. But if you can connect data to people's lives, and the people doing it, then you're going to be much more successful."

Well, Daily Planet seems to have concocted the right formula.

"How many shows last 15 years, especially specialized shows?" asked Ingram.

And you don't need a science background to come up with the answer: Not many.