Canada's Smartest Person is a Canadian reality television competition series. Canadians compete in unique intelligence challenges to earn the title of "Canada's Smartest Person." The challenges are based on The Theory of Multiple Intelligences.[1]
The show is produced by Media Headquarters, and broadcasts on CBC Television. The show originally aired in 2012 as a 2-hour special.[3] It returned to CBC as a 9-part series in 2014. The 2014 series was the number one rated new Canadian program of the fall season.[4] Canada’s Smartest Person returned for a second season on October 4, 2016.[5] On March 31st, 2016 CBC announced the series would return for a third season as part of their fall/winter schedule.[6]
During the broadcast, viewers participate in all of the challenges from home in real-time using the Canada's Smartest Person app. The app is one of the most popular interactive experiences ever produced in Canada, with over 1,000,000 intelligence tests completed over the first season.[7]
Every week four Canadians compete in front of a studio audience.[8] They are given a set of five challenges designed to test their abilities in one or more of the following intelligence categories: musical, physical, social, logical, visual and linguistic.[9]
In the series finale, eight finalists compete to earn the title of Canada's Smartest Person.
The 2014 series opened with a one-hour documentary that explored the Theory of Multiple Intelligence.
The format is being exploited internationally by multi-media studio Electus. Electus has licensed Canada's Smartest Person to Turkey's TRT and Sera Film for production, and has secured deals in France, Norway, Sweden and Portugal[10]