[1] He first achieved national fame (and in some quarters, notoriety) as the co-producer and, with Laurier LaPierre, on-camera co-host of the CBC Television current affairs program This Hour Has Seven Days in the mid-1960s.

[2][1] In 1983 he created and performed, solo, a stage version of the Old Testament's The Book of Job, at first at the Nathan Cohen Studio in Toronto, directed by John McGreevey, and then at the National Arts Centre Theatre in Ottawa.

He also created the Heritage Minutes, The Canadians: Biographies of a Nation, and The Struggle for Democracy series; the last has since aired in over 40 countries around the world.

[4] It took five years to make, was filmed in 30 countries and was, at the time, the most expensive original documentary series ever made for Canadian television.

[1] The Heritage Minutes were an initiative of Watson's begun in 1988 at Charles Bronfman's CRB Foundation (now The Historica Dominion Institute).