The program premiered on September 29, 1986 with host Stan Carew,[2] initially focusing primarily on celebrity interviews and musical guests.
[3] Ralph Benmergui took over as host of both Prime Time and The Entertainers in September 1987,[4] adding a more irreverent and mocking tone to the program;[1] one of his early coups was an interview with David Bowie.
[12] Noted segments aired on the program during Pevere's tenure included a documentary feature based on Marc Eliot's book Rockonomics,[13] an episode which used the anniversary of John F. Kennedy's assassination to explore the prominence of paranoia and conspiracy themes in pop culture,[11] and a weeklong series on the 50th anniversary of the classic film Citizen Kane which centred on an exclusive interview with the film's editor Robert Wise, by that time one of the last still-living members of the film's cast or crew, about his experiences working with Orson Welles.
[17] Following its cancellation, Pevere noted in an interview with The Globe and Mail that this ban was so strict that he was not even allowed to thank regular contributors for their time with the program when they made their final appearances.
[2] It was replaced by a nightly repeat of feature segments from Morningside,[2] while its pop culture mandate was taken over by the new weekend program Brand X.