Howard L. Bernstein

Howard Bernstein has produced and run some of the most important news and current affairs programs on Canadian television.

At the CTV Television Network, Bernstein produced Canada AM and was Head of News Specials. In that capacity, he produced documentaries and news stories from Beirut during the civil war, from Tokyo (1979 G7 Summit), Hong Kong (Vietnamese Boat People), Israel (30th Anniversary), London (the Royal Wedding of Prince Charles), Belfast (The death of Bobby Sands), Washington (The Camp David Accords and the Iranian Hostage Crisis).

At CBC-TV, he was Senior Editor of The Journal, Executive Producer of News and Current Affairs at CBC-Toronto, Executive Producer of Sunday Morning and station manager of CBLT, the network’s flagship station in Toronto. He was also News Director at Global Television and Executive Producer of Current Affairs at TV Ontario. At TV Ontario, he produced two international documentaries, one on the war in Bosnia and, from Poland, a look at a family’s return to Auschwitz. He has produced series and documentaries for CBC, Newsworld, the NFB, Discovery Channel and Life Network.

Bernstein was executive producer of the most successful documentary in Canadian television history. Runaways: 24 Hours on the Street was watched by 4.1 million Canadians in a single showing and won 14 Canadian and International awards for television production and journalism. This documentary helped create 48 Hours at CBS and two drama series in Canada.

From 1996-98, Bernstein produced a series of cinéma-vérité news documentaries for CPAC, including election coverage in Canada and a unique series on Hong Kong’s first election under Communist rule. At CPAC, he helped create a new way of covering events and trained the CPAC producers and camera operators in the art of vérité shooting.

After recently concluding 10 years of teaching broadcast journalism at Ryerson University, which is recognized as Canada’s leading school of journalism, Bernstein ran his own production company, Infinite Monkeys Productions, Inc. Infinite Monkeys Productions has produced two documentary series in association with MicroTainment Plus International: the Gemini-nominated Downtown Angel of Medicine for Discovery Channel, for which he was Executive Producer, Producer and Director; and Zoo Diaries for Life Network, for which he is Producer and Director. He was executive producer of “Happily Ever After: The Elizabeth Manley Story, for CBC. He also executive produced Glenn Gould: The Russian Journey which will aired on CBC.

Along with partner Mark Shekter he helped develop an on-air strategy for the Discovery Health Channel, including their daily magazine show, which won the network’s first and only Gemini Award.

As a partner in DocuTainment Productions Ltd. he is executive and co-producer of , for CBC Arts, and executive producer for Say Yes…& Marry Me for Life Channel, Test of Faith for Vision, the fifth successful season of Zoo Diaries. In the last year he executive produced The Last Voyage of the Empress for CBC, Zoo Zoo for BBC Kids, and is now programs executive producing a new “relationships” series for W, a children's underwater adventure series, Spiritual Gardens for Vision and more, making DocuTainment one of the fastest growing producers of factual television in Canada.