Through his acting connections, Yost learned that CBC was looking for quiz show panelists. In the mid-1960s, he created and hosted CBC's
Passport to Adventure, featuring classic movie serials, and also assisted in the founding of the Metropolitan Educational Television Authority (META). He joined the
Ontario Educational Communications Authority (later
TVOntario) in the early 1970s as a manager and, in 1974, was assisting with the establishment of its regional councils, when he was told OECA had acquired the broadcast rights to three
Ingmar Bergman films and was asked if he had any ideas on how the station could air them in an educational context. Yost packaged the shows as
Three Films in Search of God adding educational content in the form of interviews, introductions, and discussions, thus creating the model for what became
Saturday Night at the Movies, Yost also developed
Magic Shadows, which showed classic films in a serial format in half-hour early evening installments with introductions providing background and interesting details by Yost; the movie review show
Rough Cuts;
Talking Film and
The Moviemakers. In the early years the interviews were with local film experts, but the show's producers took the opportunity to interview visiting actors when they had engagements in Toronto. As the show grew in popularity, funds were found to send Yost and a crew to Hollywood to arrange interviews with film personalities. His segment library includes interviews with the stars of classic films, character actors, directors, screenwriters, composers, film-editors, special-effects people, and sometimes even their children. His son,
Graham Yost, is a
screenwriter whose most famous credit was the hit 1994 film
Speed.
Speed was the final movie Yost hosted before retiring from
Saturday Night at the Movies in 1999. Yost retired from TVOntario in 1999 and his last show was on 9 October 1999, where he introduced his replacement, CBC Radio's
Shelagh Rogers. ==Death==