Richard Dagenais resurfaces at CJAD

It was great to hear the golden pipes of Richard Dagenais once again.  After having his job abolished at the Global TV Morning News last month, he has resurfaced as a freelance news anchor on CJAD Radio. His first shift was on June 6.

Richard Dagenais

Dagenais was part of  dynamic duo for two and a half years with Camille Ross on Global. The two really played well off each other and I would always tune in to find out via Dagenais what "international day" it was. He has got a great sense of humour. When Global owners Shaw Media decided to rejig the newscast and introduce a newscast from Toronto, that meant somebody from the Montreal team had to go. So, from three on air personalities, they went to two. Ross and Jessica Laventure remained.

I hope Dagenais can get some more work with Bell Media properties here: CJAD, Virgin Radio, CHOM, TSN 690 and CTV Montreal,  In fact, from 1985 to 2002 --16 years - he worked for CHOM and CKGM as  a writer, producer, host, and interviewer.   He joined Global in 2002. When the first incarnation of their morning show was cancelled in 2008 he was out of job, but was brought back two years later as a maternity leave replacement.

While Dagenais was not eager to do an interview with me, he his finally shared his thoughts on his personal blog. Here is the link. 

"That last day one month ago was difficult and the sign-off, dreadfully precarious," Dagenais writes. "One wrong word or move by anyone would have caused me to unwind emotionally on-air. Just as we came out of the last commercial break, Julie, one of our directors, declared quietly in my earpiece, 'it’s been an honor.' Managing a weak smile, I waved my fist at her through the camera, struggling to hold it together. Thankfully, Camille respected my request to do nothing out of the ordinary. Media critic Steve Faguy hit the nail on the head when he later observed I signed off that last Friday as though I would see viewers on Monday. It took immeasurable effort just to manage what he perceptively described as my 'see-you-Monday' wave!"

When I asked CJAD news director Chris Bury if there would more shifts for Dagenais, he could only respond "it's too early to say." Let's hope we hear more of him in the immediate future.

AM 600 Radio station announces big news: Aaron Rand and Andrew Carter move over

From today's print edition of The Suburban.

AM600, Montreal’s new English language radio station owned by industry veteran Paul Tietolman, will announce later today that both Andrew Carter and Aaron Rand have left CJAD and will headline a star studded lineup of notable personalities.

Aaron Rand

Tietolman  has hired radio veteran Steve Kowch as general manager and program director and Wayne Bews, late of 925 The Beat FM,  as sales manager. The interesting twist here is that Rand will host the morning show while Carter will do the drive home.

“I really missed mornings,” said Rand, who will bring back Paul “Tasso Patsikakis” Zakaib as his on air sidekick while Suzanne Desautels will also depart CJAD and handle weather and traffic. 

“These last few years doing afternoons at CJAD have been just great. I have not caught up with my sleep and I am ready to rise again at 3:30 a.m. weekdays to go to work.

Carter, meanwhile, said that it was his idea to switch shifts. “I have been doing mornings for more than a decade and it really takes it toll on you,” he admitted. “I am looking forward to sleeping in and staying up late again.”

Tietolman confided to us that his mid-morning show will feature a tête-à-tête between former politicians Gilles Duceppe and Yolande James. “A separatist and a federalist debating the issues each day will be ‘must listen to’ radio,” Tietolman said.

Paul Tietolman

Early afternoons will be anchored by Dan Laxer, who lost his full-time gig at CJAD a few years ago. Following Carter, Suburban editor Beryl Wajsman’s Last Angry Man returns to Montreal radio from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m.  Talks are reportedly underway between Tietolman’s team and TSN 690’s Conor McKenna to bring a provocative late night sports talk show back to the local radio scene. “Montrealers crave for the days of Ted Tevan,” Tietolman said of the late shock jock sports rap host. “We just know there is an audience for that.”

Overnights will belong to Peter Anthony Holder and Sol Boxenbaum, once fixtures on CJAD. Claude Beaulieu and Murray Sherriffs will head the news team.

Over at CJAD, it appears that Barry Morgan is in for a promotion to replace Carter in the mornings. Dave Kaufman will fill Morgan`s Noon to 3 p.m. shift while Dan Delmar will take over the drive home show. Jay Farrar will step in for McKenna if he moves to AM600.

Tietolman plans to launch AM 600 in June, along with  French language talk and sports stations. 

What is my reaction to all of this? Well folks, today is  April 1. It has been a few years since The Suburban was published on this date, providing me with the perfect opportunity to say “April Fool’s” to all of my readers. Sorry, but I just could not resist.

THE REAL STORY: Tietolman does indeed plan to open three radio stations. He has Canadian Radio-television Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) approval to go on the air with an English language talk station at the AM 600 dial and two French language stations, one for talk and another for sports. When I reached him he preferred not to get into too many details. But he wants to make it clear that this radio trio will become a reality. When it does, perhaps some of my April Fool’s musings will actually occur.  What do you think? 

GLOBAL TV AND THE BEAT: Last fall I invited  Jessica Laventure, Camille Ross and Richard Dagenais from The Global Morning News and Cat Spencer, Sarah Bartok and Natasha Hall The Beat 92.5 FM to the English Montreal School Board Career Fair. After doing an interview with them for The Suburban video section, I suggested that on April 1 they change places for the ultimate April Fool's joke. Well, today they do so in style and Camille even gave me some recognition on the air.

Here is the photo I took of Jessica,  Richard, Camille, Cat and Sarah which inspired the April Fool's joke.

Here are Cat and Sarah on Global.

And Richard,  Camille and Jessica on The Beat

Below are comments from the main players.

It's nice to see pros at work and that's exactly what the team at The Beat 92.5 are all about; seeing them at work, you realize Cat, Sarah, Natasha, Sammy and Paul are - Montreal's perfect mix!"

Richard Dagenais

"Any opportunity to spend time with the Team over at the beat is something to look forward to. They are a group of incredibly hilarious, charismatic and talented people."

Camille Ross

"It's easy to see why the Beat Breakfast with Cat and Sarah is Montreal's number one Morning radio show. I felt immediately comfortable with Cat, Sarah and Natasha. Nothing creepy, I just... smelled their hair and followed them home. You know, normal closeness."

Jessica Laventure

Thanks to the Global Morning News team for making us look good! Don't tell my boss but those 10 minutes on morning television made me realize how easy we have it in radio. No lights, no camera...(but plenty of action)!

Cat Spencer

Sometimes, things happen that make you scratch your head & wonder what just happened! That's exactly what we hoped to acheive with our little switch-a-roo. Thanks to the entire Global team for making this April Fools prank come to life...and for making me appreciate even more so how a full face of makeup is not required for morning radio. ;-)

Sarah Bartok

We tag teamed with Camille and Richard from Global to play a little April Fools joke on all our listeners..Cat and Sarah took over TV while Camille and Richard took over the radio:

Global TV and The Beat 92.5 FM morning crews share their secrets about getting up early

As an avid follower of the Montreal media, specifically through my column in The Suburban and this blog, it is always a pleasure to spend some time with the people whom I watch and listen to. For  a high school Career Fair I helped organize,  I invited The Beat 92.5 FM's Cat  Spencer, Sarah Bartok, Shaun McMahon, Natasha Hall and Claudia Marques while Global TV's wakeup crew of Jessica Laventure, Camille Ross and Richard Dagenais were on hand as well.

Jessica Laventure, Richard Dagenais, Camille Ross, Cat Spencer and Sarah Bartok

The Beat continues to bring us great music and dynamic on air personalities. Cat and Sarah have been a team for the past four years. Natasha handles those neat news updates and traffic while Marques is out and about in the city all week long for promotional stops and ticket giveaways; McMahon was recently promoted to weekend morning show host. Cat and Sarah have terrific chemistry together. Cat is a towering figure who came over from Virgin Radio while Sarah is as beautiful as she sounds. Over at Global, the team has been together for almost two years now and they have bonded. Dagenais is the veteran of the group, has a great sense of humour and always keeps us guessing as to what important international day it is. Ross, a breathtaking beauty with an infectious laugh, adapted perfectly to her new role. As for Laventure, she is a ball of fire and addictive to watch.

I thought it would be interesting to pull these five aside and ask them what it is like to have to wake up so early weekday mornings.What time do they get up? Do they nap? What time do they go to sleep?  This was an absolute blast and I am sure you will get a kick out of the video below. There appears to be a potential partnership here as the two morning show crews are big fans of one another.

Aalia Adam to get some experience doing Global TV morning weather

Aalia Adam has been attending "the school" of Global Television in Montreal since she was 17 years old.

"I started doing work with Global when I was attending Champlain College and I never really left," the now 24 year old reporter told me today as she shadowed the dynamic Jessica Laventure during a  Global Montreal Morning News broadcast.

Laventure, of  course, is the extraordinarily talented weather person on Global. But she does a lot more, including regular live reports from different events and activities and  of course her animal awareness features. As she prepares for some well deserved time off, Adam has been tapped to be her replacement for the next two weeks.  Over the course of the summer, Laventure will fill in for the dapper Richard Dagenais  at the news desk providing Adam with another four weeks of forecasts.

Jessica Laventure gets set to hand over the microphone to Aalia Adam.

"I am excited," said Adam, who has already been waking up at 3 a.m. and heading to the office as part of her training. "I am watching every weather forecaster I can, starting with Jessica, to pick up the lingo. Jess has started my training from zero and she is a great teacher. For instance, one of the tricks I have learned to really waking yourself up is to turn the music on in your car and sing really loud."

 Sign up for Aalia's fan page on Facebook:  https://m.facebook.com/Aaliaaadam

Adam will initially get her feet wet in the studio, but she hopes to go on location at some point this summer.

Global Montreal announces new morning team

Global Montreal’s Morning News will finally debut on Monday, January 28,  airing from 6 a.m. to 9 a.m.   

Richard Dagenais  returns to his old stomping grounds, leaving his late news anchor spot to head the morning show team. He will be joined by anchor/host Camille Ross, most  recently of CTV Montreal and weather specialist Jessica Laventure. This will be Montreal's  only locally-produced English-language morning show until next summer when City (the new name for City TV) introduces its own weekday wakeup program. Will CTV Montreal bring back its show as well?

Camille Ross, Richard Dagenais and Jessica Laventure.

According to a press release from Shaw Media, the owners of Global, the  Morning News will move away from the larger, more ambiguous headlines and instead turn the spotlight on the stories and issues of most importance to the city’s anglophone community.

Highlighting this mandate will be the Morning News’ regular use of a central breakfast location in Montreal’s multilingual and culturally-diverse West Island. This will serve as the hub from which Laventure conducts her weather hits every morning. With what essentially amounts to a dynamic on-location set, the Morning News will establish itself in the heart of the community, while giving viewers a chance to regularly interact with members of the show.

Dagenais, an accomplished broadcast veteran, brings over 30 years of professional media experience. Beginning his journalism career in print and radio, he  made the jump to television in 1990, working as reporter for CFCF Television’s weekly advocacy journalism program Fighting Back. First joining Global Montreal in 2002, Dagenais worked as a fill-in sports anchor and line-up editor before becoming a regular anchor for This Morning Live. Dagenais returned to Global  in 2010 as temporary anchor of the Evening News and host of Focus Montreal, later becoming anchor for Global Montreal’s News Final in 2011.
 

Ross began her career with CTV’s NewsNet and Canada AM in Toronto before moving to to Yorkton, Saskatchewan, to anchor and report for CTV. Making the leap to join Global Regina in 2010, Ross reported on everything from breaking local news to weekly crop reports. She was also at the anchor desk for Global Regina’s Evening News, Prime News, and News Final programs before moving to CTV Montreal in 2011. An avid traveler, Ross has visited parts of the United States, Europe and South America and in her spare time, hosts community and charity events

Prior to joining Global, Laventure was co-host of the MétéoMedia Morning Show as well as a special features host for MétéoMedia and The Weather Network, covering several high profile weather-related stories, including the spring, 2011 floods in St-Jean-sur-Richelieu. Laventure’s television career began in 2006 as a production assistant and reporter for Global Quebec (now Global Montreal), where she later became Host of QC Magazine, a half-hour program dedicated to reporting Quebec’s top news stories. A graduate of Concordia University, Laventure is trilingual and can speak English, French, and conversational Italian.

Shaw Media spokesperson Nick Poirier says no decision has been made as to who will replace Dagenais as the late night anchor. Peter Anthony Holder, who fulfills that role on weekends, is currently in place and would be a popular choice.