The Bridge with Peter Mansbridge - A special Sunday afternoon advisory to listeners of the Bridge.

Episode Date: January 31, 2021

Some changes coming up tomorrow for the Bridge and Peter gives you a sense of what they are and what they aren't! 

and hello there Peter Mansbridge here latest episode of the bridge well it's a special episode of the bridge it's a Sunday afternoon episode of the bridge so why am I doing that well it's a special kind of day. After a year and a half doing The Bridge, it's kind of a milestone, or as we like to say in the metric world, a kilometer stone. Actually, we don't say that. But it is a milestone here, because as you know, at least those of you who started this little journey with me a year and a half ago, back in, I guess it was August of 2019, just as we launched into an election campaign. You know, I said initially, well, you know, it'll probably be about 10 or 15 minutes long,

and we'll do it for a while and see how it goes. Well, we did. We did it all the way through the campaign, and then we kind of stopped for a few months. We did it occasionally, once a week, once every couple of weeks. And then when COVID hit, almost a year ago now, we said, well, let's give it a whirl again on a daily. But it'll be short, you know, let's say 10 minutes a day. Well, that was, whatever, 47 weeks ago now, and it's a lot more than 10 or 15 minutes a day. It kind of ranges anywhere from 30 minutes to 50 minutes, actually, on some of the podcasts, but mostly kind of in the 30s. So what are we going to do that's different?

Well, for most of you, you're not going to notice anything different. You'll still get your podcast. You'll still get the bridge every afternoon or early evening. We release it at noon and depending on what platform you're on, by the time it gets to your device, it's usually, you know, mid to late afternoon. Anyway, you'll still get it exactly that way, and with all the same features that we get today. You know, you'll get Bruce Anderson with me every Wednesday for Smoke Mirrors and the Truth, the weekend special on Fridays.

We try to do one potpourri day a week, and the other days are, you know, kind of go with the flow of what's happening in the news it's not a newscast it is kind of my particular way of sort of rambling and ranting um but that's what seems to have worked seems to have worked because others have been interesting interested in trying to develop a partnership of some kind with the bridge. So we listened over the last, I keep saying we, basically me and my son Will, who's been involved a lot

in terms of putting this hobby podcast together. We listened, and we have ended up deciding that the route we want to take is with Sirius XM Canada. And they're going to now distribute the podcast for us to all the different platforms, including the ones that you get it on. So in that sense, you won't have any difference. But Sirius is going to do something else. They're also going to put it on their Sirius satellite radio system on channel 167, Canada Talks. It'll be there every day at 12 noon. So the very first airing of the bridge each day will be at 12 noon Eastern time

on Sirius XM Canada channel 167. So, you know, if you're out in your car or however you get your satellite radio, you'll be able to hear it then. But if that doesn't work for you, you'll still be able to hear it where you normally hear it. Now, there is one additional factor in this, and I've given you heads up on this for the last few months. There will be sponsorship now. Serious sponsors will end up with about a minute and a half max a day, 30 seconds before I even start the podcast, and one minute somewhere during the podcast. So that will be there, and that's really going to help us. Believe me.

It's going to help us continue to develop a better technical system, an audio system. I mean, we are living through a pandemic, and so certain audio quality, as you're seeing watching television, major network television, there are certain compromises that have to be made because of different ways of getting to guests. So we'll still kind of have that, but it's still going to be sound, crisper, and better, and we're really looking forward to that.

And it's going to help in terms of certain elements of research, in terms of developing some permanent panels. We're looking at doing that as well. And I think you're going to enjoy that, especially when I give you some sense of who's going to be with us. But the basic elements, and that's the importance of this note today, is for the most part, you're not going to notice any change. And the things you like the best are absolutely going to be there.

Bruce with Smoke Mirrors and the Truth on Wednesdays, the weekend special on Fridays, a potpourri day, as I said, at some point during the week, and the other days where we're kind of hitting on not necessarily the news of the day, but the news of the moment, the news of our time, and how we can kind of further flesh out some of the details, but the news of the moment, the news of our time, and how we can kind of further flesh out some of the details on those stories.

So I hope you're going to enjoy these changes that happen. There will also be some new music. It's funny, some of you have talked to me over the last year and a half about the music, which I found free on the internet. You can go free music on the internet if you Google that, put it in your search engine, you'll find stuff. And that's where we found, you know, the little music that we use right now. But we're going to have some new music starting tomorrow.

I'll give you a hint of this as we close out the show. You know, it's still consistent with our desire to have a certain level of, not tension is not the right word, but a pulse to the program. And you'll hear it in the music that we're using. Anyway, I'm not going to take any more of your time on a weekend. Hopefully you're having a good weekend and you're doing the things that you have to do because that is the way we're going to defeat this pandemic

and this virus. I hope you're getting outside when you can and where you can because there's been some gorgeous weather in different parts of the country this weekend. Some tough weather too, but some gorgeous weather certainly for skating on the pond, cross-country skiing, or just walking around the block. Keep your distance, mask, and double. I tried my first time of double masking over the last couple of days. It's bulky and awkward, and I finally got around to it and I think that's going to be one of the ways

of certainly the near future as we await whether it's our vaccines or we just simply await the end of this thing. Anyway, the bridge will be back at its normal time,

normal places, tomorrow. This was a special shorty. This one actually delivers on what I said that first day. Yeah, you know, somewhere five or ten minutes. This one's going to come in around eight and a half minutes. It only took me a year and a half to live up to that promise. All right, my friends. I'm Peter Mansbridge.

This has been The Bridge, a special Sunday afternoon edition. We'll talk to you again in, well, you know, kind of roughly 24 hours. We're going to go out on some of the new music we've got. Here it is. Thank you.