Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Dana Levenson: Toronto Mike'd #496

Episode Date: August 6, 2019

Mike chats with Dana Levenson about why she left CTV Toronto, her two decades at the station, her blended family, her arms and what's next for her.

Welcome to episode 496 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Propertyinthe6.com, Palma Pasta, StickerU.com, and Capadia LLP CPAs. I'm Mike from TorontoMike.com and joining me this week is a woman who just told me I have a great voice. And I'm still recovering from this. It's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me.

The nicest thing anyone's ever said. Dana Levinson. Welcome, Dana. Thank you. Thanks for having me. Thanks for, because you came from quite a distance, right? This is not, you didn't, you came from afar. Not that far, midtown. Not that bad. Then why, what am I doing that? Then that's nothing.

It's not bad. No, no, no, no. It just, you know, when you travel along the 401, any time of the day, it always feels like you're far, you're going far. For a brief period of time, I thought you might bike here. I thought about walking here. That's a long walk, right? Yes, it is a long walk, but I thought about it. And you saw the weather forecast and then you changed your mind. There was a couple of things. I thought the weather seemed a little bit off today. And also, you know,

I just don't know if I wanted to meet you in that rugged, I'm in my shorts and t-shirts, sweating. I like that look. I do too. It's not about the look. It was just more about the vibe. I thought I'd be so zenned and so relaxed that I wouldn't be able to bring it, be able to speak properly after a two and a half hour walk. I thought, probably not a good idea. But I did walk this morning. And you biked yesterday because I saw footage. So I was just telling you, like, I feel I know you from social media, like you're very active on social media. I know a little bit about me.

I know what you want me to know about you. Exactly. Exactly. But you do bike a lot. I don't. Okay, but you biked yesterday. I did. And bike a lot. I don't. Okay. But you biked yesterday. I did. And you know what? I don't bike enough. And I said yesterday how much I love it. And I wish that I have, I wish I was biking more this summer. I usually bike with my kids, but they've been away all summer. And it was one of those holiday Mondays. It was just magic. So

we biked all day. Here's a, here's a tweet from you. Uh, heavenly out of this world. I haven't had August 1st long weekend to myself ever. I make no apologies for my happiness because finding resolve is hard work. You made that a hashtag. I'm impressed. Uh, my life is worth more than stability. Risk lends itself to balance today. I chill, Risk lends itself to balance. Today, I chill. Stay tuned. Tomorrow, I... What are those emojis? Yeah, they are.

It's sparkle. Okay, you sparkle. First of all, that's impressive because you incorporated the emojis in there. You got hashtags in there. It's like, did you take like social media 101? No. Is there a thing? I bet you there is.

Maybe you and I should teach it. Like we could probably fill a classroom of people who want to learn social media 101. That tweet though. Says a lot. Yeah. Like so that you were like tell me what was going on. Like you were alone all weekend? I wasn't alone all weekend.

I was with my husband this weekend uh no children and this is the first august first long weekend or august holiday weekend that i can remember that i wasn't working in about 20 years wow not including mat leaves i don't include my maternity leaves no because you're always working on a mat yeah Yeah, exactly. So I've, I've just always worked the stat holidays and, and stat weekends. And it was mind boggling. I was reading and it came to me as I was reading that I had nothing to do. I had nowhere to be, I had no one to feed. I didn't even have to feed myself. I didn't have to think about getting dressed, getting somewhere on time. And it was just, it was wonderful. And, and really that tweet was about saying where I was at and sharing a

little bit of my happiness. But I also wanted people to understand that, you know, coming to the decision of having this free time over the summer has been really a remarkable thing for me. Okay. I maybe it should be start there. Like I've definitely at some point want to get there, but the fact is you're not currently on the TV. Not currently. No. And when did this happen? Cause some people, some people were surprised. Like they said, Oh, I just saw her. Like, you know what people's brains are like, they saw you in like, so when, when, when did you leave our airwaves? The last broadcast was Sunday, June 30th.

I got off the air at midnight, and then the next day I got on a plane and went to Italy. Can I play the goodbye and then talk about it? Okay, so this is Dana's goodbye. Okay, folks, so we were talking about it yesterday, tonight at 6. But in case you've been enjoying your long weekend, we want you to know Dana Levinson has decided to fly the coop. She's leaving CTV Toronto, formerly CFDO, after 20 fabulous years. She came here. I called her rookie, even though she wasn't.

And she's still my rookie. And I'm going to miss you, Dana. And you, my work sister forever. My family is here at CTV. And I want to say goodbye to everybody. Maybe we can just pull this up for a bit so I can take a look at how we said goodbye a little bit earlier today. Do we have that montage? Are we going to play that now? Yeah, let's roll the tape.

Okay, let's see that. And many of the fans here today that had an opportunity to meet Sarah Jessica Parker tell me that the celebrity is extremely humble, that she not only talked about her shoes and her love of fashion, but that she also talked about her love of art. So essentially they built this track for you. And I have the honour of calling 72-year-old Stan Levinson my dad. And it says here, Levinson breathes hope in our Olympic chances.

You're my gold medal. Shake paw? Well, perhaps today she is a little shy. If you have ever doubted whether you could count on an animal or not during a time of danger, well, perhaps this year's inductee stories may reassure you. Good girl. This is one of the busiest, if not the busiest, weekend of the year for Yorkville. Do-do-do-do-do-do-do.

Dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun. Duck! Da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Da-da-da-da-da-da-da. When becoming a parent, there is certainly a lot to think about, and toy experts say you do need to consider what toys your child will be playing with, even as young as three months old. When you come into a toy store, it can be very confusing, and it is recommended the

first thing you do is ask for help. From CTV News Toronto today, we've got reporter and weekend weather anchor, Dana Levinson is here. Thank you. Thank you. Thrilled to be here. Thank you. Whether you love it or you hate it, you can't deny that the snow can be beautiful.

But if you really do dislike these cold temperatures, the good news is that Environment Canada is predicting a much milder next couple weeks than usual. Wyatt tells me he's hoping that when people come to get their groceries for their holiday dinner, that they'll think of the less fortunate as they listen to some really good music. dinner and they'll think of the less fortunate as they listen to some really good music. Smiley primarily works with children with special needs, but his experience is clear for all children. If you put your mind to it, you can overcome just about anything. Thank you to the team for putting that together. That was unbelievable. What a walk down memory lane, huh? It's great. We're just giggling here. I can't even... Her stomach, it cracked me up. It's a long time ago, everybody.

It was 15 and a half years ago. Wow. Andrea, thank you. As I mentioned last night, after 20 incredible years, I've decided it's time to make a change. But I'm very lucky, and believe me when I say, I know it. I was born and raised in Toronto, and like most of you, I grew up watching this newscast. So you can imagine, when I landed a job here,

it was like winning the lottery. I've worked with the best news team there is anywhere. CTV Toronto is a very special place and news people are extraordinary, particularly the ones you don't see every day. Our behind-the-scenes team works very hard to get each and every one of our newscasts to air. So I'm very proud to have been part of this team for two decades.

And of course, now I want to thank you, our viewers. You've been a part of my life for a very long time. Thank you to everyone for your beautiful and kind messages. I cherish your support and I hope you will continue to follow me on all of my social media platforms and Twitter, Instagram and Facebook to see my next chapter. I'm wishing all of you a glorious and safe summer. Bye everybody.

Wow. So that was the end of June. Wow. I haven't heard that. Yeah. So now you're very clearly in that message. You're very clearly telling us that you're choosing to leave. That's the case, right?

So tell me how you came to this decision decision like after 20 years of being on what is i believe toronto's most watched news program yeah what an honor huh yeah work in television news to work at ctv it's there's there's nowhere else it's the it's the it's the definitely got the most eyeballs on it so the most eyeballs and has really the best team. I was not kidding when I said that. The best team. Best people. Why did you leave?

So this idea of leaving or exiting started several years ago. Many, many years ago. And I was starting to feel as if I wasn't reaching my greatest potential. I felt that I had reached a ceiling there and it was time to make a change. But change is very difficult and extremely scary. And like most people, you are grown up, you're an adult, you have responsibilities, and the stability is the lure, right? You stay somewhere where it's stable. You get comfortable.

I got comfortable and too complacent. And the complacency started to drive me mad, literally started to drive me crazy. And I thought, I have to make a change. And so I started a personal campaign with myself a few years ago and really wanting to make that change became my passion. It was my passion project. And okay. So did you leave it for something specific or was it just to like, is it to force yourself out of the comfort zone? Like I said. Exactly. Yeah. So I think that anytime you take a risk you're out of your comfort zone right you are you're out and I was in this self-exploration mode for a long time trying

to find the courage and the strength to get over to that next side take the risk see what's out there and I couldn't do it I was I was kept saying, kept saying to myself, what am I nuts? Am I crazy? I'm at CTV. I won the lottery. You know, I have this golden ticket. And you're beloved, you know, cause when I said Dane Levinson's coming on the show, like I got so many notes and I'll read some of them soon, but people who like, who love, love you and miss you and you know, you're, you're in their living rooms for decades. Like that's, that's so massive, right? That's very nice of you to say, thank you. And I appreciate everybody. And I appreciate the love. We could talk about some of the response that I've received since leaving. It's been overwhelming. It's been

overwhelming, but beautiful because it, for me, what that says is it, it's two things. One, I, and I say this out loud now, and it's taken me some time to say this, is that I wish I would have known or felt the impact that I had while I was there. I wish I would have known that while I was there. It's very hard to know it when you're in it, right? Because you're in the daily grind. Right. And you're moving and shaking every day. And you don't stop and appreciate yourself or really appreciate what you're doing in the moment.

You're just going, going, going, going. And so when I look back, even four weeks ago, six weeks ago, I wish that I had that, that I could really would have appreciated the impact. But now I do. And I'm so grateful for it. And I'm going to ride that for as long as I possibly can, because having impact to me makes the biggest difference in the world. Okay. So we're a couple months out, right? Let me do the math. I want June, July. Yeah. So six, not even six weeks. Wow. Okay. This is still fresh. Like, and there's no, um, no regrets. Like you don't have any, yeah. Like, you know, seller's remorse or whatever. No, no, no, not at all. No. As I said, this has been a process. I've been doing this. I've been in this for several years wanting to make a change. And really, there was there was a lot of speculation at the end why would I possibly leave? And it was none of that. And in fact, the new management that came in, they inherited me and my dreams and my

issues. I don't want to say problems, but my passion, which was my passion is to connect deeper to people, to have a bigger impact, to do something that had more meaning for me. And I believe that is my next chapter. I see something pretty big for me and I believe that is my next chapter. I see something pretty big for me happening. Do you believe you were underutilized? At times? Yeah, sure. Yeah. Like I'm in, again, I have a little, it's going to sound bizarre because as we mentioned, CTV Toronto News is the most watched news cast in the city, which is Canada's largest city.

I never watched CTV news. Like, uh, I know, I know my eyeballs just like, just don't get angry. I think they just hit the ground. I know, I know.

So I know, I know. So it's like, I actually, a lot of the people that are in everyone's living rooms every day, I have to like do homework and find out who is this person or whatever. Now I did have Colin DeMello on this show. And so it's like,

I'm not, it's not completely foreign there, but, um, you know, Colin and I worked together on the weekends for a very long time. So, you know,

this is why I'm so glad you're going to educate my work brother. And he, he's a, he's a good guy, right? I got good vibes from him. Great guy. Super intelligent,

really fun, but incredible to talk to. You could just talk to him for hours and hours and hours yeah he's supposed to come back and kick out the jams at some point but okay and andrea case yeah and it sounded like you guys are friendly you're you're still uh still friends of course yeah again work sister so okay so again so a little you'll have to help me with my ignorance and stuff but so i understand you were like two you're two kind of roles like you were doing delivering weather and doing like we heard a bunch of reporting reporting news reporting so what makes sense here i guess at the end of your

two decades what exactly were you doing at cctv toronto yeah so if we back it up so i always say people always remember your exit before much more than they remember how you started so the first 10 years at CTV I know it doesn't sound remarkable my first 10 years so from 2000 to 2010 I was straight reporting I was general assignment reporter and I filled in everywhere and did everything except sports gotcha because you're allergic to sports I'm not allergic to sports I just All I know is he shoots, he scores, and that's the only thing I know. And then from 2010 to currently, I took on the weather anchor role on the weekend and then continued to report during the week.

So you just work seven days a week? No, it was Saturday through Wednesday. Saturday through Wednesday. All right. Saturday through Wednesday. So I made that decision because at the time it is, or it was, what made the most sense to me. I recently had become a single mother. I had two very young children, babies, and I needed the stability of a set schedule. Of course. And even though-

Structure. Yeah. And it was socially undesirable hours, Saturday and Sunday nights, three to midnight or four to midnight, not doesn't really lend itself to dating or meeting people. And then of course the sleep deprivation was, was very real because I had very young children. So, you know, bed at bed at 2am and up at 6am or 7am, go all day, right. Until the next day. But it worked for me and it really worked and i loved that i got to work five days a week and i was in that rotation okay good yeah so it worked for me then

um and that's why i made the choice now can i connect some dots like it sounds like maybe you wanted to do more uh meteor reporting am i reading too much into this you're not reading into it no for for the first for sure for the first five years, it was the meat. Those were the stories that I ached for. I woke up in the morning and I couldn't wait. Because you're a woman of substance. Thank you. You're not just a surfaced individual. Well, I'm hoping that in the next little while, people will understand that I do have a passion, I have a voice, and that the choices that I made when I was 28

are very different for the choices that I'm making at 48. I brought a whole adult life. I've been trying to figure out your age since you sat down. How can you be 20 years on the air? I was doing the math. I'm like, well, maybe she came in at a Ryerson or whatever. No, no. Yeah, I know I I get that, too.

Thanks. I didn't take that as a compliment. In a minute, I'm going to give you another compliment. In fact, I'll do it real quick. So I asked people if they have questions for Dana, and I got lots of nice emails and DMs and comments on torontomike.com and everything. But the most popular thing I got was, okay, so Deborah, for example, says, your arms are the envy of Toronto.

What other than walking every day is your workout routine but then esther came in and said uh my husband and i have been following your career not mine by the way this is dana's career have been following your career for many years and miss you on the ctv news i i'm excited to listen to your interview of toronto mike as a mother of two would love to hear how you get those incredible arms. Any advice would help. Uh, thanks. So,

uh, then this is something I only learned like recently, but, you're, you're like famous for your arms. Are you aware of this? It's wild. Is that why you,

you don't own anything with sleeves? I do. No, I mean, if I had, uh, if I had pipes like that, I would never wear sleeves. Are you kidding me? I'd cut them all off. For sure. I would cover up in the winter on purpose, on air, right? Oh, but then you could do like a reveal.

Yeah, I could. I could have done a reveal. I mean, everybody knew when it was spring or summer because the sleeves came off. I know, this is so like, just so you know, if you were a male in front of me right now, no one for their arms, I would ask the same thing. Right. I'm not doing this because you want to. What do I do?

No, I need to see them for a second here. Can you like, can you flex or is that, is that too? Yeah. Okay. So yeah. There you go. Yeah. So they're way, way bigger than mine.

That's not saying too, are you kidding me? All I do is bike. Are you kidding me? I got a bike with my arms. Yeah. But if you hold your bike, right? Like in this position, you're in a spin class or but i don't have this but you could look at look at how you're holding them right okay so of course i want to know what you

do but uh were you did you always have uh strong arms that would make you uh toronto famous not always no no i no i would say not. I have it in my genes. My father, as you heard, my father was an Olympian, an athlete. So I have it in my genes to be athletic. Uh, but, uh, I would say shortly after I became a single parent, I started to work out. Part of it was stress related and part of it was a goal. And part of it was, I was, uh, I needed to protect myself. How long were you married this first time? Because you had two kids from the first marriage, right? Yes, we were married for eight years.

Eight years, okay. And how long have you been married this time? We haven't even been married a year. Okay, wow. It's our anniversary, September 16th. But we've been together for about nine. Okay, so soon I'll get into this whole blended family. Cause I have a, I have a blended family, but not the same way you do.

Yours is more extreme, which we'll get into. Cause I'm very interested. But back to the arms because everyone's waiting for the faded breath. How did you get those arms? All right. So here's, it's just so basic. Pick up some weight, start doing bicep curls and just increase your weight. That's what I'm doing wrong. I gotta lift something. gotta lift something lift five eight ten and then do three sets but you go for a walk

with them no never no well then i would just look like the weird girl from television doing weights right right that's a good look for something no i don't do that no okay so you just do reps i do reps yeah but you could start doing push-ups you could do push-ups against the wall you can do push-ups on the floor what came first uh the chicken or the egg like for example did you know you had a genetic disposition to strong arms so you were going to focus on that i had no idea okay i had no idea no no but then once they started to i started to see definition i liked it yeah sure i mean i liked it it's uh it's good to look fit i used to say that getting into the size like the pair of jeans that i envisioned that i want to be in and having the the strength

my physical strength was god's gift to me for having the courage to leave an unhappy situation which was my first marriage now i'm waiting for what god's gift is for having the courage of making this life change and leaving my position at cd is it coming from god or does it come from within i'm just saying it's a saying i'm not a religious no i'm not a religious theological discussion not at all i'm just saying it was a saying that i used to say no it does of course it comes from because it's got to come from uh from dana 100 okay before we get into this we've got so much to get into. But you told me that you are a Madonna fan and I had loaded up Madonna and I will play

Madonna at some point in this episode. I very much promise. But you know what they call it? Do you know what my nickname is? Blonde Ambition. No, that's not my nickname. I'll give you two guesses. Material Girl.

Oh, no. Mike. I'm sorry. No, it's Madonna. Oh, that's very clever. see you took madonna and you i didn't my good friend made it up when she had a baby and i was singing vogue as a lullaby for her child strike a pose that's right okay here's the jam though i thought of when when i had my first dana you're my first dana on the podcast dana's an interesting name right because there's

guys are dana and girls are dana like everyone could be a dana you know anyone could be my youngest is named morgan and she's got the same deal like it's a great name half the morgans i meet are male and half are female so it's all over the place but here's a song i was thinking of takes a moment to slow burn here it comes in This little burn here, it comes in. This is the Killjoys. You said you were going to put on the Killjoys. Yeah, it was the first song I thought of was the Killjoys. Uh-huh.

Dana. Uh-huh. You must be like familiar with this song. I'm not. But how could you not be when your name is Dana? Because I didn't love 90s grunge. I'm okay with 90s. I said to you, I'm't love 90s grunge. I'm okay with 90s. I said to you, I'm okay with 90s grunge, but I am an 80s girl.

I'm an 80s girl. You've only got a couple years on me, and I'm all about the 90s grunge. Really? I'm a 90s. You're a guy, too, right? That's true. That's true. I think 90s grunge spoke primarily to men.

I could be wrong, but it didn't speak to me. Never spoke to me. But it's music yeah this is good this is good music mike see look at the smile you have on your face when you listen to this and this is the early madonna which i quite like i love early madonna i sort of bailed after true blue i think i stuck around till true blue and then i left yeah really but i was really into like a Virgin and the first album. I feel like getting up and dancing right now. Do you want to? Well, I do, but I'm very comfortable in this comfy chair.

Is this your favorite Madonna song? Yeah, one of them for sure. Very loyal. I believe this is her first hit. Am I right? This is her big breakout hit with Holiday. Like a virgin was like her. Right, that was the next album, right?

But before Holiday was Borderline. Oh, yeah. Borderline's her first hit. You're right. I get those, yes. Those were when she was a baby. She did Borderline. I would guess that's like 83 or something

like that? Borderline was I think it was 82. Okay. Because Like A Virgin is 84. 83.

83. Yeah, and this was before. Holiday was before Like A Virgin. Yes. Right. And I'm a Madonna.

Madonna. Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much. And at the end of this episode, we'll play another jam, but we won't tell people what it is,

but we'll bring down Madonna because you're a Toronto girl, right? Like you're actually from Toronto. Born and raised. What neighborhood did you grow up in? I grew up in North York, Bayview and Steeles.

And it was a lovely childhood, but I couldn't wait to get out of the burbs. And did you move downtown? Because you went to Ryerson, right? I did. I did. I went to Western, University of Western. And then when I came home, I went to Ryerson.

I still lived at home because who could afford to live in downtown Toronto when you are in school? Far more reasonable back then though, because I remember renting in the mid nineties downtown. It's nuts. It's nuts. Right. Now it's nuts. Yeah. And then I met my, my then boyfriend who became my first, and we lived together. We were in the Yorkville area, very lucky, and stayed sort of in that Davenport Avenue road area, which was super beautiful. Yeah. And didn't stray too far from there and bought our first house around there. And then bought a house in Midtown in the Eglinton area. And that's where I'm still at.

That's where I'm still at. That's where you're comfortable. Do you ever make it this far west? Is this ridiculously west for you, where we are now? Well, when reporting, I'd be anywhere. Everywhere and anywhere. So I'm not foreign to this neighborhood at all. I actually have a friend who lives around the corner from here.

And I was just there the other day. She lives on the lake. It's beautiful. Oh, that's an expensive home. Those lakefront properties, they don't make them anymore. It's a expensive home. Those lakefront property, they don't make them anymore. You know, it's a limited supply. Now, let's exchange gifts here because you're one of my favorite guests already because you brought me something. So first, let me give you something first.

Okay. All right. So behind there, I'll move this just for a moment. Great Lakes Brewery, they make fresh craft beer and they're they're from this hood although you can buy them at lcbo's and some grocery stores and they're fantastic partners of the show okay so this six pack is yours thank you to take home with you lovely thanks courtesy of great lakes by the way if you're a listener of toronto mike pencil uh september 19th in your calendar because i'm working on a little something that would happen at a great lakes brewery from six to 9.

PM on September 19th. Dana, you're invited to, uh, of course. Um, yeah. So put that in the calendar and then I'll make a bigger announcement soon,

but thank you. Great lakes brewery, that red box, that beautiful red box. There is a large meat lasagna, a frozen meat lasagna from Palma Pasta. Also amazing, amazing partners of the show.

They're in Mississauga and Oakville. So, but you can find them on Skip the Dishes. And if you're catering an event, of course you can do it through palmapasta.com, but go visit Palma Pasta. They make the authentic Italian food. They've been doing it for decades and they're

excellent at it so to say italian food yeah well you're speaking my language again well enjoy that lasagna thank you let me know i will delicious what you think but thank you palma pasta before we press record you mentioned that you love the sticker you people so sticker you.com yeah excellent they're in liberty village and they are they're an amazing partner as well and this is the toronto mike sticker look at that for you fantastic and they made that they made that yeah they made of course yeah so they made that one i don't what would it do you honestly the whole name dana that should be the brand like i want to see dana stickers everywhere like that is my brand right so i want to see Dana stickers everywhere. That is my brand.

Maybe you can guess what my brand is. No, I've been bad at the guessing game so far, if you know this. You've been stopping me. What your brand is? It's more than Dana? I like that. Keep going. Everything's coming up Dana. Oh, keep going, Mike.

This is so good. I'm'm gonna break out into song soon um did you see this did you see dana short in a doll dana late in a dollar short no that's not working okay all right what is your brand what is your slogan oh yeah i'm we're working on it we're workshopping workshopping it. Okay, more will strike me through the convo and I'll throw them out there. That's right. There's a temporary tattoo for you there as well. How old's your youngest child? Your youngest child. Too old for temporary tattoos, right?

No, no. He's cool. All right. You're going to regret saying that. I'm going to give you more here. Yeah, he's cool. He's not around right now, but he's cool. When he gets back from wherever he is, summer camp or where the heck he's hiding. Yeah, he's cool. He's not around right now, but he's cool. When he gets back from wherever he is,

summer camp or where the heck he's at, he's hiding these things. Yeah, I ship him off. Bye-bye. Bye, boys. Now, you're going to put that Toronto Mike sticker

on your car, right? Okay. No pressure, but no, wherever you stick it, if you tweet me a photo, that'd be cool. Okay.

This is the cover of the latest Lowest of the Low album that was printed by StickerU because they played an event for me in late June. Cool. So, thank you, StickerU. People should go to StickerU because they played an event for me in late June.

Cool. So thank you, StickerU. People should go to StickerU.com. So how do you know StickerU? I know the, I would say the owners or the creators of the company. Cool. Yeah.

Small world, small world. And I have a question for you, although I might save it actually. I'm going to save it because i still want to talk about this blended family before we get into like the business of broadcasting and all that jazz here so tell me okay so kevin is your husband and will you tell me like how many kids did you bring into this thing how many did he like what's the blended family story way more than i did he has three i have two oh he won by just this much okay so okay so let me break it down because i'm in a similar boat but okay okay so he had three children he has three children right because they still exist okay so but he also had that's like an old uh stephen wright joke where he's like right like uh Like, I was this.

I am this. But I was. No, not Stephen Wright. It's the guy who passed away. It'll come to me later. Bill. Anyway, please ignore my tangents here. So Kevin had three, has, had and has three children.

Yes. From a previous relationship. Marriage. Yeah. A marriage. Okay. Even better. Look at this.

Okay. You had two from your first marriage. That's right. And then you fell in love with Kevin. Yep. What about Kevin made you fall in love with him? You can see the small little things. Do you still love Kevin?

Do I still love him? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. I thought I'd trip you up there. Okay, I'm happy. I'm happy for you.

You know, this is the fun part. So Kevin and I have known each other since I was three and he was six. Oh. trip you up there okay i'm happy i'm happy you know this this is the fun part so kevin and i have known each other since i was three and he was six oh he was my first crush wow yeah and uh he he'll beg to differ but i say he barely he barely noticed me as a child because he was three years older he's three and a half years older yeah yeah. Right. And so he played with my sisters, my older sisters, and I played with his younger sister. Our parents were friends. We didn't see each other for many, many years,

and fate has it we reconnected. We bumped into each other, and the rest is history. But, yeah. Because you were both available, like coming out. Your previous marriages ended and you guys had some, you rekindled some spark, at least you rekindled the spark. He discovered one,

I guess. Exactly. And okay. So then you went through, I guess the exercise of, uh, combining your homes. Is this,

you know, we, we took things slowly. Um, I used to say to him, if it, you know, we, we took things slowly. Um, I used to say to him, if it, you know, he, about introducing the kids and me meeting his kids and vice versa, I used to say to him, if it's forever, then it's no rush. And if it's not forever, there's no need. Smart. So he said, okay, no need, like no rush, no need. We let's see. But we both knew that this

was going to be forever. I mean, it was one of those things where we knew, so there like no rush, no need. Let's see. But we both knew that this was going to be forever. I mean, it was one of those things where we knew, so there was no rush and we were together for five years before we started to really start to blend. Oh, wow. So, okay. So, but the kids met each other short, I mean, after about a year. And did the kids all like, like, did everyone like each other? Was there any issues there? Like, did his kids like you immediately? I hope so. How old were his kids?

They were very young at the time. I'm trying to think about their ages. So Kevin's oldest goes 20, 18, 16. And then I have an almost 15-year-old and a 12-year-old. 18, 16, and then I have an almost 15 year old and a 12 year old. Uh, and my youngest was not even in kindergarten yet. Wow. Okay. Yeah. That's how young they were when they met. Okay. By the way, I have a just turned 15 year old. So we have one kid, boy or girl, girl. Good luck. So far, so good, but it's early. I know, but so far she's a sweetheart of course that's what i'm saying good luck girls are girls are amazing okay good i thought you were warning me of something no no no no girls are amazing people like to do that they're like oh she's going to

give you a run for the money and i'm like not necessarily like let's play it out and see but yeah no so far so good okay and tell me about this because I also got a lot of questions. Like Deborah, for example, says that the renovation of your new home was documented so beautifully. What was your hope for your new home and what vibe did you hope to attain? So walk through this too. Like did you buy a home or did you build a home? No. Did you buy a home or did you build a home?

No. So this is my original matrimonial home that I bought 15 and a half years ago. Okay. And we were getting pretty sick of the blow-up mattresses and the bunk beds everywhere. A very small three-bedroom midtown home. One of those bedrooms being mine. I have a small three-bedroom home. Okay.

We're in it right now. Yeah, there you go. So it was like somewhat like this. And we were looking to stay somewhere in Midtown to move. And it was not feasible. Not feasible. Because it was like a trillion dollars? Like a trillion dollars.

Like a trillion dollars. I can imagine. Yeah, it was like a trillion dollars. And me being stubborn i'm like i'm not leaving this neighborhood kevin's like why don't you think outside the box no i'm not leaving this neighborhood right come up with with something else so he came up with well let's why don't we do a minor renovation and the minor renovation became a big renovation and um a big addition to the home and now everybody has their own bedroom okay this is my my wife and i literally this last weekend we're talking about like if we could do something like this so like

did you didn't tear down and rebuild we left two walls two walls everything else was gutted okay and did you how long did you have to live somewhere else during this renovation and we found a home to rent down the street on the same street wow i know I know. Okay. And then, so it took a year and you're happy with the results. This is so happy. Everyone gets like this room for everybody. Yeah. Everybody has their own bedroom. Can you imagine?

No, I need this. Cause right now I have my, my oldest son sleeps around the corner and like, he's not there now. Cause he's on a train coming back from Ottawa right now, but he sleeps around the corner. The two little ones share a room upstairs.

And then my teenage daughter has her own room. And of course I share a room with my wife and that's where we're at now. But like, how many do you have? Uh, four. Oh, not so far off.

Yeah. That's a lot. Yeah. And so I'm kind of, that's why I'm so interested in this. So, uh, yeah.

So you, you completely like renovated this home and it was, uh, so when people tell me about, I did do a little Googling and, uh, like the, was it and it was uh so when people tell me about i did do a little googling and uh like was it documented like uh for any video feature or was it just uh like like like how was it documented for the masses like for us well it was documented for me because i wanted to see the different stages of course but um there is a website called toronto stories oh yeah they

came here oh yeah they're amazing. Delia Kurtz. Yeah, fantastic. She fit under here. Oh, she did. Yeah, she's fantastic. Yeah, she's in Ottawa now, I think. Danny, who is the owner and creator, Danny Roth,

and he approached me and said, we'd love to do a story on your new home. Like how you got to it, why you decided to go this route. So we documented it and it was great. It was a great experience doing that and and talking about it right because it wasn't about having the fancy house it was about having a functional home in a city that we all want to stay in we didn't want to move out of Toronto we didn't want to move too far east or too far west or too far north right we wanted to stay where we were and want to move out of Toronto. We didn't want to move too far east or too far west or too far north. Right.

We wanted to stay where we were and trying to find that balance financially and being able to do that was a dream. And it's such a dream. Because you didn't want to like slum it by packing up and moving to Mimico or something ridiculous. Don't laugh. You know, years ago we looked at in Mimico. That's where the people are ending up in Mimico because they want to live where you are.

First of all, I can throw a rock and hit Mimico from here. It is amazing. But people are where you are and then they realize it's a trillion dollars to buy the home they want where you are. And they're realizing, well, we can get that home in Mimico for like only in like 1.5 million, which sounds like pocket change or whatever. And then that's what people are doing. And that's, yeah, for sure. Well, there's two things to that. One, I have to say, uh, both myself and Kevin work or we were crazy. We work so hard to have the life and the home that we have.

Uh, it's a priority of course, or it was a prior, it was a priority to us years ago when we talked about our dream and for our children, we had this vision. So it's like work, work, work, work, work, just like most people in Toronto. Um, and I think that you just, you have, I think you have to prioritize what it is that you want. I, I wanted to stay in my home with my babies when I divorced. It was very important to me and every single person, there wasn't one person who didn't say, sell your house. Why are you keeping that house? It's expensive. You can't afford it. You're on your own. And I said, I'm, I'm not going to lose my home. I need to stay in my home. And I, it was blood, sweat, and tears, literally blood, sweat, and tears and everything

else you can imagine. And I held onto it and I'm so glad I did because now this is what we have. We wouldn't have never been able to do this. Yeah, there's seven of you live in there. See, I did the math. That's seven people. That's trying to figure out what you're trying to calculate. Yeah. You know, well, two of them in university now.

OK. Yeah. The two older ones are in university. They're older. Right. Right. Right. I'm keeping track of the family here, the blended family.

You know, it goes fast, right? When you start, when you have a vision of what you're, where your children are going to be, and then you bring that vision to life, and then all of a sudden now you've got two in university. So it's feeling a little bit empty, for sure. Now, I know, no pressure, but I know you brought something for me. Do you want to, here, I'll pass it back to you.

Yeah, you might want to. Do you want to give it to me here? No. Well, is it, okay, I don't even pressure, but I know you brought something for me. Do you want to, here, I'll pass it back to you. Yeah, you might want to. Do you want to give it to me here? No. Well, is there, okay, I don't even know what's in there yet. Well, this is, I brought you a dozen, I brought you a dozen bagels from Eglinton. Okay. Because I don't think you get good bagels in Etobicoke. I don't know, maybe you do.

No, we have good donuts. Because San Remo makes good donuts. I've been to San Remo. I don't know about the bagels here. The bagels are delicious. They're hot. Okay. Amazing.

I saw on Instagram you were doing this. Of course. And then I say of course. And this is cream cheese. Whipped fresh cream cheese for your bagels. Now, okay. So again, I think this was before the recording. So Steve Simmons, and I know you don't know that name.

No, no, no. Now you do because I told you, but he's a sports writer. So insulted. Sorry, Steve. No, because you don't follow sports. Why the hell would you be reading sports writers? But I want you to know in my home that sports is on everywhere that you can hear or see anything, audio or visual. There will be a sports cast on in my home.

But did you, like, for example, the Raptors just won the NBA championship. No, no, I was obsessed. No, no, I was obsessed with that. Don't be. All right. I'm just checking on that I am I am a playoff person that's pretty much I'm on the bandwagon for sure yeah okay so you jumped on that because it's news yeah that becomes news right but yeah but you don't

have to watch the games oh I watch the games my children would never I would never not watch the games I have to be part of that yeah okay so thank you okay so so Steve, again, I tweeted that you were bringing me bagels and he's, I think he's particular, but where you get your bagels from, do you want to name the place? Yeah. This is what a bagel on Eglinton, Eglinton and Bathurst area. So now I need Steve to tweet at me whether this is acceptable or not. Cause I don't know my bagel stuff, but this is a good, what a bagel and it's eglinton and where bathurst you're not going to get better bagels than eglinton and bathurst i believe you so thank you so much okay but do i really have to put this in the fridge no i can

well it's cream cheese you can wait i mean it's not going to go bad but uh cheese right you want to get into the fridge as soon as possible thank you so much that's uh honestly no one brings me bagels and that's a lot of bagels like that's uh i thought maybe you'll bring me one or two no no no so then these are freezer bags you gotta know mike this is this this is what you do right you buy your bagels and tomorrow what you don't eat you can put in the freezer and you take them out toast them with a amazing i know with like a ton of butter it's so delicious i'm a huge fan of uh carbs like uh contrary to what people think i am too i love carbs you love carbs but i do love carbs i'm just in italy i just carved myself out oh yeah yeah that's amazing yeah and where in italy did you go we flew into milan and then

went to lake como for five days and then we spent a week in positano in the amalfi coast and then we spent a week in positano okay in the amalfi coast and then we went to rome for three days yeah i so i'm just okay so i've been to milan and rome of those places you mentioned but uh you didn't get to florence i guess no no this was a water we had a water vacay yeah what uh oh the the riviera right okay so we didn't we went to the the cinque terra and then yeah stayed there and then yeah nice but uh beautiful yeah and all i ate i'll be honest that whole trip i ate uh like pizza and gelato i think with like my two stick i ate so much pizza and every like every day i would go get like a gelato from something yeah just i didn't have enough i didn't know i definitely didn't have enough gelato uh i

had in rome which was very good i had in the town of amalfi which was very good but i didn't have enough. I didn't know. I definitely didn't have enough gelato. I had in Rome, which was very good. I had in the town of Amalfi, which was very good, but I didn't have it every day because I was too full. After a meal, I couldn't eat that. It was just too much. I didn't have enough pizza. But you probably did a lot of walking. We did a ton of walking.

And I exercised because I like to exercise. I exercised when I was there. I see that. Very good. It's working for you. Good stuff. Okay, so when did you realize you want so you went to ryerson after western yep did you go to ryerson because you wanted to be uh in television like is this the goal like when did you realize you

wanted to be in broadcasting or news or whatever the heck so i had an epiphany i had a moment i had a real clear life-changing moment and that was during the Gulf War. I was watching CNN and I was in third year university at Western and I was riveted. I did not move from my couch. I remember exactly the whole scene where I was by myself as the sun came up and the sun went down. It was like a leaving Las Vegas scenario. I was watching television. It didn't move. And I said, that's what I want to do. Is that when Wolf Blitzer was under the table or whatever the heck was going on?

I don't know what Wolf was doing. Oh, yes. Yeah, he was. Wolf Blitzer was under the table. Yes, you're right. Yeah. I remember this. You know, the Scud missiles flying through Tel Aviv. And I said, that's it.

That's what I want to do. Now, of course course I never did pursue becoming a war correspondent or an international correspondent but I think most people that get into journalism or broadcast journalism or hardcore news have a goal of doing something international they do it's funny that it comes back to Colin DeMello again, because, uh, I played the clips of, uh, cause, cause he was in Kuwait at the time.

Right. And was he a baby? I think he might have been like, he was young. I'm kidding. I'm just, he was young. Yeah.

He was young. Definitely. But I know I played clips from that Gulf war, that first Gulf war there. And, uh, yeah. And cause that's,

or I think that's what inspired him. That same war is what inspired him. So look at you all linked up there. Okay. Isn't it interesting when you look at my career over 20 years, how completely different my career played out from that? Well, let's do that walk here.

So Ryerson, you study, what's it called? What did you study at Ryerson? It was officially called RTA, Radio and Television Arts. And then you had to pick, in those days, you had to pick a specialty and a specialization. So my specialty was TV. So you had to do TV or radio. So I picked television and then you have to pick a specialty within that. And then it became broadcast. So it was broadcast journalism. Did you do, were you ever an intern anywhere? Oh yeah. Okay. Okay.

Was I ever an intern? Okay, tell me about you as an intern anywhere? Oh yeah. Okay. Okay. Was I ever an intern? Okay. Tell me about you as an intern. I wanted to write a book, my life as an intern and not the Monica Lewinsky story because mine was nothing like that. Right. But yeah. So, uh.

Okay. Tell me about your interning experience because that's going to segue beautifully into a question that Brian Gerstein from Property in the Six has for you. So tell me about your life as an intern. My, I would say the most impactful internship I had was working at CBS news in New York city with Dan Rather. That was huge. Yeah. That was big. What's the frequency Kenneth. That's the REM song is about Dan Rather. Yeah. And he was terrific. Um, super tall. Most people don't know that. Oh no, I didn't know that. Huge guy, like a huge man, like larger than life. Uh, and that was, that was life changing for me. That was like the big leagues

right there. Yeah, that was huge. It was like, I was the first Canadian intern at the time. We're talking a long time ago, first Canadian in their national newsroom in, in New York city. And it was like, I was on fire. It was wonderful. And it, and it solidified, this is what I want to do with my life. This is what I need to do. And my goal was I'm coming back to New York city. I don't know when, and I don't know how, but I'm going to get back here at some point in my life, but I'm not coming back making $20,000 a year because I will be living in a substandard way in New York city. I knew I had the wherewithal to know that I didn't want to do that. I didn't want to. How did you get this? It sounds like you're starting

in the center of the universe. I did start in the center of the universe. How'd you get this internship? So always, my entire life, I have always had huge goals and I've always gone after my dreams and nobody, it didn't matter what people would say to me, you can't, you shouldn't, you don't have what it takes. I didn't listen to anybody ever. And believe you me, I got a lot of that. I got a lot of that. And I made a phone call. I called CBS and the person on put me through to whoever it was, all these different channels and said, you know, we don't really have Canadian students here, but we do take a couple international over the summer. I said, what do I need to do?

And I filled out what I needed to do. I wrote this long essay. Then they called me back. And then I had several phone call conversations with them. And then it became, OK, we'd love you to be here. And it was starting at the beginning of May of that year. And I went there for four months. And I did a summer internship and be here. And it was starting at the beginning of May of that year. And I went there for four months and I did a summer internship and came back

and I was unemployed. I'd finished Ryerson and pounded the pavement. And firstly, that's fascinating how you get that gig at CBS because a lot of times I'm asked, like people say like, so I recently had Chuck D on this podcast. Okay, he's uh i don't

know if you're a big rap fan i can't you look like a rap fan so chuck d is the lead rapper if you would like lead singer for uh for public enemy and i love these guys and i love chuck d and a lot of people lately i'll be meeting up with people and they'll be like like how did you get like what was your connection how did you get chuck d and what was your connection? How did you get Chuck D? And the answer is that I asked him, like I asked Chuck if he wanted to come on. And a lot of times that's the answer. Like, how did this happen? Well, I, I asked them to come on. That's the secret. Like you, you phoned up CB, CBS and, and that's how you got an internship at CBS. But I will tell you something. So my 20 something year old self, So my 20-something-year-old self is very different than my 40-something-year-old self.

And having the courage and picking up the phone and making a phone call because you believe in yourself is very different than picking up a phone and believing in yourself in your 40s. It is a completely different scenario and it's a completely different experience. So how so? How is it different? Well, I think that you have the same dreams. I think when you have a dream, you have a dream. And some people will say, well, that dream died a long time ago, or I don't think that way anymore, but I'm not that person. My dreams are the same. My goals are aligned with my dreams. They always have been, but life situation and life circumstance changes how

you go about your dreams. And part of that is becoming responsible and becoming an adult. And you can find that dream again. You can go after your dream again in your forties, you know, post 45, you're not dead, God forbid, right? I hope not. No, you, you can find that and you can do that. And part of my message right now to not just women, but to everyone is that you do have a second chance and you can, you can go after making an impact and having a difference and what fills you up in your life and picking up a phone may be the first step in doing that. in your life and picking up a phone may be the first step in doing that. Right. You have to be proactive. You can't.

And a lot easier said than done because change is extremely hard. You know, I'm still, I'm still in fear. I mean, I made a huge change. I'm scared. We're going to get back to that soon, by the way. I have follow-up questions, but we'll get back to that. But yeah, like you, yeah, you, you, you you you jumped off the ledge if you will like that takes a lot of courage i just picked up the phone i just picked up the phone oh yeah for the cbs one but i'm even bringing this back to to june 2019 like yeah oh yeah that was yeah it takes a lot of courage i'm still my mind's still blowing so we're gonna it's a process right courage doesn't

just you know i equate it with um i always say because i have two major than having my children, which of course is life altering and your life will never be the same after you have a child. But I equate my two life changes are divorce and leaving CTV. Those are two huge changes for me. So I equate them because most people would say to you when they divorce, it's not like they wake up one morning and they say, okay, let's separate. It's not like that. It's a process. Some people, it's a decade before they leave. It takes that long. For me, this is very similar. Leaving a job, not so much a career, but leaving a stable position was similar to leaving a marriage. It takes courage. It takes time. You have to come to some resolve with what you believe

is the right thing to do and how it's going to play out. And you go through a million scenarios in your head. And usually that takes years. And this has been unfolding for years. But what about money? Like, isn't that scary?

It's super scary. But I mean, you must have done the math on this. Oh, yeah. Well, there's been preparation, right? You have to prepare. It's just, again, just like- Because what I would have done is I would have been like, okay, I've been here 20 years.

I need to get myself fired. This is what I would be thinking. What tweet can I send? You gotta be careful because you don't want to be fired for a cause. And then I guess they don't have to sever you at all. But you need to get yourself fired so you get a a good sendoff after 20 years with the same company. Well, I did not want to get fired.

Come on. You should have come to me for advice. I would have helped you get fired. No, I couldn't, I could, I can't, I couldn't do that.

I have way too much integrity. But can you go to management and see if there can be a mutual separation where you both, like, you know, I don't know. Equate that to divorce, right? A mutual separation.

How do you do that? Right? So right now, CTV is going through so much change. Or they have been going through a lot. They might have been happy to package out somebody making the big bucks like Dana. Right. Not the big bucks. No, I just was there for a long time.

That 1% a year, though, adds up. Exactly. It does. Yeah, it does add up. It's different for people who are new to the industry or people who've been there for 20 years. And so, so much change is going on that I felt like this would be the right time for myself to make a change.

Not so much that I would fly under the radar. I knew people would notice that I was gone. I knew people would feel that. But you know, they won't notice you're gone until September. I feel like I, cause I, I usually cover this in the radio world.

Yeah. People won't really come to come to kind of some point in September, they'll realize you're not on vacation. Yeah. Yeah, I know. And then people will Google your whereabouts. This is what will happen. So there will be this moment in like mid September when the masses realized their Dana is not on their TV anymore. Where did she go? But you know, management was so kind to me during the time that I was leaving. It was a short period of time when we announced it and then I left. They were so generous with, you know, make sure you get out on air that people can follow you on your social media platforms. So people know where you are like that, that was very generous and extremely supportive. They're so supportive. Okay, I have to get tough here for a moment.

Not too tough, don't worry, because you gave me bagels, and I'm smelling them. Are they good? The smell, it's amazing. Warm bagels, fresh this morning. It's unbelievable. They were just coming out of the oven. So you've earned a lot of points there.

Cred, I got my cred. Yeah, okay, so I'm going to drop some real names. So you're episode 496, so I've talked to a lot of people in your industry. I know. Like recently. I heard. So, for example, I'm going to just use this name, real names so you're you're episode 496 so i've talked to a lot of people in your industry i know like recently i heard so for example i'm gonna just use this name christine bentley yeah ever heard of her yeah all right yeah christine had a similar to yours except more extravagant i'd say she had a farewell like yes there might have been a cake maybe a retirement did you have a cake i

had a cake yes okay so good i had a great cake. It was delicious. I think her cake was great too. But as she came on this show to disclose the real talk we talk about was that, you know, somebody, some executive, this is her words, tapped her on the shoulder and said, your time is up. We can do this one of two ways. We can tell the world you've decided to retire and you can have a cake and a send off or you, you leave with a box like her friend, uh,

Kate Wheeler. This is Kate. Kate's Australian. Did you know this? I worked with Kate for many years. Yeah. I like her very much. Her daughter was on this show.

Oh, wonderful. Yeah. It's crazy. I had to check her ID, make sure she could get the beer. I didn't want to get in trouble. Okay.

So, Oh, I like, I like Kateate really very much yeah she's a global now i have great stories with kate anytime you have a good story tell me to shut up and tell me so you see where i'm going here that's that this is just this is not this is obviously uh one example but it is that's not what happened here absolutely not no no tap on the shoulder because people will think that.

I know. Because Kevin Frankish is another one. He was just here two weeks ago. Yes, I heard. Kevin went on the air and told people he was choosing to leave after X decades because he was going to go on and do something else. He was going to work on documentaries

for City TV or something. I'm a huge fan of Kevin. Yeah, Kevin's... Kevin? Huge. I'm a huge fan too. But he came on this show two weeks ago a huge fan of Kevin. Yeah, Kevin's... Kevin? Huge. I'm a huge fan too, but he came on this show two weeks ago to say that

was bullshit. Yeah. He lied to us because... Yeah, he lied on air. Right, but you did not lie on air. I did not lie on air. Dana's not lying to us. I am not lying. I'm looking in the eyes. I am authentic. I did not. You do seem very honest here. I swear, no. There was no tap on the shoulder. There was no

we'd like you to go in fact it was quite the the opposite they tried to talk you into staying um i don't want to i don't want to speak for management i don't want to say you know what they or he or she said uh i will say that they were extremely supportive of my decision um i, I feel like the door is not closed there. If that is something that I want to explore ever again. Um, I was treated so well. It was like, it makes me emotional how well I was treated because in this industry, it's rare to be treated so beautifully when you're the one who takes control, right? No, this is good to hear. Yeah. I, as a woman took control of my career and my life. And I said, this is how it's going to be.

And instead of, you know, being sort of shown where the door is saying, thank you for your time here. I was embraced and hugged and given as much as I needed to make this transition, which is unheard of. And it was incredible. And I'm grateful. I'm so grateful for it. And I think for listeners, this will be like a twist ending, sort of like,

like, like in the, this would be like the usual suspects or something. We'll have a big twist because I think people think on this episode right now that Dana's going to come in and say that was bullshit. She was told she could no longer be. This is what I think. This is,

I'm just talking only because it's, we, Gord Martineau came in and told the story. Kevin Frankish, Ann Marskowski, Christine Bentley, Christine Bentley. So like now we think,

I think we've been trained to think that if somebody, if you're told somebody is retiring or moving on to other things. Yeah. No one used the retiring word with me. No, because you're not retired. No. Don't use that word. No, no.

Yeah. Well, that was Christine's issue, Christine Bentley's issue too, is that they use the R word, retirement. She never used that word though. No, she never used that word. No. That makes it difficult to get other opportunities

when people think you're on a beach or something. Well, people have tweeted that to me. Are you retired? I'm like, yeah, tired. So for the record, we're now for the record, Dana and she, I'm looking in her eyes.

She seems very honest. She brought me bagels, but she of her, of her own, of sound mind and body, Dana Levinson resigned from her role at CTV Toronto. I think that is the new twist that you chose to leave. I made the choice.

I'm still surprised, but do you know what you're going to do next? I have some the new twist that you chose to leave. I made the choice. I'm still surprised, but do you know what you're going to do next? I have some ideas. Can you tell me? I knew you were going to ask me that. I said, she's going to ask me right away. What are you doing next?

I waited like an hour. Yeah, I know. It's like an hour to ask me, you know, this is, this is the truth. There is no big reveal.

So I've, I've shared some, what of this next part of my journey with viewers and social media and people who follow me. But there's no big reveal. It's not like a curtain's going to open and I'm going to come out with my jazz hands and go, ta-da, I'm on this show now or I'm on that show now.

No, you quit. So you don't have any non-compete nonsense or anything. They didn't sever you. Right. Exactly. Right. So you can go anywhere you want or do anything you want. Yeah.

That's right. Okay. So what are you? Anything I want. The world's my oyster, Mike. But you should like at this point in your career, you should own your own brand.

Like you don't want to work for another cable company or conglomerate or whatever. That's the point. Right. That's the whole point. So we're going to get you some Dana stickers, but that's the point, right? You have to take risks to see what sticks, right? You have to figure out what's on that other side, getting to that other side, pursuing where you, where I feel I'm going to have the greatest impact and find something that's in

line with my dreams was not there anymore. And that's not insulting anybody there, but it just, you get to a point where you feel like you hit a ceiling. And that's how I felt. And you're still friends. I saw like on your Instagram or something, you had some kind of a CTV Toronto reunion or something. Was this like recent?

Like super recent. A couple weeks ago. We're going to have another one in September. Oh, these, you all like each other. We love each other. news people are very why am i not watching this news program i don't know i don't understand if somebody had tweeted the other day do you want to hear the reason like you're here okay so when i was growing up i was uh not so about the whole like moses

environment yeah me too so when moses was running the show i was a huge fan of anything in the 299 queen or whatever anything coming out of that that building or whatever like and that included uh gordon martineau and ann roszkowski i love them so i watched i watched a lot of that okay and and the voice you know and then when that went to crap uh i uh found myself in the CBC realm where I'm still. So I know I'm the only one who's I'm the only one who's watching CBC local. I drummed both, like especially radio. Like I spent a lot of time listening to news on CBC radio. But as you can see, when you when you're kind of growing up and you're a teenager and young person and it's all city TV and then you switch over to CBC,

you don't, like, I don't know global news either. Like, it's not, and I'm not anti-CTV because, like I said, without a doubt, you guys had way more eyeballs on you than those shows I was watching. You shouldn't be anti-CTV. No, I would never be. Why would I be? And I love a lot of Bell Media people are, are like the best guests I ever had, you know,

like not just the TSN people, but. TSN's amazing too. TSN's amazing too. Absolutely. You know, Jay and Dan and all these good people. I'll say this about news people, because I can't speak to other newsrooms because really my entire career has been at CFDL, CTV. My entire career has been there.

So I can't speak to what goes on in other newsrooms, but I will tell you from what I know and from what I hear and from my lived experience, CTV Toronto is the best newsroom to work in. I would think in this country, I really am saying that wholeheartedly. It is an incredible place and it breeds such good people so great people come in and great people leave and news people are very special we are a very raw real bunch of people you can't do news every single day you can't do that grind you can't go out there and fact find and feed the beast of local news every day without being a real person. Before we get too far away from that intern question where you ended up interning in New York City of all places, I have a question for you from Brian Gerstein at Property in the Six.

Here's Brian. It's going to sound like a dismembered voice in the sky. Just pretend it's God talking to you. Okay. in the sky. Just pretend it's God talking to you. Okay. client a quick close which he wanted. Since I am now a lease expert, I was just asked to list another one later this month at Mount Pleasant and Eglinton. Contact me at 416-873-0292. Not just for leasing needs, I'm a hell of a listing and buying agent as well. Dana, you interned for years and didn't make a penny and it took years before you landed a job. You just kept slugging it out, living at your parents' house trying to get a job. You just kept slugging it out, living at your

parents' house, trying to get a job. These are your own words from around 20 years ago, giving an interview. I can understand months, but years interning? Even back then, I would have looked at this as an employer taking advantage of the situation for free labor. Have your feelings changed since? And would you recommend today students starting out to still intern? And if so, for how long? Tough question. He did his research. He went back 20 years into the archives.

I can see him in the library looking at the microfiche. Very good, Brian. Well, there's a couple things to that, I have to say. So I did intern for a very long time. One, because when I embarked into this industry, there was a huge crash in the industry. So there were not a lot of jobs there. I think it was around the time that CBC crashed and there was like hundreds of people out of work. And so for me, I remained interning because I had a goal and I had a dream and I was not going to give up on the dream.

Didn't mean I didn't work in other places. I waitressed and I did my, I did my time doing other things, retail. I did it all, but I, I, I had to intern so I could, once you get your foot in the door, I believed in, and this was maybe old school, but then it was once you get your foot in the door, you stay, you don't leave. Right. So that's why I interned at different places for, I didn't have long internships. They were, they were short, but I did, I did do them. I would recommend for people starting off. Uh, yeah, you got to intern. I think most programs and most school programs require that now, but I wouldn't do it for long periods of time. I think that there's too much opportunity out there. There's too much stuff in this industry that you don't have to stick to just

one station or one newsroom or one place. You could go to different places. That would be my advice. Now, when you got back from New York, where, like you mentioned, where else did you intern? I interned at CTV. So you interned. Okay. So were you at the Weather Network? That was my first on-air job. Okay.

So that's post-intern. That was post-intern. Right. That was paid. That was a paid position. You got money to be on. Good. That's, yeah.

I have a dear friend who was there working at Weather Network, but maybe after your time. I'm just doing this by the way. Rosie was her name, but she was there a long time. Pelmorex, right? Pelmorex? They're from Montreal. They own the Weather Network.

Yeah. They own the Weather Network. Anyway. I left there in 99. Okay. I signed a contract with CFTO in December 1999 and I started January 11th, 2000. Oh my God. Okay, okay, okay, okay.

Yeah. So you're, you were, but you interned at CTV first. I was interning at Canada AM. I interned on the National Newsroom. This is the funny part. I wanted to intern at cfto and they wouldn't have me oh uh the okay how come just i don't know i guess they had enough they just had enough ryerson students they didn't um do you want to hear a funny story how i got hired

yeah this is the best story in the planet okay i was living uh i wasn't living at home at the time i was living with my then um boyfriend and we i got a phone call from my mother saying that there was a message on her on her phone there wasn't voicemail but i don't even think back then it was on her phone saying that someone from cfto had called and wanted to speak to me so it must be an old resume because I wasn't always applying for on-air positions it was like intern positions um an EA position or editorial position editorial assistant rather and she left her name and number my mom's like you should just call them back I'm like I guess so your mom's right yeah so I said of course it's the right thing to do and her uh this woman Carolyn I called her back and she said

um I found your number in the white pages now for people listening that don't know what the white and you're laughing what's the white pages right it's a phone book i bet you everyone listening remembers the white page i hope so i hope so i tell my kids the story like what's that what's the white pages so apparently she literally went down this list and came to Levinson and started calling. Because my name is spelled E-N-S-O-N, not I-N-S-O-N. So it's very specific. Right.

And she found my parents and left a message. And I called and she said, I called her back. She said, at the time, the news director, who was considered the news guru, Derwin Smith, wanted to meet me. And I was like, for what? She said he was interested in meeting me for an on-air position. And so I really thought the whole thing was a joke. And he called me, and he had this very low, very deep news voice. And at the time, again, I thought someone I was working with at the Weather Network,

a man by the name of Rory O'Shea, who has a beautiful voice. I thought he was playing a joke on me and he wasn't. So I went in and I met Derwin and he said, I've been watching you on the Weather Network and I like you and I'd like to bring you on here. I was like, for what? For what? For what? He said as a reporter. So that was it.

That's amazing. So green. I was so green. I was like, but that was my dream. That was that day. so green i was like but that was my dream that would that day my dream came true okay so the dream and that yeah because you're finally in news right yeah i got my dream and then i got my dream and like the number one news channel in the country and it was like i walk into that newsroom and like my eyes were like bing like i couldn't even i couldn't absorb everything that was happening and kate wheeler yeah came up to me my first day I must have been there like my first hour she came over like hi

I'm Kate nice to meet you I'm like hi she was so lovely and she said you must be the new flavor of the month oh my god what do I do and she's like I'm just kidding but she was lovely because it was like that's what it was right you're new and do you remember Dave Duvall of course yeah so Dave Duvall came up to me and he said, and I thought he was serious, and he said, who are they hiring these days? Like these young kids. He said, you're like a brat. I bet you're a brat.

I said, I'm not a brat. He said, I'm going to call you the queen of brats. And that's what he called me. Oh, wow. Yeah, because you're the queen of brats. See, even if you didn't, even if you never watched a minute of CTV News, you knew Dave Duvall.

He's the best. He transcended that. Who else? The guy I remember, it's funny because I see him on promos and stuff. Maybe I was watching Flintstones or something, but Tom Gibney. Yeah.

He was the main anchor with Christine at the time. See, I grew up watching them. Yeah. Yeah. Like you're not alone. Yeah. Very popular.

Yeah. And, and Ken, then Ken Shaw. Ken Shaw. Is that how he talks? Ken Shaw. He's amazing. I see him in the promos, you know, Ken Shaw. Ken Shaw. Is that how he talks? Ken Shaw. He's amazing.

I see him in the promo. Ken Shaw. He's a fantastic human being. Okay. And he's different than the Ken Shaw who seems to sell automobiles in this city. That's two different Ken Shaws. I wonder how he feels about that. I want to get Ken Shaw on to ask him.

You should. You should. You have to hook me up because I need to know Ken do people think you sell cars no he does not sell cars no because there's a Ken Shaw because I see it on like license plates

everywhere he is a dedicated newsman I will tell you Ken Shaw yeah he's a fantastic did he talk like that when he's not on the mic like he's got that

does not have a thing he puts on no that's his voice Ken Shaw no that's him oh I like it I'm going to start talking like that

it's cool you'd love to meet him he's so fun I'm going to start talking like that. It's cool. You'd love to meet him. He's so fun. No, I'm all in on Ken Shaw. Some really, really good people in that newsroom. Really good people. Are there any assholes?

Or were there any assholes? Not to me. Okay, that's fair. No, not to me. I can't speak about other people's experiences. Everybody, I mean, look. Everybody was good to you. You're going to find in whatever industry, whatever,

wherever you work, there's always going to be some peculiar, interesting, I don't want to say bad apples, but peculiar people, right? You're going to have that wherever you are. Well, peculiar is different to me. That's eccentric, maybe a little weird, but that's different than

jerks. I mean, I agree with you. Every industry has, I mean, you can't, everywhere you go, you're going to find something or somebody that's not that you don't like. But I generally have to say that I, you know, 20 years in television, I really don't have, I mean, sure I've got stories, but I'm not, nothing that would really blow you away. That anything different i'll be the judge of that now i i was doing my homework on your arrival and there's a lot of talk about uh a story you did about unsterilized medical equipment yeah so 2003 right so lake ridge health so i guess you started ctv early 2000 january So tell me about this, like why this story seems to come up in all the time.

Like this sounds like a pretty good story. Yeah. Sunk your teeth into here. Yeah. We received a phone call in the newsroom. And at the time our assignment producer took the call and put this woman who called in on hold and came to me and he said, this person would like to speak to a reporter and you're it.

Take the call. And this woman, she lived out in Whitby at the time and said, I have a five month old baby that I'm breastfeeding. I have two toddlers and I received a phone call from the hospital where I had just had endoscopy. And they're telling me that it may have been not sanitized, not cleaned properly. And I have to stop breastfeeding because I could be at risk for HIV, Hep C, Hep B. I'm like, what? Wow. Hello.

I said, would you speak to me on camera? She said, yeah, I would. I said, okay, I'm coming. And I went out there and it was a snowball effect. it was a snowball effect. That small conversation became a huge conversation and turned into what was a citywide investigation at hospitals to an Ontario initiative. Then it became nationwide where every hospital and their sterilization processes were scrutinized, reviewed. Everything changed after that one story. And it was a big get for me.

It was big. That was, I would say, the second biggest get. My first big get was around SARS. That was huge too. That was really big. And with regards to that Lake Ridge Health Center story, that's the role of media, right? To, you, change happened because a light was shone upon bad practice.

Right. And for me, that was the reason why I wanted to report was that I wanted. Yeah, that's immediate. That's right. This is immediate. Yeah. So I'm interested in that.

Like, did you find you were doing some fluffier pieces? Towards the end? Yeah. Yeah, for sure. But I don't like to use the word fluff. I like to say news you can use. Okay. Lighter, fair?

So it didn't bleed and it didn't lead, those kind of stories. There were more stories where people would watch over and over again because they were interesting and people connected with them. i was proud of what some would call fluff i would call it only i would ever call that no some people did call it fluff and listen there's there you have that connotation too and when you're a news person you're a hardcore news person so yes it it sometimes it was hard on my ego to not feel like my brain power wasn't being used like this in some stories. But the way that news has evolved is that your brain power, you're constantly on the move because news is every second. It's not when you go live at noon or at six o'clock.

It is every second of the day because of social media. So I got over myself very quickly, right? I got over my ego very quickly. And I knew, and I know now even more, as I was saying at the beginning, that I had impact. And I'm never going to use that F word again. Don't use it with love. No.

Well, you can use it with me because I'm totally easy, but other reporters don't say that. I would never dare. No. Brian M. wrote me to say that a key moment in dana's career had to be the piece was it father's day story on her own father and how he sacrificed his olympic games ambition to raise a family memory fuzzy on details you have to fill us in it was very endearing everyone who watched it liked it and i believe catapulted her status within the agent court operation. It may have been the decision to promote her to weather. It may have made the decision to promote her to weather presenter very easy. So this is what Brian wrote me. There's a lot of parts to that, but let's start with the,

like your dad. So tell us that us that story yeah so my dad was amazing my dad was amazing his name's stan uh so many is he watching right or is he listening my dad is no long he hasn't been with us for three and a half years well he could still be listening well he could be listening but i don't believe in that afterlife stuff but neither do i but i was working with you yeah no i don't believe it you're the god person no no no that was just to say i know i know i just said that i'm just kidding. I'm sorry you lost your dad. Yes. Yeah, it was a very sad time.

He was an Olympian athlete and obviously well before. What discipline? Like what? He was a runner. He was a sprinter. Okay. And he was hurt in the Olympics and he didn't pursue further his Olympic dream. He probably should have, but he didn't.

And I interviewed him during the 2010 Vancouver games because he was honored and asked to run the last leg of the torch relay, the torch relay. Sorry. Yes. I was blanking there. Yeah. So he was,

he was asked to do that. That's amazing. Yeah. So him and my mom were flown out to vancouver yeah as one of the surviving uh canadian olympians yeah and i'm so sad i didn't go like i should have that's like you guys had the rights on that thing too you think he could stick you on the story i just should have gone just to see him in his glory because my father, he, he, he died in Olympian. Like I really believe if you are an athlete like that, at that level, you're always that. And so I did a story on him being an Olympian, a Canadian Olympian.

And it was a beautiful, it was so beautiful. We heard a little bit of it in the montage. It called me his gold medal. Right. Oh my God. It is a sweet moment. He had beautiful. Well, we heard a little bit of it in the montage. And he called me his gold medal. Right. Oh my God. It is a sweet moment. He had never said that to me before. Wow.

I know. It was so beautiful. He was waiting for the cameras to be on for that moment. When he called me his gold, you're my gold medal. I'm like, oh my God, dad. Yeah. So he, he, he taught me a lot of life lessons. And one of the things that he taught me, which I, to this day, I live by, and it really is

about, it's not about the end game and it really is about the journey. And you have to be in it to enjoy it. And he always talked about your journey, where you are in life and what journey you're on. And, and that's, yeah, it's a good life lesson. Oh man, that's a, that is a endearing story. So thank you. Who gave me that question? Brian M. Brian M. It's a good life lesson. Oh, man. That is an endearing story. So thank you. Who gave me that question? Brian M.

Let's tell Brian M. I was not put on the weather because of my dad. I was going to ask you. First of all, I don't even know. I don't understand TV. Like, he calls that a promotion. Is that a promotion? I feel like you're doing news and you go to weather.

Is that really a promotion? Well, you know, it was a promotion because for a couple, it's both, right? Because you're not a meteorologist. No, no, no. Let me see your degrees. Let me see your credentials. I used to say to people. But you're on the Weather Network.

I could read the same app as you. It's just the way I tell you how it's going to rain is a big difference. You know, I had a, who's the guy at, who's the gent at, maybe you know, the guy who does weather, Adam Stiles. Do you know this name? At City? Yes. Yeah, he's good, the guy who does weather, Adam Stiles. Do you know this name? At City? Yes. Yeah, he's good. Yeah, so he's an actual meteorologist.

He's got some letters after his name. So he's a little perturbed when you presenters do the weather. For sure. He feels it's a, who are you, what are you doing, you know? For sure. So I always. Why not? But it's cheaper to get, I don't know, I'm assuming the letters mean you get more money to do weather.

I don't know. What do I know? I would assume if you are a reporter, you're an on-air personality. I would, I would assume it'd be more money. Cause you're a, so your title,

you can't be, uh, you gotta be like a weather, a weather anchor. Okay. I don't think it's, I don't think, uh,

and I don't know, I don't think that the promotion, like they just added it to your workload because, well at the time it was like we want your face to be a part of a of a show the weekend yeah so the show people are going to know that when they turn on ctv news on saturday and sunday night they're going to see you a personality the viewing audience already likes it is familiar with like Like I said, you're very popular. Thank you. FYI.

Yes. I'm the only one who didn't know who you were. Thank you. That's awesome, Mike. So that's, yeah, so I went, so it didn't have anything to do with my dad. It had to do with my boss at the time had asked me to take on the position. And he, at the time we had decided, which, which was about, about a month or so before the Olympics, six weeks or so before the Olympics. Um, if I said, I'll, I'll do this till the summer.

I thought this will work for me and my babies cause they were babies. And, but by the summer, I don't want to do the weather, you know, cause I'm a, I'm a news person and I don't want to just be, I don't want to get into that like stereotype and like the blondes on Saturday nights and, you know, and five months turned into five years, which turned into almost 10. So I take responsibility, a huge part of that. I take responsibility for the complacency and the stability of it because I really, at the beginning, I made it work. It was like I had Thursdays and Fridays off. It almost felt like I was part-time. I didn't have to be at work until 3.30, 4 o'clock on Saturday and Sunday afternoon. So I had all day with my children.

During my dinner break, I swear, this was my routine. On my dinner break, I would jump in my car. I would zip home. i'd throw my kids in a bath into bed but they would get their book at the same time kisses cuddles back back in the office shortly after 8 8 15 yeah i would grab anything to eat whatever was on my counter whatever my kids ate if my mom was at my house there would be leftovers like literally like this is this was my life i was on air till midnight, came home, unwind, went to bed around 1.32 o'clock, started my day around 6.30, 7 o'clock the next morning.

And I did this for years on the weekend and then on Thursday. And there's nowhere in that schedule to build in a nap. No. Because you have kids, young kids. Well, I know, I have a three-year-old. I mean, so I'm still kind of close. I know exactly what you're talking about. they do that yesterday was a holiday but they were still up at uh whatever 6 30 no i never napped no i never napped no but i i you know i made it work and then i started to have amazing feedback and from that feedback i started to build a brand and this brand started. So it became Dana's CTV,

wherever I was and wherever I would go. And then social media exploded. And then that started. And I made, I just made it work. But after a certain amount of years, it wasn't working anymore for me personally. And I was just not hitting that personal potential mark. And that's why it was time. But I tried. No, I mean, now you have freedom. Like now the world's your oyster, but we'll get back to that.

Yeah, we'll get back to that because I have lots of goals and where I want to go. Yeah, well, that's, yes, for sure, for sure. But Linda, a longtime listener of the program says, hi, Mike. That's amazing that Dana is coming on your podcast. You're like, what? You're like Madonna in that you're one name, right? There's no other.

I know. Like there's no other Dana in the market, right? I know. Isn't that amazing? And we can't, now no one else. Yeah. And Dana's popular enough. There could have been like, but you're, you are, you're Dana. Dana. And Dana's popular enough. It could have been like, but you're,

you are, you're Dana. Dana. Just like Cher or Madonna. You're Dana. You know what? It was a couple of times. There was a couple of anchors that said,

you know, they throw to a story. They'll say, you know, CTV, CTV news, Colin DeMello reports or CTV news, whatever.

So it's like CTV news, Dana, we're probably going to have a last name or see our, our CTV Dana is here. It's like, there's no last name. You don't need, you don't need that last name.

I realized. So, okay. So questions for Dan. Yeah. Yeah. So this question by Linda, um,

I always like to hear female journalists and their experience. If you have time, can you please ask her if she had any influences growing up and who they were? Yeah. Okay. Well, time can you please ask her if she had any influences growing up and who they were yeah okay well we know madonna was one of them madonna for sure because she was so liberating right she took she took well she controlled her career yeah and she took chances and she was really i i would say it's around that time of puberty that I was able to see this woman, this young woman do things that I'd never seen before, which I thought was unbelievable. So that was, that was big for me, notwithstanding, I connected to her music and it was very boppy and all of that at that time. And I,

it was happy music for me then. Um, But I thought that she took risks and chances that I wanted to be like that. I wanted to feel liberated. I wanted to be like that. I grew up in a house of all girls, right? So it was like a feminist household, right? It was like girls rule the world, right? We weren't gonna be bossed around.

We were gonna do what we wanted. And she represented that. Another huge influence on me was Oprah, of course, because she came up the hard way. She talked very openly about that and that she basically, her vision was that she felt or feels that she is this vessel for information. And I don't know what it was or when it was, but I have felt that way since I started watching her, which was whenever in the 80s, I guess. Right, with Donahue and I remember this time. And I still feel that way now. I feel like I don't know if I want to use the word vessel cause that that's her thing,

but it's, I feel like I'm a carrier of information. Right. You're like a conduit. Yeah. Yeah. And I feel like whether it is through social media, whether it's another show. Would you start a podcast? For sure.

Cause you, uh. A podcast or broadcast? A podcast. For sure I would. Yeah. Which is really just a broadcast. No, for sure I would, yeah. Which is really just a broadcast. No, for sure I would, yeah. Okay.

Well, we'll talk more about that in a bit. So, okay. So is there anyone in news though, like Barbara Walters or something? Diane Sawyer, for sure. Diane Sawyer. Katie Couric, for sure. Katie Couric more because she was married, had children. Diane Sawyer, not so much.

I always envisioned myself as a working mom. Katie Kirk was the working mom. Um, Diane Sawyer, I just was in love with everything that she said and did and looked in her voice. And she's so dreamy. I just found Diane Sawyer very dreamy. So those were the news people. Um, not so much, you know, I, I did love Ann Marszkowski. I will say, I thought, I still love ann marskowski i will say i thought i still love ann marskowski she is did you listen have you have you ever listened to any episode of toronto mics because i was listening to her okay because she in that episode she just talks like we're not even recording you know she just shoots from the hip it was sort of refreshing i felt like i had a nice cold shower on a hot day or whatever yeah she's amazing yeah she's lovely and she's so magnificent like looking at her i was yeah

i did love her growing up for sure it's hard to spell her last name you think your name's tough but that name's tough too there's like a c and a z hugging each other in that thing i met her early on in my career we were both was she nice she nice to you? She was incredible. She introduced herself to me. I was, I probably was maybe six months in at the most. And we were at the same story. I feel like it was a medical story. I don't really remember where, but it was a news conference at a hospital. Nothing huge, but she was there. Yeah.

And she introduced herself. She was amazing. Yeah. Because, you know, I mean, if you heard the episode, she talks about how she says there was a three-year period where gordon talked to her unless they're recording but then i had gordon here and of course i played him the clip and he said that he suggested that was in anne's head yeah interesting little uh i didn't work there no i mean we will never know we'll never know but just you didn't have any there there was never any conflict like that on the CTV Toronto set. For me?

Yeah, for you. Never for me, no. I can't speak of other people's experience because I feel that that would be not the right thing to do. This is a pop socket, okay? Let's say you're using your phone as a TV screen. It goes on the back of your phone and like props it up like a tripod almost whatever that's yeah like i know yeah well yeah of course it's yours i think it has easier to open than that even but uh that is from capadilla llp so rupesh capadilla is the

rock star accountant and he sees beyond the numbers. So anyone listening, including yourself, Dana, can get a free consultation with Rupesh Kapadia. But here's a friendly voice. If you listen to Toronto Mike, you'll know this voice. Nice to hear him again. But let's listen to a little message here from friend of the show, Milan. Hello, Toronto Mike listeners. This is Milan from Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repair. We've been using Kapadia LLP for many years,

providing guidance for all of our corporate and personal accounting needs. Over the years, Rupesh Capadia has put together an effective tax plan for his clients. And the bottom line is, he and his expert team of accountants save you money. Thanks, Toronto Mike. And thank you, Capadia LLP. So thank you, Milan, for a little testimonial there. They've been using Capadia LLP, and I urge you to as well. And you two, yeah, maybe even Rupesh could help you out with that tripod there.

I'm just watching Dana wrestling with the tripod. You know what happened to me once? This is a true story. I had this thing on my bike, which is like that. It had that spring thing where you hold your phone. It's supposed to attach your phone. Whoa. Terrible things happen on the Toronto Mike set.

You'll have to see it on the Periscope. Anyway, I have this thing on my bike and I'm on the bridge. You know the Humber Bay Bridge that separates Mimico from... I want to do that. Let me know and I'll meet you there. Would you meet me on the bridge i would i'm there all the time i would love to meet dana on the bridge i gotta get my bike down there i guess you'd have to i was i was

assuming you would you can't bike there from midtown i'm not judging you or anything but you don't have to i for sure could but by the time i get there we'd have to have a coffee we'd have to have something cold i mean something to eat and but ann rohmer by the way uh you love your city folk oh my gosh i know she promised to uh buy me uh lunch at ikea but it hasn't happened so i'm very like jaded when you say we're gonna do all these fun things that you won't do it because oh no that ikea lunch never happened with Anne and I. I can see why you'd want to compare me to other females that you've had on the show. But you will soon learn about me is that I am fiercely loyal. Oh, I like that. I'm fiercely loyal.

You can ask any of my friends. I'm going to. And anybody who I love. Who's your best friend in the business? That's on air. Oh, God, I have so many friends. I know you're afraid you're going to offend somebody. I don't want to say something that'm going to get upset with me.

I've got a lot of good friends in the business. Name a couple. Female or male? Either. I don't see gender. Come on. They're going to get upset with me if I'm going to do it in order. But I would say most of the women at CTV, I would say almost every single on air.

Okay. Women at CTV News. I would say almost every single on air. Okay. I'm in at CTV news. Um, my, I,

not in the newsroom. My non news friend, my closest friend is Marcy Ian on the social. Very close. I used to date maestro fresh West. Who's right there watching everything we say. Sorry, Mars. Sorry about that.

Um, Oh, I didn't know there was a secret. No, no, no, no. Okay. I don't want to get, I don't know that was a secret. No, no, no. I'm just kidding.

I don't want to get in trouble with Marcy. She is the most sensational human, sensational woman ever. And then my girls in the newsroom, they're my sisters. They are my sisters. Like, literally, my sisters. They're thick and thin. They are it. Marcia wrote something I quite liked about...

Marcy. Marcy. Marcia. Oh, because it goes into her last name. Marcia Ian. Marcy Ian, yeah. I gotcha. Yeah. Marcia wrote something I quite liked about Marcy. Marcy. Marcia. Oh, because it goes into her last name. Marcia Ian. Marcy Ian. Yeah. I gotcha.

Marcy. You know, that station's been blocked on my phone. Just kidding. I'm not blocked. That's a joke. Marcy wrote a very interesting piece about driving while black, which I thought was very enlightening. And I reference it all the time.

But so, yeah, get her on the show. What is she doing here? She could come in with you. I got other chairs and other microphones. We can do the whole thing now. And I won't even, I don't want to embarrass her of the maestro thing. I thought I was allowed to say that,

but then I saw your face. Like I was speaking at a school. No, I just was like, you know, um, I mean, the other women in the newsroom are very,

you know, the thing is, is that like I was saying about news is that people are particularly women were raw, right? We have families, we have relationships, we have complicated lives, but we come into the news every day and we do our work, right? You put that back and focus, and it's a hard focus for a good seven, eight hours a day. And we all have that same goal. And it's hard to find people like that day after day that are like-minded. And so that's what I found. And that's my joy in my relationships with my work sisters. And they're all, I'm very close to them, very close to them. That's amazing. They're

wonderful people. Good, good to hear. Good to hear. Now hear now here's a i'm not gonna call it controversial maybe it's controversial i read it and i i thought maybe i can't ask these questions but i believe they're fair they're this is leave a thumpka so there's a few parts to this but the first one she wants to know if you had any run-ins with paul bliss you know i don't know find out if you punt this one or not but uh oh see i i was unaware of any social activity no no no i was doing that um paul and i were great friends he and i'm not just saying this i think publis was the most talented reporter in this country wow that's high praise yeah he there wasn't a story that he had on air that i didn't enjoy whether if it was a

good story a bad story political story hard news soft news but fluff whatever you call it he could whip together a story and uh transcend a viewer literally that's how good his writing was and his reporting um i never had i i don't have one negative thing to say about Paul. He was a gentleman with me. He was a great friend to me and, uh, I miss him. I haven't spoken to him. Not one word. Let me see here. You recently embarked. Okay. This is from Deborah. Okay. So Deborah says you recently embarked on an amazing adventure, which seemed like a healing trip for you. How do you feel now that you're home? Is the italy adventure was this so was it like was there uh like did you know for example when you book this trip do you know that it's you're gonna be taking

it after you're done no like how so so when did you realize you had to quit no so we booked Italy last fall and I had, I pretty much knew in May that not, I don't want to say in May, but it was towards the end of May that I had a feeling that this was coming, that this was coming. And then it wasn't until mid June that I said, okay, I've got to have a bigger conversation. So the, the Italy trip fell in line with, I got off the air at midnight, and then the next day I was on my way to Italy. Wow. With my four best friends. All girls. No babies, no boys. Oh, you know what?

I just assumed you went with your beau. Everybody does. No. We haven't even taken our honeymoon yet. I know. He is not off the hook. We have a honeymoon coming at some point. But, you know, like we say, we have the rest of our lives.

And every day is the honeymoon. I know. Blah, blah, blah. So you went with some girlfriends. Mm-hmm. Cool. Yeah, trip of a lifetime. Wow.

Yeah. And when you got back, I guess this question from Deborah is that when you got home, did you feel like you would, I don't know, it doesn't sound like it was really a healing trip. No, it was healing. Because you're not really healing from anything. No, I wasn't scarred. Like, I didn't, I wasn't think it's not, it doesn't sound like it was really a healing trip. Like you weren't, cause you're not, you're not really healing from it. I wasn't scarred. Like I didn't,

I wasn't aching. You know, I'm still stuck on this whole, like you don't know what's next. Like you just quit a job you had on the air at the biggest news station in the city and you don't have anything. You know, Oh,

you need to give me like a sign when to be light and fluffy. And then I'll ask you, I can ask you about your arms again. Press record. How did you get those awesome? Yeah. I you, I can ask you about your arms again. Press record. How did you get those awesome biceps? Yeah, I only answered the arm question once. Too hard hitting here. Okay.

But I mean, we don't have to beat a dead horse here. You've been very clear and very upfront that you decided you needed to leave your comfort zone in order to take the next step. Right. So let's do that then before I play another song that you love.

What lies in store for Dana Levinson? What's next for you? Give us a clue. Let us into like where your heart's at and mine's at and what might be the next chapter for you. I see myself having this tremendous impact on, I don't want to just say women, but I feel like it's women because that's where I feel like I have a great impact right now. Uh, there is, there has been so much talk about 25 to 45, 25 to 45. That is the viewership. That is where everybody has to put their focus, the 25 to 45 year olds. And it's like, hello, post 45, we're still here. And I, I would like to have something, whether it be a platform, a show, podcast, I don't know what it is exactly. I'm exploring the opportunities now that will lend itself to that over 48 generation of women, hopefully men, that people are very interested in and want to hear it from me and want to hear what I'm going to bring to that. And that's where I see myself.

And in part of that journey, there'll have to be an element of making money. So it may not be all of that all at once. So I'm exploring the other avenues because I do have to work. And I see myself connecting with people a lot deeper than I have over the last, let's say, five or six years. And I'm not sure how that looks exactly. I don't think it's traditional reporting. I think it's something a little bit different than that. I think it's something a little bit different than that. So it sounds like you'll target this demo that's often,

I would say, neglected maybe. I feel like people are always looking for younger people. Yeah, like what, you know, when you think, I mean, if you meet me or you meet people that I hang out with, people around my age, we are settled, we're stable. Well, hopefully we're settled. Most of us have been through a marriage, maybe even two. You have children that are on very different, like a variety of ages, right?

So you've got your kids, some going into university, some just hitting puberty. We are at a stage, an age where this is the best time of my life not my 20s because you're still healthy enough to like you're still fit you feel good this is i will tell you that i have never felt healthier or happier ever in my life like i used to say oh this is what happiness is happiness Happiness takes hard work, takes a lot of work. But when you get to that other side, it's unbelievable. And I want to, I want to share that with people. I want people to understand that risk taking and change is scary and it's hard and it's a process and you don't do it overnight. You don't do it in a week

or a month. It can take years to get there and when you do there is something on the other side the biggest difference between now and when you started your broadcasting career is that when you started your broadcasting career you had to work for you had to work for a company like ctv we had to you had to because they own the airwaves and or if you want to write you had to work for a newspaper because they own the airwaves. Or if you want to write, you had to work for a newspaper because they own the publications and stuff. But today, you could literally start your own TV show and radio show, if you will, like a podcast. And your whole entire enterprise,

you could do that without any mainstream media outlet behind you. How did you do all this? Correct. No, really, how did you do all this? I'm interested. Oh. No, really, because you started off as a blog and then you started out and then you just bought some equipment like literally uh okay so what happened was in 2011 okay so in 2006 my pals got fired from the radio gig their mainstream mainstream radio gig. This is 2006. And we, you know, we were, I was a blogger and a digital marketing guy for my full-time job to pay the mortgage and stuff.

And so I had an interest and also I was a fan of, you know, radio and new media and stuff. And I told those guys that there was this new platform that was emerging called Podcasts so yeah late 2006 I had discovered one by Ricky Gervais and I was like reverse engineering the whole thing like okay so he's got his audio how does it get to the syndication feed for the subscription so basically

seeing all the parts and how they all fit together and stuff and I told these two guys Humble and Fred you might have heard of them I said, uh, you guys want to record, you guys want to broadcast together, but you don't have a radio station that will hire you. Do it yourself with this podcast. And we started doing podcasts. And so I was doing the, what I call the backend production stuff, uh, for them for a long time. They started broadcasting every day in 2011. And after,

basically after watching them that first two weeks, I realized, uh, I'd like to try to do that like a little differently. Like, so their show was about Humble and Fred and they do have guests on, but it's a Humble and Fred show. Right. I thought, okay, what if it was about the, more about the guest? Like you went deeper with the guest and then you could really kind of dive into the meat and the substance. Like, I feel like i really know you right now you do yeah from this nine i know you in a way i would not know you from like wait i want to know how you feel you know me no because this is interesting for me this helps me this is good for me because i have interviews coming up i have lots of connections who are these interviews with i can't tell you

i have to kill you. No, I'm just kidding. I've got stuff lined up. If you kill me, just remember, we're live. I'm just kidding. No, you know,

like it's good for me to get this feedback too because for so long, I was saying so long, I feel like people experience me not in a way that I feel like I want to be experienced.

Well, you come across, and again, this is what I perceived from exactly experienced. Well, you come across, and again, this is what I perceived from exactly an hour and 43 minutes or whatever, but, uh, genuine, like you, you seem very sincere.

Thank you. Um, I was all set to not believe you. Like I was all set, like, oh, she's in no way, no way did she decide to leave after 20 years,

but I, I believe you. Really? You didn't think I was going to tell the truth? I'm so, I've heard too many stories. I'm really, really,

really, at, really. At this point, even the big retirements we see in the media now, like the big, I won't name names, but the big famous radio guy who's been on the air for 50 years. I know. When he gets a farewell, I don't believe it. You wanted him for 500. I heard. No, that's a different guy. Okay.

That's Bob McCowan. Yeah. No, McCowan, I know he got fired but they're not pretending that was anything else oh okay the mccowan's a nice that's a nice example where they're like okay mccowan's leaving and we're not going to pretend like he chose to leave they didn't even play that game with oh they didn't no oh okay i'm talking about radio personalities uh longer in this market where it's really presented like they're retiring and there's no chance they

don't want to be on the air the next week like so anyway no and again they didn't say that you know it was very uh for you our yeah our management was very much like you need to say that you're going on to do other things and and please follow me continue to be part of my life because everybody knew that I'm going to or hoping I'm going to show up somewhere. And I bet you your management was worried. Probably people are going to think we fired her. Like I bet you anything that's like, how do we make sure because they're used to bullshitting us. So what happens when it's true? I think that that would be fair to say they wouldn't want people to think that they did something not nice. No, because they're going to take their lumps all the time for real firings.

Right. They got enough to worry about when they really do fire some beloved long-time personality. And they deserve my praise because, like I said, they treated me beautifully. Beautifully. And they still do. I still speak to them. Which is why I'm so glad you came on to tell this story because it's good to hear the other side. Yeah.

But you know, you reap what you sow, too. Right? Okay. Is that from the bible no oh my god you're gonna think i'm like i know um you you get what you give and so i'm starting to embrace this idea also like liking myself more now than ever because i'm realizing when i talked about the impact that i had on viewers but now i'm seeing the impact that I had on my work while I was there. Not like I said, not everybody is treated like this. But that's like attending your own funeral. You know what I mean? Like, have you ever thought of that? Like, uh, of course, cause I saw Gilligan do it once on Gilligan's Island. They thought he was dead. His hat was on top of the quicksand. By the way, where is all this quicksand? I was so scared of quicksand as a

kid. Like it was so wise. I was also scared of quicksand as a kid like it was so was i where is it also scared of tarantulas from when the bridge bench went to hawaii oh yeah yeah yeah well i'm still scared of tarantulas but that's real thing the tarantulas like quicksand i think it was everywhere on our televisions because it was mainly gilligan's island i guess i think it does exist but i would feel like if somebody actually was killed by quicksand i feel it would be on the news i feel like that might make would feel like if somebody actually was killed by quicksand, I feel it would be on the news. I feel like that might make the news just because, Hey,

someone was killed by quicksand. It's kind of a, you know, a sexy story for the news or whatever. That would be a good visual. I don't think it's happening. Like I think it's just happening. So Gilly,

they found his hat on top of the quicksand. So they assumed he was dead. They had a funeral for him, but he was up in the tree watching his own funeral. Okay. And they said nice things about him. Right. Cause people typically do that. Like, wouldn't it be neat if you know you were not

really dead because you don't want to die and then you won't be able to watch the funeral but if you were people thought you were dead and you can kind of attend your own funeral and hear what people say about you you kind of get that when you quit like after 20 years on the air like it's sort of like people will now say oh dana i really miss her in my living room. Like her smile lit up the room or whatever. Or I miss this, that, the other. Like you get to kind of, right now you're getting to like, and like I said, most people think you're on holidays. Like it'll be in September. Well, this is the problem.

You picked the wrong time to quit. Don't quit at the end of June. Why didn't you consult me? You don't quit at the end of June. Well, I wanted to have my summer. That's a good point. Okay. Okay.

So I thought the timing was beautiful. Okay. And it worked. It was in line with CTV. It worked for them. So I take back what I said. You didn't pick the wrong time. But the problem is that people think you're on vacation.

But well, in September, at some point, you're going to be inundated with social media messages about people missing you. I have been. I have been. And I'm trying to keep up with all of it. I'm trying to be as responsible to that as possible, but I will tell you, some days it's overwhelming. I can't, I actually cannot. You need to outsource that.

I'll tell you what, I run my own digital services company. Oh really? Good. I do podcasts for other people too. You should talk to me about that too. Okay, fantastic. But we're going to meet on the Humber Bay Bridge I'm going to play a song

and we're going to hear from you why you love this song somewhere over the rainbow way up high there's a land that I heard of once in a lullaby. Somewhere over the rainbow, skies are blue. The sky's all blue And the dreams that you dare to dream Really do come true

Someday I'll wish upon a star And wake up where the clouds are far behind me. Where troubles melt like lemon drops away above the chimney tops. That's where you'll find me. Why do you love this song? Somewhere over the rainbow. why do you love this song? Sorry. You know, when I hear that, I just,

I smile when I hear that song. When I sang that song to my children, every single night of their lives in bed, until they were God knows what age, so I probably won't say that on camera. They're like, Mom, stop singing to me. I'm an eternal optimist.

And I always feel like there's always something better. And there was always going to be a place that was better than where I was or where I am. And I still feel that now. And even when I was little, I remember hearing that song and thinking, there's a place that's better than this. There's another place out there where you can be happier and you can find your dreams and live out your dreams. And so that's how I felt when I was little.

And then that song has just been something for me that's been this positive, you know, that song that, you know, that Ally McBeal scenario that she always used to have songs in her head. Was it like a dancing baby involved? Yeah, exactly. So it's the somewhere, somewhere out there, there is a place that's beyond the rainbow that's really magical and beautiful.

And I think of that all the time, that there is always something better. There always has to be something better. That's the positive in me. And that's how I live my life. Dana, what a pleasure. I really enjoyed this. Oh, I'm so happy. And I can't believe I have bagels and they smell so good.

Get the cream cheese in the fridge though. Right away. Are you kidding me? Get the cream cheese in the fridge. And when you get home, stick a... It depends. You need to... I might have this for dinner tonight because I am alone and I don't want to cook.

It's frozen solid, so I always leave it in the fridge for 24 hours before I cook it up. You don't have to do that with frozen. Is that right? No. How come I've been doing that then? I don't know. Is that the instructions? Maybe it's in the instructions.

Oh, okay. You don't have to do that. You don't have to do the instructions, but you'll love it when you do make it up. I love lasagna. Maybe it's in the instructions. But you'll read the instructions. But you'll love it when you do make it up. And I can't wait to find out when I'm going to the Humber Bay Bridge to meet Dana. So that's amazing. Thank you for having me. It's been wonderful. And that brings us to the end of our 496th show.

You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Dana is at Dana Levinson TV. There's a TV at the end of Dana Levinson do you want to drop your insta it's the same

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