Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Mike Wise: Toronto Mike'd #164

Episode Date: March 17, 2016

Mike chats with CBC anchor Mike Wise about his work at the CBC.

Welcome to episode 164 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything, often with a distinctly Toronto flavour. And proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a local independent brewery producing fresh craft beer. I'm Mike from TorontoMic.com and joining me this week is CBC anchor Mike Wise. Welcome, Mike. Thank you, Mike. We need more mics on your show, I figure. You know what? I love mics. I should have done

a tally, but I had Mike Wilner and I had, I'm trying to think, I had a couple of other mics. You wouldn't happen to know, would you? No, you didn't. I should know this off the top of my head, but Mike Richards from TSN Radio. And you're like maybe the third Mike there's lots of us out there

how do you think you got this invitation the name Mike Wise for a while before I became Toronto Mike I flirted with the idea I should be Wise Mike there you go sort of kind of taken not that I search myself out on Twitter or something like that but there's Wise Mike Wise.

There's another Mike Wise who's a former Washington Post columnist. I used to get a lot of his hate tweets. You're tough to Google, yeah. So when I would remind myself as to what your Twitter handle is, I might search Mike Wise. And you're right. There are a number of Mike Wises in the public realm that you will find if you Google Mike Wise.

Yeah, I'm kicking myself because I was on Twitter rather early. like in the public realm that you will find if you Google Mike Wise. Yeah, I'm kicking myself because I was on Twitter rather early. I could have taken a better name, but I went with at Wise M for some reason. Yeah, and the problem with that, I guess, is it doesn't automatically fill in when you start writing it in Twitter. I think it picks up other Mike Wises first. I have like, sometimes I notice some radio stations, like I'm going to use The Edge as the example. So I'll be wanting to tag 102.1 The Edge, and I'll do, like, at The Edge.

And everything comes up except the official Twitter handle for the station. Like, you want the app to get a little smarter and just think of the things that you regularly go to and start auto-filling those in. I find that often as well. You're right. You're right. And I think it might actually kind of favor people you follow first. It might actually do that. But it depends how the people write their name and stuff it's uh but it's a pleasure to have you on this is a very big week for me and by the way i apologize everyone

it is a big week and i i realize now i played the theme song quieter than usual and maybe some people will appreciate that who knows maybe that's a blessing in disguise, but here is a true blessing. If I look tired, my apologies, because there was a lot of crying baby in the bed last night. So what is it now? Thursday. This is Thursday at lunch. And my daughter was born two mornings ago, so Tuesday morning at 6.30 a.m., Morgan was born at St. Joe's Hospital. Congratulations. You're looking great for having very little sleep over the last 48 hours.

Yeah, but what was great was, okay, so my wife and daughter did spend... So, okay okay first of all we're up all night like when the baby pops out at 6 30 you're up all night because the labors are like yeah you've been there oh yeah i've been there so you're in like we kind of checked into the hospital at like 2 a.m and then four hours later two and four and a half hours later which is pretty quick apparently but uh it's her second kid it came out quick. And so no sleep at all. But then that night, so like Tuesday night, my wife and newborn had to stay in the hospital and I came home with the other three kids.

I never slept so well. Like I slept like... Don't tell your wife. No, I told her. I said, and if I did, it's like, thank goodness because I have a lot to do. Like I can't like be zonked. Last night sucked because it was the first night

with the newborn and you know, the breastfeeding thing and the cry all the time. The day for night thing. Yeah. You're right. She's sleeping well today. But last night was like she was up all night. It was like, get it right. Day two.

Come on. Yeah. No, no. My wife, when we had our daughter, 36 hours in the hospital. Oh, wow. That was quite the experience. I'll stop complaining, man. No, no.

I'd collapsed with exhaustion, fairly so, for the husband that sort of just was falling along. But one of the nurses snapped a photo, so I've got a great picture of me just completely passed out at Women's College Hospital. It was pretty funny. That's where my first two were born, Women's College Hospital. Not there anymore. No.

No. That's right. But now we're, yeah, St. Joe's, which is a shorter drive for me. So thank you for bringing me a coffee. Who was it? My memory is bad, but somebody recently brought me a McDonald's coffee. And then I decided it would be great if guests, because you're going to leave with beer. I'll talk to you about that in a minute.

But like, if you brought me a coffee, that's amazing. Then you leave with beer. It sounds like a fair, a nice trade. I figured I had to bring something. Well, you went above and beyond because you were listening to a recent episode. I'm sleep deprived. I won't be particularly sharp today. But Kid Craig, I believe it was.

Was it Kid Craig who talked about the peanut butter bagel? And you brought a peanut butter bagel. Yes, I did my research. I figured these things out. I've got a like a tea in front of me right now. My voice is not its normal voice. I know you've talked about this. This week I've got what others were calling the CBC plague going around. I'm sure this cold has gone through workplaces across the city right now so it's my turn to get something here. My voice doesn't sound like how it

normally sounds in my head. I don't know how it's sounding at this point, but I figure a podcast, even if it's a bit lower because I can go really, I get that great bass when I have a head cold or something like that. But on a podcast, just listen to us at one and a half times speed, two times speed. I'll get back to normal, I figure. I warned you via Twitter that if you go too

deep, I'm going to have to modify, I'm going to have to add a filter because it's bad enough that you already have these good pipes and then if you go too deep, I just going to have to modify. I'm going to have to add a filter because it's bad enough that you already have these good pipes and then if you go too deep, I just feel like insufficient. I was doing the CNN voice last night. This is CNN. I'm your father. Exactly.

Awesome. The other big, before we dive into your work at the CBC is this is St. Patrick's Day. And I don't know about you, but when I think of Irish music, I always go to the Pogues first.

That's my first stop. And this is the Irish Rover by the Pogues. So happy St. Patrick's Day to you. Happy St. Patrick's Day. And don't call it St. Not that you would do this, but some people I see are saying happy St. Paddy's Day but they're spelling Paddy

P-A-T-T-Y which upsets the Irish. It's P-A-D-D-Y if you're going to do that not P-A-T-T-Y. You can take to Twitter and get the spelling right. That's right. The Irish police are watching so be careful. So beer. So St. Patrick's Day is a good day to get

your beer on. This is Great Lakes beer that you're taking home with you. So you got things like Canuck Pale Ale, and there's the true Canadian we all aspire to be. Excellent, yeah. Do you own a lumberjack jacket? I don't have a lumberjack jacket, but I did notice that a lot of the broadcasters

are most familiar with the pompous ass ale that this Great Lakes comes out. I don't know why that is. We're all familiar with pompous ass ale. Yeah, they all relate to it somehow. I think it comes part and parcel with achieving some level of greatness in broadcasting. You have to be a pompous ass. This one, blonde lager. So that was like, I talked to my buddy there and I said, I like a Heineken.

And he's like, well, you'll like the Blonde Lager. So that's sort of like, you know, if you like Heineken, that's what you would like. But there's, apparently,

I'm not a great beer guy, but beer people will tell you there's much better beers than that at the Great Lakes Brewery. But a whole bunch of assorted beers for you that are going home with you. Certainly appreciate that.

Thank you. And not that, you know, the Pogues reminds me of St. Patrick's Day, but just throwing this out there because it is St. Patrick's Day, is that when I watched The Wire, did you ever see The Wire? I think it's required viewing for journalists. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah, cool. You watched it just once? I've only gone through the entire series once. I haven't had a rewatch. So now my favorite Pogogue song since I saw The Wire has become The Body of an American which they play at those wakes at Kavanaugh.

So now it's St. Patrick's Day and I won't have a better excuse than this to play Body of an American. So while this is playing in the background, I have a question. So you are working for the CBC. You're the second CBC person I guess I've had on after Matt Galloway. So you've working for the CBC. You're the second CBC person, I guess, I've had on after Matt Galloway. So you've got big shoes to fill.

Yes, yeah. And you had to just tell me what you can tell me, but you can't just go on another show without some approval process. Is this like unspoken? Are you giving me the kill it sign? No, no, no. When the request came, make sure we just seek the right approvals Is this like unspoken? Are you giving me the kill it sign? No, no, no. When the request came, make sure we just seek the right approvals and things like that.

They have a request for outside appearance issue. And they do like to just know what you're doing. There's been some cases in the past where some hosts have maybe got into trouble. And they just like to keep everything above board right now. So just explained it. Let people know what it was. Someone from communication talked to me about you know what to talk okay yeah so that's i guess that's my question since uh you know we're learning how the sausage is made so when you go to the cbc i guess you fill in a form or something and like this guy i'm going to this guy's basement in etobicoke south etobicoke and he's gonna like uh

talk he's gonna give me beer and you know chat me up or whatever. So do they need to hear other episodes? Did they have any follow-up questions? I said, hey, Matt Galloway was on. Is that right? It's good enough for me. You think so? Yeah, it's a look at other media personalities in Toronto. I said, I've listened to your podcast before.

I've got a lot out of it. And we'll be talking about these things. So, yeah, it's, and it was approved rather quickly, so. When you listen to this podcast, I'm always curious, do you, because some people listen to every episode, and they've been doing that since the beginning, back with, like, when my friend Rosie and I

would just shoot the shit, and they listen to every episode, and that's great. Like, they're day-oners or whatever. And then there are others who listen to when, like, famous people are on, so they skip episodes of my buddy Elvis or whatever and they listen to him.

And then there's others who just cherry-pick. So if some people love sports media and they go, I want to hear the Mike Richards or I want to hear the Elliot Friedman or whatever, Strombo, whatever. So when do you listen? Do you cherry-pick the guest,

like if it's somebody you're interested in hearing from? Do I admit that? Yeah, yeah. No, yeah, I want to hear the truth. I'll do that. I'll go through and if it's someone that's interesting. For me, I find as an anchor, I used to be a reporter for many years and I really liked getting out, telling stories, meeting people, but you also would socialize with others in another media outlets because you're all waiting for a cop to speak or something like that and you'd find things out.

Since becoming an anchor, I missed that aspect of finding out about other people. So discovering your podcast, for me, quite honestly, was a way to hear about other stories and hear about other experiences and the tough aspects of what a lot of people are going through and things and get to know some people you sort of know. It's weird being on TV. You're like, oh, yeah, hey, Elliot Freeman, I see you in the elevator all the time. Now I know a little bit more about you. The former CBCers who fled to Rogers.

There's this mythical divide in the building. They used CBC Studios to do Hockey Night in Canada. You'll see, ride the elevator up with the Hockey Night in Canada crew going up. Have you ever ridden the elevator with Ron McLean? Certainly Don Cherry. I don't know if Ron... Yeah, of all the elevator rides, it's weird the first time I rode the elevator

with David Suzuki. Oh, right. You know, you get off and you go, I just rode the elevator with David Suzuki. This is like Canadiana. This is cool. He's just turning 80. I know, I just read that.

Yeah, that's amazing. I heard of like a fantastic... This is some CBC radio program where suzuki was talking i guess i believe his mother had uh alzheimer's like early onset of alzheimer's and he was talking about his great fear as he aged was that he would not be able to avoid the same fate that he would have inherited this and he would have alzheimer's but uh sharp as attack at 80 and going strong similar to don cherry who i when I watched Don Cherry, the man, he looks great.

Like, he looks great. Whether you agree with his points or not is a whole different topic of discussion. But he looks and sounds like vibrant and great and then you're like,

that's an 80-year-old man. Like, that's my goal. I want to be like that when I'm 80. Exactly. And, you know,

with the new Harrison Ford being Indiana Jones, what's he going to be at 77, 78 when the next one comes? Yeah, he's just got to stop flying his own plane, I think. Yeah. Because that lowers your life expectancy. He's he going to be at 77, 78 when the next one comes? Yeah, he's just going to stop flying his own plane,

I think. Because that lowers your life expectancy. He's doing like a lap around a circuit with another Blade Runner in the Star Wars. Yeah, that's the, he's like realizing like maybe I need to leave some coin for like my great-great-grandkids or whatever because he's just cashing in now. Yeah, at this point.

Yeah, Harrison Ford, I got to say that guy, as a child of the 80s Yeah, Harrison Ford, I got to say, that guy, as a child of the 80s, Harrison Ford is the man because he was showing up in all the, we love the Raiders and we love the Star Wars and, you know.

We'll skip over Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. That was a bit of a mistake. Yeah, yeah. That's when he hid in the refrigerator to avoid the, when the bomb,

what was it? I don't know if it was an A-bomb or what, but some bomb? The test, yeah. A refrigerator is all you need to survive the apocalypse. That's been a hell of a refrigerator. I'll give it that.

If anyone listening wants to support this podcast, it is patreon.com, so p-a-t-r-e-o-n.com slash torontomike. And I want to thank a few people who pledged over the last week. Thermos, which is a great handle. Thermos. Handle Thermos. See what I did there. Greg Gore, which is not Gregor, but two words.

Greg Gore. I don't know if any relation to Al Gore. And Kai Chow. So thank you. And I hope others listening join that exclusive club and just help keep this going. I like the Patreon platform. I think it's really good for podcasters and helps generate some... Are CBC employees allowed to sponsor outside shows?

I don't know, but I'm signed up on Patreon. I haven't sponsored yours yet. I figured it was going on, but... No pressure. Listen. Yes. I'm trying to think of any guests. One has.

Pete Fowler came on and he's a OPP cop now but he used to be on the air at 102.1. What episodes? So yeah, so you said you listened to episodes.

What was the last episode you listened to? Well, a lot of them was binge listening to get ready for this as well but listening to Sibyl Shetland,

the Matt Galloway, the Mark Hepsher episode, 150, right? Yeah, he's been on three times, actually. Three times, yeah. Hebs, he's a good guy. He'd come on again if I asked him. Liz West this morning, I was listening to that one.

Liz West was almost a city councillor. Mm-hmm. This close, well, back in 2010, she was this close. She's won a couple times, hasn't she? Yes, but she got, I didn't bring up the second time, she got creamed the second time, but she was so close the first time in 2010 and then she got railroaded got stomped in 2015 but 2015 or 2014 whatever 2014 but uh yeah liz west was great and she's the one who mentioned how you hear yourself she was talking about how you hear your your voice

and that uh the way we hear our voice it reverberates like to our skull and it's different than how we sound on these recordings that's when you watch, do you watch yourself? Like you'll watch yourself back, like on tape or whatever, and see like, because I will listen back and hear like, okay, Mike, way too many ums or too much mumbling and stuff.

And then I'll say, I'll try to work on that. That is probably something I don't do enough. I have done it and it is useful because yeah, you get used to your own perception of how you think you sound, especially when you're anchoring a newscast. And one of the big challenges in anchoring a full half hour show is the tonal shift. You have to go from introducing the sad missing child story to the, oh, those politicians and your money story. And then the quirky old lady who's helping out the fireman.

And you've got to change all of those different tones in your delivery and your read. And it's useful to realize when you're falling flat or when you're doing it well by actually sitting back and listening again. Because even though I'm on television, the big realization I've had recently is, even though it's visual and people are watching, I can't count on people giving full 100% attention span to watching it. They could be, you know, especially on at 11 o'clock, I get a lot of people telling me, I watch your last thing before I go to bed.

There could be a TV in the bed. They could be on their phone or something like that. So even though we're writing for television, especially when I work with younger writers coming out there, I say, keep in mind, people are listening a lot. And you've got to keep that in mind as well, not overwriting to the pictures, but acknowledging that it's not all visual.

It's video and audio. You're absolutely right. You're right. In fact, it reminds me of that story you might be familiar with, the clip of Casey Kasem going off on his producers because he couldn't, he had a sad story. It was like a dog died or something, right? And it was coming off of an up-tempo song.

And he says he can't segue off the up-tempo into the sad story. And he just went off on it. And I was conscious of that. You're right. Like yourself, there's an art to like transitioning from like the sad story, like maybe a child death or something. And then you got your, you're right, the old quirky lady helping the firefighters or whatever, and there's an art to that.

Yeah, and quite often we try to plan or lay out the newscast to do that. Same way someone laying out the front page of a newspaper wouldn't have two stories beside each other that conflict or something like that or a wrong tone. It is something you do when you line up a newscast and you read through and it's important to go through and try to catch those things sometimes you don't or you haven't been paying attention and like oh my gosh that sounded brutal do you even have okay so in print there's a famous instance where uh a sad story about like a child

like being found dead in a suitcase for example okay accompanied by an ad for like suitcases okay because like an algorithm took over and saw the word suitcase in the story and then put up the ad for the suitcase and it's like grossly insensitive, right? Yeah. So is there any sense like, okay, like do the ads, is there anyone who says,

well, maybe we don't run this ad because of this story. Like maybe this travel to Cuba story is inappropriate because they had a natural disaster today. I never see those. That's just a Mike curiosity. We never know what's coming out. Even when I'm in studio and we go to, you know, coming up after these messages,

all I see is the output from our studio. I don't actually see what viewers are seeing at home in terms of commercials. And also because we're broadcast in different stations in different markets and and things there could be a different package of commercials there i heard him like a classic story don't know whether it's true or not about an anchor who once commented on a commercial he saw coming out which you should never really do and it came across you know it was you know a a

fruit or something oh i'd like to take a bite out of that or something like that. Not realizing that there was another ad in a different market for brassieres or something like that. Whether it was a true or not story. True or not, it would be a great, like at the journalism school at Humber College down the street. Little truisms you pick up.

Like never swear. The minute a microphone goes on you, never, ever, ever swear. And I had a great story where I learned the hard way. You tell me. Never do that. Many years ago, before, when CBC just brought back its late newscast and I was doing it, it was a 10-minute newscast from 10.55 to 11.05 before it expanded to a full half hour. And when it was just 10 minutes, the way they worked the mechanics of this sort of thing, we actually, the first output that came out of our studio was the last, as I say, the

last block of the National, like the part where Peter Mansbridge is at the point, sort of did the weather with Claire Martin and stuff. So that was coming out of our studio, and then it would be a natural transition. You know, and now your local news, and hi, thank you, Peter. And then we continue with the rest of the newscast there. This particular night, there was a timing mix-up somewhere. Okay. And the master control said, okay, at 11.52, we're going to take the output from your studio.

Even though the audience doesn't see you go on air until 10.55. Right. We had the wrong time. So there was a mix-up with something, and I was frantically working in the studio writing something. And in a normal frame of mind, there was a bit of stress under me, and I could have easily been saying, oh my blank, what the blank is going on? For some reason, there but by the grace of media gods go, I didn't, because the studio output suddenly went on to CBC. Wow. Without us knowing. So there I am frantically typing away on my laptop in the studio output suddenly went on to CBC. Wow. Without us knowing.

So there I am, frantically typing away on my laptop in the studio, writing something, muttering to myself. And Twitter lit up. People, Mike Wise, do you know you're on air? Wow. You're on air. And it took a minute. This is actually on YouTube somewhere. I'm going to track that down.

Yeah. Of me just, or maybe I put it on my Facebook or something. And fortunately, didn't say anything. And I'm still here to talk about it. As I learned the lesson, never swear when there's a microphone on you. That's just a good blanket rule for all broadcasts. Like once the mic is applied, cut the curse words or whatever. You never know.

It just takes a human error somewhere for the wrong switch somewhere in a part of the building you don't even know exists. And it's not just that you've got to be careful that this doesn't go out live. Especially CBC, by the way, which of all the broadcasting outlets, I bet you that's the one that would be the most sensitive to such a thing, I would think, because it's a public broadcaster. But I'm always reminded of the fantastic clips of Gord Martineau and Ann Roszkowski, which was not live, but was just pre-taped. I don't know, I guess a cameraman

or somebody, who knows, somebody leaked it. Someone you don't know where. Right. So even for that reason, you don't know who's going to have a vendetta

or just for shits and giggles. When I'm in a studio, there's a record going somewhere to a server somewhere and the way our systems are set up now, anybody can log in

and take a look at that because it makes for fun blooper compilations. Oh yeah, and that was legendary in Toronto circles Look at that. Because it makes for fun blooper compilations. Oh, yeah. And that was legendary in Toronto circles. And effing bint, for example, is one of the quotes I remember well. But on that note, he seemed to survive that fine. And he's, I mean, yeah, you're a good guy.

I feel like I didn't set the table right. Because maybe I'll set the table and come back to this. But you have actually been at the CBC since you were 17 years old. That's amazing. Yeah, more than half my life. That's amazing. Easily more than half my life. I'm trying to, you got some white hair action.

Yeah, it's growing. Not like me, but yeah. Yeah, it's graying in on the side there. A little bit, just to give you some distinguished seasoning. So you were at, I guess you were in high school, and I'm just going to read this and then I'll hear from you, but one of your first responsibilities was working the 88 federal election, and even though you couldn't actually vote yet, you were working the election for CBC. What happened? Tell me. I was in a high school in Brampton, Cardinal Léger High School in Brampton, and I remember it was, it would have been grade 11, and a teacher did a presentation for co-op education.

It was, it would have been grade 11, and a teacher did a presentation for co-op education. And part of this presentation showed another student that was working at Cable 10 Brampton. And I had been interested, you know, grade 11, you're still trying to figure out what things you wanted to do with your life. But I'd always been interested in television, TV cameras, telling stories and interesting. I thought, hey, maybe I'll sign up for this and get a job working at Rogers Cable and then earn some school credits. That would be great. Little did I know I had a wonderful teacher, Teresa Malata Cole, who went above and beyond and worked some contacts, knew a friend, and somehow convinced them at CBC to take in a high school co-op student for four months in 1988. My first day on the job was the day after Ben Johnson tested positive for steroids at the Seoul Olympics. So I come in and he had just arrived at Pearson that day. The newsroom

was going crazy. It was all hands on deck. The first half hour of the newscast, they blew away all the commercials and it was nothing but Ben Johnson arrives. Ben Johnson, what's this done for the country? What's it done for his future promotions? All these sort of things. So I'm just seeing a whirlwind of activity all around me. I go to the control room for the first time, which is information overload in the most boring days. If you've ever seen, you see them in the backgrounds of news sets, multiple monitors, you don't know what's going on. It was all hands on deck. And someone actually handed me a phone and said, this is Brian Williams in Seoul. Don't make him hang up. Did he give you the time? That's what I want to know.

I just had to hold on to him until our anchor, Hillary Brown, at the time was willing to go and talk to him live. And all I could think, I'm a high school student. I was like, who's paying for the long distance to Seoul? This is... Back in the, yeah, back in the 80s, of course. Yeah, yeah. Very expensive. So it was just incredible, and it was very welcoming, and they showed me a lot, and I had wonderful opportunities. I had a passion and interest in politics at that time. I got to spend time at Queen's Park meeting Steve Pakin,

who was a Queen's Park reporter at that point, Lynn Whittam, some other people, spending some time there. I was very fortunate after that four months was up, they let me do a little TV item myself that I got to show my friends. And that summer, another opening came up. I'm looking for a summertime job. I got to work summer at the entry-level job there, not even photocopying, pulling out, you know, splitting copy and going to the teletype machine and tearing off the pieces of paper, spreading that around.

My final year of high school, because in the 80s we had five years of high school. I remember. OAC year. My weekends were spent learning the craft at CBC on the weekend show, putting together highlights, writing the weather forecast. And then I was fortunate and very lucky that as I went off to university, summers and Christmases, they would find work here and there that would help out. And from there, progressed to, again,

finding some lucky opportunities and getting a full-time job. And here I am still. That's amazing because at an age when other kids in your class are working at McDonald's, you're working in the industry where you'll end up

with your career. Like, that's just amazing. I joke I've always worked in television because the part-time job I had before then was renting televisions at Pumal Memorial Hospital. Oh, that's right. That's a good line. No, that's amazing. So, yeah, so you mentioned, so you're at the Ontario, you're an Ontario legislative reporter

for seven years, I guess, CBC after that. Yeah, that was about 2002 I had done that. But before then, after university, CBC, through cutbacks and things like that, had moved to bring in video journalists. If you watch City TV, it was the videographers. And CBC did that, but we never shot a stand-up in the back of a window or a reflection of a car or something like that so i trained and for many many years was filming my own stories had my own camera gear my own tripod my own vehicle and as cutbacks and things came that that proved a very useful skill to have going forward um that's actually another good tip uh yeah is do today for example today it's you can't just be

like a writer okay today you've got a especially with like bell and rogers and all these multi platform you got to be you got to have like a social media presence you got to be able to jump on the radio like i had uh like a lot of people i've had on this show but somebody like a chris johnston for example who would write about sports like you'll hear bobcat will have them on some prime time you got to be versatile. Like you've got to have this technical side and you've got to understand

the social media and be able to do voice and do print and do TV. So you've got to be ready for everything. That's a reality right now. You know, I anchor. I also cut items on,

you know, video, you know, editing software every night. I put together the sportscast. Oh yeah. Okay, so right now you are anchor of the 11 o'clock toronto cbc toronto

newscast that's right so uh weekdays at 11 we can see mike wise and his uh like you said people probably watch before they fall asleep uh for sure and um so tell me though yeah so that's what my next question actually is what exactly does that entail like some people might think you just read the script like you show up you know you put on a nice suit or whatever, and you read the script. That's number one question. So you just show up at 10.30? The show is at 11. So give me the real deal.

What does it entail to be anchor of the 11 o'clock CBC Toronto News? Well, it's the later shifts. My day starts at 3.30. That said, throughout the day, I'm keeping tabs on what's happening on, and then the steady stream of emails come in. So I follow what the newscast is doing. At 3.30. That said, you know, throughout the day, I'm keeping tabs on what's happening on and then the, you know, the email, steady stream of emails come in. So I follow what the newscast is doing. At 3.30, I've got a couple of hours just to get up to speed with what the newscast is doing, because it's sort of like a baton race. There's a bunch of people who are busy putting on the

six o'clock show with Anne-Marie Medawake and Dwight Drummond. Right. And a lot of the resources put towards that. They're busy getting that together. And then they sort of pass the baton at some point in the day off to the late show to work on, take a lot of the material that was collected at six o'clock and put it on at 11.

That said, we're also in a newsroom that is also tightly integrated with CBC Radio and CBC Online. So there's, it's not just a baton being tossed, it's like batons being juggled because I appear on Here and Now, the drive home show, talk about things that are going on in there. I used to at one point, not now, but used to read a seven o'clock radio newscast.

But with the shift in time to our supper hour show, I stopped doing that. But it's being up to speed on all sorts of things, let alone what's blowing up on social media and what to promote there. So first couple of hours are getting up to speed with what's going on and trying to figure out what our reporters, one or two that we might have that night, are going to cover and how we can assist them with that. And if they're not going out to something, can we have a spare camera go pick out something and figure out what's going on? something can we have a spare camera go pick out something and and figure out what's going on um then you know it's getting up to speed doing some of these promotions doing a i make an appearance at the end of the the supper hour show to say hey coming up at 11 yep unless someone runs you know over time with their section and i'm one of the things that gets dropped and right so yeah so so uh yeah so you you pop on to the end of the six to seven with Dwight Drummond and Anne-Marie Medawick.

Medawick. Medawick. Medawick. Medawick. Very interesting name, but I've been working on it. But yeah. Dwight Drummond, by the way, grew up in my former hood, if you will, like going to the Runnymede at, Runnymede, which is on Jane.

Yes. Which I always thought was interesting that they put Runnymede on Jane. But, because Runnymede School, there's a primary school called Runnymede on Runnymede. Okay. But there's a high school called Runnymede on Jane. On Jane. Yes. Which I always thought was interesting that they put Runnymede on Jane. Because Runnymede's school, there's a primary school called Runnymede on Runnymede. Okay. But there's a high school called Runnymede

on Jane Street. On Jane Street. Some things just, you scratch your head. Yeah, no, it's great to work with. Emory, they're both great. And sometimes,

so I have a nice relationship with the Science Centre people, the Ontario Science Centre, and they'll, at least once a year, they'll send my family there for this, like they call it Media Day,

but just to check out the new exhibits. Like right now, it's a woolly mammoth thing and a circus thing. And at least a couple of times, I'll see Dwight and his family at the same. I see a lot of media people. I don't bother them or anything, but I see them with their families. And it's just interesting. I saw Dwight at one. To get a connection.

Yeah, yeah. We've got the... This is the weird year. I've got memberships at all the things, maybe because my daughter is just in that. How old's your daughter? She's seven going on eight,

so we just renewed the zoo to go see the baby pandas. Oh yeah, I was just hearing the pandas have to pay for themselves or something, there's a, attendance is down

and they were telling, we have to, apparently the deal was we, but the zoo has to donate money to some Chinese wildlife fund. A conservation fund. It's all about conservation.

Yeah, it costs money to host them there, let alone the bamboo they go through. Right, a lot of bamboo. So people think, okay, and apparently they aren't as big a draw. There were some attendance issues, and they weren't sure they could even break even on these pandas, which I find interesting. But yeah, that's amazing that you've got the pass to the zoo yeah cool doing these things it's just you know i got a pass to the high park zoo not quite as quite not quite as nice but they have yaks and my two-year-old doesn't know the difference he sees a peacock and he might as well be like a lion he's very impressed it's experience it's getting out it's family time you're enjoying

things like that that's right um so you appear on these six to seven, and then you appear on Here and Now on CBC Radio 1 with Jill Deacon. Jill Deacon, yes. And anywhere else to promo that 11 o'clock p.m.? On those parts at that point. And then the shift sort of starts to lining up and working on the late show that evening. Occasionally you might do a hit on CBC News Network or your reporters might be doing a hit on that. So I've got a lineup editor that works on the show. There's an assignment editor whose job it is to, you know,

keep tabs on what's happening, make sure things are happening. And also our reporters who file for 11 o'clock are also filing radio reports for Matt Galloway and Metro Morning the following morning. So it's that we pass the baton at the end of our shift to the next bunch of people coming up. clock are also filing radio reports from Matt Galloway and Metro Morning the following morning. So it's that we pass the baton at the end of our shift to the next bunch of people coming up there as well. There's some digital writers that are updating the website at that point. Do we call this synergy? Is that what we call this? You can call it that. I thought we would strike that word from integration, synergy, all these nice CBC words there. So it's a couple of hours of doing that.

CBC words there. So it's a couple of hours of doing that. I, you know, if you had asked me, would I be doing sports many years ago? No, but that's my response. It's a double game, both the Raptors and Leafs in action tonight. So I'll be watching those and putting those highlights together and editing them. It's amazing how the technology has changed. I literally in my Chrome browser on my website, on my my desktop, I'm able to call up the records or sort of a best of highlight package that someone in CBC Sports compiles for us and then just pull the best of. Well, I mean, if you started in

88, let's say, and you've seen it all, right? You've seen a complete transition from, now we're so digital, and then in 88 we were still rather, we still had the old tape and all the old style. There's no internet. You had to sign out the phone. I can remember working on the desk.

Is that like a Zack Morris phone? Do you remember? Those big cell phone brick things. That's a Zack Morris phone. You had three of them. And I can remember like, okay, strategically, what reporter might need to make a phone call in the field? Okay, we'll give them that one.

Make sure we get it back. And that was a big stress of my day. Return the phone so someone else can use it. It's like in MASH, the Korean War, when they had those big knapsacks with the phones on the back. That's right. Cool. And so do you have any, what's your role when it comes to like choosing the stories? Like, are you involved in like what should lead or like in that aspect or do you let the editors handle that and just... We have an editorial meeting and it's an interplay back ideas, and the assignment editor will come up with some ideas,

or I may come up with some ideas, or we'll discuss if there's a story that was breaking late at 6 o'clock. Last night, for example, we had got word of this new streetcar route that TTC announced, the 514, sort of a loop through downtown. And we were mentioning it at 6 o'clock, and we thought, the King Street car, it's the busiest street car around here. There's a lot of people that would matter about that. So let's try to, you know, we talked and had a reporter go on that. And we think, okay, at 11 o'clock, what do you lead with?

You realize when you're putting this together in the age of smartphones and people multi-screening as they're watching TV, you can't keep stories for them. You can't pretty much assume people know what's going on. They're just getting a summary of you at that point. That's exactly right. Like we're looking for, and I surmise the day's events and what I should know. I've had a busy day. Give me 15 minutes, Mike.

Tell me what I need to know. You know, maybe half an hour, stay through there. But, you know, try to at least keep you the first 15 minutes. The numbers show that. You hold people for about 10 minutes and there's a bit of a drop-off and then people will stay through. That's pretty much how you

build the show. Here's the summary of what you need to know as a citizen in the GTA. We'll give you the local package. It helps coming out after the national because if you're really into news, you're getting the international news, the national news, news what's happening there and then a quick little package uh for us here so we yeah for sure and uh i guess that that's the next question so you come off of the national and then i guess uh when you're doing your balance like you're going to have some local stories and there'll be like provincial stories and there'll be national

stories and international stories so when you're weighing these things i guess you're you're toronto-centric i suppose at 11 o'clock because this is the toronto international stories. So when you're weighing these things, I guess you're Toronto-centric, I suppose, at 11 o'clock because this is the Toronto news. So you're right, the King Street car and all that stuff that you're never going to hear about on the national. Yeah, the Supper Hour show, it's different because that's overall. We still put the emphasis on being local

and reminding people that CBC has a big local presence. We cover local stories. But at the Supper Hour, and when I fill in for Dwight Drummond, yeah, you'll have international, national stories. Not that much. You still have CBC News Network for people to get that, and the national, that's the big bread

and butter. We obviously have access to see what the national is talking about, and sometimes the lighter story in Toronto, they will pick up and be there. The lighter story at the end of the show, we think, oh, we can't. They have our grandmother that's working with the fire department, and they're airing it at The lighter story in Toronto, they will pick up and be there. The lighter story at the end of the show, we think, oh, we can't. Yeah, you stole their... They have our grandmother that's working with the fire department.

That's right. And they're airing it at 10.55. We can't have that on a little bit later. So there's little things you do there. But 11 o'clock is very much focused on Toronto, what's happening there. That said, breaking news stories, you know, writing in Chicago or the primary results. Sure. We'll break in and writing in Chicago or the primary results. Sure. We'll break in and maybe mention some of the big things.

You can't ignore the big stories like that. The breaking live. We sort of say, you know, what has changed since the last time you may have listened to us or, you know, driving home listening to our radio station or another radio station, things like that. What has changed a little bit? What do you need to know? So that's sort of how we focus what goes on at 11. Here's what I need. Okay, so I, every day at lunch, not today or yesterday, because I had a baby born, but typically I do a lunch hour bike ride. And I have the CBC app on my Android phone. And I usually, part of my ride

will be listening to the previous night's six o'clock report. So you can hear the, the six o'clock radio report. So it's like 27 minutes or something. And it does a very nice job. So I'm always like, so I listened to the previous day's six o'clock report and I always wish I could listen to like whatever, a half an hour podcast, Toronto centric stuff. Cause that's great for the national stuff and you'll get, and it's really international that, that report, you get a lot of stuff about the refugee crisis and what's happening in europe with the uh the refugees being locked out or whatever and it's great like it gives me a lot of stuff on the primaries and stuff they have uh people in washington or whatever covering this

but uh i always wish i had i could just press a button on the cbc app and hear 30 minutes toronto recap almost like your. Almost like your newscast, because I do fall asleep around 11. This is for somebody. I fall asleep around 11. I don't judge. Yeah, but I like the idea of what you do. It's just a little late for me,

but I want it in audio form. I can press a button on the app and hear it. That's what I want. I think it's a fantastic idea, and certainly the big push at CBC right now is we've got this thing called Digital Strategy 2020. Yes, I've heard about this. Where everybody, no matter where you work in media right now, it's this great unknown, what's going to happen with us?

Where are things going to be in a couple of years? Is it 2016 right now? What's going to happen in 2020? Or, you know, at least for us, business models are in flux and trying to figure things out. So we have spent a lot of time thinking and putting in the pieces to expand and work on a digital strategy and try to figure out, I do a newscast right now.

Will I be doing that same newscast that same way in 2020? I don't know if I'll be doing it the same way in 2017. But the content being king, the content will be required, how we absorb this content. I've already, like I do that 6 p.m. thing because that is the, I can always do the hourly. It's easy.

I can press a button here, the hourly updates on CBC Radio 1. Okay, that's fine. But I don't know, five minutes or whatever. But I always want the deeper, I want the 30-minute chunk. So you're going to bring that to somebody at the CBC for me?

Yes. You will? I think that makes a lot of sense. We've got the material. You look at what the BBC is doing. They're no longer thinking of themselves as BBC TV, BBC Radio. Right. They're BBC Audio.

And you just realize it's going multiple places. I think CBC is trying to realize this. We're in a position where we can. We produce so much of our own content. Right. On the drama side, yeah, we'll make sure you can watch it on Netflix if you want. You can stream it out on our website. We've got a new video player that's in beta that'll be coming out soon.

There's an app on my Apple TV that I can watch The National on that if I want. If I had an Apple Watch, I don't know why I'd want to get news on my watch, but that option is there. A lot of it is just, let's see what's out there in the marketplace, make sure we're there. We're on Snapchat, we're on the Instagram, trying to figure out these things. Go where the audience is, not forgetting

where the audience is. There's still people that watch TV. No, there's always going to be that person who needs to go to channel six on their television and it has to be there at 10 o'clock or whatever. Busy, crazy day. Sometimes you just want to say, let me know what happens. I could pick and choose, sure, and people will do that, but there's always a...

Yeah, and this part of this digital, move to digital, which of course is where you have to go. Quick aside is that the Toronto Star put a lot of money into a distribution of their paper that is tablet only. quick aside is that uh i've been you know the toronto star put a lot of money into a uh distribution of their paper that is tablet only and i've been very vocal but yeah i've been rallying down you know in front of the at one young street but basically i am not a tablet guy

like uh i have a android phone where it's my mobile and i'm on it doing lots of things and i'm on a laptop those are my two things i do the heavy lifting like i write my stuff and i do my heavy lifting and my work on the laptop but when i my two things. I do the heavy lifting. I write my stuff, and I do my heavy lifting and my work on the laptop, but I do a lot of stuff on my smartphone, my Android phone. I cannot, to save my life, I cannot. This app is not available to me. Tablet only.

I have the same thing as well, and when I've tried to go the Toronto Star website, it's a different thing. I also, very old-fashioned, get the newspapers in the morning, like I grew up, and it's nice to see my daughter the newspapers in the morning like I grew up. And it's nice to see my daughter want to grab the comics like I used to do and take a look. But as a parent, the last thing I want is a tablet at the breakfast table because the kids will take it and start playing Rebirth or something like that. No, no, let's just, you know, I want to ignore you the old-fashioned way, like reading the paper in front of you.

And you take the subway. Yes. When was the last time a guy had a tablet? To me, they're all on their phones. They're all mobile on phones unless they have a paper. This is the big area where we're experimenting and seeing where things are and where they are. There have been tablet magazines that launched in the United States and didn't necessarily go there. But I don't know the Star. But this, you know,

I don't know the Starz business case, the looking through these things. And I think it's expanded to Android tablets as well. Oh, tablets, yeah, yeah, yeah. For tablets as well, but not the phone yet. Not the phone. We'll see where it goes with something like that. They should have consulted me. Okay.

I just think if you're going to throw that much money in the future, don't go to, to me, mobile is the future, not the tablet. And I don't want to be the, I know a lot of people like their tablets i've i have i tried tablet i didn't i didn't take what didn't suit my lifestyle i didn't like it but uh i just think that the mobile friendly on that so on the podcast note though because you're on one right now which is you know i try to make this

with the xml file and with the itunes and the stitcher and all these different formats it's i make i try to make it very easy on every device to listen to this show. I have to say, the biggest change for me personally is the CBC. I loved CBC radio content, you know, quirks and quirks, whatever. I love the marketing one with O'Reilly. Oh, yes. I love it. And they have a new one with Matt Galloway and a woman whose name is eluding me.

Darn it. The podcast playlist? Podcast playlist. And that's got a TV show now is eluding me. Darn it. Podcast playlist? Podcast playlist. Matt's got a TV show now as well. I know, it's terrible, right? Liz something. Yeah, I don't know that. Matt's got a TV show as well.

Is that right? He's doing a lot now, yeah. So that I listened to and then they have another called The Doc Project, which is basically an hour radio documentary that aired on another program.

Yeah, and there's a new true crime podcast. I haven't listened to it yet. Somebody must have seen something or some name like that, right? Somebody knows something. Yeah, something like that. And apparently it's picking up

in the United States as well. There's a voracious appetite for true crime. It's the serial thing. The serial effect, yeah. Absolutely. Serial to me is like that broke, suddenly the masses

discovered podcasts when serial kind of reached their apex. And ironically, you know, I've been listening to podcasts, I actually discovered them in 2005. I know exactly when I got into it,

there was a lockout at CBC, and when I was spending some time there, I started listening to a lot of them. CBC was, produced its morning show on CIU2 radio for a little bit. Or at least, rather, CBC employees did some things. But I got into Slate Magazine,

another great source for podcasts. I'm a Slate Plus member to sort of support that. That's my window into U.S. politics and culture and part of my regular diet as well. And that was 05 because I produced my first podcast in 06.

It was the Humble and Fred 17th Christmas Special. And we did it at dan duran's house and uh they recorded it dan recorded it and then i uh did the back end stuff to make sure people could subscribe and i distinctly remember a lot of people being scared i want to say like frightened or apprehensive about this whole i mean i gotta subscribe like i like this whole like I got to subscribe? This whole podcast. And I realized I needed to have a big fat play button on the web page because a lot of people just want,

let me click a play button and let me hear it. You know what I mean? So you can't forget that audience. And that audience still exists today. But people are a lot more savvy when it comes to this is how you subscribe to a podcast with these aggregators, whether it be iTunes or not. You'd have the metrics but it yeah if you're used to just consuming

passively your your content like what do you mean there's like do i get it on itunes do i get it on podcatcher do i you know uh stitcher and you know there's a learning curve there for some of these things and and what i liked about serial did help bring a lot of those people into the world of podcasts so they would then sample different other. It was the much watched and much listened to. I remember seeing the Saturday Night Live spoof of it, which I thought was bang on. And I was killing myself laughing.

My wife, who doesn't listen to podcasts, had no idea why I found this parody to be so hilarious and just killing myself laughing beside her. It was funny. It was fantastic. So the more content that CBC can repurpose in podcast form,

the happier people like me will be who just want to have the Netflix culture, if you will, on demand. Let me hear it. We're also putting a premium on streaming. Apparently, our streaming numbers for things are quite good. CBC Music with the 50 web channels there, and I think that's getting a back-end update and things like that there. But certainly, the streaming numbers are big as well. back-end update and things like that there. But certainly the streaming numbers are big as well.

By the way, I once wrote something about how I spoke to my kids about Rob Ford. This is in the heyday of Rob Ford media, okay? And Shannon Martin contacted me, and then we arranged, she was going to come over and interview me. And at the last second, she politely canceled my appearance on CBC television because she said she had a child psychologist instead. Okay?

So it's fine. But I was this close to Shannon Martin coming over. That would have been great. Yeah. In the course of when you're putting and under the pressure of someone to put together a newscast or an item for the newscast that day, you may sometimes do a scattergun approach. Like, okay, I need to reach someone and talk about here. And like, oh, if you were talking on social media, like, oh, that's great.

So you make a bunch of calls. It's an uncomfortable thing. You're like, I just can't be in three parts of the city at once. So that's probably what happened. The strange thing was she canceled and a woman from Global News coincidentally made the same request and came over and interviewed me. So I made the TV news

that night. It wasn't CBC. Okay, sorry about that. That's okay. I'm going to drop some names on you from the CBC world, but I'm a big fan

of Neil Coxel. Am I saying that right? Neil Coxel, yeah. Yeah. And I think she's great and I saw her, like I was just watching the candies,

I'll call them, but the Canadian screenwriters. She was like in the front row. She was, yeah. I was three rows behind her. Were you? Yeah, yeah. I missed you. Yeah her. Were you? Yeah, yeah. I missed you.

Yeah, no. You can see me once in the cutaways there. But yeah, no, we were both fortunate to get tickets to the Candies, the Canadian Screen Awards. She and I were nominated this year. CBC News Toronto had three nominations, one for Best Anchors for Anne-Marie and Dwight, Best Local Newscast, and Best News Special, which was for our coverage of the last municipal election. We had a big news special, Anne-Marie, Dwight, Robert Fisher, Neil Cooksall, and me. And as part of Best News Special, we got

a nomination. That's a big deal. Big thing for me. It was one of those life goals, like, oh, please get a nomination and something. It was a very tough category. We didn't win, but it was a, as they say, it's a pleasure to be nominated. I found, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed the Canadian Screen Awards.

Like, I don't know, I don't know why I'm so surprised, but I tuned in primarily because I'm a big Norm MacDonald fan, okay? So I tuned in for Norm, who was great, but it was,

it was thoroughly, like, it was just enjoyable. Yeah, and some of the shows there, and I think, because it's a blend, the Canadian Screen Awards was what the Geminis, which were, you know, Canada's Emmys, to put everything in American terms, and Canada's Genies, or the Genies, Canada's Oscars. They combined them together.

Screens made a lot of sense and time. But we had some big-name English-language films between, you know, Room and Brooklyn because they were international co-productions counted. So you had some interest in there and Room cleaned up. And the kid was like cute.

It was fantastic. Schitt's Creek, which is a show I love saying on air because I can say it on air. I always snicker when I hear it. The 12-year-old boy in me

just goes, hee hee hee, I just said, you know, congratulations. It's like you're getting away with something. Exactly.

Although CBC, although you don't normally hear it on the news, but I do know that I remember you could see like cbc not not too late at night i remember you could see like hear swear words i know they dropped some swear words on degrassi back in the day i still remember like schools out yeah i know exactly the scene you're talking about tessa are you yeah who's caitlin's coming on this podcast in september which is a big i'm very excited about because i'm a big i'm very excited

about because i'm a big uh degrassi fan one thing i appreciate listening to your podcast is is it's just we're the same children of the 80s like and you're talking to all these cool people so that's really neat and i have i have uh i have a call i'm supposed to make later today to to add the sock because we're talking about something a project he's working on and it's i still can't believe it like uh i'm gonna Sock wants me to call him. Like, little things like that happen just because of this passion project that's still kind of...

Open up doors. Yeah, just like... And Caitlin's coming over. And, oh, Maestro Fresh West is coming on soon. And I'm, like, shaking my head. Like, I remember sitting in the gym at my high school, and I went to Michael Power, old location, which is actually not too far

from here believe it or not but i'm sitting there and i remember uh this guy i remember his name still oscar lafuante put one of his earbuds in my ear because we were talking about like different rap songs we were digging and it was uh let your backbone slide and the first time i ever heard it was through his earphones and and i remember i almost said this exact quote but not obviously not but nad this kid can't be from canada which was a future album by Maestro Fresh West. But the whole notion that this was a great rap song from a Toronto guy, like it just seemed, this is like 89. Yeah, it opened up so many things. Yeah, just didn't sound like that was possible, but there it was.

He had great seats at the Canadian Screen Awards at the Candies, you know, nominated for his work on Mr. D. And, you know, Dwight Drummond appeared in the video for Let Your Backbone Slide. No, is that right? Yeah, he brings that up a lot, yeah.

I remember the red jackets at the beginning. I love that song. Yeah. So Dwight Drummond is in that video. I had no idea. He was probably

at Runnymede at the time. That's amazing. Okay, so I just want to say Neil Coxel, who I actually heard this morning, I guess amazing. Okay. So, so I just want to say Neil Cox, who I actually heard this morning, I guess, cause it's March break, I guess Matt Galloway smartly took the week off and then you guys all

shuffle whatever. And I think Neil is doing the Metro Metro morning. Yeah. Yeah. So she's fantastic. The other one, Charles Siagro, who's like got a twin sister.

I think it's a twin. Currently Agro. Yeah. Twin, right? There's a twin. Carly Agro, yeah. Great twin, right? There's a mole to tell the two apart. Is that how you tell them? There was a point when they worked at CBC together, and I lived in fear that, of course, as you would. Yeah, yeah.

And then you learned about the mole? Yeah, yeah. So who's got the mole? I think it's Carly. You think so? I think so. So Carly's at Sportsnet. She's at Sportsnet now,

so I don't have this awkward situation anymore. Charlesy is on a secondment right now to Marketplace. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Doing a lot of work on Marketplace. So I see her all the time because, you know, one big happy family. The Marketplace offices are right next door. Marketplace asked me to go to do a test to see if I could tell the difference between organic eggs and regular eggs. Okay.

And I had to cancel because I was actually in Copenhagen at the time. So I had to politely decline. But I was going to do this egg test for Marketplace in February. Yeah, I think that episode just aired last week. I was going to be on that episode. Can you tell the difference with taste? A producer there Googled Toronto eggs or something. And I was highly ranked for my passionate entry about how I love eggs and and I order them all the time, but I always order scrambled eggs.

I don't think I've ever ordered eggs in any other format or style than scrambled. Isn't that bizarre? No, I'm a scrambled fan. But would you ever order eggs ever? If you were ever at a brunch place and you were going to order eggs, would you ever order it any other way?

No. Oh, must be a Mike thing. A Mike thing. The runny egg thing sort of gets me. That said, I was over at someone's house and they were serving brunch. You can't be rude when the runny egg comes. But it changed my mind.

It's like, I have not given the runny eggs. See, maybe that's it. I don't like runny eggs. They were delicious. It was like a rich cream sauce. I'm like, oh, okay. I've got to change my tune on that. Maybe peanut butter bagels, next marketplace thing. I love peanut butter bagels. Best. I'm like, oh, okay. I've got to change my tune on that. Maybe peanut butter bagels, next marketplace thing.

Love peanut butter bagels. Best. I love peanut butter. I could live on... I mean, it's not that bad. I mean, I buy the... The only ingredient on the label is actually peanuts. Yeah. It's like blue menu, president's choice. I don't know. But it's... Go ahead.

For me, it's butter tarts. I cannot go into a bakery. If there's a butter tart, I have to sample it. You have the raisins, right? I was originally a raisin person, but I've now gone on to just the pure butter because it's the standard. So you can test what's the crust like. Is it a sweet crust?

Yeah. I love butter tarts too. Yeah. They're poison, right? That's got to be the highest sugar concentration possible. I just don't think about that aspect of it as well. I bike, I think, so I could eat butter tarts. And do you think, you'd be the right guy to ask this,

do you think Peter Mansbridge would be receptive to coming on this show? Possibly. You never know. Possibly. Of course the answer is possibly. Have you had any interactions with Peter that would lead you to believe he'd be kind of cool like that? Doing like a podcast in some guy's basement? Well, you know.

Because you did. He was on 22 Minutes. He was on other things like that. He does have a good sense of humor. He's in, what's the new movie? Yeah, he's in something. Zootopia. Zootopia.

He's in that there as well. I showed him the trailer for Sausage Party and I said, Peter, this is not a movie you want to get into. That's right. It's bad for his brand. Yeah. Yeah. Don't do this. This is not the movie you want to associate with your new career. Okay. I have a journalistic integrity question for you. So recently I had Hazel May on this podcast and Hazel was sitting where you are right now and we were having a great chat her husband who is former blue jay kevin barker and is like he's your height but like you know twice your you know he's big strong guy he was sitting

like in a the chair was right like they're four feet away or whatever so you know kevin barker's there hazel's there and we're having a chat and i have like some notes so i don't forget things i want to cover and one of the notes was was how she felt about the Brian Burke lawsuit. Okay, so I was not going to mention what the rumor was. No. Merely ask her whether she felt that might draw more attention to it and whether there would be some kind of a Streisand effect, which is the term for when, yeah. I actually happened to be close to the story only because somebody left a comment on one

of my open mic blog entries with the rumor. And I got a cease and desist from Brian Berg's lawyers. Right. So I never was sued, but I got the cease and desist and I happily removed it because it's nonsense. But I chickened out on asking this. I chickened out because the husband was right there. But I was going to be very classy about it. You know what I mean?

But does that mean I'm not cut out for this journalist thing? Come on. about it you know what i mean but uh does that mean i'm not cut out for this journalist thing come on i'm chickening out on asking the the question people want me to ask because the big husband is four feet away like what what do you think of that that's a tough one because this is a very small space we're in right now um with that as well it's you got to know what the flow of the the conversation um you got to call an audible but i feel like if he wasn't there i feel like i definitely would why wouldn't i i've never it's probably the first time i've ever skipped a question like i don't think i usually you know when steve anthony was on and i was gonna ask about the cocaine stuff like i i asked it because uh it was on my list you know and if she doesn't

want to talk about it that there's ways to get out and transition and get away from that sort of thing there but i didn't touch it no and i'm i'm still kind of wondering like i mean not that you know it doesn't you know i'm not actually a journalist so this is not like you know but i feel like uh i should have why wouldn't i ask it i just wondered what a journalist thinks of that situation that's a that's a tough one yeah yeah the you go in you have questions and things you want to get out uh and ask with someone there. At the end of the day, it can be frustrating when you don't get around to them. All right, good.

We have a liberal government, I guess you've heard. Justin Trudeau won. Have you heard that? Yeah, really? He's never in the news. I didn't know. That's right. And I believe he said there were a lot of cuts under the

conservative government to the CBC. And that's why, one thing, for example, the Dwight Drummond-Anne-Marie Medawake was 90 minutes, and it became 60 minutes. And that was all part of this digital, you know, whatever this cuts caused or whatever.

It was a couple of things that were in play in there. It was also the loss of hockey. We had less revenue coming in. So a lot of that was restructuring and also realizing that we had to eliminate some positions, but then also reinvest. We've hired people, especially on the digital side, as we've made a transition to this. So the 90-minute newscast was, you know, how can we best put something on with the resources that are still there and maximize the... CBC, you know, gets government funding. We also have ads that are on there.

So how do you maximize things like that? So it was part of that as well. We've been cut under all governments and have had to readjust and restructure. But it's fair to say that cut more under a conservative government, the Harper government. Is that a misconception out there? I don't know. Because it definitely felt that.

I don't have the numbers in front of me to point to, but it feels like that. We had cuts under Gretchen and the liberals there and things like that. So I don't have it on there, but I think there's something in the back of my mind that says there's... We've been cut by all stripes, or asked to restructure is the polite way of putting it.

You know, my humble opinion, the CBC is underfunded, and I'm hopeful that this new government will deliver on its promise, which it sounds like you'll get more money back, I guess. Like some of the money that was cut will come back to the CBC under the Trudeau Liberal government.

I guess the budget is next Tuesday when we're recording this. There is data that looks at per capita spending on public broadcasters around the world. I think Australia and the United States are the only two countries that spend less per capita. PBS is a whole

different funding thing there, but I think we're down to $29 per capita per PBS is a whole different funding thing there, but I think we're down to $29 per capita per year on this sort of thing. We'll see. We never know with what goes on there and what vision or what direction any new funding will take with that. In years past, when we've had additional funding,

it went to big high-profile projects like Canada People's History, big impact things, things like that. With the transition to digital, there's a lot of questions about where do we go, and if there is new funding, how does it create the CBC that is relevant and reflective and diverse and meets the needs of everybody in 2020 versus trying to restore what the CBC of 2005 was. So are you clear on where CBC is going? Like this is your clear on this, like the strategy is clear here. As clear as we can be in this crazy media environment when we know the audience is taking what we do in different ways and changing how they were doing that. And we're trying to figure out how to best get our material in front of that.

We have private sector colleagues also trying to figure out the same thing and how they can share this pie and viewership. Time is finite. I look at viewers or listeners as being finite. You only have so many hours in the day. And you with a two-year-old child have even fewer hours in the day, and you with a two-year-old child have even fewer hours in the day. In a two-day-old child. Both. I have a two-year-old.

Two-year-old and a two-day-old child. Realizing this, that there's only so many hours in the day, and we are changing and finding new ways to get that information in ways that fits our lifestyle. So CBC's got to find ways to get that there. So is it sending Schitt's Creek to your Apple TV app?

It is fun when you say that, by the way. It is fun, yeah. I'll use that as the example going forward. Or, you know, podcast playlist, having it streamed or on your device or things like that. If Jesse Brown were here, so he's, I think it's very recent because I only heard it this morning,

but he was saying that CBC does does not have does not disclose a strategy and maybe if they have one it's not transparent to us what the strategy was and he's wondering out loud uh and you know all biases aside or inherent biases aside he is wondering uh allowed like if a bunch of money is going to come your way uh next t whatever, what would CBC do with it? So I'm not going to ask you what CBC will do with it because I don't think they... Because I don't know. But if you were in charge of the CBC, where would you like to see the new money go toward if you were in charge of the CBC? It's hard because there's so many aspects of it.

I think there's a conversation we could have as Canadians and, and working at CBC, it's, it's a, it's a place you find out people have passionate views about it all the time. And, and that, that's fair. It's, it's, you know, CBC should do this. CBC should do that. And it's hard balancing all those things together. I think it could be a conversation about specializing or figuring out what we're doing. Obviously, from the local side, that's where I'm coming from. And I think CBC realizes that local is an important entryway to getting into the CBC. Because of that smartphone,

your mobile app, you're going there to find the weather, the traffic, what's happening locally. Your excellent idea of having a mini local newscast sent to you is a great idea. In the moment, as you're trying to get through your life here in Etobicoke, in Toronto, those are the things that are concerning. Are you going to that phone to find out the international coverage? It's important things for us to do

in the general balance there, but I think there's things we could do to expand local offerings, work on these things, expand the voices and things on that. Maybe it's some other big drama productions, but being relevant and changing and not afraid to change it. And I'm sure, we're speaking in Toronto. I've always lived in Toronto.

Toronto's all I know. And we don't seem to have a problem with local. We have a lot of TV stations. We have a lot of stuff going on in Toronto locally. I happen to prefer the cbc news but some people prefer city or ctv or global whatever there's lots of it but there are lots of cities in this country lots of cities in this country where there's there's the local news is drying up and really that's where i think the cbc go ahead yeah there was um a plan to really recognize underserviced areas in CBC, not only to help those communities feel like they have a stake in CBC

and get coverage there, but it also helped the network. They realized, you know, Metro Morning in Toronto, you listen to Matt Galloway, you're more likely to stay tuned and listen to Anna Maria Tremonte and and then Q and all those sort of things. It brings you in. They don't find the same listener patterns in other cities without that local show. So certainly CBC Ontario, CBC Toronto has tried to expand. We have a digital station in Hamilton.

Hamilton has been trying to get a radio station there. I think there's a lack of frequency. In Hamilton, you get the Matt Galloway Retro Morning. You do get Matt Galloway there. But right downtown, there is a CBC digital shop. You can go to the CBC app and go to a Hamilton page and get full Hamilton news. And they are at City Hall. They're covering local issues there.

Kitchener-Waterloo, we just expanded in there. You don't get Matt Galloway if you're listening to the regional rebroadcaster in Kitchener-Waterloo. They've got their own morning show there and a digital team that are producing things. The hourly newscasts, Colin Butler is reading in Kitchener-Waterloo. Yeah, you're not getting like TTC delays, updates. No, you're finding out about the

construction updates on the LRT that's going down the main street connecting Kitchener-Waterloo. There were plans to expand that to other cities. We wanted to expand London, Ontario. And you could go across the map of Ontario. It wouldn't be great to have a Barrie station, something in Peterborough, Kingston,

things like that. We don't know. If there's something, that might be something they look at as well, to expand and roll out as we try to figure out what's happening with the media. Cool. Hey, what do I say to my conservative friend who thinks uh the cbc is too too liberal and doesn't isn't a voice for his conservative thoughts like i have this

argument a lot because maybe it's i don't know maybe it's how i lean or whatever but i don't hear i don't hear it i hear it who is it who said that like reality has a liberal bias who said that was this stephen colbert somebody said reality has a liberal bias or Who said that? Was it Stephen Colbert? Somebody said reality has a liberal bias or something. I don't feel there's a liberal slant to the CBC News. It just feels straight up. Maybe reality has a liberal slant, if that makes sense. Yeah, we try to take pains to reflect everything. I know during an election campaign, we actually record coverage of this party, that party, the other party, and make sure everything is in balance so that when people come back with accusations like that, can say, no, not only in terms of hours,

but in terms of tone and criticism and things like that. So that's a pushback there. But I think you listen and hear what you want to hear. If I can say, I think there's been studies that, you know, if you're lean some way, you hear this. And if you're not hearing that opinion expressed, oh, it must be a bias the other way. And if you're not hearing something, it's the other way.

I try to keep that in mind, that there's a wide audience listening to us and try to be as balanced as one can be. Cool. You mentioned Q. In your opinion, how is Shad doing? Have you heard you listen to Q? I listen to Q on the podcast going through

and the morning thing. It was a morning ritual. A tough situation to come in. Gian took him a while to find his legs to get into a comfort level of things there, but I think Shad's doing well. The show is still doing well. I guess numbers-wise, it's holding and continuing.

So I wish him well with that project. Is that true? It hasn't lost anything with the Switch. I believe. If I recall the memos that have come through, I think I've seen that it's held its numbers as well. I listened to Q quite a bit when Gomeshi was hosting. And I listened to it at the beginning of Shad for quite a bit.

Maybe I didn't give him enough time. You're right. Maybe it takes some time to find your legs or whatever. I just always felt Shad should be better, in particular with leaving the script. Because the script, I have a script. I have notes or whatever. And I try to listen to what my guest is saying.

And I'm always prepared to take a detour when they say something. And I'm going to ask about that instead of sticking to my script. And I find Shad maybe because it's early days. Although I don't know how early the days are anymore. But I'm not saying anything. I like Shad as a performer. And he seems like an intelligent guy. I've heard that criticism.

Others have expressed that as well. And you're right. That's the art of an interview. You prepare things you have to do. And any training I've had with interviewing as well has talked about the need to listen and go back as well. But early days, we'll see what happens with that show. I want you to speak to me, and I know I went over time here but uh really quickly about the 16 by 6 lifestyle challenge okay so you on your website there's a lot of stuff on this and you're you're speaking about this and this is like uh you talk

about digital distraction so tell me what that is that was a big big uh passion for me uh for a while and think something i i say for a while i hope maybe I've ingrained a little bit about this. This was the idea that I'm swimming in information and, and, um, I've got overload and I'm aware of the distractions around me that can take my focus off of everyday life. So rather than being 24 seven, always on,

always on, always on, tried to see if I could live a little bit less 16 by six, certainly the 16, you know, you shut off, make sure there's no device when I'm going to sleep, no things.

The working on a late shift and having to do the early shift with my daughter makes sure I'm making, you know, no distractions when I'm sleeping, for sure, going on. The 6 is hard. Trying to find one day a week when I get away from the device is very, very hard.

Do you pick, like like a Sunday or something? Usually a Saturday. Sunday I find is harder. But even then, it was really great. And then I started collecting PC points when I went shopping. So I need to have the phone out to get that and see. It's funny you mention that because yesterday my daughter, not the newborn obviously, but the 12-year-old, we went to No Frills yesterday and I remember it was $ it was 61 and i just said like can you see if i have any points to put towards this and

it's like i paid one dollar for my six i was gonna buy this stuff on my master card anyways i know it sounds like a promo but this is an unpaid spot i just i'm like i told i kept so proud of myself i'm like you know what i paid for these groceries mich Michelle? I said, I paid a dollar. That's amazing. Yeah, I don't know. The 16 by 6, the only time I think I'm totally unplugged is when I'm camping. And that means like, so maybe one week a year

where I'm actually unplugged. Yeah, get away. It's hard. When I go on vacation, I do like to not follow the news. It means the first hours and days when I get back are a deep dive. Right. What did I miss?

Especially when you're reading the newscast and you're like, you know, like you come back from a Monday after vacation, like, oh, what about this? We need to follow. And you go, yes, of course. Yes, that happened on Friday. Oh, you're like, oh, he passed away. And it's like, oh my goodness. Pretty much. Yeah. Like, where was that shooting again? Things like that. But I like to get away and decompress and things like this. And I worry about it raising my own child, seeing her little distractions as well. Like, no, no, no, let's just spend some time in the kitchen cooking or reading a Harry Potter book or something like that.

Yeah, you know, that's, it's so different. Like, from when we were kids, it's so different. Like, it's, and I, my kids, like, you know, obviously, when we're at the dinner table, like, no devices, that's a no-brainer. That's a no-brainer.'s a no-brainer but it's like you're right my daughter's got an ipad mini uh and wi-fi only but she's like you know it's just she is on that thing a lot like and she's she's a big snap she mentioned snapchat she tried to sell me on snapchat it didn't take i don't like this idea of like it dissolves like after like it just i didn't accept the premise like i just like i don't need snapchat but she's a big snapchatter i happen to love twitter uh that's the one i don't care for the other ones i could leave but twitter i thoroughly enjoy and it seems to add like this element to live sporting events or news

events or whatnot like and that's how i would like if i'm on if i'm in copenhagen for example once in a while i'll go to my twitter feed and then i'm very quickly up to speed with what the zeitgeist is talking what's going on like in the news in a time, I'll go to my Twitter feed, and then I'm very quickly up to speed with what the zeitgeist is talking, what's going on in the news. In a couple, several time zones away, just kidding. Yeah, and it's like, you know, these are people in Toronto that you follow, as if, you know, and it's just a really good, quick way to catch up, and I really like Twitter for that. So yeah, the

16 by 6, maybe I could do the 16, but the 6, I'd have to make a 16 by 7, unless I'm camping. Some things, yeah. I tend not to use as much social media. Certainly, I try to stay off Twitter on weekends, you know, which is hard, but, you know, because it's not like there's other ways to find out what's going on,

and emails and things like that. Right, right, right. And by the way, I saw on your website, mikewise.ca, where you write quite a bit about the 16 by 6 lifestyle challenge. You have, like, a speaking section. It's, like like mikewise.ca slash speaking didn't mention your appearance on toronto mic i didn't i'll have to put that on

there come on yes gotta tell the people i'll update that that's right and last question is i asked you about peter mansbridge uh earlier but uh carol off would she come and do my podcast carol you just have to ask. Do these things one. I think she's fantastic. Yeah. Fantastic. Yes.

You're fantastic too. She's fantastic. You have a lot of great people over there. The more CBCers that do this, the easier it is for you to go and ask. I got two now. You're right. You know, Matt Galloway did it and Mike Wise did it. Why can't you do it?

I might go after Niels, actually. Yeah. I'm going to go for that. Thank you for this. Anything you want to share with everybody before we get some lowest of the low here? No, no, that's great. I appreciate it. Actually, I'll share something quickly.

Okay. I was thinking, this should be your theme song, okay? This is Amy Mann singing Wise Up. So you play this maybe when you come in. The closing credits. Just lull you back to sleep. Of course, it brings me

right to Magnolia. Have you seen Magnolia? Oh, yes, of course. Beautiful. Great movie. Fantastic movie. To date, that's my favorite Tom Cruise performance

is Magnolia. I think when this song came out I had to listen to it on auto-repeat. It was just such a moving song. And she was in, do you remember Till Tuesday? Yeah. This is her. Till Tuesday, that's the band, right? Not the song?

Yeah. Anyways, this is her. But yeah, so I was thinking, I have the Toronto Mike theme. I would like it to play when I enter a room. You could have this kind of wise up, and then Mike Wise enters the room. Good idea. I'm full of good ideas today. And that brings us to the end of our 164th show.

You can follow me on Twitter, at Toronto Mike. And this is important, because there's lots of Mike Wise's out there impersonating him. It is at Wise M. So W I S E M as in Mike. Thanks again for the coffee. Thank you. Peanut butter bagel.

Enjoy the beer. And I'll see you all next week when my guest will be blind. Derek from the old Dean Blundell show and the movie reviews. So Derek's in next week. See you all next week. I want to take a streetcar downtown Read Andrew Miller and wander around And drink some Guinness from a...