What I Learned on Andy’s Summer Vacation

My regular job as newscaster and cohost of the News/Talk 1290 morning show is challenging enough. Filling in on The Live Drive for a week while Andy Oudman was on vacation gave me flashbacks to the years I hosted Midday on Hamilton’s 900 CHML. This, my friends, is work!

Changing my shift to afternoons for only one week after so many years on the morning routine might be cruel and unusual punishment under the Geneva Conventions. My body would want to still wake up at 3 am, and all day I was confused! I kept having heart-starts over wondering whether I should be where I was at any given time. After I write this, I’m calling The Hague. 

A hand-drawn thermometer representing the days of the afternoon show. It starts at the bottom with a sad face and when it reaches 5 days, it's a super happy face!
Yes, I actually posted this in my home office! It’s based on the writing-o-mometer invented by my friend Lisa Joyce when I was daunted by the task of writing my first book.

You never feel ready for a show that’s based on the news of the day, so you have to have plans b through g. On Thursday, my first confirmed guest was unreachable. I asked Ashley-the-wonder-producer to call my second confirmed guest. When he wasn’t available either, it was up to me to try to tap dance, hopefully in an entertaining way, for what turned out to be a half hour. Plans e, f and g came in handy. Guest number 1 finally answered his phone after that half hour and we eventually rescheduled guest number two for about 90 minutes later. Talk radio is fluid. All of this happens behind the scenes, while the show goes on without a peep about it. Never let them see you sweat.

On Friday, I prepared the show around a scheduled 3 pm news conference by Strathroy police about the terror investigation in that town. We planned to air the conference live. At 2:10, police sent out an advisory that they were moving the conference to 4 pm, creating a sudden scramble. I had to call everyone I had lined up for the show and move them all around like chess pieces, hoping they were available for the new timeslots. The pieces were still being moved as I got on the air. Would I still have the expert on radicalization who has done fascinating research into how it happens and how to stop it? Thankfully, yes, and to my mind, he was a show-maker. His knowledge is a call to action to all of us to wake the heck up. (I’ll share his insights tomorrow.)

The moment I sat down in the studio at 3pm to start Friday’s show, one of my guests for a 5 pm roundtable discussion of the news emailed to say he couldn’t make it. It’s not really a roundtable with 2 people; you need at least 3. As my blood pressure rose, I applied gentle pressure to convince him to appear, and he did, and it was great. But the stress! 

Once each day, I messed up a name during an ad-lib and listeners – mostly in a kind way – let me know. One day, I called Jill Ellis-Worthington Jill Taylor! Jill Taylor is a wonderful woman and a 680 News meteorologist. Jill Ellis-Worthington is also a wonderful woman. But they’re not interchangeable!

I was lucky enough to have lots of listeners and colleagues say I did a good job. It was fun to have the time to play generous portions of Marvin Gaye’s Let’s Get It On and Ed Sheeran’s Thinking Out Loud and have people weigh in on whether they think the copyright lawsuit has any merit. I loved doing interviews and discussions that had time to breathe, instead of packing them into 3 or 4 minutes. It’s also fun to have the haters come out; those who don’t understand the nuances of a discussion and see things in black or white. I could argue with them all day, for entertainment’s sake, and fortunately I can quickly forget them when the mic goes off.

If you ever hear me say anything negative about that style of a talk show, please slap me with a wet fish. A large, stinky, wet fish, and make the hit a good one!

 

Leave a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *