NEW START FOR ROBERTS
Lands morning slot on CJAD
Leslie Roberts hopes to disprove that classic Thomas Wolfe adage “you can’t go home again.” After a 15-year hiatus and a career hiccup, Roberts is back home in his native Montreal.
In a surprise development announced Wednesday, Roberts will be taking over Tommy Schnurmacher’s popular mid-morning talk slot on CJAD beginning Monday.
“I’m basically a walking metaphor,” cracks Roberts, 54. “You can come back home again, but you come back wiser, happier, more understanding about things you might have taken for granted from where you’ve come.”
Roberts has also come back home contrite.
It’s been quite the ride. He began his career at CTV Montreal and later went into another broadcasting orbit, landing a plum TV gig in New York. But he really hit his stride when he became Global Toronto news anchor and executive producer in 2001. In 2013, he and his Global team nabbed the Best Newscast Award at the Canadian Screen Awards.
Roberts was on the fast track and destined for bigger and better until it all came to a halt two years ago: He was forced to resign from Global Toronto after allegations of a conflict of interest, relating to his co-ownership of a PR company — some of whose clients appeared on Global Toronto.
“Yes, it was a mistake. I accept full responsibility for it. And I learned a hell of a lot from it,” says Roberts, who spent the last two years in L.A., assisting millennials in startup operations. “Now I’m anxious to get back to do the work I love.
“Everybody goes through stuff in their lives, both personally and professionally, and some more high profile than others. That was one of my many life challenges. One of the things I learned early on is after facing that challenge, you learn from it and you are better for it. I know for a fact that I’m a better person now, and I’m working hard to be a better broadcaster.”
Roberts is chastened, but he’s taking a glass-half-full approach.
“They say everything happens for a reason, and I’m living proof of that, because I feel I’m exactly where I want to be: back in Montreal, which I had missed dearly, and back at a station which has meant so much to me and my family.”
That’s not just idle talk. The Roberts name has been associated with radio royalty in Montreal going back 60 years.
Leslie Roberts is a fourth-generation journalist and the third member of his family to work at CJAD. His father, Bill Roberts, was the morning man for two runs, in the 1950s and ’60s, and again in the late 1970s. And his namesake grandfather, Leslie Roberts Sr., did daily editorials for more than a decade until the Quebec referendum in 1980.
“I’m not my father or my grandfather in terms of my political stance. I’m an evolved anglophone and I’m looking forward to sharing that with the anglophone, francophone and allophone communities of today. And what better outlet to do that on?”
CJAD program director Chris Bury brought Roberts to Montreal to do some evening shows at the station under the radar during the holiday period this summer. The experience left Bury and Roberts convinced that this was an arrangement that was tenable over the long term.
“Given the chance to work with him first-hand, I was so impressed,” Bury says. “I have met very few people who are as driven as Leslie is. He works so hard and brings so much energy. I look forward to having him be part of our environment on a permanent basis.”
Roberts, for his part, is grateful for the opportunity to resurface in the industry and in his hometown.
“I’ve learned a lot about how special this place is by going away,” he says. “Which is not to say that I wouldn’t have had it any other way, because otherwise I wouldn’t feel this way about Montreal. But the one place where I hadn’t worked in Montreal was the place that meant most to me, because of the family history — CJAD. So when this opportunity came up, I jumped on it.”
And Roberts isn’t complacent: “One thing I’ve learned is that you have to keep learning, and the day that you stop learning is the day that you fail.
“I worked 12-hour days up until two years ago, and loved every minute of it. I’m now looking forward to working a little less than 12-hour days, because the cool thing about Montreal is that it’s life first and work second, and you can blend the two perfectly without dropping the ball.
“In New York, Toronto and Los Angeles, you’re always being pushed harder and pushing harder to stay on top. Then friends and family who mean so much to you get pushed behind. People are constantly struggling to find that work-balance thing, and I think I just found it.”
Roberts and his ex-wife Amalia Fernandez, a CTV Montreal assignment editor, now hope to lure their actress/writer daughter Lauren here from Toronto.
“Someone asked me what is so special about Montreal. I said it was simply a passion for life. It’s something that I found lacking in the other cities I’ve lived in. Certainly, Toronto has come a long way over the years. But some of us would always joke that it was the 200,000 anglos who left Montreal who brought the passion there.
“Now I don’t feel constantly on guard. Now I really feel I can let my hair down and exhale and be of the people — mostly because I’m one of them.”
Not that he isn’t aware of the many quirks that come with living in this town. As fate would
have it, Roberts hit Montreal at the same time as the first snowfall, when citizens once again forgot how to drive and when the city once again initially forgot to salt and sand the roads and sidewalks.
“That’s life here,” muses Roberts, who just purchased a dwelling in Old Montreal. “But I walk around and I smell Montreal and I feel Montreal — and it’s different from anywhere else. And I know I’m at home again.”
I walk around and I smell Montreal and I feel Montreal — and it’s different from anywhere else. And I know I’m at home again.