Greeting the new day for CTV’s Your Morning
A peek behind the scenes at CTV’s new flagship morning show, which debuts this month
Ben Mulroney and Anne-Marie Mediwake are talking animatedly in a small office at CTV’s headquarters on Queen St. W.
The banter is non-stop and effortless, a preview of things to come for their new flagship morning show, launching Aug. 22 to replace the venerable Canada AM.
Mulroney: “I do all the Harry Potter voices for my kids. Here’s one. (Deep voice) ‘You’re a wizard, Harry.’ ” Mediwake with a puzzled look: “Who’s that?”
Mulroney: “It’s Hagrid. I didn’t say I was good at impressions.”
Mulroney so far is doing a pretty good Canadian take on American Idol host Ryan Seacrest, who seems to be everywhere in the entertainment landscape south of the border. As well as hosting Your Morning, Mulroney will continue to work for entertainment show eTalk.
“Look, he’s got like seven jobs; I only have two. It’s scheduling,” says Mulroney in his first sit-down interview, along with Mediwake, since the show was announced.
A lot is riding on the success of Your Morning. Fans didn’t appreciate that Canada AM, which would have celebrated 44 years this September, was yanked unceremoniously from the schedule two months ago with a mere 24 hours’ notice.
There is also concern that the new incarnation will be less about the news and more about entertainment, leaving Canadians with fewer in-depth stories about their own backyard.
The jury is still out. But certainly few people have been as groomed for the morning show job as much as Mulroney, son of former prime minister Brian Mulroney. The younger Mulroney has already guest-hosted Canada AM, as well as bigger things south of the border, including ABC’s Live! With Kelly.
Mediwake, meanwhile, has a solid hard news background.
Her last role was the supper-hour anchor for Toronto’s CBC newscast with co-host Dwight Drummond, and earlier in her career she worked as a reporter for Canada AM and CTV National News.
“I’m the daughter of a 1970s Pierre Trudeau immigrant and he’s the son of a former prime minister. It doesn’t get more Canadian than that,” says Mediwake.
“We want this to be a platform for the biggest newsmakers in Canada. When they have a story to tell, this is where we want them to come,” says Mulroney.
The casting of Mulroney and Mediwake as co-hosts for the new show came about through a confluence of factors. But they joke that reality show renovation star Bryan Baeumler was the one responsible for inadvertently testing their chemistry together.
“Bryan has a farm and he invited Ben’s family and my family out, and we basically chased chickens with the Baeumler kids. It was a great day,” says Mediwake. “But Ben and I both discovered we had a lot in common. He’s got twins, I’ve got triplets and we got along great. When you’re doing three hours of live television with someone, you’ve really got to trust that person.”
The traditional way of telling the news has been replaced by social media and conventional broadcasters have to approach storytelling differently, she says.
“People already know what the sports score is or that Michelle Obama had a great speech last night,” says Mediwake. “It’s actually an opportunity to go deeper. Wouldn’t it be great to talk to Obama’s speech writer to see how those words were crafted?”
Mulroney and Mediwake will be joined by CP24’s Melissa Grelo and Lindsey Deluce as late morning anchor and news anchor, and Kelsey McEwen as weather anchor.
Putting it together are veteran producers Michelle Crespi and Jennifer MacLean.
MacLean will helm the show on a daily basis. Crespi also produces The Marilyn Denis Show and The Social, making her sort of the Shonda Rhimes of daytime talk TV, or as Mulroney calls it, “Crespi-Land.” “Ending Canada AM, a show with such a legacy, was a difficult thing to do,” says Crespi, who was its executive producer for the last eight months. “It’s hard for people to react to a show that’s not on yet, but I think they will see that we will still continue to tell compelling Canadian stories.”
One difference for the morning show is that it is being moved from CTV’s news division in Scarborough to the company’s heritage building at 299 Queen St. W., widely recognized as the site of the Much Music Video Awards. The set, shared with The Social, also looks out to the street, creating a more interactive space.
The move, with the potential of using its downtown surroundings as a sound stage, will immediately give the show a younger, more urban vibe.
They will need it. Canadian TV has unique competitive challenges. Your Morning competes against behemoths south of the border such as Good Morning America and Today. On a given weekday there was Sia performing on GMAin Central Park. Flip the channel and you have Céline Dion singing outside the 30 Rock building in Manhattan for Today.
“The best way to counterprogram is to tell our own stories,” says MacLean. “Sure, we would all love to see Sia sing. But we all bring our own Canadian voices and point of view. And we are good at telling those stories.”
Crespi, responding to criticism that the show will be “dumbed-down” entertainment, says news will continue to be important at Your Morning. “News is an important part of everyone’s morning, so news is an important part of this show as well,” she says.
Critics said the same thing when news gravitated from print to television and then to Twitter, says MacLean.
“When people see what we are do- ing they will realize that news is a really strong part of what we do,” she says. “It won’t be necessarily about straight reporting. We are looking at a deeper conversation about the news of the day.”
MacLean says morning TV brings with it a certain responsibility for the broadcaster.
“It’s really such a unique time of day where you are talking to people before they’ve even brushed their teeth. It’s a special relationship and we intend to build on that because it’s their morning and you’re telling them what they have to look forward to. You have to be good to people and that’s especially when they’re still in their pyjamas.”