WHITE ROCK VS KITSILANO

If you’ve ever purchased a home in Canada or thought of purchasing one, you have faced the all-too familiar dilemma. Beginning Wednesday, August 31 at 10pm, brand new Canadian original series ‘Urban Suburban’ will showcase Canadian families stuck making that very decision. Brother and sister real estate experts Philip DuMoulin and Sarah Daniels face off in each episode as they guide families through urban and suburban houses. Philip takes on the urban landscape, proving to potential homeowners that urban living doesn’t necessarily mean tiny square footage and prices as high as the skyscrapers. Sarah takes families through suburbia, showing that not all of these homes are cookie-cutter replicas and personalities exist beyond the stereotypical soccer mom. Each family will ultimately make their own decision, based on the location that suits them best. In the first episode, ‘White Rock vs Kitsilano,’ Phil and Sarah compete to find the ideal home for our beach loving couple Mike and Angela. They use their persuasive powers to assist our couple in their decision to live in Kits or White Rock. Which neighbourhood will the couple choose to buy in? “Urban Suburban is HGTV’s first show to confront the dilemma home buyers face when choosing urban or suburban” says Barb Williams, Senior Vice President of Content, Shaw Media. “Philip and Sarah maintain an excellent tug of war between the choices, all the while providing viewers with useful tips and information on how to make their way through this difficult decision.”

“We’re delighted to be working with HGTV on this series to address an often overlooked, but an important fundamental real estate buying decision,” says John Ritchie, Executive Producer & Partner at Force Four Entertainment Inc. “From Vancouver to Halifax, homebuyers are confronted with this same decision at various stages in their lives, and we’re hoping the series will provide insight for viewers in an entertaining, yet informative way.” Filmed in major cities across Canada, Urban Suburban truly represents a national dilemma. Potential homeowners in Vancouver, Halifax, Winnipeg and Toronto all face the same problem, although each city has its own characteristics to take into consideration. In the end a choice must be made, and after visiting six houses with Philip and Sarah, each family must choose just one to make their home

 

urban or suburban?– competing to find each family their perfect location, price, and home.– but will it be urban or suburban? For more info on, exclusive content from the hosts and to watch full episodes, visit www.hgtv.ca

President Bush gives firsthand account of 9/11 in NatGeo special

It was a fluke that President George W. Bush happened to be on camera when an aide whispered to him that the country was under attack.
Much has been made of the president’s reaction as he sat for nine minutes, listening to children in Sarasota, Fla., work on their phonics. But what was he thinking?  What was it like for him on 9/11?  National Geographic Channel’s “George W. Bush: The 9/11 Interview,” airing Sunday, Aug. 28, offers a rare and intimate glimpse into the president’s point of view about the terrorist attack.
Everyone has a story about where he or she was on that cloudless Tuesday; this is his.
“I went from being a president primarily focused on domestic issues to being a wartime president,” Bush says in the film. “That was something I never anticipated, not something I wanted.”
Filmmaker Peter Schnall, who had met the president before and has tackled 9/11 in other documentaries, had remarkable access, and it took him four months to land this interview.
Over two days, Schnall interviewed Bush for five hours. Bush was not given the questions first, and he is the only person featured in the documentary.
Schnall’s timing was fortuitous; Osama bin Laden was killed the night before the interview began.  On camera, Bush talks — for the only time — about how President Barack Obama called him with the news.
“I felt a sense of closure and jubilation,” Bush says.
Regardless of politics, this is a fascinating window into the president’s mindset. Politics aside, there are lingering questions, such as: Why doesn’t the president address that the administration knew bin Laden planned to use hijacked airplanes as bombs?
“That memo did come out several weeks before the attacks on 9/11,” Schnall says. “He took a very apolitical and personal approach.  The line that he took was at that moment, on that day and the days that took place after 9/11, ‘I was not going to sit around and point fingers. I wasn’t going to blame the intelligence community or the people involved. At that moment what we needed to do was move forward and fi nd out who was behind the attacks. We needed to stop them from continuing to happen.’ ”
It’s very easy for people to second-guess how they would have conducted an interview, but Schnall relies on his experience as a documentarian.  “He would only take it to so far,” Schnall says. “If I had pushed it too far, he might have shut down a bit more, and my goal was to get him to talk about those four or five days.  I was less interested in facts than how he was feeling.”
Though Bush remains measured, he’s quite clear about how he felt.  “My first reaction was anger,” he says. “Who the hell would do that to America? And then I immediately focused on the children. And the concept between the notion of the attack and the innocence of the children clarified my job, and that is to protect people.”
Even those who were glued to the news and who have since read all they could about the day could not truly know all that happened.  “With a decade passed, I think he is more willing to be personal about that particular time,” Schnall says. “No doubt that event changed his presidency, just as it changed our daily lives, and when he said that I began to push him toward the whole notion that he had only been in office nine months, and at that point in time he was a president trying to figure out his own calling and mandate for his politics. He went to Sarasota on a very simple, barely noted trip to talk about education reform, and there wasn’t much to the trip itself.”
Bush is somber as he recounts the day. He was able to watch from Air Force One.
“The most powerless I ever felt was watching people jump to their death,” Bush says. “And there was nothing I could do about it.”
Once all planes landed and Bush gave the order to shoot down any plane that hadn’t, he heard about the last terrorist attack, hijacked Flight 93, which crashed in rural Pennsylvania. “For a moment I thought it was because of the order I gave,” he says.
Schnall relays one anecdote that didn’t make it into the film. Bush had asked aides to track down his parents. “He gets on the phone with his mother and says, ‘Where are you?’ ” Schnall relays. “And they said, ‘We are in Minnesota.’ ‘Why are you in Minnesota?’ ‘Well, you made our plane land.’ ” When the president was on Air Force One, it was the first time it ever took off without a flight plan.  The hour is riveting, and ultimately it is a peek behind the curtain.  Just as we remember the mundane details of that Tuesday morning before the world changed, Bush recollects taking a long run that morning before going to the school to listen to children read.

UNKEMPT HOMES & DISORGANIZED FAMILIES FIXED IN ‘CONSUMED’

‘Consumed’ is an extreme home experiment that challenges Canada’s most overwhelmed pack-rat families to survive for 30 days with only the bare essentials. Series host Jill Pollack is a de-cluttering expert whose clients include ‘Desperate Housewives’ actresses Marcia Cross and Felicity Huffman. Jill guides families through a unique process that allows them to cut through their physical and emotional clutter and rebuild their lives from scratch. Produced by Vancouver-based Paperny Films, ‘Consumed’ premiers Tues, Aug. 30 at 10pm on HGTV Canada.
“This has been a tremendous opportunity for Paperny Films,” says Cal Shumiatcher, Executive Producer, Paperny Films. “The talents of Jill Pollack and the support of HGTV have allowed us to create what we hope will be a truly cutting edge series. Jill’s shock-therapy and no-nonsense approach to helping families is sure to resonate with viewers.”
Pollack has a Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from Columbia U., and spent thirteen years as a television producer for prominent programs in the US. Now, she helps people live their best life by getting rid of clutter in their homes. In each episode of Consumed, Jill encourages families to emotionally confront their relationships and the effect of clutter on their lives. She helps each family decide which of their possessions will become the ten essential items that they live with for a full month, while everything else is taken out of their homes and kept in a storage facility. At the end of that time, families must decide what they’ll toss, donate or keep.
Darren Doyle, resident handyman, transforms each family’s home into useful spaces with storage and organization solutions. The goal is for each family to see their material possessions, homes and each other in a completely different light. But can families who have been consumed by our consumer society actually change?

Federer, Sharapova hope to slam the field at the U.S. Open

It may not have the name cachet of Wimbledon or the grueling clay surface of Roland Garros, but the U.S. Open has an even greater intangible: New York itself.
“It’s just a great feeling coming back to New York,” says Roger Federer, the former World No. 1 who won five consecutive U.S. Open singles titles from 2004 to 2008.  “Honestly, I liked it from day one. It was just one of those tournaments I right away fell in love with — just the buzz and the energy over there.  Sure, it was a bit overwhelming at first. I kind of always liked to play there.
“It’s difficult with the wind, humidity, the city behind it, the whole deal,” he continues. “Having to deal with that was quite interesting. Every time the U.S. Open rolls around, I’m very, very excited.”
The season’s final Grand Slam event gets going Monday, Aug. 29, from USTA Billie Jean King National Tennis Center in Flushing, N.Y.  (with coverage airing over the next two weeks on ESPN2 and CBS), and the sport’s best — including World No. 1’s Novak Djokovic and Caroline Wozniacki, plus Rafael Nadal, Maria Sharapova, Kim Clijsters and Federer — will take to the hard-court surface in search of the singles titles won last year by Nadal and Clijsters.
Sharapova, who won the title here in 2006, has experienced a career renaissance after being hampered by inconsistent play and shoulder problems that ultimately required surgery. After falling as low as No. 126 in May 2009 (and finishing 2010 at No. 18), the 24-year-old Russian native had a successful clay-court season this spring, culminating in a semifinal loss to Li Na in the French Open. She then went on to Wimbledon and didn’t lose a set in making it to the fi nal, where she was upended by Petra Kvitova in straight sets.
She comes into this tournament ranked fi fth, riding a wave of good feeling from her performance in London.
“To be honest, it’s still nice to come home with a nice plate, so I was glad I didn’t come home after Wimbledon empty-handed,” she says. “To have that moment where you’re walking out in the final stage of Wimbledon, even though you didn’t leave with the big trophy, you know, gives me a great and tremendous amount of confidence that I’ve been doing something right in the last few months and I’ve been getting better.
“I think I always like to let the game talk,” she says, “instead of saying, ‘OK, I’m feeling better.’ Everything is going well. I’m pretty realistic about my results. I always feel like the more matches you win, the ranking is always going to take care of itself.”
Like Sharapova, Federer has faced questions about his abilities since falling from the top ranking he held from 2004 to 2008. Currently ranked third behind Djokovic and Nadal, he has experienced stretches of inconsistent play in recent years and hasn’t won a major since the 2010 Australian Open. And earlier this month he turned 30, an age considered ancient in tennis.
Still, the 16-time Grand Slam champ is confident in his abilities and intends to prove it in Flushing.  “Do I approach tournaments differently?” he says. “Well, maybe a little obviously. I think when you win 90-95 percent of your matches, you go into a tournament slightly more confident. Other than that, there’s not a huge change because I know my abilities. I don’t want to say I’m overconfident, but I also know what I can do and I also know … my limits.  Hopefully that allows me to play the best tennis I can each day.”

AN ORDINARY SATURDAY IN THE NATION

The CBC was founded with the idea that it would create a place in which Canadians could talk to one another.
Seventy-five years later, that’s exactly what the corporation is doing with “1 Day,” airing Sunday, Aug 21, on CBUT. The feature-length documentary tells the story of a day in the life of Canada — Saturday, April 30, 2011, to be precise. “For 75 years, CBC has allowed Canadians to share stories, or to tell stories about Canadian lives,” says Sue Dando, who produced the film.
“And this is continuing that tradition.”
The film is the official start of CBC’s 75th anniversary celebration.
The Canadian Radio Broadcasting Commission, as it was first called, was created in 1932 — as an antidote to the domination of ourrk sent camera crews out to record the day as it unfolded in a variety of locations across the country.
Subjects included two cops patrolling Vancouver’s Downtown East Side, a cab driver in St. John airwaves by U.S. radio stations — and went on the air Nov. 2, 1936.
If all of this seems vaguely familiar, it could be because CBC Television celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2002.
So rather than rehash the retrospectives that ran back then, the network is aiming for specials that celebrate the relationship between the broadcaster and the nation, Dando says.
“It is a CBC anniversary piece, but the CBC elements are quite subtle in this documentary,” she says. “It’s not about the CBC. It’s meant to be about Canada.”
The project began with a call for Canadians to film a few moments in their lives and submit them to the network for consideration.
The idea was to collect a video album of “surprising things, poignant moments and interesting moments, charming moments,” Dando says.
“This wasn’t like doing an online poll where people just had to hit a button. People had to actually had to go out there, videotape something, upload it, get it to us. So I thought the bar was pretty high, but we have submissions from right across the country.”
Perhaps the most poignant moments in the film are in the footage a Quebec couple shot of their 16-month-old son.
“One of the very first videos that came in was of a cute little boy counting to five with his father in French and getting his lunch,”
Dando says. “He was just this little beaming guy. … And then, about a week later, we got an email from his mother saying, ‘Thank you so much for inspiring me to tape our little boy that day. That’s the last videotape we have of him.’ He had an accident at daycare, hit his head, massive brain injuries, never regained consciousness.
“The video was one of the last moments of his life.”
Dando says that when she asked the mother if she wanted CBC to cut the footage out of “1 Day,” the reply was, “ ‘No. That was part of what happened on that day, and we’re fine if you use it.’ ”
Meanwhile, the netwo’s, an inner-city emergency ward, a farm family caring for a newborn colt, soprano Measha Brueggergosman preparing for a performance and a new Canadian taking the citizenship oath.
For CBC Winnipeg reporter Sean Kavanaugh, the day involved surveying the first onslaught of “one of the most epic flood seasons Manitoba has ever experienced.”
“I stood on a road that was disintegrating under my feet,” he recalls.
“And that was one of those moments that even I — someone who has covered floods — went, ‘Wow. This is something new.’
“I remember standing on that road with the water maybe 10 or 15 centimeters over the road, and you could feel the pebbles, the sand, being pushed off the road over your boots and into the ditch on the other side. You could literally feel it disintegrating.”
Meanwhile, in Huntsville, Ont., Tessa Jennison was preparing for her second adventure race — a grueling combination of endurance disciplines that she had taken up after she and her husband, Russell, split.
On April 30, they were back together and competing in their first event as a team — and his first ever.
“Having done my first adventure race by myself was an extremely uplifting experience for me,” she says. “It really gave me that self-confidence that I needed to move forward with my life and my relationship with Russell.
“Then Russell raced with me, which was a fantastic experience.”
In addition to assigning camera crews to ordinary Canadians, CBC asked people such as David Suzuki, astronaut Chris Hadfield and a group of polar bear researchers what they were doing and got videos back from them.
As for the material that came in from average Canadians, Dando says she and her editors were astonished by the overall quality of the footage.
“People shot videos in their homes, with their families, so the footage has this intimacy,” she says. “There’s an authenticity that comes across.”

American Ninja Warrior storms Japan’s Mount Midoriyama

To paraphrase the Talking Heads, this ain’t no “Dancing”; this ain’t no “Wipeout”; this ain’t no foolin’ around… The odd celebrity may turn an ankle on “Dancing With the Stars,” and the odd contestant may face-plant into a padded obstacle and go tumbling into the water on “Wipeout.”
But for ferocious physical challenges and amplitude, it’s hard to beat G4’s obstacle-course competition show “American Ninja Warrior.” The third season of the show premiered on G4 on July 31 with tryouts near the beach in Venice, Calif. It ends in Japan on Monday, Aug. 22, with a two-hour prime-time special on NBC.
“We start the season with 300 hopefuls,” says host Matt Iseman (“Clean House,” “Sports Soup”), “out of thousands of submissions. We do a qualifying round in Venice, where we narrow it down to our top 30, who then do an extended course in Venice. So it starts out with six obstacles; we added three for a total of nine obstacles. They’re just absurdly hard. So we went from 30 to our top 15. We take them to a boot camp in the remote mountains of California … Simi Valley. It’s this summer camp, and they stay up there for five nights, and we narrowed it down from 15 to 10, just more absurdly hard training.”
Those 10, with Iseman, his cohost, MMA fighter Jimmy Smith, and sideline reporter Alison Haislip, headed to Japan to join competitors from around the world on the “mother course” for “Sasuke,” the original Japanese version of the event.
“I’m sworn to secrecy about the results,” Iseman says, “but I can say the Americans had a record-breaking performance. But it’s a crazy day.”
Iseman explains that 100 competitors run the course every year, but over 26 seasons of the Japanese show, from more than 2,600 competitors, only three have completed all four stages and made it to the top of Mount Midoriyama to finish the course — and none of those three was an American.
Last year, half of the Americans completed stage one, and four made it to stage three. Alas, none made it to stage four, but it was an impressive performance. “Our guys were animals,” Iseman says. “They were trained; they were in shape.”
In this year’s trip to Japan, the weather was not exactly balmy, but it could have been worse. “We were lucky,” Iseman says. “It was about 98 degrees and humid.  But there was a typhoon headed for Japan, so we were supposed to compete in muddy conditions.  It was supposed to be torrential downpours. We had just a sprinkling throughout the day.
“The day we left, our flight was delayed half an hour. We took off in torrential Downpours. Had we competed then, it would have been a mud bath.”
As for prizes, “American Ninja Warrior” outpaces both the ugly mirror-ball trophy awarded to celebrities at the end of “Dancing” and the $50,000 awarded to the single competitor who finishes the day on top in the “Wipeout Zone.”
But when you consider the time and pain involved, even the Americans’ grand prize — a $500,000 endorsement deal from K-Swiss — isn’t excessively impressive. And there are no consolation prizes. “These guys are dance instructors,” Iseman says. “They teach gymnastics; they’re pizza delivery guys. Very few of them make a living at it. So many of them, they get nothing out of this, except they love the challenge. They know there’s very likely no financial reward, and they’re not likely to become famous.  “We do qualifying in Venice, which will be two or three days.  Then we go to boot camp, which is another five days. Then we go to Japan, which is another five or six days — and then your training.  “This isn’t something you train an hour for. It’s multiple hours every day. It’s not even that you’re doing push-ups and pull-ups. You’re trying to re-create some of these obstacles.  They’re so unlike anything you do in life.”
One prospective ninja paid a price. “We did have our first serious injury ever,” says Iseman. “It’s an unbelievably physical sport. They train hard, and it’s demanding. It was heartbreaking, but the way he handled it was unbelievable.”
There was even some peril for the intrepid host, most often seen facing down mountains of trash, heaps of clutter and the occasional black mold on “Clean House.” “I was getting a little hoarse,” Iseman says, “and miso soup was the only thing that helped with my voice. So, I had about eight bowls of miso soup, which is probably two weeks’ worth of salt. So my legs got swollen. It’s rough acclimating back to the States. Those are the hardships I have to go through to talk about the show.”

Six musical acts on the edge of success

For indie power-pop band Brighter Brightest, this couldn’t be a better time for “Discovered.”
The show is a completely overhauled relaunch of the series formerly known as “disBand,” and it airs Tuesdays on MuchMusic. The hourlong documentary series profiles six indie acts from across the country that are on the cusp of reaching a wider audience — including Brighter Brightest, which has just released its first fulllength CD.
“It was kind of perfect timing,” says vocalist and guitarist Derek Hoffman. “They showed up in August of last year and saw us writing and demo-ing and getting all these song ideas together. There were a few great milestones that got caught on camera.”
Along with Brighter Brightest, which hails from the Toronto suburb of Aurora, Ont., “Discovered” chronicles several months in the lives of five other artists: Winnipeg singer-songwriter Brett Boivin, Montreal pop-funksters Coloursound, Calgary punk band For the Weekend, Toronto synth-rockers Nightbox and Brantford, Ont., pop-rockers Slow Motion Victory.
MuchMusic’s first high-definition production, “Discovered” is a reworking of the half-hour “disBand,” which aired for two seasons. Each show focused on one unsigned band getting criticism from a panel of music judges. This series, however, is a straight, fly-on-the-wall documentary with a performance element, says the show’s producer, Andrew Worrall. “We just wanted to focus on stories.  And the thing that we couldn’t do in a half-hour is get to know the bands and the characters. Across Canada, there were great stories, there were great characters, there were great bands that we wanted to get to know.”
“We wanted to document what life is like. We wanted to show what happens before they get on and do a gig. We wanted to show the hard work that goes into recording.  We wanted to show what happens when a band doesn’t get on.”
The series profiles the bands in parallel, so every band is present throughout the run of the show. “Obviously their music is incredibly important,” Worrall says. “But we look at everything else in their lives — their families. Anything like that, we think is equally important to the show.”
The series also features musician and producer Greig Nori, former frontman for Treble Charger, who mentors the artists as they try to break through to the next level of the music business. For Brighter Brightest, that part of the story involves what happens when a group of unsigned indie musicians from north of Toronto goes into a studio in New Jersey to make its first album.
Having been together for roughly a decade under various incarnations, the members of Brighter Brightest are among the most experienced of the artists profiled. “They were quite far along,” Worrall says. “They’re one of the bands that is slightly more advanced.  “Then you have someone like Brett Boivin. When we started shooting with him, he did a gig at a pub, and that was one of the first times he had ever played for people. Then Nightbox were actually recording as we were following them, and they had been together for a number of years.”

Keno twins help homeowners find ‘Buried Treasure’

Mention the word “antiques” to many people, and their eyes immediately glaze over with boredom. That’s probably one reason you won’t find the A word anywhere in the title of “Buried Treasure,” a new four-week Fox series premiering Wednesday, Aug. 24.
The series, which wasn’t available for preview, follows contemporary treasure hunters and collectibles experts Leigh and Leslie Keno (“Antiques Roadshow”) as they travel America to go into homes in search of hidden valuables. Some of the stuff trotted out by homeowners is truly valuable, while some of it is, well, trash. But along the way viewers also will get some engrossing insight into what makes an object valuable (or not) as well as a moving human-interest story about the owners of each piece.
And make no mistake, some of the Americans spotlighted in this series are long overdue for some good news.
“These are real-life situations with, in many cases, people in dire need of help,” says Leslie Keno, who came up with the idea for the show with his twin, Leigh, and executive producer Tim Miller, a longtime colleague. “In some cases their house is about to be taken away from them, or they can’t pay for their daughter’s operation that she needs to live, or their business has burned down and they’ve been left with almost nothing. We go into their home and find centuries-old heirlooms that bring them over six figures, giving them a chance to get started again. It’s an honor to be chosen for this.”
“It’s like an epic treasure hunt show with heart,” Leigh Keno says, “because we get to go into people’s homes and change their life. When we wake up in the morning and go to a shoot, we don’t really know what we’re going to find. We may have seen a few photos of what they have, but often it’s the things in the background that turn out to be the really good stuff. We get to go into their homes and find the true nuggets, the real treasures, and change their lives. Ninety-nine percent of the time these people are selling because they really, really need the money.”
Sometimes, however, the object in question may hold such a powerful emotional connection for the owner that ultimately he can’t bear to part with it, Leslie adds.
“Occasionally, the owner turns down an offer of a few hundred thousand dollars and just says, ‘No, I can’t sell it.’ It’s a true reality show in that sense,” he explains. “We don’t know what’s going to happen, and I think that’s what viewers are going to love. You never know when there’s going to be a really emotional moment. Sometimes the objects are like family members themselves, because these heirlooms have so many associations for the owners. We’re the catalyst to give them choices about what they want to do.”
Sometimes, of course, the Kenos are forced to deliver bad news, but fortunately there’s usually a silver lining even in disappointing moments like that, Leigh points out.
“That happens quite a lot, unfortunately, where the cherished object they’ve always been told was something great is actually a fake or a copy,” he says. “That’s part of the show, but the good news is that the vase next to it, or the painting hanging behind it, or maybe the jewelry that was hidden away in that drawer is the high end of the roller coaster.” Creator and executive producer Joe Livecchi, to whom Miller brought the idea for the show about 3 1/2 years ago, says he is convinced the time is right for “Buried Treasure,” with the economic downturn forcing many Americans to search everywhere for extra cash to get them through a rough patch.  “The truth is that anyone out there could have something that is worth a lot of money, and we find it almost every time we go out on a story, Livecchi says. “Almost everyone has at least one thing in their home that they think holds some potential value, whether it’s something as pedestrian as a baseball card or maybe some kind of bowl that could be from some ancient Chinese dynasty. We’re really finding things that have great historical and cultural significance. Often we are finding things that are museum quality, things that are considered by experts in the field to be a missing link of that genre. These are things that have been sought by collectors for, in some cases, hundreds of years.”
And while Fox may seem a somewhat offbeat venue for a show like this. Miller thinks the network offers a chance to reach a whole new audience for a show that is, first and foremost, just very entertaining.  “The guys broadened the demographic of people who watch PBS and ‘Antiques Roadshow,’ but this one is going to allow them to reach an even wider audience,” he says.  “We’re finding young people who are collecting things, so we thought the Fox opportunity was one that hadn’t really been taken advantage of. We wanted to create a show that moved and had a lot of emotion.  Fox was the place that we wanted to be, and it’s a time in the economy, too, where everyone is looking through their house or attic or basement trying to find that one thing. All these shows have prompted that great American treasure hunt. We thought it was the right time for a show like this, that has heart and is unique, and that Fox would give us the opportunity to develop a new audience.”

LLOYD ROBERTSON

That’s the kind of half-century it’s been. A generation of Canadians has grown old with Lloyd Robertson delivering the news of the day.  When Robertson started in broadcasting, Louis St. Laurent was prime minister, Harry Truman was U.S. president, and the war in Korea was in its third year.
CBC Television was being born, and CTV was nine years in the future.
Now in his last month as Canada’s most popular news anchor, he can look back on a career that spanned the two networks and saw him rise to the top of both.
In two weeks, Robertson, 77, is stepping down from one of the top jobs in TV journalism: host of “CTV National News” on weeknights.  It’s a job he has held in one form or another for the past 35 years. But that’s not to say his broadcasting career is over.
“I’ve been honking away for 41 years total at 11 o’clock at night, if you add the CBC time,” Robertson says. “I knew … I had to slow down and then get off. So I’m going to continue as a host correspondent on ‘W5,’ and there will be other things.
“In fact, the way they’re talking, I may end up with as much as I have now.”
Monday, Sept. 5, a new era begins at CTV news, and for Canadian TV, when Lisa LaFlamme slips into Robertson’s chair. For the first time, two out of three of the main networks will have women in the job of national anchor and managing editor of the news.
The previous Thursday, Sept. 1 — the day Robertson leaves the anchor chair for good — CTV is airing a feature documentary tribute to the anchor, “And That’s the Kind of Life It’s Been.” That’s a reference to the way Robertson has signed off over the 27 years — since co-anchor Harvey Kirck retired — that he has been the sole host of the “CTV National News.”
Robertson has been on TV almost as long as there has been TV in Canada. He’s been called “Mr. Trustworthy” and “Uncle Lloyd.” A recent Reader’s Digest poll of the 10 most trusted Canadians put him in fifth place behind David Suzuki, Mike Holmes, Michael J. Fox and the Queen.
As the face of “CTV National News,” he has many times been voted most trusted anchor by TV Guide readers. He has an Order of Canada. He’s been spoofed on “SCTV.” And “Royal Canadian Air Farce” once turned Robertson’s signature sign-off, “And that’s the kind of day it’s been,” into a gospel song.
Robertson says he takes that audience trust very seriously. “If people are going to say you’re the most trusted and put their faith in you, you have an obligation to return that,” he says. “It’s like being lucky in life. You give back. I’ve tried not to be unduly humble about it.  But I’ve tried to give back by doing charity work over the years. That’s something you do.”
The way LaFlamme sees it, Robertson is a national institution.  And trying to replace a national institution “would be a fool’s game,” she says. “After 35 years on this show, and 59 years in this country, no one is taking over for Lloyd or replacing him,” she says of the job she will take in September. “I had to define that in my own head. Otherwise, it’s a recipe for disaster. I could never fill those shoes, because of his longevity and what he has become: an icon really. It’s a brilliant opportunity and an exciting new change for me in journalism. And I’m so lucky that I’ve had Lloyd through this year to guide me.”
Robertson’s time at CTV represents slightly more than half his career. He started on radio in his native Stratford, Ont., in 1952 and made his TV debut with CBC two years later. After becoming one of the public network’s top announcers, he became anchor of “The National.” Frustrated with CBC union rules that kept anchors from reporting the news, he jumped to CTV in 1976.  After 59 years in broadcast journalism, Robertson has a unique, long-term perspective.
He was on the air the day John F.  Kennedy was assassinated in 1963 and covered the first moon landing in 1969. He witnessed the centennial year in 1967, Trudeaumania in 1968 and the October crisis in ’71. He saw the repatriation of the constitution and two referendums on separation.
He says the most memorable day was the worst: Sept. 11, 2001.  “I remember rushing into the newsroom and sitting in that chair, not knowing what was going to happen,” he recalls. “There was no sense of where this thing was taking us. The anchors that day were staring into the face of hell.”
LaFlamme says she can’t wrap her mind around the concept of more than a half-century on the job.  “Can I imagine myself sitting there for the next 35 years? I just can’t,” she says. “But I do know that I’ll never be the most trusted man in Canada.” Lloyd Robertson is stepping down as anchor of the weeknight “CTV National News” next month. He will be replaced by Lisa LaFlamme.

FOOD NETWORK STAR

On a stifling night in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood, three chefs wait to see if their lives are about to change dramatically. It’s a week before “Food Network Star” premieres its seventh season, but the winner is selected at the finale. This airs Sunday, Aug. 14, and What’s On agreed to keep the winner secret until that chef is picked at the showís conclusion.
Three finalists join the 12 eliminated during the season for an unprecedented reunion show, followed by the finale. Another change for this season had FN star Giada De Laurentiis join cablenet mainstay Bobby Flay as a judge. Bob Tuschman and Susie Fogelson, general manager and marketing executive, respectively, round out the panel.
“Everyone tells me they can do this,” Flay says during a break. “It’s going to be harder than you can imagine. Cooking and talking to the camera at the same time is very difficult to do.”
De Laurentiis, who had been on the show before but not as a judge, says, “When they asked me to be a judge, I didn’t think I had it in me. Then I realized I could spend a lot of time and see them through a challenge.”
By the time cooks reach this show, everyone expects them to know their way around a kitchen and have a distinct point of view. “It’s an interesting group of people,” Flay says. “Some are better cooks. Some are better organized. Some are a mess.”
The winner’s show will be on-air Aug. 21.
“The most important thing for anyone who wants this job is to figure out who you are, if you can,” Flay says.
Though that may sound like obvious advice, itís very sound reasoning.
And far tougher than one would think, De Laurentiis says separately.
“This is a soul-searching journey,” she says. “Who you think you are is not who you end up being.”
Each finalist is very different.
Susie Jimenez, 31, makes Mexican food. As a child, she moved around with her parents, following the harvest in the incredibly difficult life of a migrant laborer.
“My parents migrated up and down California and Oregon picking cherries, pears, apples and peaches,” she says. “Yesterday my parents were asking me why I didnít know how to swim. I was picking.”
When she was in fifth grade, the family settled in a house, and she learned to cook. The sample show she creates for the judges is “Spice It Up With Susie Jiminez,” and she makes sopes, a patty filled with different toppings. “When my mom would make sopes, my dad would come up behind her, and they would do a little dance,” she says.
Finalist Vic ‘Vegas’ Moea, 35, also talks about family. He wants to see a show centered on moms and Sunday dinners. Moea comes to Las Vegas by way of Brooklyn and coins his own words, which he calls his ‘Victionary.’ During the taping he talks about a ‘lachanaga’ a lasagna chimichanga. “I’m all over the traditional Italian-American cuisine,’
he says. “I’m working on reinventing it, meatballs and lasagna and baked ziti and chicken picatta. I’m going back to the roots.”
The third finalist is Jeff Mauro, 32, a private chef from Chicago, who specializes in sandwiches. Weíre not talking peanut butter and jelly on white bread, but some complicated recipes. The most difficult part of the contest is “the anxiety of not knowing what is coming next,” he says, “having everything in your life mapped out without knowing where you are going.”
Meeting second season winner Guy Fieri and Food Network chef Alton Brown were highlights for him. Like any chef, Mauro is no stranger to pressure, but this is different. “What was hardest for me was the pressure caused by the judges looming over you,” he says. “It goes from you cooking the best you can to you cooking and performing correctly for them. You want to make sure your every move is something they would approve of.”
Toward the end of the finale, judges eliminate one more chef.
Fogelson says that she could see working with any of the finalists and that she envisions the contest as an opportunity. “For me it is that they win a chance to become an enormous star,” Fogelson says. “It is a pretty good time to be a celebrity chef. You have the opportunity to be known by your first name. Chefs are as viable as celebrities  as anyone else ó rock stars, actors, chefs. They can build a worldwide empire.”
As someone who has, Flay knows the power of a popular TV show. “The greatest thing about this show is that the fans of Food Network will watch,î he says. ìThey will be living with them in their house. I think the reunion show looked great. People want to know whatís behind the scenes.”

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