The Gazette from Montreal, Quebec, Canada • 46

D2 THE GAZETTE, MONTREAL, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2000 TELEVISION lie dawn of dueling double anchors Globai's newRoberts-Hiscox duo set to tackle Pulse's Takahashi-Haugland supper-hour team Leslie Roberts, who has been on the job a week at Global, has made his first important executive decision: he has hired himself as co-anchor of CKMI's supper-hour newscast. Roberts, who quit Pulse to become news and information director at Global, will join Heather Hiscox on Monday evening's newscast. The anchor team's launch will take place on a new set 12 being groomed to succeed Haugland. He was a fill-in Pulse anchor and host of Montreal Today until the weekday-morning magazine program fell victim to Channel 12 budget cuts last summer. After beginning his career as a radio reporter for the all-news CKO station in 1983, Roberts broke into TV two years later as Pulse's medical reporter.

His Channel 12 also includes stints on As It Is, Park Avenue Metro and Travel, Travel. He moved south to work for the Fox network in 1995. Two years later, he was back in Montreal where his daughter was living with his ex-wife. In the months leading up to Globai's Quebec launch in September, 1997, Roberts was mooted as a possible anchor for the new station's newscast. Instead, he returned to Channel 12 and Global hired Hiscox away from CBMT- and will be heralded by a blizzard of new promotional spots running during Globai's highly rated prime-time programming.

Valentine's Day will see the dawn of dueling double anchors in Montreal English television news. The new Roberts-Hiscox team will be competing with Pulse's Bill Haugland and Mutsu-EiiTakahashi. No one can accuse Roberts of foot-dragging. When he gave his notice at Asper's Canwest Global has bought most of the TV assets of Vancouver-based Western International Communications (WIC), including CFCF-12. The deal requires CRTC approval, and in seeking a green light from the federal regulator, Can West Global likely will promise to sell CFCF-12.

There's also a pretty good chance that the tag-team anchor competition beginning Monday night won't last too long. Haugland has to retire eventually, unless the technical wizards at CFCF-12 have developed an animatronic version of the venerable anchorman. And don't bet your BCE stock that Roberts and Hiscox will be a long-running act at CKMI. Hiscox, who has been solo anchor of the Global newscast since the station signed on, will have to share on-camera time (of which there isn't a heckuva lot in a 30-minute show) with a partner who happens to be her boss. Even with the highest degree of professionalism (a given with Hiscox and Roberts), the transition to a double-anchor format is bound to be awkward at best for a former solo star.

Moreover, Hiscox too frequently dissed by TV news-haters because she's an attractive blonde (the put-down artists are already dismissing the new Global team as "Barbie and is a smart, experienced broadcast journalist She's young, she's talented, she's ambitious and can't see her playing Mits to Roberts's Bill on the anti-Pulse for the next 10 years." Hiscox is too good for this gig. I think she'll be a good soldier for a year or two and then advance to network-TV news at Global or one of its national competitors. MIKE BOONE TV RADIO Pulse in late January, he said he'd be taking up new duties at Global on Feb. 7, but da clined to specify when he would be joining Hiscox at the anchor desk. "Transition can be tough, but there's been tremendous support since I got here," he says.

"I'd thought that we might launch the double-aft chor format after (February) sweeps, but everyone here said we should take advantage of the sweeps period and do now." Roberts has been impressed by a Global news staff that is "young and still so new at the game that barriers to getting things done are lifted quickly," Roberts had spent his last two years at CFCF- 6's Newswatch. Supper-hour news competition between CFCF 12 and Global has become internecine warfare pitting Roberts, the co-anchor, against Haugland, his mentor, and Takahashi, his occasional on-air partner. As newa'director, Roberts is battling Pulse boss Lis Travers, who was news director of Global after learning the TV-news biz at Pulse and Newswatch. And Pulse's assignment editor, Amy Fernandez, is Roberts's ex-wife. Until the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission sorts out ownership, Roberts, Hiscox, Haugland, Taka hashi, Travers and Fernandez are all working forlzzyAsper.

COURTESY OF GLOBAL TELEVISION Leslie Roberts will join Heather Hiscox on Globai's supper-hour newscast Hydro. x1 t. iTMS3kVii TV TONIGHT Marilyn at the Bus Stop uueoec uic urmcbLrc sympnunuiuc uc muriLrtui wJaVJi presents a. I i iil'r' i.n' Chanted Juillet World-renowned violinist from Montreal In her first performance ofHindemith with the OSM, Chcmtal Juillet reveals the intensity and depth of the Violin Concerto, Gazette television columnist Mike Boone picks the best of tonight's programs: American Photography (VPTV-33 at 7); A Century of Images. How to Marry a Millionaire (MoviePix at Marilyn Monroe and Betty Grable.

Biography at 8): Edward G. Robinson. Andrea Bocelli (Bravo at 8): Voices From Heaven. The Guns of Navarone (History at 9): WWII adventure. Bus Stop (MoviePix at 9): More MM.

Austin City Limits (VPTV-33 at 10): Garth Brooks. Sessions at West 54th (Mountain Lake at Wilco, Tuesday and Thursday, February 15 and 17, 2000 at 8:00 p.m. Patty Griffin. Charles Dutoit, conductor Chantal Juillet, violin Weber, Oberon, overture Hlndemith, Violin Concerto Mahler, Symphony No.l In Marvelous Saturday Night Live (CKM-46 at Julianna Mar- Miss Monroe guiles, with DMX. Evening of ttw 15 tponsored by: Evening of tht 17 sponsored by: JBDMTBBtt.

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