In this informal, behind‑the‑scenes video, Jian Ghomeshi leads a short tour of a temporary CBC Radio workspace in Toronto with colleagues Sook‑Yin Lee and Nick Purdon. He shows the cleared‑out office area, explains how the space will become the new show’s headquarters, and introduces the makeshift editing suite and the “Stalinist” temporary‑space motto. Ghomeshi outlines the staffing plan – roughly eight to nine core producers in Toronto plus arts reporters nationwide – and reveals that the show is slated to launch on April 16. The team is currently producing about 17 pilot episodes to fine‑tune the format. He discusses the naming process, noting a shortlist of about nine titles generated from a blog, though no final name is confirmed. The editorial vision is debated: the show aims to blend high‑art and culture coverage with pop‑culture celebrity segments (e.g., Britney Spears, Anna Nicole Smith) in a fast‑paced, segmented format (14‑minute pop segment, 8‑minute celebrity segment). Ghomeshi reflects on the contrast between radio’s private, low‑ceiling workspaces and television’s open newsrooms, and the challenges of balancing depth with accessibility in a daily arts‑and‑culture program.
Chapters
It's not a new card. Oh. It's from happier days. I was really happy when I first— it's about 3 or 4 years ago.
Gian Zolof Gomeschi there.
And this is Nick Purdon.
Nick Purdon.
Freshly shorn. Yeah, it seems.
Way to ruin a moment by putting a camera in people's face.
That's Sukyin. Hi, Sukyin. Hello.
Bye.
Big office. So this— okay, so, so this— before there was, there was, uh, there was stuff here. There was like offices here. This has been cleared out. Yeah. And this is, uh, this is— oh, this is where you enter our area.
Nice.
Really excited about it. Yeah.
So no masking tape lines on the floor?
Well, for where the office is going to be, there should be like a chalk drawing.
Holy moly.
I like it. This is all— you should do that. Um, so actually all that stuff will be gone there.
Okay.
And then this whole area will be us. You know, in radio, at the big building here in Toronto, especially Radio A&E, it's been kind of— what? I mean, it has been like every— why is Nick Fritz giving me attitude? No, here's the thing. Honestly, it's been— it's low ceilings and people are very private. They have their little areas as opposed to— In sharp contradistinction to television, of course, where like the newsroom is this massive, you know, area and, you know, they broke down all the walls and stuff. Now, of course, there's disadvantages to the fact that everybody's in.
Yeah, no privacy.
No privacy, et cetera. But I would say this is actually, this whole area, this is gonna be your office. This is where I sit.
Yes.
With the tape around it, do not approach.
This means don't go near Jian. And then I think I'm sitting over here. —and this room. Oh, yeah, OK. And this will be a dala— or like an editing suite. Yeah. And so will this. And this is where Mark O'Neill, executive producer of yet unnamed show— It's still unnamed, eh?
Still not.
There's a shortlist. OK. Not unlike the Booker Prize. Two of the shortlisted names came from the blog. Is that right? I'm not joking.
No kidding. And how many are on the shortlist?
Or maybe one. But there's definitely— in fact— Cool. In fact, I would go so far as to say it's one of the front runners— Wow. What the show will be called came from the blog. There's about 9 on the shortlist. Oh yeah, okay.
And what is— what would be that name?
Uh, I can neither confirm nor deny. What are you? You're like a policeman. You've got your arms crossed. You're angry. So now where do you work now?
Do you have space or are you just kind of like doing what I do in this building, which is sit down at whatever workstation is free?
Well, right now, like, I still have a desk at The Hour, but we have a little temporary area. Do you want to see the temporary area?
Yeah, let's do that.
Yeah, can I show you something?
Stalinist. I know it is. I think this sort of sums up everything.
Yeah, I think we should have t-shirts made.
That would make a great t-shirt title, wouldn't it?
This is actually the new motto for CBC Radio. Temporary space. Now you'll— you're about to see Pedro Mendez, notable, coveted, uh, CBC Radio 3 star. Radio 3 star. So this is the actual temporary space. Oh wow. We will be housed, um, for the next month or so. This has all been put up in 2 weeks. Wow. Like all these workstations, and this is for us to develop the show.
Good God, how many people do you have on staff for this show?
It's great.
It's actually really great. There's There's, well, there's 2, but we like to spread out. No, there's about, um, I guess there's about 8, 9 people in the Toronto unit, and then there'll be arts reporters and people across the country. And when does it start? April 16th. Show launches on April 16th, um, and in between then, uh, we make about 17 pilots so that by the time we launch, the show will be micromanaged to the point where we— I won't even sound like me. I'll sound like, um, is that the process?
Are you still making pilots? You're still going through sort of really— well, you know, it's a—
now that we've got the team together, part of the development is to do dry runs or pilots of the show. So, um, uh, and, uh, yeah, and get feedback and you make sure that we're hitting the air, uh, almost like we've been on the air for a week or two.
Do you know what the show would sound like right off the top of your head? Like, if you have a vision of it in your mind?
Yeah, not very good. Sort of a mediocre show. Yeah, um, kind of, um, um, sort of, uh, room to grow, really. Room to grow, mediocre, kind of, kind of irrelevant, I think, is irrelevant. Yeah, um, sort of like you can tune in, quickly become disinterested, tune out. Um, and because it's arts and culture though, we figured first, first 14 minutes Britney, you know, where's the hair at, what's happening, what limo is she getting out of. Next 8 minutes, Anna Nicole.
Easy, easy 8 minutes. Back to Britney.
Wow. Because you tease it, you tease the Britney after the Anna Nicole, before the Anna Nicole. Say more, more about Britney. Yeah, yeah, people.
And also, has anyone done it like that before?
Well, I'm not sure, but the thing is, is we're not, we're not going to do long, we're not going to take an entire block, right? As you know, in radio. Yeah, we're not going to do 20, you know, after the 6-minute news, 24 minutes of We're gonna do 14 and then go to Anna Nicole, then come back to Britney. So it's a little faster pace. It's sort of a new thing we're doing. It's amazing at the development level, you know, it's a great time. As you know, when you start a show, the opportunities to really truly blue sky and talk about the big ideas can tend to evaporate because you gotta get the show on the air, especially with a daily show. And so in development, it's kind of nice where it's actually a process where we're talking about the big ideas and we, you know, we've been grappling with this idea of whether we would do Britney at all. Yeah. On the one hand, I mean, how can we not, you know, if we're the new arts and culture national show? I mean, it would seem like it's a big enough story on the landscape for us to do somehow and treat in our own way and bring a smart perspective to it or deconstruct celebrity in the new millennium. And then at the same time, it's sort of when you're getting something like that everywhere, and we don't want to just be— and we're certainly not going to be just a sort of a celebrity show— it becomes a question mark about whether we do it. So that's, that's been a debate we've been having. We have an enormous range of stuff to pull from, and we're, we're going to do what, what very few have done, which is try and fuse high art or the classic arts with, with as well stories and ideas around pop culture and popular arts and also around culture. So I mean, that opens up all kinds of questions, you know. Is sports culture? Say it is. How do we treat it? How are we different from the inside track, you know? Yeah. If when arts dissects with politics, how do we treat that? So Awesome. We see it as pretty wide-ranging.
