She was one of the rising stars of public radio, but it was ultimately at 98.5 that she could shine as a host. Starting next fall, Marie-Ève Tremblay will occupy the 10 a.m. to 12 p.m. slot currently held during the week by Nathalie Normandeau. The latter, we learned before the holidays, will form a tandem in another time slot with Luc Ferrandez.
“I have done many exciting things during my career, but I admit that this proposal satisfies me to the highest degree,” Marie-Ève Tremblay told me during an interview I had with her in the Cogeco offices.
Marie-Ève Tremblay has been part of the 98.5 team since the fall of 2022. After ten years in the digital service and on Radio-Canada radio, she decided to take the plunge by agreeing to become the collaborator of Bernard Drainville.
The day after this announcement, however, she learned that the host was leaving the airwaves to make a return to politics. It was finally with Luc Ferrandez, who then took his first steps as a host, that she teamed up.
Last summer, the bosses of 98.5 asked him to host the show which follows the daily morning show. This gave Radio Textos, a meeting where we should find the same colors next August. “The show that I am going to present will allow me to have one foot in current affairs and the other in social issues. That’s what interests me the most. »
Those who have followed Marie-Ève Tremblay for years know that her approach is based on field experiences. To do this, she often relies on suggestions from “ordinary people” who are made to her. An example ? A truck driver recently asked him to come drive around town with him to observe the behavior of motorists from the point of view of his vehicle.
“I saw a woman driving with a cigarette in one hand, a coffee in the other and her cell phone on her thigh. I couldn’t believe it,” she told me.
This presenter and journalist, trained at the Jonquière School of Media Art and Technology and at UQAM, quickly understood that the best reporting subjects must come directly from the person who will cover them. But above all, they must be inspired by the reality of citizens.
After an internship on the show Investigations where she worked on hot issues affecting municipal politics, she became one of the regular columnists for the Ici Première morning shows (she worked with Marie-France Bazzo, Alain Gravel and Patrick Masbourian). She is often in contact with listeners. She listens to their concerns.
When people began to say that work on the old Champlain Bridge was going to disrupt the lives of citizens, she decided to create an interactive map based on the experience of workers in the city center and on the Rive. -South.
This taste for reports stuck to the reality of listeners led him to live a host of “social experiences” which nourished the show web Heartstrings. “I searched for apartments with my name and an Arabic-sounding name,” she explains.
Another time, she pasted false posters with a nationalist flavor and others conveying values on the walls of UQAM. woke to test freedom of expression in academia. “I went to check every day with a teacher what treatment we reserved for the posters. A Palestinian advocacy group denounced the nationalist posters and posted on social media demanding the cancellation of my (made-up) conference because they thought it was racist. »
After that, Marie-Ève Tremblay became one of the standard bearers for podcasts on public radio. This gave Radicala series about people who held extremist positions and made a 180 degree turn, Secretswhere men and women reveal things they had always kept to themselves, Worst idea of my life: sugar babyon the phenomenon of sites which put young women in contact with sugar daddybut which are in reality disguised prostitution networks, and The village: murders, fights, pride about the gay village of Montreal.
“I like to know what I’m talking about,” she says. I have to go see, I have to go meet people. »
After ten years on public radio, Marie-Ève Tremblay received the offer to join the Cogeco family. The separation with Radio-Canada was amicable. “They tried to hold me back, but my idea was made up. »
Seven months before the launch of this new show, I felt the young host was already feverish. Several wires must be attached. Will there be collaborators? If yes, which ones ? How will we involve listeners? All this remains to be done.
In the meantime, the one who is from Chicoutimi is savoring this moment. She is visibly floating on a cloud. “Think about it, it’s a niche that has been occupied on various airwaves by extraordinary women like Christiane Charette, Catherine Perrin, Marie-France Bazzo, Isabelle Marechal and Nathalie Normandeau. And they offer me that. »