QUB radio is being transferred to TV today

It’s not every day that a new specialty channel is launched in Quebec. This is what the TVA Group is doing this Thursday by deploying QUB radio on TV with all its star hosts.

In addition to Mathieu Bock-Côté who inherits his own show presented from Paris (Monday to Thursday, at 8 a.m.), QUB highlights, during the week, Alexandre Dubé (from 6 a.m.), Richard Martineau (from 9 a.m.), Benoit Dutrizac (from 11:30 a.m.), Yasmine Abdelfadel (from 2 p.m.), Sophie Durocher (from 3 p.m.) and Mario Dumont (from 4 p.m.).

In fact, regulars of digital radio, on the air for five years, will find themselves there. Cameras will now capture live, from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., all programs to broadcast them on Helix (channel 70) and illico (channel 651) for Videotron subscribers. The QUB channel will also be offered to Telus subscribers.

• Listen to the first editorial in the history of QUB on television, made by Alexandre Dubé, on his morning show.

In the evening, QUB will rebroadcast the best segments of the day and on weekends, we will offer other original content, including podcast productions.

“We do radio on TV, all in a podcast universe,” the general director of QUB and “Guide de l’auto”, Jean-Nicolas Gagné, told the QMI Agency.

By launching a digital radio in 2018 as well as a podcast library, QUB innovated while Quebec was lagging behind in this area, unlike the United States or Europe. The arrival of QUB on TV is an opportunity to go further, according to Mr. Gagné, who promises a lot of authenticity through the analysis of current events and opinion.

“We want to showcase our content on as many platforms as possible, whether audio, audiovisual or digital. We innovate because we believe in our content and we no longer want to limit it to audio. There is still a gap to make up for this type of offer in Quebec and I am sure that we will catch up,” he indicated, adding that the visual style of QUB has been “modernized” for the opportunity in order to stick more to the atmosphere of conversational podcasts.

“The trend is already well established in the United States, particularly in sport, to take podcast products and put them on traditional channels. Our goal is to expand our audience, show how mature our product is and gain followers.”

A “historic moment” for Richard Martineau

Richard Martineau, columnist also in The Montreal Journal and which we see in the morning on LCN, evokes a “historic moment” by saying that “radio has never gone this far”.

“Almost all radio broadcasts in France are available visually, there are cameras. It’s another thing to hear people talk than to see them. If you say something ironic, you show it in your face that you don’t mean what you said. I like to use humor and it comes across better on TV. I went to Dollarama earlier and bought lots of patents to add fun things. It’s not because we deal with current affairs that we have to have funeral faces. I find it very exciting to arrive on television.

Return to TV for Benoit Dutrizac

Benoit Dutrizac speaks of a “laboratory”. “We make news every day on the radio and we will also do it on TV. I think we are creating a phenomenon, we are creating something original by arriving on TV. Limited resources require creativity. You may not have the budget to do exactly what you want to do, but you find ways to be bold and original.”

For his part, the president of the Professional Federation of Journalists of Quebec, Éric-Pierre Champagne, welcomes the arrival of QUB radio on television. “It’s always interesting to see new voices that provide information and where there are public debates. Especially at a time when the media are experiencing a number of difficulties. Good news is rare and this one is interesting,” he stressed.

Upcoming move

For the moment, QUB is installed near the Berri-UQAM station, but in a few months, the teams will move to new state-of-the-art facilities where they will be reunited with The Montreal Journal and VAT. Instead of having just one complete conversational studio, they will be able to operate two at the new address, 4545 Frontenac, in Montreal, which will make it possible to produce more content.

Many collaborators

QUB is a lot of collaborators and many current meetings where we hotly debate current and social issues.

Among the collaborators, there is for example Jean-François Baril (sport and society), Yves Daoust (economics), Maxime Deland (judicial news), Nicole Gibeault (judicial news), Michel Girard (economics), Francis Gosselin (economics) , Antoine Joubert (automobile), Amir Khadir (politics), Luc Laliberté (American politics), Emmanuelle Latraverse (politics), Anne-Marie Ménard (sexuality), Antoine Robitaille (politics), Félix Séguin (judicial news and organized crime) and Stéphanie Villeneuve (culture).

Without forgetting deans Normand Lester and Gilles Proulx, who will share their opinions and expertise in different QUB meetings.