Radio | Maripier Morin and Marie-Ève ​​Janvier, the new accomplices

With the fall school year just days away, radio stations continue to make small changes to their programming. Starting September 3, Maripier Morin will co-host the show The Lunch Girlson the airwaves of 105.7 Rythme FM, replacing Patricia Paquin. The Press looks back on this new hire.

When Maripier Morin learned two weeks ago that she was losing her microphone on the WKND 99.5 FM morning show, We’ll start off the same way.which she co-hosted with Patrick Langlois, Vincent Dessureault and Maxime Roberge, she had to take the blow. The axe fell two days before the funeral of her brother, who killed himself this summer. Despite everything, the host and actress explains to us that she felt a certain “inner peace”.

“I had a really difficult summer emotionally,” Maripier Morin, who was in Quebec City this week following the death of her grandmother, told us. “I lost my younger brother Raphaël this summer, on July 9, just four days after giving birth… so I thought that with everything that had happened, it was a sign of life. I thought: maybe I’m not supposed to work this fall, I need to rest.”

But her new availability has attracted radio stations, which are engaged in a heated on-air battle for the fall season, starting with Cogeco Media. Its vice-president of strategies, music stations and digital platforms, Jean-Sébastien Lemire, was convinced that with Marie-Ève ​​Janvier, Maripier Morin would form a winning team. “Maripier corresponds in her moment of life to Rythme’s target,” he says.

Without naming the other competitors who contacted her, Maripier Morin tells us that “it wasn’t just Cogeco who called.” “Radio is a medium of opportunities,” she says. “When you see people lose a microphone, a window of opportunity opens. I think that’s what happened.”

When he was asked to co-host the show The Lunch Girlsshe therefore had to re-evaluate the situation, she who defines herself as “a girl of action”.

“I had to do some soul searching because I had come to terms with the idea of ​​staying home with my baby,” continues Maripier Morin, who also has a 2-year-old daughter. “What tipped the scales was Marie-Ève.” [Janvier]. I wanted to work with her. I wanted to connect with her good humor, her kindness, her benevolence. That’s what I needed and that’s what I wanted to do.”

End of contract with Patricia Paquin

Obviously, to create this new tandem, Cogeco Media had to end its collaboration with host Patricia Paquin, who had co-hosted the show with Marie-Ève ​​Janvier for two years.

The experienced host, who did not wish to speak with The Presslearned the news “a few days” before her scheduled return to the airwaves on August 19, according to Jean-Sébastien Lemire, who admits that everything happened very quickly the previous week. “We offered other mandates to Patricia, but our discussions were not conclusive. That said, that does not mean that we will not collaborate with her again. Patricia is a talented host and we are very inclined to work with her again.”

Marie-Ève ​​Janvier, who co-hosted the show with Julie Bélanger before working with Patricia Paquin, sent her a message of friendship on Instagram. She had nothing but good words for her former accomplice.

“Patricia is a friend, she’s a girl I admire a lot. It’s a bit of a delicate situation, because she’s someone I really like, like Maripier, but these are management decisions, programming decisions, and we try to be as calm and human as possible in this. We spoke afterwards, and our friendship will continue. Pat is someone who bounces back, who has a lot of talent and who still has lots of projects in mind,” Marie-Ève ​​Janvier tells us.

A “5 to 7 at noon”

With Maripier Morin, she hopes to create a daily meeting that will be “a 5 to 7 at noon”. “There will be no alcohol, and we’ll have fun just as much,” says Marie-Ève ​​Janvier, laughing. Maripier, we know her for her rigor, for her no-filter attitude, she is authentic, she proved how happy people were to hear her on WKND. I know we’re going to have fun together. Like with Patricia, it’s a meeting that we live.”

Even if they are not (yet) great friends, Maripier and Marie-Ève ​​have intertwined destinies.

Maripier’s boyfriend, actor Jean-Philippe Perras, was best friends with Marie-Ève ​​Janvier’s brother, who died 11 years ago. “My daughter’s name is Margot Louis, after Marie-Ève’s brother,” Maripier explains. “And Marie-Ève ​​has a son named Louis… So I think life decided that. And we have a similar profile, we’re both career moms!” adds Maripier, who also worked with Marie-Ève ​​at the time of the TV station that bore the name V.

So what will this new version of the Lunch Girls ? “Maripier’s arrival brings something new in itself,” replies Marie-Ève ​​Janvier, who plays in the musical Waitress right now in Quebec. “Afterwards, the watchword is to have fun and be as real as possible. We talk about what we experience. Going grocery shopping on a Saturday morning with my three children, I do it like everyone else.”

Maripier Morin, who had a very emotional summer, would like to address the issue of mourning on the show, but “in a bright way.”

“It’s in Rythme’s DNA to talk about these subjects,” adds Marie-Ève ​​Janvier, who admits that the station’s main clientele is female. “We talk as much about women’s aches and pains, premenopause, sexuality, children, back to school, lunches, as we do about our jobs and careers.”

Like last year, a “swivel chair” will give the duo the opportunity to welcome a guest (man or woman) to discuss current topics with them. “It could be a friend, a special guest, a discovery,” says Marie-Ève ​​Janvier. “There will be regular guests, others who will come occasionally, depending on current events.”

The two new accomplices, two young women who describe themselves as “perfectly imperfect,” are already eager to break the ice on September 3. Their complicity is already palpable in the interview. It remains to be seen how this new friendship will be transmitted on air.