Brent Bambury
Brent began his radio career at CBC stations in Saint John, Halifax and Montreal. In 1984 he started working for Radio Two's Brave New Waves
and then joined the show in 1985 as permanent host. Brent became known
as a purveyor of obscure and emerging music, and a guide to alternative
culture. He stayed up late and drank the best coffee in Montreal.
From Baseball Hats to Neckties
In 1995 he got a new wardrobe and joined Tina Srebotnjak on CBC TV's Midday.
He had to move to Toronto, wake up early, and he quit wearing baseball
hats on the air. For five years he was host of the popular daily
national broadcast and for most of that time he wore a necktie.
In 2000 Brent helped Kai Black and David Carroll re-invent the game show genre with their highly successful Radio One show, Off the Cuff. It was the first of three shows the team would create from zero, along with GrooveShinny and GO!
Brent was co-host of the movie review TV show FLICK on the Life Network from 2000 to 2001.
On the Air in the Nation's Capital
In 2002 Brent moved to Ottawa to take over as host of Ottawa's top-rated afternoon radio current affairs program, All in a Day. In 2003, Brent also began hosting the national music quiz show GrooveShinny. And then in the summer of 2003 GO!
was created as a national, live radio-variety show. For a while Brent
was busy with three radio shows, but eventually scaled back and now
he's happy just doing GO!, which continues to draw huge audiences with its Saturday mayhem.
In the summer of 2004 Brent was host of the CBC TV special One Night in Acadie, which won a Gabriel award certificate of merit. In 2007 he joined co-host Wendy Mesley on the hit TV show Test the Nation, which garnered over 1.5 million viewers for the CBC.
Brent has worked as freelance host, critic, commentator and has written for The Globe and Mail and The National Post.
Spreading the Love of Opera
In
2000 he was asked by Richard Bradshaw to help create the Opera 101
series to bring opera to a wider audience. He’s not an expert in the
form but he loves opera and the edition of GO! called “Richard Bradshaw Presents the Greatest Love Songs of All Time” remains one of his favourites.