CALGARY — CBC Calgary announced today David Gray (above), long-time host of the radio morning show Calgary Eyeopener, is retiring from the CBC after 33 years with the public broadcaster.
Tomorrow (June 30) will be his final day on air.
Gray started his career with CBC TV’s The National in Toronto, before taking on a reporter job in 1990 in his hometown, Calgary. Two years later, he moved to Edmonton to become a legislature bureau chief. He later moved back to Toronto to work as a national reporter for the CBC business show Venture.
“It was a great gig. I lived on an airplane, told stories from every Canadian province and two of three territories, and somehow got married and started a family along the way,” Gray said in a press release announcing his retirement from the CBC.
Gray later returned to Calgary with his family, “at which point he began his hosting career with the first five years spent on Newsworld,” the release says. His CBC bio says he was the national host of CBC News: Today on Newsworld for six years.
“It’s where I really developed my interviewing chops, learning from Kathleen Petty, the late Henry Champ and other veterans of the game,” Gray said in the release. “Michael Enright gave me the best of advice, ‘the second question is always found in the first answer.’ He was right. It’s a listening job most of all.”
In 2008, Gray was made host of CBC Calgary’s afternoon show The Homestretch. “Two years later, the Calgary Eyeopener hosting role opened and Gray has now spent nearly the past dozen years hosting alongside his colleague Angela Knight,” the release explains.
“I’ve spent time on other shows (As it Happens, Sunday Edition, Cross Country Checkup) but the Eyeopener has always been where I feel I most belong,” Gray said.
“So why am I leaving the Eyeopener at the end of this month? Well, some sleep would be nice. I just know it’s time for me to do something else. And no, I don’t really know what that will be, but I look forward to finding out. I am retiring, for now, heading off in search of new adventures.”
“Excited as we are that David is writing a new chapter for himself, our audience and his colleagues will really miss his daily presence in our lives,” said CBC Calgary’s senior director of journalism and programming, Helen Henderson.
“Over more than a decade on the Eyeopener, his wonderful sense of humour, his amazing rapport with Angela Knight, and his unparalleled ability to firmly, yet respectfully hold power to account have made our show a ‘must listen’ destination for Calgarians,” Henderson said.
Photo provided by CBC.
