For the past nine years, Tracy Moore has been a fixture on Canadian daytime television as the host of Cityline.
Her City TV lifestyle show now reaches an even wider audience thanks to a recent U.S. syndication deal.
“I feel that we have something special that the audience that we’re going to get in the States will benefit from, so that makes it very exciting,” Moore, BA’98, said over the phone from Toronto where the show tapes.
Asked if she’ll have to change anything as a result, Moore says, “I think we could be a little bit more inclusive.
“We can’t talk about Queen Street. And really, we shouldn’t be talking about Queen Street even when we do the show here in Toronto because people in Vancouver are watching and people in P.E.I. are watching and Newfoundland. So that inclusivity we have to stretch that so that people understand that this content is for everyone.”
“We’re always going to be unabashedly Canadian because that’s who we are, that’s where we’re from, and that’s what the vibe is,” adds Moore, who grew up in Richmond Hill and now lives in downtown east Toronto. “But there isn’t any reason why that wouldn’t have some salience in the States.”
Moore caught the broadcasting bug at McGill, where she studied political science and became a regular at campus radio station CKUT. She started by reading announcements, then co-hosted a morning show with a friend.
“We did daily news. We didn’t know what we were doing, to be honest with you, but we did the best we could based on no knowledge.”
Moore loved her time at McGill. “There’s the actual education you get at McGill, which I believe is second to none … Then there’s the fact that you’re in the middle of Montreal. That culture really informed my experience. We protested tuition hikes, we tried to protect the African-Canadian studies program. It was vibrant and it was active. It was very easy to become a part of the Montreal culture while being at McGill.”
She earned a master’s in journalism at Western University and began working in television. She met her husband Lio Perron at CBC, when they both worked there as reporters.
At City TV, where she worked as the live reporter on Breakfast Television, Moore got a chance to audition to host Cityline.
Hosting a lifestyle program hadn’t been on her radar.
“My husband and I were such news hounds,” Moore says, rhyming off their news-watching and news-reading routine.
However, she quickly warmed to the idea.
The learning curve was steep, acknowledges Moore, who hadn’t been a viewer of the show. She had to learn the format, and get to know the guest experts, producers and viewers. “I was very focused on explaining to people who I was and showing them who I was, and calling people who had called in and complained, ‘I will never watch this show again!’”
She would call back and write the naysayers “and they are probably some of my biggest fans now, because … it’s disarming.”
Moore, the mother of two, also has a clothing line sold on The Shopping Channel that bears her name. Freda’s, a women’s fashion company, designs and manufactures the line, while Moore, who helps pick fabric and offers her input, says she’s the marketing woman and learning the rules as she goes. “We’ve already gotten a couple of my pieces on … Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, which is amazing and has really helped our sales numbers and our recognition.”
With episode No. 2,000 for Moore on the horizon, she says her all-time favourite episodes are the #CitylineReal shows “where none of us wear makeup. We go on completely plain-faced and we talk about all the issues that are not really being discussed on Canadian daytime television” such as body image, infertility and the truth behind plastic surgery.
She began the first one by peeling off false eyelashes and wiping off her makeup.
“I love those shows. I live for them.”
Moore says she’s shocked there are still days on the show where she hasn’t done a recipe or DIY project before.
“So there’s still a bit of a honeymoon phase going on with me and the show. And nine years in, I think that’s the reason why I am not looking for another job … I’m just very happy here.”
Cityline airs Monday-Friday across Canada at 9 a.m. on City TV.
