Andy Barrie, Host of Metro Morning

A lifelong habit is established

Andy's broadcast career started at summer camp when he was nine. He was assigned to wake up the campers every morning over the public address system.

As host of CBC Radio 99.1's Metro Morning, he's moved up from the loudspeaker's five watts to fifty thousand, speaking now to more than a quarter-million listeners a week.

Andy rediscovered his childhood fascination with radio while studying theatre at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. After university, he served the usual apprenticeship - staff announcer here, street reporter there, finally getting his own program with Metromedia Radio in Washington, D.C.

Andy was given Conscientious Objector status by his local draft board during the Vietnam War. Like all COs, Andy trained as a combat medic. In 1969, he received orders to be shipped to Vietnam. A conversation with his brother, a career officer who had just come back from two years there, confirmed Andy's decision to leave the U.S. for Canada.

He was introduced to CJAD Radio in Montreal, and when one of the station's long-time commentators resigned in protest during the October Crisis of 1970, Andy was named as his replacement. Less than a year after coming to Canada, he was thrown into what became a crash course in what it meant to be a Canadian broadcaster and citizen.

Andy on-location in 2004

In 1977, Andy moved to Toronto and a new job at CFRB, where his commentaries won him an ACTRA Award. He also tried television, working as an anchor, reporter and editorialist at Global Television.

He was described as one of the "most credible anchors in television" by broadcast veteran Ross McLean, but felt constrained by the medium and returned to radio. The Andy Barrie Show was the top-rated program in its time slot in Toronto for years.

The invitation to join the CBC in 1995 opened up a whole new dimension of Andy's career. He learned how to get up every morning at 4 to go to the studio, but he also discovered what happens in that studio - doing as many as 10 interviews a day, covering a vast range of subjects, people and moods.

Since 1995, Metro Morning's audience has grown to become the top-rated radio show in Toronto.