Drex is contemplating whether he needs to introduce afternoon naps to his day.
The former late night network host of Corus Radio’s The Shift with Drex took over the reins of the Jack 96.9 (CJAX-FM) Vancouver morning show on Wednesday.
“I haven’t done morning radio since I was fired from the Island in 2012 at 98.9 Jet [CFCP-FM) in the Comox Valley, and I haven’t run a radio board in-studio since 2014. I thought I was going to put the station off-air so many times,” Drex told Broadcast Dialogue, following Wednesday’s debut.
He’ll be joined on the show by former The Shift producer Bob Addison, who’ll take to the airwaves as “No Fun Bobby,” in addition to Lena Schulman, who was most recently with Byrnes Communications’ stations in Niagara Falls. The show will also feature the station’s digital content producer Ryan “Sully” Sullivan.
Please lower your Drexpectations for our new morning show 📻#DrexonJACK #Vancouver @drex @LenaRadio @riobobbo pic.twitter.com/QT1GQDsGLm
— JACK 96.9 Vancouver (@JACK969van) December 9, 2020
Drex, who revived Addison’s career in 2018 after the longtime Sportstalk producer was caught up in a round of layoffs at Corus three years earlier, said his move to Rogers Sports & Media was contingent on being able to bring along his The Shift collaborator.
“When Rogers kind of flagged the idea, I said ‘I have to be able to bring Bobby with me.’ He’s the producer and the sniper of the show…he comes in, says something inappropriate and then leaves us in the wake…’No Fun Bobby’ is the on-air handle that we landed on, because he’s somewhat curmudgeonly, he’s a bit of a luddite, but he’s also a producer of a morning show and he’s making it work.”
“We’ve also hired this amazingly hysterical woman, Lena Schulman. She’s worked at a few small market stations and started out as a producer for John Oakley at AM 640 in Toronto. I think she’s one of the funniest women on Canadian radio right now, no question,” said Drex.
Our new morning show is one hell of a Drexperience 👀🎧#DrexonJACK #Vancouver @drex @LenaRadio @riobobbo https://t.co/C5RijSlApc
— JACK 96.9 Vancouver (@JACK969van) December 9, 2020
A steep departure from the late night call-in he’s been hosting for the past three years, Drex said the show will still reflect “the opinionated knob that I am,” but he acknowledges that his new 2:30 a.m. wake-up call will require some adjustment.
“I’m exhausted. I’m actually starting to reach out to other morning show people and ask ‘do you nap in the afternoon?’ I did mornings for 10 years when I was a much younger man, but now that I’ve hit 42 I have to figure out what my sleeping schedule needs to be.
The new show replaces the previous morning show team of Jeff Brown, Charis Hogg and Paul Brown, who had together since Aug. 2018. They were released as part of layoffs across the Rogers Sports & Media division last month.
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