If there was a candidate for “Mr. Edmonton,” Mike Sobel would be right up there. Even though he’s now semi-retired, Sobel has become such a fixture on our TV screens, from hosting cartoon shows and rock-video programs, to 25 years of work on the Global Morning News. The velvety voice. The unflappable smile.
And, as Global Edmonton, previously ITV, celebrates its 50 anniversary this weekend, Sobel looked back on his first day in front of a camera, and how fortune smiled on him.
It was the 1980s. Ankle pants were a thing. Mesh tops. Big dangly earrings. You used enough hair product, the do was like a rock sitting on top of your head. Sobel was an on-air personality on 92.5 FM, which at the time was CJAX, a country station.
ITV was well-known for being the little station that could, from producing Oilers broadcasts to being the home of SCTV. The famous series had just finished its run of Edmonton-based episodes, and ITV’s brass was looking for new ideas. The decision was made that a new program would be simulcast on CJAX. It would feature a host interviewing local country and rock acts, and then they’d have the chance to play. It would be on TV and radio at the same time.
Marty Forbes, who was the program manager at CJAX, asked Sobel if he’d want to be the host of this new show.
And a career began. Even now, Sobel thinks back to that first day.
“Looking back at my career, it’s very special. I think back a lot to the opportunity that was given to me. I’ve never taken it for granted,” he says. “I knew about the legends who had come from ITV, and there I was, given the opportunity, to get my foot in the door just a little bit, with no experience whatsoever.”
After that first show wrapped, another hosting opportunity came. Then another. You may remember HIQ, a quiz show for high-school students that Sobel hosted. As Sobel explains, TV was a lot different back then. Today, local TV stations really only produce the news in-studio, and don’t generate a lot of other programming. But, in the 1980s and 1990s, ITV/Global was churning out shows not just for local audiences, but for national (and in the case of SCTV), international audiences.
And, as the host of Disney Afternoon, Sobel would get mail from across the country.
“I was so lucky, so fortunate, that ITV was so production-oriented at the time,” he says.
Those years of hosting springboarded him onto the Morning News, where was a fixture for a quarter-century. Even though he’s “retired,” he still comes back to the studio to some on-air segments.
He said ITV/Global in Edmonton was special because so many creative people were allowed to stretch their wings, far away from the so-called tastemakers in Toronto or New York or Los Angeles. Edmonton’s isolation led to some pretty great TV.
“I was allowed to fly by the seat of my pants, these are the sorts of opportunities that aren’t available anymore.”
