I CAN'T TAKE A GOOD PICTURE

Calgary Sun (Swerve Magazine)
Friday Aug 29th

LAST FRIDAY, Meg and I were excited to hear the morning show would be featured in the Herald. Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining; any coverage is good coverage. I thought Meg looked great in the pic but I look like some slime ball goof trying to pick her up with my wad of a wallet and business card. To make matters worse, the article stated I worked in Hamilton. I've barely stopped there for gas. That said, I'm not trying to attack Steel Town but I've never worked there. Funny, every single time I've been in the paper, it's always been a bad pic and there's been some misinformation. I'm starting to think I'm just not meant for print.

Well, here's the article, thanks for reading and hope you had a great long weekend.

FREEWAY FRANK & MEG TUCKER
Energy 101.5 FM
FREEWAY AND MEG IN THE MORNING
WEEKDAYS 5:30—9 A.M.

Former competitors on the Toronto radio scene, Meg and Frank were enticed out to Calgary in the spring of 2007 to create a new morning team. “To make magic, it doesn’t happen right away,” Frank says, conceding there were some bumps along the way. “But one day, it just changed. Right before Christmas, something changed. Everything just came together. Now, we’re like brother and sister.”

And Meg is one sister who can give as good as she gets. “I can hold my own with the boys and I’m proud of that.”

FROM THERE TO HERE

Frank has been in radio for 18 years, getting his start in Hamilton prior to stints in his native Montreal, Vancouver and Toronto, where his sole contact with Meg was at a bar where she tried to set him up with her friend. Meg (who worked in event marketing, but did standup comedy on the side) made it on air after winning a contest to dish on a reality show on CHUM FM and TV in Toronto. After her eight-week stint, she was offered the entertainment-correspondent spot on the morning show.

EARLY TO BED

“I am a toddler,” Meg says in reference to her bedtime of 8 p.m. Frank has her beat, hitting the sack at 6:55 p.m. on one occasion, though 9:15 p.m. is more usual for him. That said, Meg’s up at 3:30 a.m. and he only reaches for the alarm clock at 4 a.m.

WHAT’S GREAT ABOUT RADIO?

“People really have to use their heads to visualize what’s going on in the studio. TV, it’s tough too, but they have visual aids. We have to do it basically on our own,” Frank says. “We do it through theatre of the mind. To me, that’s what’s compelling. That’s what excites me.”

WORST ON-AIR MOMENT

“I try to be uber-careful,” says Meg, who’s never—yet—let a curse drop on air. That said, there’s an occasional slip of the tongue, such as when she learned that Estelle Getty of The Golden Girls had died. “And I said, ‘That’s crazy,’ but she died of dementia,” Meg recalls with a groan. “But that’s the vernacular of a thirtysomething woman.”

BEST ON-AIR MOMENT

Frank wears his heart on his sleeve with this one: “When Nelly Furtado said she used to listen to me in her room in Victoria when I was on air in Vancouver.” (Yup, that’s the songbird by Frank’s side in his profile pic on his myspace page.)