CityLine is one of my favourite television shows, which is in part because of the beautiful and talented host, Tracy Moore. With a background in journalism, Tracy joined CityTV’s Breakfast Television in 2005, and in the fall of 2008 was chosen to succeed Marilyn Denis at the host of CityLine.
Tracy recently returned to work, six weeks after the birth of her second child, daughter Eva…and is unfairly energetic and enthusiastic! She carved a few minutes in to her busy schedule to chat with me (with some cute baby sounds in the background).
This Mom: Let’s rewind a couple of years. Take me back to the moment you found out you were chosen as the new host of CityLine.
Tracy Moore: Ah, that was such a good moment. Whenever it’s been a show I’m not exactly happy about I think back to when they told me I got the job and it makes me happy. It was a long quote-unquote “interview process”. My firstborn was about three months old when I started auditioning for the show, and there were so many people coming in and out of there I wasn’t sure which way it was going to go, and I remember near the end of the process I had actually called up the supervising producer, and I said to her “Listen, I’m on my maternity leave, it’s short enough as it is, and if this is going nowhere, can you please let me know because I would just as soon spend more time at home with my kid, rather than jumping in to hair and makeup every couple of weeks and auditioning for this thing.” I didn’t know how it was going.
She said to me “I strongly suggest you stay in there and go through the entire process,” and I thought “That might be a good sign!” So I stuck around ’til the end. They told me at some point right near the end of the summer “We want you to do a whole week on your own, we think it’s yours to lose, if you can knock it out of the ball park the job is yours,” and I remember just thinking “Oh my God, I can’t believe I’ve come this far!” We did the week, and at the end of that week they called me up and told me that they were offering me the job. It was so exciting! I told my husband right away, because of course he’s my biggest cheerleader, between him and my parents, and we had a little “This is amazing!” party, and then I started the following week. I’ve honestly been in the honeymoon stage ever since.
{The whole TM/TM thing isn’t going to work for this interview, so I’ll stick with the full names!}
This Mom: Why was the decision made for CityLine not to air live anymore?
Tracy Moore: We wanted to follow Breakfast Television, and the situation is that we share a studio with Breakfast Television, and our show needs about an hour to set up furniture, but because we’re in the same studio as BT, and we wanted to air at 9:00, we basically had to keep our tapings at 10 a.m., but then air at 9 a.m. a week later. We didn’t want to confuse the days, because people are used to coming in Monday for an “Around the House” show, and Friday for a “Fashion Friday”, so we decided to air a week later so we could follow the ratings giant that is Breakfast Television and also still keep our days uniform.
This Mom: It must help too now that all of the recipes and directions and links are on the website ready to go by the time the shows air.
Tracy Moore: It does. Now we’re packaging our promos and teasers and all of that can be done a week in advance so it’s great.
This Mom: What is your favourite day of the week on CityLine?
Tracy Moore: It’s changed! In the beginning I was a devout “Fashion Friday” girl, and now I’m loving Wednesdays, when we do Family Days. It’s a huge mix of family-friendly recipes, and sometimes we talk about sex, or health. I just find the atmosphere really fun because we get parents to bring their kids in, and it’s chaos. And I’m sure you’re living in chaos, because I’m living in chaos, so when I go on Wednesdays it’s just like being at my house! {I noticed she didn’t mention Mondays, which are my least favourite day, solely because I do not cook! Although the chefs can be entertaining, as soon as I see one of them I realize that the episode will have little impact on my home life!}
This Mom: How does it work with your fantastic wardrobe…do you wear your own clothes, or are they provided?
Tracy Moore: I do switch in some of my own pieces, but for the most part I borrow from
Freda’s. Basically they know my sizing, and I’ll go in every once in a while and get resized if I’m pregnant, or losing baby weight, and they know my style and pick out a bunch of stuff for me with accessories, and I’ll come pick it up and drop it off.
This Mom: I know you’re a big shoe fan. Do you have a favourite?
Tracy Moore: Nine West is my sponsor and I’ve always been a big fan. Like a girl’s dream come true!
This Mom: Switching gears to the parenting side of things now – when you first became a parent {her son Sidney was born in April 2008} what do you think was the biggest sacrifice you had to make?
Tracy Moore: Sleep. It is and will always be the saddest thing about being a parent. {Oh, how I agree.} Some people handle it so well and I don’t know how they’re hardwired. To be honest with you, I didn’t think it was going to be as devastating as it was. My husband could handle it better because he’s never been a good sleeper, but I’ve always been a ‘get six to eight hours’ kind of girl and with Sidney, my first, he wanted to graze constantly. That is the hardest thing. Eva is a little different. She sleeps for longer periods of time. I’m less crazy this time, and I don’t know if it’s because I’ve done it already or if it’s because Lio’s home and we’re doing shifts now, but I’d love to be able to sleep for eight hours and I know that’s not happening for what, 18 years?
This Mom: How do you and Lio find couple time?
Tracy Moore: Lately it’s like turning on the PVR and watching our favourite shows together. {Which is coincidentally exactly what my husband and I do every night…and we’re two and a half years out of the newborn phase!} Sometimes I’ll sacrifice some of the time I could be sleeping to just hang out with him, because quite frankly I miss my husband. You go through all these months and months of divide and conquer, because he’s always with the toddler and I’m with the baby, and then it’s like “I remember when we used to hang out! It used to be fun!” We miss each other. Sometimes we just hang out in the kitchen and he’ll be reading a newspaper and I’ll be reading a magazine and we just talk about that, like we used to do. What we also did while I was on my very short maternity leave is going to the Movies For Mommies, and we can bring the baby with us.
This Mom: You knew you were having a girl this time but you didn’t tell?
Tracy Moore: I didn’t tell my parents! I basically told the audience every day at CityLine, I just didn’t say it on air because my parents watch the show and I didn’t want to ruin it for them because for some reason they like to keep the surprise going.
This Mom: What was your decision-making process in terms of only taking six weeks of maternity leave this time around?
Tracy Moore: I had already decided that I would want to have another child, and I talked about it with my boss and I said “I know we’re in this situation where it’s not like Breakfast Television {the show she was on when Sidney was born} where there are five people doing the show. There’s one of me, so it’s a little bit different and a little more challenging to take off a lot of time.” So I said “Listen, I’m willing to take off only a few weeks for maternity leave, as long as when I come back it’s a reduced shift.” I’m just coming in, doing hair and makeup, doing the show, and going home. I can do that for a long period of time, until I’ve weaned the baby off, and I also talked to Lio and he decided he was willing to take the year off for paternity leave. As long as I knew that I could leave the baby with my husband and that I’d only be gone for a couple of hours every day, I was okay with it.
Of course my boss was elated, because even for the six weeks it’s a tough transition to make, bringing in different hosts. It’s fun and it’s a nice change for a little while but there’s a lot to remember hosting the show and it’s hard to be breaking in a new person every day and still keep the quality where they want it to be. The producers put so much work into their shows so it’s nice when the host can just jump in and do what they’re supposed to do.
Plus, we all know it’s the television industry, people can not go away for a year. {I was so glad that she mentioned this point and didn’t shy away from it. In her business, being gone for the entire length of a mat leave and allowing yourself to be replaced is dangerous, even for someone as talented as Tracy.}
This Mom: You moved to a new home last Spring. What can you tell us about it?
Tracy Moore: We probably closed at the end of March but we didn’t actually move in until June, so there were about six weeks that we were living at my parents’ house. Interesting. That’s while I was pregnant, and we were renovating the kitchen. We moved in at the end of June, and it’s been a great move. As frustrating as the renovation was, and it was frustrating, it was never done when it was supposed to be done and there was always something and I was regretting the whole thing, now that we’re actually in here the extra space has been just great for having a baby because we have three floors now. So I’m up on the third floor with the baby at night when she’s screaming because she’s got gas, and they can’t really hear her, and Lio is on the same floor as Sidney, so if Sidney happens to wake up over night Eva and I aren’t disturbed. It’s been nice. We have a basement with a TV and her swing and a playroom. It’s great.
This Mom: How would you complete the sentence “This Mom loves…”?
Tracy Moore: Some things I find essential right now are nursing tops from
My Bump; the line is called Boob. Love this stuff. I have two tops, two tank tops and a dress, and it’s what I rotate every time I come home from work. I use
Weleda Baby Tummy Oil for her gas, it calms her down overnight.
Burt’s Bees products I love, their Baby Bee products, particularly their Nappy Ointment with Vitamin E, and their Buttermilk Lotion, and
Boiron, which is a homeopathic brand which is all-natural stuff which you can give your little ones for coughs and colds. I like their Stodal for Sidney’s cough and Coryzalia for colds, and I have Camilia for when the teething starts. These are the things I use constantly and love.
CityLine is one of the things I miss most about not living in TO.. great interview
Great interview Kate. I took a look at some of the products that Tracy mentioned. She has very sweet kids!
I have always been a Cityline fan! I think Tracy is doing a great job as the new-ish host. It must have been hard coming in after Marilyn Dennis, who was also fantastic. Good interview Kate.