Dave Bronstetter (CBC photo)
Dave Bronstetter, the veteran CBC Montreal personality who was most recently the host of radio’s All in a Weekend, is hanging up the microphone after more than three decades in broadcasting.
The announcement was made Saturday morning on his show by Sonali Karnick, who has been replacing Bronstetter. Bronstetter has been on leave from his show since last fall for reasons that haven’t been made very clear publicly.
Karnick said Bronstetter will return to do one final show with her on Feb. 18. They will be running some best-of clips between now and then, and have asked listeners to send in their favourite memories and leave goodbye messages for him.
Most Montrealers will associate Bronstetter with his long stints as host of weekday shows Homerun (in the late 80s) and then Daybreak, from when Royal Orr left 1996 until 2006, when he stepped away from a five-day-a-week job to take the reins at All in a Weekend.
At the time, Bronstetter said burnout and fatigue we having serious effects on his health.
I’ve been asked a few times over the past few months about why he’s been on extended leave. Bronstetter himself has been asked about it a lot as well, at least through posts on his Facebook wall. In response, he’s been mostly vague, saying he hopes to come back soon and he’s getting better by the day.
Bronstetter just celebrated his 59th birthday, though his Facebook profile has him listed as being born in 1905.
The announcement didn’t include news about Bronstetter’s permanent replacement at All in a Weekend. Karnick left her job as sports reporter for Daybreak to take up a job at CBC Sports in Toronto. She was recently brought in as the interim host of All in a Weekend, supposedly until the end of the season. Karnick would be an obvious choice, assuming she’s interested in staying.
UPDATE: A story from The Gazette, which confirms no permanent replacement has been chosen but Karnick will continue until the end of the season. The news was also mentioned on CTV’s local newscast.
UPDATE (Feb. 6): Brendan Kelly, who worked with Bronstetter as a regular contributor to Daybreak, talks to Bronstetter, who confirms he’s leaving on the advice of his doctor because he’s burned out and depressed.
There are some very heart-felt comments left on the All in a Weekend Facebook page for Dave. You can check them out, and post your own, at
https://www.facebook.com/allinaweekend
If this has anything to do with mental health issues, like depression or burn out, I can understand him wanting privacy — but at the same time it can be such a powerful thing when a well-known person shares their struggles. I wish him all the best. I really miss him as Daybreak host.
I will miss Dave very much. Only moved to Montreal two years ago and accidently tuned in one early Saturday morning on my way to the airport. I was hooked!
Not an early morning person, especially on the weekends, but found myself invariably tuning in while still in bed.
I do think CBC’s secrecy(about Dave) was harmful, they could have just said he was off indefinitely and he didn’t want to discuss it. Instead we kept getting little hints, tidbits of information which, in my opinion, was wrong. I am concerned about Sonali’s future. It seems very unjust that she was pulled away from her new job in Toronto. She was so excited about the new position and now they are delaying her return to Toronto, sad. It is so obvious that she loves sports, always sounds so animated when she discusses sporting events on the weekend show.