Dean Blundell Q&A: Radio host returns with few regrets
As Dean Blundell gets set to be the new host of the morning show on Sportsnet 590 The FAN, the station is running commercials of the on-air personality with duct tape over his mouth and the tag line: “Reprogrammed.”
After a sit-down interview with Blundell on Friday, we might add “chastened, but unrepentant.” The former shock jock on the Edge 102.1 has been out of work since last January, when a number of controversies caused him to lose his job after more than 13 years at the Corus-owned station.
Blundell spent time with his family, started a podcast and began filling in at Sportsnet in the summer of 2014. That was a trial run, which led to his new show, Dean Blundell and Co., announced in January. On Friday, it was also announced that he will be joined on the air by Sportsnet personalities George Rusic, Kayla Harris and producer Ryan Fabro.
Blundell comes with a lot of baggage after several broadcast complaints for crude attempts at humour, which were often labelled homophobic. Today, after time to consider his actions, he doesn’t apologize for the comments but does say that he has learned from those incidents and doesn’t want to be “hurtful.”
While there are many who won’t change their mind about Blundell based on his previous body of work, he says he’s excited about this opportunity, talking about it like it’s a dream come true.
For Rogers and Sportsnet radio, which already dominates the local airwaves over TSN 1050, this is a calculated gamble. Their hope is that his new persona won’t turn off his followers, and that Blundell’s old fans are willing to follow him to this new gig.
We’ll give Blundell some credit. If there is one media outlet he has reason to dislike it is the Toronto Star, which led coverage of the sex assault case — in which his former producer, Derek Welsman, was the jury foreman — that was jeopardized because of offensive jokes on Blundell’s show. The incident led to Blundell’s firing.
Nothing was off-limits in Friday’s question-and-answer session. Blundell didn’t duck any questions:
Are you a homophobe?
No (laughs), absolutely not. And you know, it’s interesting, that’s been the hurtful part of this thing. People have used that word liberally about me. (The people who called me that) didn’t listen to 13 years of what we did. They didn’t listen to the fact that we had tons of alternative lifestyle guests, hosts and co-hosts. They didn’t listen to us chastise Rob Ford for not going to Pride. They didn’t listen to us consistently and always side with the LGBT community. People who listened to our show — someone who knows who I am, someone that is a fan of what we have done — knows that any of the humour that we dished out, we dished out to every category, to every group, and it was humour. It was a joke.
Do you regret any of the gay jokes you made?
I regret some of the insensitivities involved and some of the subjects of humour that we used. Times change. I regret that people misrepresented what I was. I regret people misinterpreted a lot of the stuff that was said. But more importantly I regret using negativity, or certain groups to be portrayed in a negative way, even in humour.
The easiest thing you could have done was issue an apology. Why haven’t you?
No. For what? What did I get fired for? A man sexually assaulted people. We chastised a criminal. Had that man sexually assaulted women, we wouldn’t be sitting here today. I didn’t make a gay joke. I didn’t go after a victim. I went after a predator who went to jail and was convicted by a jury for assaulting people.
One of the victims from that case called me after I wrote the first story about your new job, and he said he was appalled that you are going to be allowed back on the air.
That’s fine. That’s his opinion. Everyone is allowed it.
A sports-related controversy you had to deal with was about Kristians Pelss (an Oilers prospect who died in his native Latvia. At first, he was reported missing and Blundell made a joke that it was because he didn’t want to be in Edmonton. He later apologized.) What did you learn from that?
Maybe wait for an outcome before you say something. I think that was a great learning experience for me, and I truly apologize, because I had no idea. That was just a joke about Edmonton being cold and a crappy place to live — and I lived there, so I can say it with authority. There’s a sensitivity that I have today that I didn’t have before. That’s common sense. I don’t want to hurt anybody. I don’t want to be hateful. I don’t want to make light of something that could be devastating to a family or a group of people. It’s not in me anymore.
What is going to be different about the new show?
I think I am about 10 pounds heavier. I think lots. One of the things that I wasn’t allowed to do in the old format was sports. Apparently the fastest thing you can do to turn off an alternative rock format is to talk sports, and I love sports. I’m a sports head. I watch the SportsCentre loop every morning. I am a diehard Oilers fan. I played university sports. I love to golf. I love the drama with sports. The drama involved in a win or a loss and then dissecting it, with a group of people that love it as much as you, is something I’ve wanted to do my whole life.
There have been rumours that it was difficult to find people who wanted to work with you.
Not at all. We had hundreds of applications. We had people from across Canada come in and the great part of this company, this place is full of talented people, and some people aren’t getting heard . . . the people we were using to get used to the format were the best people. Like George Rusic, he is brilliant and the funniest person I’ve ever worked with. Kayla Harris has been here for years, and she is as knowledgeable about sports as anybody I have ever met. She was one of four female candidates and had the lowest profile of the four, and it was a no-brainer as well. Our producer, Ryan Fabro, is phenomenal. I’m only as good as all of those people. They deserve a ton of credit, and they beat out a ton of people who have been doing morning radio in markets across Canada.
