Last night I headed out to Starbucks to get lattes for myself and my husband so we could curl up on the couch to watch the first episode of the new Rogers TV (Channel 63) show, ‘Davidson Live’. I was pretty excited…any excuse to get my municipal politics fix – and with no council meeting this week, I was ready to check out the action.
Latte Time
‘Davidson Live’ is a live Public Affairs TV talk show which will run bi-weekly on Rogers TV. Host, Darrin Davidson will have guests on and viewers will have the opportunity to call in and ask questions of the guests. Pretty cool concept, in my humble opinion!
Darrin Davidson was one of the 14 candidates that ran for the position of councillor in this falls’ municipal election. This was his second attempt at office, so he is no stranger to the municipal politics world.
Last night’s show had guests Mayor Jeremy Williams and new chief of police Wayne Kalinski.
Now, with all the controversy that is surrounding our new council as well as the past controversy surrounding Orangeville Police Service, I for one was very interested to see how the citizens of our community felt and what questions they would ask.
The show started out with some basic introductions and some quick easy questions to Mayor Williams. I was happy to see that Mr. Davidson wasn’t going to stick with the easy questions…he was ready to ask some tough questions. 15 minutes in, I was waiting for the questions to start from the viewers, but that part never came. (This was pretty unfortunate…my tweeting thumbs were ready with a few questions that I was wanted answers to)
Overall, the interview portion with Mayor Williams was a little dry in content. Sure, there were some tough questions asked, but none of them were probed too far. In my humble opinion, it started to feel a little scripted and lost some of the flow.
In the second half of the show, Chief Kalinski came out and spoke with great passion about the Police Force in town. It is so nice to see a Chief who is clearly invested in Orangeville and who truly believes in his people. And it was refreshing to see that Mayor Williams and Chief Kalinski are both clearly ready to work together to be on the same page. It seems as though when it comes to policing in Orangeville, these two are really on the same page.
Overall First Impression
Kudos to Darrin Davidson for launching this type of show – I am excited to see what it will bring in its upcoming shows. I think that overall the first show was good and as I said before, I love the concept…but I was very disappointed by the lack of viewer engagement by leaving out the Call-In portion of the show. I hope that Mr. Davidson will have Mayor Williams on the show again with the intention of just doing the call-in from the community.
I hope that everyone takes the time to check out the show because I do think it has the potential to be great. To Darrin Davidson, congrats again on the new show and I look forward to the next episode! Viewers can check it out on Rogers TV (channel 63) or stream it live at http://www.rogerstv.com/page.aspx?lid=14&rid=21.