Fiona and Mike are back

By Dan Hilborn
Published Sept. 15, 2004


Two of Burnaby's best known local celebrities will be returning to the airwaves on Monday morning when Shaw TV brings Mike Eckford and Fiona Forbes back to host their daytime talk show, Urban Rush.

The pair, who are best known for their irreverent jibes and self- deprecating banter, are glad to be back at the local cable station, where they had their start in the business as inexperienced on-air volunteers back in 1997.

"This place has a ton of memories for us," Eckford said from Shaw's community TV studio, located on the ground floor of the Metrotown office towers where they worked for five years before flirting with stardom when they were wooed away to take on the role of hosts for City TV's epic Vancouver Breakfast program.

Eckford and Forbes are the poster children of Vancouver's celebrity circuit. Virtually every famous movie actor or superstar singer who is willing to talk to the media has made their way to the Burnaby studios with the two always-perky hosts.

Forbes got into television in a roundabout way. After graduating from high school in Vancouver, she intended to go to UBC to become a lawyer, but recognized that she had a shyness problem that needed tackling first. On her father's advice, she enrolled in a broadcasting course at BCIT and never looked back.

Eckford, who was raised on the Sunshine Coast, got hooked on broadcasting after visiting his brother at work in a CBC radio and TV studio in Ottawa. After a brief stint at Columbia College, he became a regular volunteer on the local cable channel, and had his big break in 1997 when the station put out a call for auditions for its new daytime variety show.

Eckford and Forbes agree on what special trait they shared that convinced the show's original producer, Manuel Fonseca, to give them the highly sought-after role of on-air personalities.

"We said we'd do it for free," said Forbes.

"I honestly think it was because we both volunteered to do it for free," Eckford added quickly.

The first few months were not easy. While the couple clearly 'clicked' on the friendship scale, they also had the luxury of learning their craft in the relative obscurity of a very small television station.

"The best way to learn is to just do it," Eckford said. "And the growth in the show was just perfect. Nobody paid any attention to us at first, and that made it easy."

But as the months and years rolled by, the show began to attract its own audience and its two hosts were rewarded by being given paid positions. Still, Forbes and Eckford have no illusions about what made their show popular enough to cross over into mainstream TV.

"I think it was because we were not afraid to make complete and utter fools of ourselves," said Forbes.

"Or each other," added Eckford.

Of course, no show is complete without its mishaps and gaffes, such as the times when CBC news anchor Knowlton Nash and wheelchair advocate Rick Hansen got lost in the labyrinthian parking lots of the Metrotown malls.

When asked about the differences between Shaw TV and the commercial station where they toiled for two years, the pair are surprisingly demure.

"I think Mike and I have been lucky," Forbes said. "The great thing is that TV has changed and that cable is now just another channel among the 120 channels on the dial."

"Here we get creative freedom," said Eckford. "And there's a lot more freedom at Shaw because here they don't have to make back that investment in a short time frame."

"I thought Shaw operated differently than the networks, but they don't," added Forbes.

So when the show starts up anew on Monday morning, Eckford and Forbes will be back doing what they like best: trading barbs and talking to some of the most fascinating people in the Lower Mainland.

In their first week back, watch for appearances by Terry David Mulligan, Vancouver mayor Larry Campbell, Tricia Helfer of the new Battlestar Galactica series, and Dave Thomas, formerly of SCTV. In the coming weeks, watch for the return of shock comic Tom Green.

"In a lot of ways, we have the easiest job in the world," said Eckford. "You just have to be yourself."