Daniel Richler

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Daniel Richler, (born 1957) the stepson of Canadian author Mordecai Richler, is a Canadian author, and an arts and pop culture broadcaster and writer. Born in London, England, his family moved back to his father's hometown of Montreal when Daniel was 15. He became a punk rocker as a teenager and was lead singer of the Alpha Jerks - the only local band with an anti-Secessionist agenda at the time of the Quebec Referendum. He also joined the Ontario biker gang, The New Hegelians, which were "encouraged" to quit the road by the local Toronto Hell's Angels chapter in the early 1990s .

From 1977 through the early 1980s, Richler was a deejay, presenter and critic on a variety of major market radio stations including CHOM-FM in Montreal and CJCL, CFNY-FM "The Edge" in Toronto. He also joined the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation where he was a cultural commentator on CBC Radio's Morningside with Peter Gzowski.

He moved to CITY-TV in 1985 becoming co-host and eventually producer of the The NewMusic, the internationally syndicated, pioneering weekly rockumentary show that pre-dated MTV and later gave rise to MuchMusic. The show fused international field journalism and in-depth interviews with rock videos to create an occasionally tough rockumentary newsmagazine geared at 15-30 year-olds. Items and documentaries included those on Band-Aid, post-revolutionary music in Zimbabwe, the Japanese pop industry, Andy Warhol’s art video work, William Burroughs, Frank Zappa at the PMRC hearings in Washington, the death and legacy of Bob Marley, Yoko Ono post-John, Malcolm McLaren’s manufacture and manipulation of the Sex Pistols, etc., etc..

In 1987-1988 Richler became Chief Arts Correspondent on The Journal, CBC’s national news documentary program. His international profiles and docs included those on Anthony Burgess, Keith Richards, Art Spiegelman, Patricia Nixon and numerous others. He subsequently moved to TVOntario where he became Creative Heads of Arts Programming and launched the long-running literary program Imprint, which he Executive Produced and hosted for three years. At that time he also oversaw the schedule, acquisitions, commissioning and original programming of the channel's arts sector. He developed and launched "Prisoners of Gravity" (http://www.teddog.com/pog/) with Mark Askwith and host/comedian Rick Green - a prize-winning, weekly half-hour, hybrid magazine/documentary/veejay show devoted to SF, fantasy, comix, horror, etc. "Imprint" (initially inspired by Bernard Pivot's French literary programme "Apostrophes") was a one-hour weekly book show that incorporated interview, documentary, round-table debate, rock video-style treatments and elaborately produced monologues. It briefly ran on PBS, co-presented by Toni Morrison, in 1993. Guests included Salman Rushdie, Margaret Atwood, David Cronenberg, Leonard Cohen, John Irving, Julian Barnes, Amiri Baraka and Harry Allen (Media Assassin for Public Enemy, Ltd.). The show lasted 16 years with various host in the chair.

In the mid-to-late 1990s he was producer/director and presenter of the counterculture show, Big Life, on CBC Newsworld. This magazine show investigated underground and alternative cultural phenomena in their early stages; subjects included trepanation, anti-Frankenfood activism, digital downloading, auto-erotic asphyxiation, the Furries, anti-G8 anarchism, Burning Man, the life and work of Genesis P-Orridge, the true nature and history of ecstasy, turntablism, etc. In 1998 he won Best Presenter Gemini (Canada’s National Television Awards).

In 2001 he moved back to ChumCity as "Editor-in-Chief/Executive Producer of its new literary specialty channel Book Television, the world’s only 24-hour literary channel. Owned by CHUM Ltd., it was launched September 1st, 2001 as a digital service, Canada nationwide. There he conceived and developed the channel format, oversaw development of its schedule, budget of original in-house programming, acquisition selection and overall design. He executive produced and/or directed shows including "The Word News", "The Word This Week", "Richler, Ink.", "Writers on the Road", "Authors at Harbourfront", "Lust", "The Electric Archive" and a variety of full-length documentaries including Ian Daffern-directed "Bloom is a Cod" (about the centenary of Bloomsday), Liz Marshall-directed "The PEN Files: Voices of Dissent" (about freedom of speech in Turkey) and Beyond the Funny Business (about the evolution of comics, comix and graphic novels). He also developed literary video and literary ad/EPK initiatives and was credited with boosting sales of new books, including Alice Munro’s Runaway. He presented various shows on BookTelevision and Bravo!, including "Richler, Ink." and "The Word News". Guests included Tom Wolfe, Norman Jewison, Graydon Carter, Margaret Drabble, J.K. Rowling, Conrad Black, and Tommy Lee of Mötley Crüe. He presented various docs and special broadcasts including "The PEN Files", "The Giller Prize" on Bravo!, and the "Reach for the Top" National High School Quiz Finals on Canadian Learning Television, TVOntario, etc.

He has published one novel, Kicking Tomorrow, a bestseller in Canada for 13 weeks, which was named one of New York Times Book Review’s Best Books of 1992.

He presently resides in London, England, where he works as a freelance TV director and writer. He has most recently directed episodes of WAGTV/Discovery UK’s “How Do They Do It?” and "Real Vampires", a 2-hour factual/dramatic documentary for Discovery UK and Canada (with IWC in London and Cream Productions in Toronto) that examines the scientific and historical underpinnings of the vampire myth.

This Canadian biographical article related to television is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.