Mark Elliot (radio host)
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Mark Elliot (born ca. 1953 is the professional name of Nils Johanson, a late night talk radio host on radio station CFRB 1010 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada and an addictions counselor in private practice.
From 2003 to February 2007 he hosted the general interest talk show The Nightside, as of 2005 the highest-rated late night radio show in Canada. Since February 2007 he hosts People Helping People, Saturday nights from 11 p.m. to 2 a.m. EST on CFRB Toronto and CJAD Montreal dedicated to addictions and addiction recovery. Elliot is himself a recovering alcoholic, drug abuser, and compulsive gambler.
As of 2005, Elliot is the only openly gay host on CFRB, where he came out on air. Also on the left wing politically, he presents a somewhat challenging figure for the historically conservative station.
Elliot's radio career began at what was then CHIC radio in Brampton, a Toronto suburb, in 1974. He moved on to work as a radio disk jockey at the last English-language commercial radio station in Quebec City, Quebec and then in Winnipeg, Manitoba. At his next home, in Ottawa, he became a legendary evening Top 40 host and local celebrity on CFRA and CFGO. In 1987, a sympathetic employer fired Elliot rather than let his position continue to enable his addictions. Retrospectively, Elliot praises her.
Elliot moved to Windsor, Ontario, where he received treatment at Brentwood Recovery Home. He returned to the air with the CHUM radio group serving Windsor and Detroit.
With executive producer Warren Cosford, Elliot initiated People Helping People on Windsor's CKLW, later syndicating it to Toronto's Talk 640. Both stations dropped his program before he was picked up by CFRB, Canada's most listened-to commercial talk radio station, first to do PHP on weekends, and eventually, in 2003, to take on The Nightside after its longtime host Jim Richards moved to an earlier timeslot.
While many other electronic media shut down, Elliot was on air during the Great Blackout of 2003, providing information and reassurance to untold numbers of listeners in Southern Ontario.
Elliot has also worked as a counselor with the Salvation Army Harbour Light Treatment Centre, and he is a member of Alcoholics Anonymous.
Elliot grew up in Weston, then a suburb of Toronto. He now lives in the Church and Wellesley area of downtown Toronto.
