Calm in the newscast storm CTV Winnipeg's Colleen Bready makes it look easy when giving Manitobans good news or bad about what to expect when they leave the house By: David Sanderson Posted: 12:35 PM CST Friday, Jan. 29, 2021

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 29/01/2021 (2043 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

It’s Sunday afternoon at St Vital Park, where it’s partly cloudy with a temperature of -11 C, a relative humidity of 77 per cent and winds from the north at 15 km/h.

The reason we know all this is because our walking companion is Colleen Bready, who later this year will toast her 10th anniversary as CTV Winnipeg’s lead weather personality.

Little surprise, Bready, whose idea of a picture-perfect day is “28 and sunny,” is nothing if not sensibly dressed.

“I knew today was a bit on the chilly side so underneath my parka I’m wearing a thermal top, and under my jeans I have matching thermal pants,” she says, giving her ankle high North Face boots a gentle kick against a bench to loosen some snow caught in the treads. “Obviously I have my tuque and gloves on, and because I try to get my steps in every day, I’m also wearing my Fitbit.”

Bready, a born and bred Winnipegger who grew up in Westwood, recalls the night in June 2011 when Sylvia Kuzyk, who not unlike Cher and Madonna is readily identifiable — around these parts at least — by her given name alone, revealed she would be leaving her weather anchor position at CTV after 38 years on the job.

“I was working in the newsroom at CBC and just happened to look up at a monitor that was tuned into CTV,” Bready says, pausing to bend down and say hello to a passing pooch. “When Sylvia announced toward the end of the newscast that she’d be stepping down in September I was absolutely aghast, this was such big news. Driving home that night I thought, ‘Boy, aren’t those going to be pretty big shoes for somebody to fill?’ Not for a second thinking that somebody would turn out to be me.”

● ● ●

Bready, the younger of two sisters, took up gymnastics at the age of five. By the time her competitive career wrapped up 12 years later, she’d spent five years on Manitoba’s provincial rhythmic gymnastics team and another year on the national squad. As focused as she was on athletics, she’d never given much thought to the age-old question, what do you want to be when you grow up? So after graduating from Vincent Massey Collegiate she was torn over what to take at university. She originally debated between law and commerce but in the end wound up earning a political studies degree, punctuated by two back-to-back terms as University of Manitoba Students’ Union vice-president, in 2000 and 2001.

Through her work with UMSU, Bready landed a job at city hall as then-councillor Gordon Steeves’ executive assistant. Part of her duties involved interacting with members of the media on a near-daily basis, which led her to her contemplating a career in journalism. Heck, it wasn’t as if chasing headlines wasn’t already part of her DNA; her father, Allan Bready, who died when she was 23, was a news director at CJOB for 18 years and also wrote for the Winnipeg Tribune. A funny thing happened on the way to Red River College, however, where she was scheduled to start Creative Communications in September 2005. A month before classes were due to commence, through a friend she was offered a two-week position at CJOB to fill in for a reporter who was away on vacation.

“I had zero journalism experience coupled with zero broadcasting experience, so it was very much a case of sink or swim, kid,” she says with a chuckle. “I worked the news and sports desk Saturday and Sunday nights and I guess I did all right, because seven weeks into my course at Red River, the same reporter I’d filled in for took a job at the Sun and ‘OB got in touch again, this time to offer me a permanent spot.”

Brian Barkley, 680 CJOB’s traffic reporter for 25 years before his retirement in 2015, says while it’s true Bready didn’t have a lengthy resumé when she joined the station in the fall of 2005, she quickly made up for it by giving “110 per cent.”

“Even though she’s a lady with a lot of levity, Colleen took her job very seriously,” Barkley says, when reached at home. “The interesting thing was, despite the fact she was a serious person covering serious stories, management obviously picked up on something because whenever I went on vacation, they got her to fill in for me. That’s when she was really able to let her personality shine, by chatting with people who called in, and all that other great stuff.”

Like most Manitobans, Barkley keeps one eye on the weather, regularly tuning into the evening news to see what the next day will bring.

“The same way we felt like we knew Sylvia by watching her on TV all those years, it’s become that way with Colleen,” he says, noting he and Bready were able to catch up two years ago when both volunteered their time at an open house in support of the St. Vital Museum & Historical Society. “She’s one of those folks you see and relate to right away. It’s kind of like having a friend on television.”

Bready remained at CJOB for three years before accepting a reporting job at City TV, which marked the first time she appeared in front of a camera. From there it was on to CBC, where she worked in both the radio and television sides of things. One afternoon John Sauder, that station’s longtime meteorologist, approached her, asking if she’d be interested in subbing for him from time to time on the supper-hour news program.

Delivering a weather forecast had never crossed her mind, she admitted, but figuring it would be one more skill to add to her broadcasting tool kit, she agreed to let him show her the ropes.

“What I tell people is it’s like learning the steps of a complicated dance routine,” Bready says, when asked how difficult it is to work in front of a green screen while relying on a bank of monitors to let you know which way to turn to indicate thunderstorms approaching from the west, or a cold snap from the north.

“You have to know when to move to your right or left, and when to point in a certain direction. In the beginning I felt like half my brain was focused on figuring out where to stand with the other half responsible for what was actually coming out of my mouth.”

Sauder was the person who suggested she throw her hat in the ring when Kuzyk announced she was stepping down. She told him there wasn’t much point — she wouldn’t stand a chance — but because he kept insisting that she apply, she figured she had nothing to lose. It wasn’t until she learned the job was hers that she fully realized how daunting a challenge it would be taking over from a veritable living legend.

“Listen, I grew up watching Sylvia on TV, too,” she says, noting she spent her first two weeks at CTV working alongside Kuzyk, whom she describes as “one of the most gracious and generous people” she’s ever had the pleasure to meet.

“So yeah, I was as aware as anybody else how big a void it would be for viewers who loved her and still love her, to this day. Thankfully I was able to get to a place in my head where I was like, I know what I’m stepping into but if I simply concentrate on doing my best and being me, hopefully I’ll be well-received. I like to think that’s been the case.”

Karen Mitchell has been the news director at CTV Winnipeg since 2008. Don’t be fooled into believing delivering a daily forecast is an easy task, just because Bready makes it appear so, she says; it’s much more difficult than it looks.

“Weather analysis and presentation is one of the most important jobs in the newsroom (as) weather impacts daily decisions we all make,” Mitchell says. “Colleen crunches a lot of technical information each day, then tells the weather story to viewers on-air and readers online in a straightforward and easy to understand manner. She makes it look and seem effortless.”

Mitchell is quick to add that Bready is as warm and genuine as she comes across on TV.

“Colleen is the funny, friendly person you see on-air. Also, people relate to her because she is through and through a Winnipegger and Manitoban,” Mitchell says. “She loves where she lives — and the people who live here — and it shows.”

As visible as she is — besides her TV work, she is also regularly called upon to MC charity events and fundraisers — Bready, a dedicated fitness buff who weight-trains as often as six days a week, has grown used to being in line at the grocery store or bank, and having the person in front of her turn around to comment on a recent cold snap or lack of precipitation.

“Earlier this month when it was unseasonably warm for days on end a lot of people I bumped into were telling me to keep it up for as long as I can, as if I’m Mother Nature,” she says, mentioning viewers aren’t the only ones who comment if she wears the same dress too often, or changes her hairstyle; her mother and sister — let’s call them the Bready bunch — often text her during the show, to let her know they like what she’s wearing that day, too.

Getting back to her vehicle, Bready, whose one regret is that her dad didn’t live long enough to see her follow in his journalistic footsteps, tosses her head back and laughs when asked if, after close to 10 years of charting pressure systems and heat indexes, she ever does like the rest of us plebes; that is, simply stick her head outside in the morning to help decide if she should throw on a sweater or not?

“Ha, it’s funny you should ask that because just the other day I was reporting conditions out of the airport, which indicated it was overcast and gloomy in the city,” she says. “I said something like, OK, I know that’s what my notes are saying, but gazing out the windows of our downtown studio, it sure looks pretty sunny to me.”

david.sanderson@freepress.mb.ca