EXCLUSIVE! Yanick Bouchard tipped to replace Alain Crête (twice?)

Last September, people at Cogeco told me they had heard through the grapevine that Louis Jean was the man who would replace Alain Crête (mornings on 98.5 FM) in August 2024, when Crête retires at the same time as Paul Arcand.

Alain Crête has been Paul Arcand’s sports guy for many years.

I had contacted other people in the company, members of the media and indirect sources to learn that Louis Jean, Raphaël Doucet, Meeker Guerrier and Yanick Bouchard had all been interviewed for the position. So I put out a text in the form of a rumour, taking care to give all the information I had and mentioning that it was only a rumour, so nothing official.

But it earned me a condescending, false and slanderous tweet from one of the company’ s VPs (whom I never claimed to have contacted, by the way)…

A tweet liked or commented on by lots of people who don’t like me. In short, a normal day in the life of Max Truman Sr…

Yesterday, when I learned that MC Gilles had been fired by 98.5 FM, I made a few calls. Professional/personal curiosity…

I was told in detail how MC Gilles and Patrick Lagacé didn’t (really) get on well together… and that, in the end, management decided to go with Pat rather than MC. This was to be expected, given that one is leaving to host the morning show, while the other was to be a reviewer on the comeback show, in addition to hosting a Friday night show.

When you have a choice between a king and a king’s fool, you’ll always choose to protect your king. #Chess

It’s important to note that MC Gilles didn’t lose everything yesterday; he should be able to keep his jobs at Infoman, Tout le monde est parle and RDS.

Back to Louis Jean and sports…

Yesterday, while poking around on MC Gilles, I was also told out of nowhere that some plans we might have had in September would no longer hold up in April: it won’t be Louis Jean replacing Alain Crête on morning sports; it will apparently be Yanick Bouchard.

In fact, it should be Yanick Bouchard, since things can change quickly in this business. I learned that the hard way.

Bouchard is currently co-host of 5 à 7 at RDS. He’s been paired with Frédéric Plante for years. I haven’t been told if he’ll be back alongside Fred for the 2024-25 season. It’s possible…

But we could also fall back to a one-host formula, just as we could completely pull the plug on the show. We live in an era of media cuts, unfortunately…

Except that, at last count, 5 à 7’s numbers were good… far better than those of the competition in this schedule.

Someone really intrigued me when he told me that Yanick Bouchard could not only replace Alain Crête at 98.5… but that he could also take his chair at RDS by hosting Habs games. Alain Crête would disappear completely from our media landscape, and Yanick Bouchard would do what most people do in the world of commercial radio: he would accumulate sources of income.

Several people mentioned to me yesterday that Yanick Bouchard was a damn good person, that he was very professional, very human and very dedicated. Can a nice guy like Yanick find his place in the unhealthy world of Cogeco’s offices, especially in Patrick Lagacé’s time slot? I’m only reporting the words spoken in public and in private by the people involved…

We wish him well.

No tweet against Mario Girard and La Presse
As recently as last week, Mario Girard wrote a column in La Presse where the first lines read:

“MC Gilles will have his own show at 98,5: The announcement of Philippe Cantin’s arrival in the chair currently occupied by Patrick Lagacé at 98,5 completely overshadowed another announcement. In addition to his daily presence on Le retour à la maison, MC Gilles will present a brand-new program on Fridays from 6:30 to 8 pm. It’s a summary of the week, based on radio moments from 98.5 and more personal observations from the man in the eternal cowboy hat. With MC Gilles, it’s easy to imagine that this show won’t take itself too seriously, and will aim to wrap up the week in good spirits. Attention 98.5 hosts and columnists, anything you say now could backfire.”

Even though this tweet was written on April 1, it wasn’t an April fool’s joke.

If Pierre Martineau, VP at 98.5, took the liberty of belittling my site because I “claimed to have solid sources”, why didn’t he call La Presse the same thing.

And yet, Mario Girard wasn’t talking about a rumor in his text, but an established fact.

None of this is going to happen.

Maybe that’s because Mario’s source was someone in-house at Cogeco, a partner of La Presse?

But between you and me, leaking the news that MC Gilles is going to host a weekly show… when he hasn’t signed anything, doesn’t know the concept of said show and is drinking pinas coladas by the sea, doesn’t sound very professional.

I’ll take a few words that were addressed to me seven months ago to complete my thoughts today: beware of people in the media. They’ll do anything to get their way.

When you’re not in the right gang, you get slapped in the face. The game is much dirtier than it is clean. You’ve been warned.