The Maritime Edit Launching A TV Show On Bell This Fall
SAINT JOHN — An Atlantic Canadian magazine is expanding to the world of television with a new show coming later this fall.
The “Atlantic Edition” is the television spin-off of The Maritime Edit, a magazine that celebrates and highlights “the discreet luxury of living, working in and visiting Atlantic Canada.” The magazine was started by comedian James Mullinger and his wife Pamela three years ago as a way to celebrate what’s great about living here.
The show will feature Mullinger interviewing guests in different industries, including business, entertainment, and sports. They may be well-known for what they do, but viewers may not know much about their personal lives or what drives them.
“They may know their work but may not know much about them as people,” said Mullinger in an interview with Huddle “It’s people that are passionate about what they do but also passionate about the region.”
The idea for the show came about a year ago through conversations with Bell, with whom Mullinger had previously done community comedy TV shows. Recently, Bell has been branching out and doing bigger community shows that would broadcast both nationally and online.
“They thought the magazine could work well in a televised format, celebrating people doing things here and telling those stories,” said Mullinger. “Essentially like 60 minutes and those kinds of shows where you get to spend time with someone and see what they do and really get under someone’s skin and really learn how they got to be where they are, why they do what they do.”
Each episode is around 20 minutes long. In the first episode, Mullinger interviews Saint John entrepreneur Judith Mackin, someone he has known since he first moved here from London.
“We start by telling the viewers a bit about her and talking about the personal connection,” he said. “Then it follows me on a visit to her in her place of comfort, which is her cottage on the Kingston Peninsula. From here, we learn about her life, what she loves so much about living in Saint John, what she finds great about doing business in New Brunswick. After that, she takes me on a tour of the city and shows me projects she’s worked on.”
Atlantic Edition’s core production crew is from New Brunswick, including director (and Miramichi mayor) Adam Lordon and cinematographer and editor Tyler Warren Ellis.
“It feels nice to be able to give New Brunswick creators a job that also involves many days on the road filming,” said Mullinger.
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The Atlantic Edition is slated to debut at the end of November on Bell Fibe TV (channel 1). Non-Bell subscribers and people around the world will be able to watch it on the Bell website.
“That was a great thing for us, to know not only can subscribers watch it in HD on TV, it can also be shared with anyone else anywhere in the world,” said Mullinger. “The whole plan behind it is also to get people excited and want to explore and possibly even come and start a business in Atlantic Canada. That was an important thing for us to know that it was going to be seen by that many people.”
Though the original plan wasn’t to make The Maritime Edit a TV Show, Mullinger views Atlantic Edition, along with his podcast “Mullinger Meets Canadians”, as extensions of the brand, and different ways people can engage with the content.
“All of these different mediums will mean that people can discover things in different ways. Just from the podcast taking off in the last couple of weeks, I have people writing to me who never heard of me or the magazine … Then when they get in touch it’s like, ‘okay, if you like this, then you might also like the magazine,'” he said.
“They’re all stand-alone things in their own right, but one of the things you hope is if people enjoy one, they might check out the other things [we’re doing].”