On December 23, Brandon Gonez sent shockwaves through the city of Toronto when he announced he was leaving his post as a reporter at CP24. Even Champagnepapi himself, Drake, took to Instagram to give him a well-deserved send off. Some assumed Gonez was moving on to a bigger opportunity at another major broadcaster, but in the end he decided to bet on himself.
On January 17, Gonez will be taking his talents to YouTube with the launch of The Brandon Gonez Show, a weekly show with a mix of news, entertainment, local business coverage, and good news stories. The move comes amidst increased discussions around Black ownership in both business and media in light of the events of 2020.
“2020 has been a year where it’s time to reanalyze where you are at in life. You look at everything that happened this year with the health pandemic and the racial epidemic”, Gonez told NOW Magazine. “I asked myself, ‘What am I doing to contribute to a healthier conversation and to be even more authentic with people in the audience and the stories that I’m telling?’ I just felt like the only way for me to do that is to branch off and do my own thing.”
As one of the few Black male news reporters in Toronto, Gonez rose to fame by bringing Black culture and slang to the mainstream by using words like “dutty” to describe a Winter storm and “loud” in a story about cannabis. Along the way, Gonez became a type of ambassador for the Black community on the airwaves while bringing the diversity of everyday Toronto to our TV screens.
The new show will be produced by his newly founded company, Gonez Media, “an innovative force in the media industry with a portfolio of captivating brands that engage, inform, and entertain audiences on the platforms of their choice”, in partnership with LVMH Moët Hennessy, Uber and Seneca College. Gonez will set it off with a virtual Instagram launch party on January 16th.
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