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Coun. Hayne announced as host as new Surrey radio station Pulse FM launches

Councillor shrugs off suggestions of conflict, says he’s not representing city
46487surreynowHayne-Bruce
It has been announced that Surrey Coun. Bruce Hayne will host his own Saturday morning show on the city's new radio station

SURREY — Surrey’s newest radio station is about to officially launch and one of its hosts will be Coun. Bruce Hayne.

107.7 Pulse FM announced on Twitter that Hayne will host a Saturday morning show from 10 to 11 a.m.

Pulse says it is a “music, news and views” station.

The perception of conflict in an elected official being part of the media was something that came up, said Hayne.

“We certainly have had that discussion,” he admitted, but said he won’t be speaking for city council in his capacity on the show.

“I’m not officially representing the city as the host. These are my opinions, and the guests that come on are going to be speaking from their own point of view. It’s not specifically a city update or anything like that.”

Due to the perception, Hayne said he won’t be taking any money for his role as host.

“I felt that that was probably appropriate,” he remarked.

“The idea of the show is it’s going to be focusing on the community,” Hayne told the Now Wednesday, “including successful businesses, interviews with interesting successful people, focusing on different areas, junior sports, so just basically some good news stories.”

Hayne said he took on the role because he doesn’t see good news stories out of Surrey celebrated enough.

“Certainly mainstream Vancouver media is all too quick to trash Surrey and never talks about the good news stories.”

Hayne said so far, he hasn’t received any negative feedback about the announcement. Conversations with his fellow city councillors has been positive, he added.

“I’m looking forward to the opportunity to do it. I’ve always kind of wanted to be on the radio as a personality, so this opportunity came along and it sounds like a fun thing to do,” Hayne said, adding he wasn’t sure when he would begin as host.

Some took to Twitter to question Hayne’s radio role, including Surrey blogger Laila Yuile.

“Seems to be a bit of a conflict with his position,” she wrote.

Jas Basi, one of the managers at Pulse, said the station wants Hayne on the show is to “talk everything good about Surrey” and explore “what we can do on a Saturday afternoon.”

“We want to talk about Surrey parks, festivals, what’s really going on in Surrey. That’s his goal. That’s his role,” Basi told the Now from the Panorama-based office Wednesday morning.

“We’re not talking developments, we’re not speaking about those sorts of issues. But we do want to talk about mayor and council building this brand new rec facility (in Grandview) and all the other programs the city has. The city gets an outlet to talk about these great initiatives they have.”

When asked how they would balance their news coverage, Basi said they will do so through solid journalists on their shows.

“We balance it because we have some great news anchors here. Jack Marion who has a lot of experience. Don Lehn who has a lot of experience. And Kash Heed,” said Basi. “We are going to have some great hosts…. We’re going to talk politics and we’re going to talk news.”

Pulse FM is live and plans an official launch sometime in the next two weeks, said Basi.

“We’re just fine tuning everything to make sure the signal is perfect. We’re finalizing all that stuff now.”

Visit them online and stream live at PulseFM.ca.

amyreid@thenownewspaper.com