Veteran reporter and acting Metro Morning Radio presenter David Common will replace Heather Hiscox as presenter CBC Morning Livethe Crown corporation announced Thursday. The announcement came on the same day as Hiscox's final broadcast as host – the final stop on her Morning Live tour across Canada – and 20 years after she first took up the position.
In an interview shortly before the announcement, Common outlined his plans for the show: to address both the rapidly diversifying television landscape and the growing sense of apathy and frustration with the news.
“We're not going to shy away from serious stuff with journalistic rigor – that's our job. But we also don't want you to feel crushed by it; I don't want to be crushed by it,” he said. “I want to have a little fun, so we’ll have a mixed bag—come to the buffet, I say.”
A Winnipeg native who moved to Toronto at an early age, Common planned to become a nurse before a chance meeting with Peter Mansbridge as a teenager. He began his career at the CBC London bureau in 1999, where he began his itinerant journalism career early on. He moved between Toronto, Fredericton, Winnipeg and Regina before landing in Paris as the corporation's European correspondent and then in New York as bureau chief and correspondent.
This was followed by reporting on concerts in more than 90 countries, and then a series of hosting positions: he was a host for CBC Radio. World report in 2013 he played a dual role: Marketplace co-anchor and news correspondent in 2015, and more recently became an anchor Metro Morning in 2023.
After 20 years of waking up early with Canadians from coast to coast, Hiscox will host his final Morning Live show on CBC on November 6. Before turning off her alarm, she spoke to The National's Ian Hanomansing about her career and why she thinks now is the right time to retire.
Echo his views on the future before he takes this jobCommon said he foresees challenges that will arise with the new role and the return to video journalism.
“There are a lot of butterflies for something like this. Honestly, it just excites me,” he said, referring to the unique situation facing journalism.
“We're in the midst of very significant changes within the CBC and even more significant changes in the media ecosystem,” he said, also citing early plans to expand the show's reach. “We have to reach audiences where they are, and it won’t just be on television.”
Evolution Morning live
In an interview, CBC News Network managing editor Mark Ross said that while the dedication to live broadcasts and breaking news will remain, Morning live will develop. Because the show was largely written to Hiscox's strengths of telling live stories through improvisation, Ross said the next months of preparation will focus on using Common's skills in “how to engage an audience in a more intimate way, how to be maybe a little more casual in the way we write the show.”
“We'll look at the strengths that David brings to it and build the program around them so that they have a really personal and authentic feel,” he said.
As host of the CBC News Network's morning program, Hiscox and her team have won numerous awards, including the Canadian Screen Awards for Best National News Anchor in 2018 and Best Morning Show in 2023.
Last year they were awarded by the Radio Television Digital News Association (RTDNA) for their news coverage of the Turkey earthquake rescue efforts. This year, Hiscox received the National Award of Excellence from RTDNA.
Last day hosting Common Metro Morning will take place on January 12, 2026, before he begins his permanent role as host on Morning live February 2. Various anchors will fill in Morning live the role of the host while the search for a new host is underway Metro Morning continues.
