Since January, the friendly and dynamic Pierre-Olivier Zappa has been hosting “À vos affaires” at LCN, clearly addressing all current economic issues. And to think that the journalist was not passionate about the subject not so long ago!
Pierre-Olivier, we can say that with what we have been going through for a year, “On your business” came at the right time!
Yes, people were asking questions and no longer had the same benchmarks as before the pandemic, which destabilized many things. We are living a new reality to which we must adapt quickly, and it is normal that we wonder. There is information work to be done, that of reassuring people when certain cases are more difficult. Each case is unique, and there is a lot of distress as well. What we see on the air is part of my job, but we also call people, we try to help them when they have particular problems.
How did the idea for this daily at LCN come about?
We had been discussing it for a few months, and the idea was to find a format that would correspond to what the public wanted to watch in the evening. We found a dynamic, useful and entertaining concept. The idea is to treat big news, which can spill over from the frontier of economics, to analyze it in a more casual fashion than in a newscast.
As Quebecers were increasingly interested in the economy and their personal finances, the “timing” was good …
Yes, and I am grateful for the public response. We receive a lot of emails, people look at us and trust us, and that’s really appreciated in times of crisis. It is rewarding. Yes, they want to mind their own business. An example: the trend of small investors who, since the start of the pandemic, have decided to manage their investments and investments themselves. It exploded on that side, and it shows that they want to learn more and understand the world around them. So many things are changing at breakneck speed, so much price hikes, supply chains, stockouts … I think the economy is affecting our wallets more than ever, but also our daily reality.
We can think of the selling price of houses …
Who would have thought, a year ago, that real estate would reach new heights, that riskier assets, like Bitcoin, would break records? We are experiencing the biggest economic downturn in decades, and people are richer than before COVID. The debt ratio has gone down, it defies all economic laws and all the books that have been written on recessions. Usually house and commodity prices go down, and the opposite happens. It’s a pandemic that has challenged the world’s brightest economists and analysts.
How do you see the future economically?
Clever man who can predict what awaits us in six months or a year. It will be interesting to see how, in the medium and long term, the situation will change our behavior. Rather than going to restaurants and traveling, people said to themselves that they were going to improve their immediate environment and do renovations. They also discovered passions and took time to travel to Quebec, to see places they had never been before. I can’t wait to see if in three, four years the world will be back to what it was before the pandemic. I still think that there has been an awareness of our expenses.
A few years ago, the economy didn’t appeal to you!
Honestly, I found it boring for quite a while. The last pages I read in a newspaper were those on this subject, before my bosses decided to entrust the economy to TVA. I told them I had never read an annual report in my life. Not coming from this field and not having a natural interest in it, I developed an ability to popularize things because I was not an initiate. Today, I have a background, I learned and I informed myself. I have a background in communication and political science, and it’s interesting how politics and economics go hand in hand.
What do you like the most about this mandate?
The diversity. Every day there is a different news, and the economy is so big! One day, the topical subject concerns the world of big business, the next day, it’s a transaction involving a Quebec giant, and the next day, it may be an aid program that will affect the finances of citizens. Ultimately, all topical issues have an economic dimension and impact.
Has your life changed with the animation of your show?
Of course, the pace of work is demanding, it requires great discipline, but I manage to spend a lot of time with my family. Maybe because that’s what my dad did. He was a cameraman, and I grew up in the reality of news. At any time of the day, he could be called to work, he was filming outside, and despite that, he was my hockey coach, my closest advisor when I did my first reports. I don’t want to neglect my sons, who are 2 and 5 years old. They are fantastic, they are lively. Fortunately, I can count on my wife to support me. We’ve been together for a long time, I was 19 when we started (he’s 33, Editor’s note). And I love him like the first day.
- “On Your Business” airs weekdays at 6:30 p.m. until June 18 on LCN. The show will return to the air on August 23. Also read Pierre-Olivier Zappa’s column in “Le Journal de Montréal”.
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