CBC News' David Common is shown in this undated handout photo. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Handout - CBC (Mandatory Credit)

TORONTO — Veteran CBC journalist David Common says he’s well aware that many Canadians gripe about the public broadcaster’s news coverage.

Long-standing complaints are as varied as the groups they come from – some malcontents point to perceived political bias, others bemoan a preponderance of doom-and-gloom.

It’s a big reason Common says he’s approaching his newly announced gig as the next host of “CBC Morning Live” as an opportunity to deepen the reach of CBC News Network’s early morning show.

He links that goal to the public broadcaster's broader efforts to expand news coverage and better capture the country's stories.

"We win by being locally rooted. We win by being relevant,” Common says in a recent video call before the announcement.

Common was named Thursday as the new anchor of the four-hour weekday segment, which starts at 6 a.m. ET and is most-often dominated by breaking news and discussion of the day’s biggest headlines.

He takes the reins from retiring host Heather Hiscox, who appeared in her final broadcast Thursday morning in front of a live audience at Toronto’s CBC broadcast centre.

Hiscox leaves the post after 20 years in the chair, with Common set to take over Feb. 2, 2026. CBC says guest hosts will fill in until then.

Common currently helms CBC Toronto’s early morning radio show “Metro Morning,” but TV viewers will also know him as a senior news correspondent and contributor to various shows, including the consumer watchdog “Marketplace.”

On local CBC Radio, he’s known for injecting humour between newscasts and live interviews by way of banter with on-air colleagues, including “World Report” hosts Marcia Young and John Northcott.

Common says he expects to bring a similar “daily dose of fun” to the national all-news channel – where he might chit chat with breaking news reporters Marianne Dimain and Linda Ward to lighten the oft-heavy tone.

“Having opportunities to just expose our personality a little bit more is, I think, where we're going to do that,” he says of how he might insert some levity.

“We're not going to go and editorialize the news, that's not our role, but today is National Donut Day — what's your favourite doughnut?” he says as a sample talking point.

Common says it’s important to acknowledge dissatisfied Canadians and try to address their needs.

“There are people who just don't engage with the news because it's heavy, because they don't feel that it's relevant in their lives, because they never hear anything good in it. We – and I – are mindful of that. We need to have a buffet in the product we're offering,” says Common, who began his CBC career with the London, U.K. bureau in 1999.

“Yeah, we're going to tell you the news, and we're going to tell you the heavy stuff that's happening, but that's not all. We're going to give you a pressure release in your day, as well.”

Common’s last day on “Metro Morning” is Jan. 16.

While crediting Hiscox with doing an “incredible job,” he says he expects to spend the following two weeks figuring out what his version of “Morning Live” looks like. He hopes it includes more time spent on the road for big news events, as well as community outreach.

He notes Hiscox just wrapped a road show of her own, and that the CBC as a company recognizes that building audiences means visiting Canadians where they are.

“You can't do it with just one road show. You gotta be there in the long run,” he says.

CBC president Marie-Philippe Bouchard has also said the network wants to court rural and Western audiences through a larger on-the-ground news presence.

The corp’s recently released five-year plan says the public broadcaster wants to “hire sufficient journalists to cover 15-20 communities with a population greater than 50,000, that currently have no or little local CBC/Radio-Canada presence.”

The five-year plan also sets its sights on appealing more to children and youth, newcomers and “non-users or dissatisfied users.”

Common, whose career has taken him to every province and territory and more than 90 countries, says he’s thinking about ways to win over people who flat-out don’t like the CBC, don’t use its platforms, or feel alienated by the corp.

“This is as much their company, their broadcaster, as it is somebody who consumes nothing but CBC,” he says.

“Their opinions matter. It's my responsibility to know what their opinions are, to think about them. Particularly as I look across the country.”

While the public broadcaster is often accused of overlooking right-leaning audiences, Common says that can’t be said of the radio show he’s hosted since 2023, which he says "definitively has a lot of Conservative listeners.”

“It's because it's become a definitive place to hear from newsmakers,” he explains.

“And we have Conservatives on the program, as well. I will import some of that same mentality into ‘Morning Live.’"

CBC says the search for a new “Metro Morning” host will begin in the coming weeks.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2025.

News from © The Canadian Press, 2025