TORONTO — After more than a decade in front of the camera, Renee Paquette is embracing the creative freedom that comes with her level of broadcasting experience.
Paquette, from Ajax, Ont., rose to national prominence in 2009 as a broadcaster on The Score Television Network, a sports-only channel that was later purchased by Rogers Sportsnet. She moved on to being an announcer and on-air personality for World Wrestling Entertainment in 2012 and then she signed with All Elite Wrestling in 2022 after a two-year break from professional wrestling.
"I think earlier on in your career, there's very much this attitude of 'Yes, next. Yes, next. I'll do this. Yes, of course,'" said Paquette. "Then you accumulate this body of work that now you can kind of sit on top and like 'O.K., cool. I did something. What else do I want to do?"
That includes releasing a cookbook in 2021 called "Messy in the Kitchen," hosting a long-form interview podcast called The Sessions, and becoming more involved behind the camera with the development of AEW's on-air talent.
"It's a different part of my career where, yeah, I've done so many different things," said Paquette, who hosted a talk at the Collision tech conference in Toronto on how to make sporting events sensory inclusive last week.
"It's cool to be able to be a sounding board or to have conversations with other people that just might want to pick my brain on different experiences and what certain things look like, how to navigate certain situations. It's pretty neat."
The creative freedom Paquette's experiencing at AEW reminds her of her start at The Score, a position where she was allowed to be her authentic self.
"There wasn't a ton of options and places where I could get on national television and figure out who I am as a broadcaster, get a little bit of some notoriety on television," said Paquette, who appreciated the hands-off approach of the network's producers. "The fact that I landed at The Score, I'm always so grateful that I was at a company that really just let the broadcasters be ourselves."
Paquette said she's still learning work-life balance. That means trying to not spread herself too thin while still looking for exciting career opportunities that piqué her curiosity.
"The goal for me has always been a daytime, late night, some kind of talk show kind of thing," said Paquette. "That was one of the things that I saw coming on with AEW.
"You see all these opportunities for what could be potential shoulder programming with TNT and TBS. with Warner Discovery. Maybe that's something that I can dive into the deep end on and help to bridge the gap between what we're doing with AEW and what this other shoulder programming can be."
This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 4, 2023.
John Chidley-Hill, The Canadian Press
