Orbyt Media Announces Launch of BETTER WITH MARK BRAND, Beginning March 12

TORONTO (March 11, 2022) – Orbyt Media, Canada’s premier content syndication group, announced today the launch of the new radio show and podcast BETTER WITH MARK BRAND, available to Canadian and international stations. Hosted by Mark Brand, a social-impact entrepreneur, pioneering chef, and professor of innovation and design dedicated to ending hunger and creating equitable food systems, BETTER WITH MARK BRAND is designed to empower and guide listeners into activating one’s purpose in order to build better lives, together. BETTER WITH MARK BRAND airs Saturdays at 7 p.m. local time beginning Saturday, March 12 on the iHeartRadio Canada Talk Network, and across the country via audio live stream on iHeartRadio.ca and the iHeartRadio app, with a new episode released every Sunday on iHeartRadio Canada and all major podcast platforms. “Everyone has the power to change their life and the lives of those around them for the BETTER,” said Brand. “In my decades of front line work I have seen it happen, against all odds, in the toughest corners of the world. I also believe, with all of my being, that there’s a calling within you. We just have to find it and give you the tools to activate it. That’s what BETTER is about.” Brand brings a unique perspective to the program as a global humanitarian leader with ongoing experience working alongside the United Nations, Stanford’s Design School, and The Future Food Institute in dedicated awareness of how to change our global systems for the better. Along with overseeing five impact-driven organizations, Brand leads the A Better Life Foundation in Canada and the United States, which has served more than 3.7 million meals to people facing homelessness, addiction, and mental health. He is a Stanford fellow; a Professor of Innovation and Design Thinking; has served as executive chef for the American Refugee Committee and Pope Francis’s Climate Challenge; and has received Canada’s Golden Jubilee Medal for service to his country and community. Joining Brand in conversation is his circle of ground-level activists, global leaders, front-line workers, impactful innovators, systems designers, pioneering researchers, entrepreneurs, highly-respected artists, and leaders. Guests include the legendary singer-songwriter and star of CTV’s JANN, Jann Arden; Order of Canada recipient Dr. Gabor Maté; acclaimed journalist and activist George Stroumboulopoulos; powerhouse advocate Rha Goddess; chef and activist Suzanne Barr; actor and arts activist Tim Daly, and more. Brand’s guests share intimate pieces of their lives through never-before-heard stories of resilience and hope with the explicit intention of empowering listeners to be their biggest, brightest, most powerful self. Designed to help listeners step into their power and help build a better world, together, the conversations on BETTER WITH MARK BRAND highlight inspiring stories of true purpose, genuine wisdom sourced from hardship, and tools for impactful change. The stories heard on BETTER WITH MARK BRAND connect listeners to deeper layers of our common humanity, including: Jann Arden, on discovering her art amongst chaos: “I would never have gone into music had it not been for my dad’s alcoholism. Good things come out of bad things. Because he was drunk all the time, I avoided him and I ended up in the basement. [The] record player was down there [and] my mom’s old guitar. I still, to this day, can’t read music or write. I don’t know the sticks and the dots. I don’t know any theory. I just play by ear. And so I wonder what I would have done had my dad been the stand-up guy that was at the dinner table every night. I wouldn’t have gone down. Would I have found it? I don’t know. It’s those big cosmic questions that elude you.” George Stroumboulopoulos, on learning to be there for others: “I was raised by a single mom in the west side of Toronto, and she would say to me all the time, ‘The cavalry ain’t coming.’ But what she added to that was, ‘If you ever get in a position where you can go and be the cavalry for somebody else, then you be the cavalry for them. Your job is to be there for others.’ I don’t know how she knew this s***, but she knew. She’s got that single parent strength.” Dr. Gabor Maté, on surviving trauma & healing from past wounds: “As a Jewish infant living under the Nazis, I had a mother who was terrorized and depressed and grief-stricken. I can’t recall being separated from my mother. She gave me to a stranger to save my life. Literally, that’s what happened, in the street. I don’t recall that happening, but I remember it because when my wife doesn’t show up to pick me up at the airport when she promised to… I would experience this deep sense of abandonment and rejection. Now, here’s a clue that I’m giving you: in your life, whoever you are, whenever you get triggered in the present moment, it’s always about the past. We’re never upset about what we think we’re upset about.” BETTER WITH MARK BRAND is available to Canadian and international stations from Orbyt Media, and is currently available on the following iHeartRadio Canada stations:

• 580 CFRA Ottawa
• NEWSTALK 1010 Toronto
• CJAD 800 Montreal
• CKLW 800 Windsor
• CFAX 1070 Victoria
• 610 CKTB Niagara
• AM 1150 Kelowna
• 1290 CJBK London