Eastlink TV introduced their winter television lineup during a viewing party at the television station's studio on Jan. 15.
Highlighted during the evening were a pair of local programs that will make their debut this winter, "Your Wellness" and "Rock Solid Wrestling".
Lisa Lounsbury, a 25-year veteran in the health and wellness field and owner of Sudbury's New Day Wellness, will host Your Wellness, a talk show that will look at everything from yoga, to healthy eating, to mental health and more.
"My goal is to bring a show to the air that makes wellness a priority," said Lounsbury. "I'm hoping that viewers will find inspiration in the topics we'll be covering to help them live well in their every day lives."
This isn't Lisa's first foray in front of the camera, as she has done some television spots before, but only when she was on the other side of the interview table.
"I've never hosted or anything like this so it's really exciting," she said. "I was actually pretty surprised with how easy it was to get guests for the show. I was kind of panicked about how I was going to find guests to fill a 13-episode pilot, but I had 30 people lined up to be guests on the show."
For Sudbury wrestler Mark "Tornado" Bartolucci, the chance to bring professional wrestling to Eastlink viewers is one that he's excited about, especially the time slot of 1:30 p.m. on Saturday afternoons.
"When I was growing up that's always when wrestling was on tv on Saturday morning and afternoon and you don't really see that anymore," said Bartolucci, who was very hands-on in the project and helped compile hours of footage from Rock Solid Wrestling shows from around the province.
"It's a best-of show, so lots of our best matches, footage from on the road, lots of jokes and some skits, and it gives a bit of a look behind the scenes of life on the road as a pro wrestler," said Bartolucci.
Both Lounsbury and Bartloucci commended Eastlink for their dedication to providing local programming, while sharing their story of how they ended up with their own shows.
"I was actually in a meeting with Matthew Street (of Eastlink) and was introducing him to my business," said Lounsbury. "He stopped me in the middle of the meeting and just asked, 'would you want to do a show about this?' and I just thought, what the heck, I'll give it a try."
Bartolucci had built a working friendship with Eastlink producer Ryan Manahan, who did ring announcing for Rock Solid Wrestling shows in Sudbury.
"It was something I had discussed with Ryan, having a Rock Solid Wrestling tv show," said Bartolucci.
"There's a lot of opportunity to grow this, we're starting with best of shows but down the road maybe we'll be broadcasting shows live on Eastlink when we're in different communities around the province so people in Sudbury can watch a show from home when we're out of town. We can shoot promos for the events as well when we're on the road and broadcast those. There's a lot we can do."
Eastlink's manager of community programming for Northern Ontario, Amanda Pride, says she's excited about this winter's lineup with the addition of Your Wellness and Rock Solid Wrestling to go along with a number of successful programs and local sports.
"We've got a nice variety of programs and it's going to be a lot of fun," said Pride. "We've still got tons of local sports, Sudbury Wolves games, Laurentian Voyageurs, high school sports, plus programs like Talk Nerdy, Late Night Ticket. Anything you're interested there's a good chance that you can find it on Eastlink."
The first episode of Your Wellness will air at 2 p.m. on Jan. 23 and Rock Solid Wrestling is slated to go Saturday, Jan 28 at 1:30 p.m.
