Biography
Matthew Babel was born in Toronto, Canada. He attended Wilfrid Laurier University and graduated with a Double Honours in Sociology and Communications, along with Minors in Business and Geography; played both Varsity Basketball/Football, and managed to sneak off his third year to play professional football in Europe.
After University, Matte went on to work for MuchMusic, a Canadian cable specialty channel, as the Host of MOD (Much On Demand) a Gemini nominated, live, national, prime time, daily television show. MOD was nationally recognized as a home to A-list Celebrities. During his four year tenure on the show, Matte hosted hour long special with the likes of Tom Cruise, Gerrad Bulter, Matthew McConaughey, J.J Abrams and Mark Wahlberg to name a few - musical guest include star such as Mariah Carey, Usher, 50 cent, Pink, Justin Timberlake, Jay z and hundreds of others. While at MuchMusic Matte also hosted an array of Special Programs such as LIVE@MUCH, Exposed, Live Earth, My Date With... and The MuchMusic Video Awards.
Established as a Canadian pop-culture icon, In 2009, Matte was recruited to CP24, a Canadian 24 hour News Channel, where he contributed to the launch of CP24 Breakfast, a live three-hour morning show that reaches 1.2 million different viewers each week. Matte's role later expanded with the channel as a Reporter.
After helping Launch CP24 Breakfast Matte would head south of the boarder to co-hosts FuseNews in NY, a 30min daily national music news program with Alexa Chung and Jack Osbourne, executive produced by Rick Kaplan. While co-hosting the show he also served as correspondent for Entertainment Tonight Canada (ETC), as well as a contributor to entertainment tonight (ET), The Insider and TVOne. The former of which he still serves as a correspondent.
Matte also hosts Canada Sings a national, prime time competition show - where two teams compete in front of a live audience singing and dancing to win money for a charity of their choice. The show which is currently on hiatus also had a judging panel of Vanilla Ice, Jan Arden and Laurieann Gibson
Matte also participates in various conferences as a expert panelist, including Canadian Music Week, North by Northeast Music Festival and Conference (NXNE), and The Urban Music Association of Canada (UMAC). As a member of the National Speakers Bureau, Matte is a spokesman on various issues pertaining to youth, education, generation gaps, new media, entertainment, pop culture, and he is an Advocate for Anti-Smoking Campaigns. He also joined Richard Branson as one of the authoritative voices behind the Flick-off Campaign, an environmental initiative encouraging youth to cut down on the production of green house gases.
He also manages a number of Major label recording artists.
Matte was nominated as one of the top five Hottest Television Personalities at Canada's prominent Gemini Awards. He was listed, by Hello! Magazine, as one of the top 10 most eligible Bachelors in Canada and the Toronto Star newspaper named him one of the Top 30 Most Eligible Bachelor's in Toronto.
