Josie Fenech has this awesome thing going where she has been apart of a fantastic Ottawa radio story. Hot 89.9 went on the air in 2003 and shortly after Josie joined the station on evenings and later joining the morning show where she was a fixture until 2019. Today she is the National Talent Director for Stingray and their 101 radio stations. We spoke about her career, she caught me up on the new challenges facing CHR radio, how playlists in compiled and what she looks for in a radio demo. I met Josie for the first time at Radio Days North America which is one of the rare radio get-togethers left on the continent. (The other being Morning Show Boot Camp) One of the overriding themes at the conference was the desire for feedback. She provides a number of tips and tricks to get some where you can get some. The Evolution of Hot 89.9 Josie spoke fondly of the early days and the launch of Hot 89.9, and credited Rob Mise with much of the marketing that went into the station. As Josie mentioned - people knew what they were looking for and knew what they hear when they found the station. Also here is another Newcap / Stingray trait: Cool Marketing that finds its way to Television and outdoors. From 2013 (I'm guessing) here is the I AM HOT Campaign. TRANSCRIPTION Tara Sands (Voiceover) 0:02 The Sound Off Podcast. The show about podcast and broadcast, starts now. Matt Cundill 0:13 Josie Fenech is the national Talent Development Director for Stingray and Program Director at Hot 89.9 in Ottawa. She was part of the morning show with Mauler and Rush up until 2019 before she was unceremoniously launched from a cannon and moved upstairs to management full time, no really, that happened. Audio Clip 0:33 Brady you ready? This is, this is just the end, well she said we shoot her out the cannon she's off the show, she's gone. That's what she's saying. Is that what you're saying down there? Josie Fenech 0:41 That's what I'm saying. Audio Clip 0:42 Right shoot, shoot her. Bye. Bye Josie. What did she hit? That might've been the water tower. Did she have her helmet on? I'm sure she's fine. Mauler, Rush and Jenni, The Morning Hot Tub. I will never understand people. The New Hot 89.9 . Matt Cundill 1:22 Josie has been doing talent development at Stingray for seven years. So if you're looking at advancing your on air career, or even starting one, this episodes a good place to start. Josie Fenech joins me from the Stingray offices in Ottawa, Ontario. Do you always want to be in radio? Josie Fenech 1:39 No. Matt Cundill 1:41 Really? Josie Fenech 1:42 No, I'm not one of those people. And it almost, I've lived with that guilt throughout my entire radio career. Matt Cundill 1:49 Because you went to Humber? Josie Fenech 1:50 Yes. It was a fluke. I kind of fell into radio. I wanted to be an actress. Matt Cundill 1:57 Oh. Josie Fenech 1:58 Yeah. I actually wanted to be an actress. I'll tell this story briefly, but it's pretty cool. If you believe in the universe and how it can show your signs as to what you're supposed to be doing in your life. I took acting lessons outside of school through high school. Jennifer Daylon was my acting teacher and the end of high school came and I had to decide what I was going to do with my life and he didn't really know. I knew I like to help people. I thought, okay, you know, I'll go and take Psych and my mom ran into my former drama teacher in the grocery store as one does and Elmont, Ontario, very small town. And Jen said, 'Oh, how's Josie doing?' 'Oh, great. She's applying for you know, Psych.' And Jen goes, 'What? What is she doing? She can't be doing that she's gonna she's gonna perform. She's gonna be on a stage somewhere'. And so at the time, I was taking a gap year, I was working at Mrs. Tiggy Winkles in Ottawa, a toy store. And my mom gave Jen my phone number. I got home from work one day, and there was this long message on my old school tape recorder answering machine from my former drama teacher saying Josie, 'you won't be doing yourself justice if you don't follow your heart and perform in some aspect, you have to try'. And I just never really, I did think at one point that I could do it. And then that dream kind of fades. So she honestly changed the course of my life. So then, I applied for theater programs. I applied for television, and radio and I didn't get into any of the theatre programs. And I got into Humber and that's how my radio career got started. Matt Cundill 3:50 Do you think broadcasting is the opposite of being an actor or actress? Because you have to play the role of something as an actor, actress, but in broadcasting, the goal is to be yourself. Josie Fenech 4:03 Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, it's much different. It's definitely different. What I love about radio is yeah, you get to be authentic, but you do also have, I think, an obligation to only show certain parts, if you will, for yourself and for the audience. You might not want to share every aspect of your life with your audience, but then also, you know, especially with the radio that I got into, which is CHR, you know, I really felt like it was my responsibility to set people off on the on the right foot every morning. And so I only wanted to show them my most positive, brightest self hoping that that would be contagious, and that, you know, they would feel this good energy in the morning. And so yeah, I think, you know, being in radio, you are yourself but you turn up the best parts of your personality to share it with your audience. Matt Cundill 5:01 So after you graduate from Humber the first two stations, I think you went to Z1035 and Kiss. That's a good start. Josie Fenech 5:11 Yeah, no kidding. I got so lucky. Oh, man, I had a horseshoe on my butt. I truly did. I was working for Skywards traffic. I started with them my second year of Humber. I had to come home, get all the money together that I had saved by myself a car because I was driving to Jane and Finch to report on Toronto traffic every morning at 5am and then go to school through the day. I didn't want to take the bus to Jane and Finch. So I did that, worked for Skywards that was great. Wasn't from Toronto, had the map of Toronto on my dorm room wall and was trying to memorize all the roads and how they went and so that I could actually report on the traffic and sound like I knew what I was talking about. And then I was doing traffic for Z135. You know, my, my second year was coming to an end and they said, 'Hey, why don't you come and do mornings with us?' Okay, so I did that. Yeah, I did mornings for just about a year with Scott Box and then Rogers called, and Julie Adam, who says no to Julie. And yeah, she hired me for Monday's on Kiss. Matt Cundill 6:16 So that wasn't the only interest you had and I know that because I was across the hallway from some people with standard radio who might have come looking for you at a particular point. Getting you to talk out of turn. Yeah. You had more than you had more than one offer. Josie Fenech 6:36 I did. Yeah. Yeah. But I botched that audition. Matt Cundill 6:42 Really? Josie Fenech 6:42 Yeah, they wanted me until I auditioned for them and I was it was a, it was a mess. But a very good learning experience. Because I'm not naming any names. It may sound like I'm blaming someone I'm not, but they put me in on an overnight on a board I wasn't familiar with on a station I wasn't super familiar with and said, 'Okay, go, you know, do your thing, work your magic', and nerves took over, didn't feel confident on the board and I wasn't good. And I shouldn't have gotten the job for that audition as a programmer now, as a PD of a radio station, if anyone is auditioning for me, or if I if I take on an intern and they want to do overnights, I give them all the training they want and need until they are 1,000% comfortable on that board and ready to kind of take that leap and do it do it themselves. Because no one should be judged, I think in a in a situation where they're feeling uncomfortable. Matt Cundill 7:41 How did you get to Ottawa? Josie Fenech 7:43 Well, I got canned from Kiss when they flipped to Jack. So I ended up only there for I was only there for under a year, we all got taken up to the I think we were on the fourth floor and we got taken up to the fifth floor or vice versa and everybody was there. It all you know, these were all the cues. And then Julie came in with the guy from HR in the box of envelopes and we were all looking at each other. We were all pretty young. And yeah, okay. You know, in an hour, we're flipping to Jack FM. 'Oh, my God', you know, and I'm in my early 20s and I think this is it this is the end. And they gave me a taxi chit to get home and they walked us down to the lobby. It was also I'm like, 'What do you think I'm going to do?' You know, I couldn't even go back and get my stuff. They had to go get it for me. Anyways, went home, cried a lot, then, you know, the next day, put my resume together tried to get back out there. No one in Toronto was hiring. So I went to Europe for a couple of months, I went backpacking, they did give me a very generous package, considering I was there for less than a year and I took that money and went with two girlfriends and it was the best thing I could have done for myself. Because when I got fired, the world felt very small. And when I went to Europe, I gave me this great perspective that the world is big and so our opportunities and I need to think outside. You know, Toronto is not it. Although it felt like that at the time that anywhere outside of Toronto would be taking a step back. I do feel that has changed very much now people favor comfort cost of living green space. A lot of the times now in our industry over Toronto, I've been in a scenario where we've offered some major market opportunities to people who are in medium and small markets and they're like, No, you know what, I'm good. Anyhow, wasn't like that at the time and so when I got back from traveling, that's when I started throwing my resume out to radio stations outside of Toronto and Hot 89.9 was a brand CHR in my hometown. Rob Mize was programming it at the time and called me up he said 'yeah, come down for an interview'. Matt Cundill 9:51 Who owned the station then? Josie Fenech 9:53 New Cap. Yeah, yeah, they were in a an LSA with standards. So we were in the bear building. We shared a building with The Bear and those early days were pretty awesome. Matt Cundill 10:05 Good. I needed my memory jogged because I made a few trips at the Merivale Road at the time and I remember now there was an LMA involved. Thank you for that reminder. Josie Fenech 10:14 Yeah, so I did that interview with Rob and he said, 'Okay, great. Well, it was really nice to meet you ,don't have anything for you. But take care. And I'll be in touch if anything comes up'. I was a little disappointed and I was driving home to my parents basement, which is where I was crashing at the time. And he called me on my way home and I opened up my little flip phone at the time it wasn't illegal I don't think to be on your phone in the car. Anyway, over to my flip phone. 'Yeah, Rob Mize, I might have something for you after all', and this was this was close to Christmas. 'Could you fill in for for me over Christmas?' 'Yes. Of course. Yeah. Absolutely.' 'Okay, great. Um, I'm going to put you on here, here here and Christmas morning at 6am.' 'Okay.' Humble pill swallowed. 'Okay, yep, I'll be there'. He was testing me and I understand that now. And I passed the test, and ended up getting full time work after that. Matt Cundill 11:15 And what precipitated the jump to mornings? Josie Fenech 11:17 Well, at one point, I was just the s person. What do you need? Yep, I'll do it. What do you need? Yep, I'll do it. So at one point, I was doing entertainment on the morning show, I was the music director, and also doing the evening show. I don't remember how long I did that for maybe a year. Those were some long days. But I absolutely loved every minute of it. And then eventually, he hired someone else for the evenings and I kind of became more of like a, a full time morning show host and music director and then APD and then eventually PD, all within a couple of years of being there. Matt Cundill 11:56 And what was it like working with Mauler and Rush? Josie Fenech 11:58 Oh, man, silly, honestly, just- Matt Cundill 12:02 And all the way to 2019. It's this is not just some sort of stint. I mean, you did this for a long time and often you did it as their program director too which is weird. Josie Fenech 12:11 Yes. That was a hard transition. When I became the program director, and was managing people older than me with more experience that was not easy. Matt Cundill 12:27 And working on the air with him at the same time. Josie Fenech 12:29 Yes. Just to add another layer of complication. Matt Cundill 12:33 Okay, so listen, there are people who are listening to this who are in that scenario. What advice can you offer for managing through that? Josie Fenech 12:41 Well, you definitely cannot come in all guns blazing, you have to sit back and you really just have to earn their trust and their respect. It's a slow, slow and steady approach, small tweaks here and there, believing that you got the job for a reason. And that you have something to offer, you know, always kind of grounding yourself in that. And then just pushing forward inch by inch slow and steady, really, I think is the best advice. Matt Cundill 13:12 So building trust, right? Josie Fenech 13:13 Yeah. Matt Cundill 13:14 I get the feeling that 10am, two minutes, maybe two minutes after the show is over is not the best time to be bringing up a serious issue. Josie Fenech 13:22 No, no. No, definitely not. Yes. So just need a minute. Yeah. Matt Cundill 13:30 By the way that break the you did that break that we did at 730? Where were you going with that bit? Oh, and I'm asking you as the program director not as the co host? Josie Fenech 13:39 Yes, that's right. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, honestly, everyone was really good at kind of checking themselves, everyone had a very high standard set for themselves. And, you know, they knew when things were going off the rails or if something didn't quite hit, there, definitely there wasn't really formal airchecks couldn't, couldn't do that with them couldn't pull that off, given this scenario. So it's more about discussions. Matt Cundill 14:09 Take me back to the first three years of the show. Because it really does take three years for a great show. It really does take three years for a good show to become great. And this is a show by the way that a lot of American radio stations look towards in Canada as being this is the benchmark for great radio. So what were some of the things that happened in the first three years that you did to take it from good to great. Josie Fenech 14:34 We tried everything. We were allowed to make mistakes, we're allowed to take big risks. New Cap gave us all of the freedom, all of the autonomy to just try anything, and I don't think very many people are afforded that. And I 100% think that's what led to our success. Is that we were allowed to just try, try anything that came to mind and had full support and full promotion. It was really incredible. I mean, the things that we did plus it was, it was a young staff, we were all so dedicated. We all worked around the clock. We lived there, essentially, and really felt like we were connecting. So that feeds the momentum, right? So everything we did, people are showing up, oh, my god, wow. okay, and then, and then it's bigger. And then it's bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And we're doing all these massive promotions. And we're, you know, shutting down roads and it's like, holy cow. We were also building trust with our audience, we follow through on everything we said we were going to do, except for one scenario where the plastic surgeon had to pull up because he was going to lose his license. But then that we followed through an every crazy idea that we had, so we build trust with our audience and we and we still have that, you know, we just celebrated our 20th anniversary here at Hot and the notes that we get on a weekly basis from our audience. 'I've been listening for 10 years', 'I've been listening for 15 years', oh, you guys, we have formed such a deep connection with our audience and it started back then, when if we said we were going to do something, we did it. And again, the autonomy and being allowed to fulfill all of our kind of crazy ideas, I think is what led to our pretty quick success within those first three years. And I'm glad you mentioned that three years, Matt, because there's so many new shows that get together and are expected to deliver, you know, on ratings in the first six months year. No, you don't even start looking at that until the three year mark, you're building a show. You're building a show, you're building the chemistry, you're building the confidence, you're building the brand. You can't you can't judge them before the three year mark, this stuff takes time. Matt Cundill 17:01 And I wish I could take credit for coming up with that but I had Valerie Geller on the show and I asked her to explain to me why it takes three years. Valerie Geller 17:13 If somebody said to you, I want to grow tomatoes, and you would say Okay, so it's going to take two or three weeks to get the seedlings to sprout, then you put them in the ground or in pots, and then it's going to take 60 weeks before they sprout into plants. And then it's going to take a few more weeks before you see any fruit. If you told that to somebody or you read a gardening book, everybody would go 'yeah, okay. Right. That's what it is. It just takes what it takes'. It takes nine months to gestate a human being in a womb, right? You can't speed up the process. It takes the time it takes. Going on a diet trying to lose weight, you want to keep that weight off, it's going to take week by week by week, slow go, lose the weight, right? So why is it that when we know for sure that when you want to get audiences to change habits and follow you that it's going to take day after day after day, week after week, month after month, product, permanence, promotion. Do a compelling show. Be a unique voice, offer your audience something they can't get elsewhere. Do it consistently with high quality over time and finally, let them know where they can find it. Now, one of the reasons why and this really opened up the world for me and I write about it in Beyond Powerful Radio, it takes 1000 times of repeated behavior before a human being can rewire his or her brain to change a habit. The result of that research was it takes 1000 times of repeating behavior before humans can re- habituate. You can change behavior immediately, but to rewire your brain so it's wrong if you don't do it and it feels right when you do do it. That's 1000 times and 1000 days is three years. Tara Sands (Voiceover) 19:11 Transcription of the Sound Off Podcast is powered by the You May Also Like podcast, the show about people, places and things. Follow the show on your favorite podcast app or at youmayalsolike.net. The Sound Off Podcast supports Podcasting 2.0, so feel free to send us a boost if you're listening on a newer podcast app. If you don't have a newer podcast app you can get one at newpodcastapps.com. Matt Cundill 19:41 You said massive promotions- Josie Fenech 19:42 Yes. Matt Cundill 19:43 Paige Nienaber. Josie Fenech 19:44 Yeah, he was a big part of that. Matt Cundill 19:47 I mean New Cap gave you the tools he's a big tool. Josie Fenech 19:52 Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Absolutely. Well and Rob, Rob Mieze deserves massive amount of credit. He was kind of like a man scientist behind the curtain. Again, it was his kind of we can do anything mentality that that set us off on the right course and we and and we all believed it. And so yeah, and Rob and Paige with his also, you know, mad scientist ways it was kind of the perfect storm of people who had the wild ideas, and then people who can execute those wild ideas. Because obviously if you don't have the strength and talent or the strength and promotions and you know, great, you can have the idea, but it's going to fall flat if you don't have the people to execute it. So we had both. Matt Cundill 20:40 So one of the things that when the station launched that I saw, would the station be able to overcome being at 89.9? I know that seems ridiculous by today's standards, the way we, but it's way down the left of the dial. But you know, back in the day when the station was launching is 2003. A lot of people had, you know, it was a tuner. It wasn't necessarily digital, and every vehicle. Was that an obstacle that came up when the station launched? It's a little bit down the dial, it's a little bit to the left. Josie Fenech 21:11 So I wasn't there when the station launched. I came in a year later, so I can't say necessarily, but I do think that they came in I mean, they it came in as a rhythmic CHR. And at the time, it was the height of you know, 50 cent, Eminemm, Ja Rule, Ashanti, Nelly. So it came into Ottawa and made so much noise. That no I don't I don't think it was an issue because people they understood the assignment, 'Oh, this is where I can get this music. Okay, I'm finding 89.9 no problem'. Yeah. Matt Cundill 21:52 And they can hear hit music half the time. Josie Fenech 21:57 Oh, good old Ottawa, Gatineau, yeah. Matt Cundill 22:01 So only you and I are gonna know what we're talking about here, but there for many, many years up until just about a year ago, there was a hit non hit rule, which meant that a top 40 radio station could only play 49.9% hit music, the rest of it had to be material that charted below 40 on Billboard, or whatever Canadian chart was being put out that week. How'd you manage? Josie Fenech 22:26 Oh man. I mean, again, the thing is that, especially in those early years are only competition really was other radio stations in the city who were playing by the exact same rules. So at least it was an even playing ground there. Obviously not so much anymore, but it is gone now, just as of last December. Honestly, Matt, I've had conversations with people and there would be people even within my own company who disagree with this. But you know, what, maybe the fact that we had to get on newer music so early, before it became a hit, maybe the fact that we had to, you know, play, perhaps some more obscure Canadian acts. Maybe that was all part of the secret sauce. Maybe that led to us being a market leader and lead to our success. It's not the way that most people go you you play the hits, you play them often. We had to take a different path and, and maybe it actually helped us and didn't always hurt us. Matt Cundill 23:38 So we had the same thing in Montreal, I was working alongside MIX 96 at the time CHR radio station and the pattern and Pat Holliday, by the way, pointed this out in his YouTube tutorials of how to be a program director and he learned a lot from this. And that's getting on the hit songs early- Josie Fenech 23:57 Yeah. Matt Cundill 23:58 and then maybe pull back a little bit when they enter the chart and then you can ramp them up again a little bit later. And to no end it would annoy and tick off the record company. What do you mean you're cutting the spins? Well, we're doing our own thing here. Josie Fenech 24:15 Kind of have to. Yeah, yeah, you figure out a way to do it. So I mean, for us, you know, what we ended up doing is we would always have a Canadian in our power international and that helped both with the non hit as well as our 40% can con requirement. But yeah, I mean, it was just it's all we ever knew. So it honestly wasn't a huge deal. Matt Cundill 24:41 So the chains are off. You must have popped some champagne and now I can play whatever I want to play pretty much on the CHR station in in Ottawa and for those that Montreal as well. And we're taking a look at CHR today and it is nothing like we've ever seen before. What is the state of CHR radio today? It feels like there's fewer hits. I don't recognize the Billboard charts. Josie Fenech 25:08 Yeah, exactly. Where are the core artists? Matt Cundill 25:11 Why is Why is Morgan Wallen there? What's going on? And Taylor Swift is as big as the Beatles. So I'm over 50. What's happening? Josie Fenech 25:22 I mean, obviously, our streaming services and and you know, the power of TikTok have had their influence. We've, we've definitely seen that over the last couple of years. Where, yes, to your point, these artists that are not as well known are having these massive radio hits, we may only hear from them once and never again, playing something or an artist that's unfamiliar is like, well, yeah, it's unfamiliar. But now it's not because people recognize it from TikTok and so I don't think it's ever going to be the same. I don't think we're ever going to have those core artists, the way that we used to, we have these discussions every week in our music meeting and it is always a decision based on data, yes and then of course, our own experience, our own testing if we have it and our gut. And you know, sometimes there's a little bit of even locality factored in there. I do think that essentially, CHRs are pretty much the same no matter where you are. But sometimes, you know, we may play a certain artists a little more here in Ottawa for reasons, you know, X, Y, and Z. But yeah, the state of CHR right now is so interesting. It's easy to be very cyclical, right? Okay, oh, we're in a rhythmic phase. Okay. oh, we're leaning a little more rock, pop rock, right, okay and now, it's everything all the time. I mean, country's definitely having a moment right now. We've we're playing the Morgan Wallen and replaying the Luke combs. But again, we are, we're a top 40 radio station. So if it if it's a pop culture song, if it's having a moment, if it's super popular, we should be on it, regardless of the genre. Matt Cundill 27:25 So your audience will likely need 600 spins of a song to really, you know, wrap its arms around it and embrace it, and you don't really have that sort of time. Josie Fenech 27:34 A lot of songs we play never make it to 600 spins. Matt Cundill 27:37 Well, how does that work? Josie Fenech 27:38 I mean even for it to be, for it to go into testing, the recommendation is you wouldn't put anything in testing without a minimum of 250 spins and still, that's pretty early. It's tough. I mean, you try to predict songs that are going to go the distance. You mentioned this earlier about how you know, we used to, songs used to ride up from you know, a light category to a medium to a power, and then to a recurrent. So now what we're doing is, you know, it'll, it'll kind of go from a light, medium power and then back down to a medium, potentially back down to so we are staying on these songs a little bit longer. We've, you know, we've talked about okay, adding in a little more gold for the familiarity sake, right, because sometimes when the playlist just feels too new, with too many unknown artists, we want to make sure that, you know, we have the spokes of the wheel where we're playing big familiar hit, newer hit newer artists, big familiar. It's, we've checked, we, you know, we fiddle with our clocks, and, you know, try to try to figure out the science behind it. Matt Cundill 28:48 It's wild. It sounds like the wild west of music. You know, essentially, the music department used to be doing laundry, where you, you know, take it, wash it, dry it, fold it, put it away. And now it feels like you're constantly it feels like you're now managing pot of soup, where you're adding stuff to the soup, you're serving the soup, you're taking stuff we're going to put it's like one bowl of soup that is constantly going. Josie Fenech 29:15 Yes. Well, and the other thing too, Matt is you know, and I don't even know I'm so bad at judging yours because they all blend together. But when did this start maybe five years ago, where artists would release multiple songs within a month and so you know, we're playing like we've got three Justin Bieber's in our current category, or Ed Sheeran, or Olivia Rodrigo has this massive hit right now. What is she doing on Friday, releasing another one, Vampire still has such a long runway, and here she's releasing her next single already. I believe that's for the streaming world. That's not how radio used to work. The labels had control. They would release the radio single, they let that go as long as it possibly could. Then they would release the next one. So now on top of yeah, on top of all of this different music, we have to play by these different artists. We're getting multiple tracks from the same artists and we also have to figure that out and how we're going to have the you know the right artist separation and and then we can't play their recurrent hits. So we might have to, you know, take them out of recurrent because then you have four or five Olivia Rodriguez and- Matt Cundill 30:20 Does recurrent even exist anymore. Josie Fenech 30:22 Yes. Yeah. Matt Cundill 30:23 Okay. Did you get Taylor Swift tickets? Josie Fenech 30:26 I did. I did. It was intense. Matt Cundill 30:30 You verified fan? Josie Fenech 30:31 Yes. I registered. I got the email Tuesday that I was a verified fan. I got the code via text yesterday. So this is how fun I love my colleagues. So yesterday, I had a little support group virtually. It was John Downey was on there, Zack Bedford, Jen, Dale, and they all got on to watch me try to secure these tickets. And they were all going to be there to pick up the pieces if I didn't do it. John Downey specifically is like the grand master at securing tickets. So he helped me and talk me through it and I got I got tickets. I can't believe it. Everyone in our company registered and I was the only one to be a verified fan. I don't know lightning in a bottle, I have to go buy a lottery ticket. Matt Cundill 31:21 Why does Taylor Swift come off is so polarizing? Josie Fenech 31:23 That's a head scratcher. I don't know. Any brand manager would tell you BJ when I was with, you know, his famous line is in order to be a brand that some people will love. You have to be a brand that some people will hate. And I rather be that than be somewhere in the middle mediocre, oh, yeah, they're fine. Matt Cundill 31:46 Bruce Springsteen at Rock never tested well. Josie Fenech 31:49 Right. Matt Cundill 31:49 Yet he's selling out two nights in Montreal. 40,000. People, but Born to Run sucks. Josie Fenech 31:57 Go figure. Matt Cundill 31:58 Yeah, I mean, the two things aren't the same thing. I mean, back in the day, when there was physical records being sold. Well, the record selling really well. Well, our radio station isn't really interested in your record sales. We're not here to sell records, we're here to entertain an audience with a song. Josie Fenech 32:17 Exactly. And again, sometimes it's being a part of that pop culture moment. Matt Cundill 32:22 Where your seats? Josie Fenech 32:24 I'm in the 100 level. Matt Cundill 32:25 Wow. Josie Fenech 32:27 Yeah. Matt Cundill 32:27 You do realize you're gonna have to contain the excitement for like, well over a year. Josie Fenech 32:31 Oh, I know. Well, and this is why I haven't told my daughter. So my daughter is going to be nine next month. And this is going to be, you know, a mommy daughter event and I'm just like, sends shivers through my body. Thinking about doing this with her. She's never been to a concert before. Obviously, she's very young. I just took my son to his first concert. Yeah, I'm tingling. I cannot wait, but I haven't told her and she hasn't asked. Matt Cundill 33:00 And Your secret is safe. So long as she doesn't listen to this podcast. Josie Fenech 33:03 Right? Yeah, I have to. I have to make sure she listened to this Matt, sorry. Matt Cundill 33:10 You know in 2019, you were shot out of a cannon launched off the show. What was it like to take that step from doing a morning show every day to don't have to do this morning show every day and I'm going to be working with talent. Josie Fenech 33:24 It was great. Matt Cundill 33:26 And programming. Josie Fenech 33:27 Yeah, it was great. I mean, obviously, people who listen to the morning show had no idea that I was programming the radio station. We never talked about that and I still think a lot of people that I meet are confused by it. If they were a fan of the show, they think I got a demotion. Like 'are you okay?'. It was time, it was time. When I when I came off the show I had started as the I was PDN flow. So I was going back and forth to Toronto, on a weekly basis. So on Mondays, I was coming in here, I was in here by 4am to pre record my morning, show bits and then get on a plane at six and head to Toronto. It was just it was a lot my career where I want it to go. Like, obviously, being on air is a ton of fun, but that was one of those things where I was so fortunate that I got to have a hobby as part of my career. I didn't have to go outside of my career for my hobby. My hobby was doing entertainment on the morning show my career was programming the radio station, and now also, you know, working with talent and so how wonderful and privileged I was to be able to do all of that under one roof. But yeah, I got to the point where I was ready to kind of give up that and make room for other far more talented people than me like Brady, who is now the fourth member of the Morning Show and The Morning Show has undoubtedly gotten better because of him and me stepping away. So you also have to know that, you know, you have to have enough self awareness to go, okay. You know, this is like this thing is a is a freight train right now and I want it to continue to propel itself and getting in new, wildly talented blood was definitely the right call. Matt Cundill 35:23 Things do come around full circle. You want to start out as an actor that involves a lot of auditions and now you're working with talent, you're finding talent, you're you're managing them. What do you look for in a in a demo? Josie Fenech 35:38 Personality. Yeah, personality and then creativity, obviously, personality and creativity and then the demo is really such a small piece. It's, it's the email more than the demo. Honestly, it's the communication more than it is that three minute reel. It is the how did you communicate to me in your email? What kind of personality came out there? When I talk with you on the phone, how natural is it? What can I hear your passion? Can I hear your excitement? Do you sound like you'd be a fun person to be around? Do you sound like you kind of you'd come in here and could raise a team up. Many people have heard this, you know, you hire 90% on attitude. The other 10% can be figured out trained, coached. Whatever. Matt Cundill 36:34 Tell me about the skill set between doing live radio and doing voice tracked radio. I know they're different skill sets. Can you separate the two because I'm good at one but suck in another? I just knew that about myself. Josie Fenech 36:49 Really? Matt Cundill 36:50 Yeah. Josie Fenech 36:51 Which one were you good at? Live? Matt Cundill 36:53 I was good at live. Josie Fenech 36:54 Why did you suck at tracking? Matt Cundill 36:55 I just I felt it was a different skill set that needed to be taught. Some breaks work in live moments and some don't. I think it's yeah, if you look at a comedian like Sugar Sammy, who gets up and he interacts with the audience. He also understood live radio and I worked with Sugar Sammy, we did in Montreal, we did live radio together. And he came to Winnipeg, he did a week on the air with me at POWER 97 and he just had this thing for working in a live environment, whether it was phones and interaction, and blinking lights, the moment we are on and then you go into the box down the hall and nothing. Josie Fenech 37:35 Yeah, no, for sure. I mean, I also, you know, tracked back in the day at kiss and definitely suffered from the same, the same thing. I think what helps trackers now is obviously the technology, the setup is so much better. We have five full time remote hosts, we have you know, a lot of network tracking, obviously and that's what they do and their their setups are great. So they can they can play audio, they can take calls, they have access to texting platforms and whatnot, so so they can have that interaction and also, I think when we you know, listen to tape, and chat about their performance, to me, what will make a track feel alive is the insertion of again, their personality. So I think so many trackers will go into a booth with all of this prep, and treat it more like a formulaic job, sit down do this, I've got the prep, but I know how to introduce this song and the song, and they lose that kind of organic in the moment. Spontaneous insertion of you know what? And so I have them do that, like, you know, if I'm chatting with with a host, and this happened recently where she you know, she had this mug, it said something, and there was a little story behind it and I said, 'have you talked about that on the air yet?' And she goes, 'No'. I said, 'Okay, so how do you how do you insert that into one of your tracks?' You know, it's like, 'oh my gosh, oh, I just took a sip. Sorry, one minute, okay. Sorry, just swallowing my coffee there that song came you know came to an end really quickly and, and actually funny story, I pulled this mug out of the cupboard this morning' and then launch into that right? So yes, this is where there's more acting involved again going back to that, you know, at the beginning you said what is the difference is that opposite acting and being a radio host. I think when you're attracting you're maybe doing a little more acting and you're having you're kind of acting like it was oh, that's just snuck up on me, nevermind, this is the third time I've recorded this track. But you know, you have to be able to sell that in the moment feeling. That's what a good tracker does. Matt Cundill 39:52 And by the way, some of my favorite radio shows that I listen to our voice tracks. Josie Fenech 39:56 Right. Matt Cundill 39:57 They sound great. They sound better than the live people, so I'm not a big fan of, you know, hearing people saying, well, you know, voice tracking, it's just no, because some, some of them are really, really good. Josie Fenech 40:07 So good. The people again, like always with a high amount of care. And production, I think is another element that if you are tracking, and you are not using that opportunity to have a fully and masterfully produced show with audio, you're leaving so much on the dance floor. You know, like, come on, produce your show. Oh, well, in for live shows as well. I think production is a lost art and I think nothing can enhance a radio show, like someone who is on top of audio clips and sound effects and the right bed for the right, the right moment. You know, use it as an exclamation mark for whatever message you're trying to get across. Matt Cundill 40:58 I know you listen to radio across the country, maybe even around the world. Do talent get enough feedback? Josie Fenech 41:04 No. No. Matt Cundill 41:07 If your talent, how can you get feedback if your programmer isn't giving you feedback? What can you do to get some feedback? Josie Fenech 41:13 You reach out to other programmers, I mean, I have tons of people emailing me asking if I have some time to listen to tape and I really appreciate that they're that they're doing that. I think, honestly, I bet you 75% of the programmers in our industry here in Canada, if they got an email, I would happily listen and give feedback. Even if that person worked for a competing company. Ultimately, I want our competitors to be strong, because that's good for our industry. I don't want them to be as strong as we are, obviously, but it also, the stronger they are, the stronger we will get, the more challenged we are, the better our output. So I want I want the industry to be very, very strong and healthy for everyone's sake. It's the only way we will survive. So helping each other out like that, I think is a good thing, but that's the advice I would give yeah. Reach out to other programmers. Matt Cundill 42:15 I'm excited that you say that. Because in 2013, I began to recognize that radio needed to band together in order to solve some of its problems and I don't think we're there yet. Perhaps the problem we're having right now with with Facebook and Google might bring us a little bit closer. I know you've got some radio stations that have are having their content suppressed. What are some of the strategies that run through your head in order to to end around some of the suppression issues? Josie Fenech 42:46 Well, I mean, yes, I think, you know, I know that we are talking to other companies, and we and we are trying to band together for the betterment of the industry. I mean, strategy wise, if, thankfully, we're not a news station, but I know that we're still at risk, we have to be very thoughtful about the type of content that we put on. socials could it be perceived as news, there's more scrutiny now, but that has also always been there. We obviously have to be very, very careful. We put we put so much energy and thoughtfulness into our socials, and truthfully, not even having anything that is able to tell us if there's any correlation correlation at all between being successful and socials and ratings. Yeah, we do because it's where people live and we want to be where people live or where they play. We want to be where people play. So yeah, I think it's just constant communication with your team scrutinizing what you do scrutinizing the intention behind it. But for me, anyway, we are we are you know, we're kind of in a silo here, doing our own thing and making sure that we dodged these bullets. Matt Cundill 44:05 Josie, thanks so much for being on the show, I really appreciate it. Josie Fenech 44:08 Thank you, Matt. It was so nice to see you at our RDNA, I was about to say CMW, but our RDNA this year. It was really really wonderful and I'm really honored to be invited onto your show. Thank you. Matt Cundill 44:21 You know, you're missed the Morning Show boot camp. Josie Fenech 44:23 Yeah. Matt Cundill 44:25 Don Anthony says hello. Josie Fenech 44:27 Oh, nice. Oh, really? Oh my gosh. Oh geez. Tara Sands (Voiceover) 44:30 The Sound Off Podcast is written and hosted by Matt Cundill, produced by Evan Surminski, edited by Chloe Emond-Lane, social media by Aidan Glassey. Another great creation from the Sound Off Media Company. There's always more at soundoffpodcast.com.

Lauren Passell is the owner of Tink Media. Her experience in Public Relations . gives her a unique perspective. But simply put, podcasting is public relations. Everything from getting the guest, preparing the show, and marketing and promoting the show is what a great PR firm executes; all in the name of messaging and creating audience awareness. Lauren along with Arielle Nissenblatt, embarked on podcasting's ultimate PR campaign with last April with the "Adopt-a-Listener" podcast initiative to recruit more people to connect with podcasts. I was speaking with lauren about podcast marketing – it felt very therapeutic hear someone with an equal disdain for wasting money on social media ad spending and the need to upgrade our podcast artwork. Lauren offers free podcast marketing suggestions in her newsletters that you can find here: Podcast The Newsletter Podcast Marketing Magic If you want to just skip over the show and grab some free marketing tips, here ya go! Lauren shared out 100 podcast marketing tips in her Podcast Marketing Magic newsletter last year. If you get value from these tips - send Lauren a thank you. And I made mention of "Adopt-a-Listener" which took place last April. Bryan Barletta of Sounds Profitable interviewed Lauren and Arielle Nissenblatt - listen to the campaign in deeper detail here. (The Sound Off Media Company is a sponsor of Sounds Profitable) Lauren and I both had a chuckle about the use of microphones in artwork. While there are a few on our network that have them, there was one I didn't dare change, Plus the podcast host said he had shirts made this logo. Paul Bonacquisti is owner and winemaker of Bonacquisti Wine Company, Denver’s Urban Winery, located in the Sunnyside neighborhood on the Northside. If you're into wine and in the Denver area... perhaps for Podcast Movement, check out his urban winery. Or at the very least, his podcast. Lauren is going to be speaking at Podcast Movement in a session titled Podcast Marketing Maintenance. There are hundreds of things you can do to market your podcast. It can feel overwhelming. I will go over the three things that are low-lift actions podcasters can take to keep their numbers going up: 1. Pitching to newsletters 2. Setting up ad swaps 3. Applying to apps This is for people who have an ongoing show and want useful takeaways for things they can schedule to do on a regular basis. Will include what they are, why they're important, and how to set up a simple system to get them done. TRANSCRIPTION Tara Sands (Voiceover) 0:02 The Sound Off Podcast. The show about, podcast and broadcast starts now. Matt Cundill 0:13 This week I'm speaking with Lauren Passell from Tink media. Lauren is one of the sharper podcast marketing minds. And her experience in PR gives her a unique perspective because let's face it, every podcaster is thinking about marketing, promotion, networking, social media, all in the name of growing your audience. Now before you go any further connect with two of the newsletters she works on including Podcast Marketing Magic and Podcast the Newsletter which are both on Substack. You can find those in the show notes of this episode. Last April, she created the Adopt A Listener podcast initiative to recruit more people to connect with podcasts. That, by the way, yielded some pretty interesting results. By the way, the longer you listen to this episode, the more it feels like podcast therapy. By the way, if you're headed to Denver for Podcast Movement later this month, Lauren is going to be talking about podcast marketing maintenance, Tuesday, August 22 at 11:15. Lauren Passell joins me from New York City. Lauren, what was your first exciting experience with audio? Lauren Passell 1:19 Oh, well, I grew up listening, I guess music. My parents were big music people. And this was like, in the early 90s, my dad had a 300 CD, like, you could put two machines. One, you could put 300 CDs in them and one, you could put 200 CDs, and um, and he somehow figured out how to connect them. So you could shuffle between all 500 CDs. And so we would have it on in our house 100% of the time. Music, I think was first, but I also remember, I had one of those like little Fisher Price, like little kid boom boxes that would read me stories, all the Disney stories and I feel like that was like the first podcast that I listened to. It would have like a chime and you would turn the page and then I really fell in love of podcasts when I was on crutches in New York City and I needed something to listen to while I was you know, walking around. So that's my history with audio I guess. Matt Cundill 2:21 You started Tink media back in 2018. Why did you start it? Lauren Passell 2:25 I couldn't get a job. I had, you know, worked in book publishing for a long time and I left there to go work and podcasting and I got fired and I was in a really hard place like the hardest place I've ever been and back in the book publishing, I had always loved podcasts. I wasn't in PR, or marketing, but the PR team would always come up to me and say, can you get some of our authors on podcasts, like, can you get David Sedaris on some podcasts? I was always like, happy to do it because I was like, this is what I dream about. I love I love this. I'll never forget the first time I emailed I emailed on a sale, and I'm pitching David Sedaris and she responded to me she's like a major celebrity. Like I couldn't even believe it, you know, and I was like, oh, I can do this. This is real. So I was doing that at the book publishing house, I left there went to go work for a podcast company got fired and thought, I think PR people aren't great at pitching to podcasts. So originally, it was just getting authors on podcasts to promote their books, the more and more I started talking to podcasters. They were like, we need help with this too. Can you do this for me? So the whole company has just evolved from people asking me if I can do something and trying to figure out how to do it. Matt Cundill 3:40 I mean, you clearly saw that podcasters were struggling with their marketing to start this. Lauren Passell 3:44 Yeah I mean, basically, I think a lot has changed, but when I started, I feel like it was very normal for people not to have a single thought in marketing, not have put a single thought into marketing, sometimes coming to us after they launched and put out the entire show. I'm starting to notice that people come to me earlier and earlier, which is a really good sign. Matt Cundill 4:10 You were doing a lot of rescue projects when you started, but now people are coming to you for the full launch. Lauren Passell 4:14 Yeah. Matt Cundill 4:15 So what's one of the biggest mistakes you see that most podcasters make when it comes to marketing their podcast? What's the one thing that you can look at and go, yep, I see that every day. Lauren Passell 4:26 Spending money on social media. Matt Cundill 4:28 Oh, yeah. Lauren Passell 4:29 Or just there's so many things tied to social media. Social media doesn't grow podcasts. It's great for the audience you have. So if I could do one solid thing, I would say take most of the time you're spending on social media and put it towards figuring out how to work with people. Other podcasters partnerships is what works. I do a lot of consulting and I say if this meeting was five minutes long, I would say set up a promo swap on every single one of your episodes. Goodbye. And keep on doing it, and you'll grow. That is there's a lot of uncertainty. There are a lot of things I cannot promise, but I am 99% sure, you will see good organic growth if you set up a promo swap on every single episode. Matt Cundill 5:13 Pomo swaps. It sounds just so simple and rudimentary, but yet you did a whole hour at Podcast Movement about promo swaps and how valuable they are and I think a lot of people are like, they wonder what they are or how they should be doing them. So let's reel it back just a touch and say, what are promo swaps? Lauren Passell 5:32 I can talk about this forever, thank you very much. A promo swap if you listen to podcasts, I know you've heard them all the time. It's when you hear a podcaster say, hey, if you like this show, you're gonna like this other show. The reason they work is because first of all, the reason social media doesn't always work is because you're targeting a lot of non podcast listeners, it's very hard to turn a non podcast listener into a podcast listener, I try all the time. So it's better go for the low hanging fruit, find the people that are already listening and when you're targeting people who are listening to a podcast, you found a podcast listener. And another reason social media marketing doesn't work is because people don't like to click off social media in general. But these promo swaps, you're targeting people listening, they're already there, they have their devices so this is why they work. And also it's a recommendation from someone they trust. You know, if I'm listening to your podcast, I trust you, I'm here, I'm invested in what you have to say. So if you tell me to listen to something, I'm going to listen to it. That is why they work so well. And if you want to set one up, I mean, basically, when I get a client and I want to set up some promo swaps, I pour myself a glass of wine, I sit back and relax, I open up spreadsheets. And I make a list of this is going to sound cheesy, my clients, potential podcast friends. I think of these as friendships that overlap audience and there's a lot of ways to figure out who your overlap audiences with, but it's podcasts where your audience is the goal is to borrow audiences from each other when you're working together in these promo swaps situation. So find those podcasts, email them, swap some copy maybe so that you can each do a host read ad on each other shows, I think host read works more, but sometimes people switch digital files. Usually they're 30 seconds. sometimes they're dynamically inserted, sometimes they're not. It doesn't matter. I think you can get really, really creative. I feel like I love when people break the rules about when it comes to promo swaps. Matt Cundill 7:27 Yeah so that's a good recommendation that I learned last year and that's have the host read the copy for the other podcast. So essentially becomes a host read ad for another podcast to encourage them to listen to it. And normally I'm into just swapping hey, you send me your promo, I'll send you my promo. Which Yes, it's the lazier way, but you made a really good point that it's just more effective to have the host read the ad. Lauren Passell 7:54 Yeah, and if you want send them bullet points, because they'll read it in their own words and, you know, if you're doing multiples, you don't want them all to sound the same. And then when you send those bullet points, maybe pick out an episode of your podcast that you know that that other audience specifically will like so that you make it a little bit more specific for those people. Matt Cundill 8:15 Sometimes see podcasters with the opportunity to use dynamic audio insertion, and they haven't even considered the show promo like that promo swap. It's kind of like a marketing opportunity that's in plain sight. I'm going to share my favorite tip for finding other people to do promo swaps and that's using a website called Rephonic and I'll put that in the show notes, but what's something that you would recommend for people to connect with other podcasters of a similar genre in order to do a promo swap? Lauren Passell 8:46 Well, I feel like I should get rephonic.com/graph tattooed on my arm because I talk about it so much. I love that chart. It's such a good resource. I'm so glad you are telling people to use it. One of the first things I do is search for the show or a comp in Apple podcasts and scroll to the bottom and it says you might also like, that's one way. You can do that and other apps as well. I use Listen Notes. You know sites likeListen Notes and Podchaser all offer lists of similar shows when you search this is how I start going down rabbit holes. I make this big list of my podcast friends, I'm going Rephonic, I'm going on Listen Notes, I'm going on Podchaser. I use Player FM. I will type in something very specific like best tomato gardening podcasts Player FM, I will Google that. There are very specific lists on there and the thing I like about player FM is they will tell you when the last episode was published right up front on the page so you can know if you should be wasting your time with it. If it hasn't had an episode in five years, you'll know right away. The other thing is, you know, I want people to do these promo swaps together so much I built a database on my website, actually, my team built the database, I cannot take credit for it. But anyway, if you go in, you can put in your show everyone should do it, add a few tags, a little bit of information about the size, and search for shows that are similar to yours and then email them and talk about doing a cross promo. What's good about this is sometimes when I email someone about a promo swap, I say, would you like to do a promo swap with me? And they say, that's interesting, shall we Zoom about it? And I'm like, aha, you have no idea what a promo swap is. Then I ended up doing this whole lesson about promo swaps. People in the database on Tink media.co. I'll know what one is, they've opted in already. You just emailed them, they're down. So you don't have to explain anything. Matt Cundill 10:43 I want to talk a little bit about writing ad copy because you've written it for your work. I've written it through radio, I've written a lot of promos. But you gave a great suggestion about reading a bullet points for somebody else to read about your show, but what about when it comes to writing for your own show? Let's say had to write a mid roll ad for a client, let's say you had to write an ad about your show, what are some tips that you can do to really make it so that it doesn't become wordy or compact, or because a lot of people don't have any experience with this. And the next thing you know, they've written two minutes, and they needed to really write 45 seconds. Lauren Passell 11:20 I know and it's so important because think about how much time you put into your podcast and then the copy on those things are so important. They're like life or death in some cases. I'm not so much of a podcaster as a podcast listener. I will tell you, I hear the same wording 100 times a day, the same wording on multiple episodes. Give me a rate and review on Apple podcasts, subscribe. So I get 100 asks in the same phrased in the same way. My biggest suggestion is to make your copy standout. Say it how you really mean it. Don't say give me a rating or review on Apple podcasts. I hear that so many times, I know that you should be doing this, but just think of another way to say it, explain why you want them to why it's important to you be honest and vulnerable, and maybe read some of the readings, interviews. Also, I'm doing something this year where I leave an Apple Podcast rating or review for podcasts every day of the year and I cannot say sometimes I even really love a show and I don't know what to say because I don't have tons of time. I don't want to spend forever. Tell people what to say, I don't mean literally tell them but give them a suggestion of something to say even if it's just tell me where you're listening from something to get them engaged, they'll leave their rating and a review. If you maybe help them out a little bit, maybe like ask me a question or think about it based on your show, but you know your audience so you can think of something. Matt Cundill 12:44 Are ratings and reviews important? Lauren Passell 12:47 I think they're really important because as my friend and partner Ariel Nissenblatt always says when you go to a podcast and you see that there are ratings and reviews there, it's like someone was writing I was here on the bathroom wall. It's great social proof. But you know, Apple podcasts, it says on their website, it doesn't help with the algorithms. That's another tip I would give actually about the copy. I cringe when I hear podcasters say, give us a rating and review it helps us in the algorithm. Because it doesn't help you in the algorithm. What helps you in the algorithm is getting a lot of downloads and having a great show and all those things, but but it's still really important. Sometimes I will go to a podcast and if I see that there's no ratings and reviews are one or two, I think didn't you even at least ask your family or your friends to leave a review? You know, people are spending not a lot of time sometimes looking if there's nothing there, they might not feel like it's a good enough show to even test out. Matt Cundill 13:44 Do you think podcasters outsource too much? Whether it comes to maybe finding a guest for the show or making appearances on social media like writing show notes, for instance, like using AI instead of doing it yourself? Are we at a point now where we're outsourcing ourselves just a little too much to the point where the marketing doesn't feel personable? Lauren Passell 14:03 I don't think so. I think that people should use all the help they can get and they need all the help they can get especially podcasters wear 10 hats and a lot of them want to spend time on their audio, which is what they're good at and what they should be doing and it's funny because sometimes, like when I tell people that for example, I'm tweeting about your podcast isn't going to grow. I get two different reactions, I get people saying that's not true my Tweets get a lot of likes, and I'm like that means you have a lot of friends that's very nice. But sometimes people say I'm so relieved, and to me that says oh, they want to focus on the audio. They don't want to do the marketing part. That's not the part of their brain. That's not the part that lights them up. It's impossible to be good at everything and I think if you can even just get a little bit of help. It's good, but you have to find the right people and you have to have good judgment and you have to have the final say and in the end it's up to you. Matt Cundill 14:56 So if I'm just posting on social media about the podcast and I do, let's say a Facebook post on LinkedIn post, three Tweets a day and I'll even throw it up on threads now because I feel I have to. I don't think I've done my marketing for the day or have I? Lauren Passell 15:11 No you haven't, ut that's good do that, because it's a good reminder, I wouldn't say don't do it, but don't expect anything out of it. So before I was saying, if I could steal some of your time away from social media, I would say, make it a goal to find five podcast friends a week or something like that, and email them, or subscribe to a new podcast newsletter, or pitch yourself as a guest to one show a week, like find that show and pitch yourself something like that those partnerships really work and they take more time. A pitch letter should take at least 15 minutes to write. So it's a lot upfront, but it's really worth it and it works. Matt Cundill 15:52 Newsletters work, but newsletters are I mean, you've got two of them, I think. And they are a labor of love. Not everybody is good at them. I don't consider myself to be very good at it. I like reading them. I see good ones out there. So what's the difference between a really good newsletter and just an average newsletter? Lauren Passell 16:13 Well, if you have a podcast, I think an average newsletter is just gonna say, hey, we have an episode out and that's fine, but not the best use of the space. I think that the best kind of podcast newsletter could be enjoyed if you don't even listen to the podcast, it's its own thing., It has maybe shownotes or extra information about the podcasts, but ideally, they drive people to the other. So you're getting people to read it and really want to listen to the podcast, but they don't have to and vice versa. I love it when people have behind the scenes things in newsletters. I love it when people have recommendations when podcasters give recommendations, obviously for podcasts, but also other things too. I think it's a great way for you to get to know the podcaster a little bit better and also pull in people from your community, shout out other people, other podcasts makers, other artists and creatives. There's so much fun stuff you can do in a newsletter. I think it's always kind of a bummer. I mean, I'm always glad when someone has one. I always tell people the second you start your podcast or even before you should start a newsletter and they're like I don't have content yet and I'm like it doesn't matter. Those email addresses. You know, you don't own your Apple podcasts audience, start collecting those email addresses and save it then when you do have content, you'll be ready to send out your content to people so I'm always excited when someone has one. But it's a little bit of a bummer when I get the newsletter and it's just hey, we have a new episode out. I want more Transcription of The Sound Off Podcast is powered by the Podcast Super Friends, five podcast producers who get together to discuss podcasting. Sharpen your podcast and creation skills by following the show on the Sound Off Podcast, YouTube or Facebook page. The Sound Off Podcast supports Podcasting 2.0. So feel free to send us a boost if you're listening on a newer podcast app. If you don't have a newer podcast app, you can get one at new podcastapps.com Matt Cundill 18:13 Is the best marketing still word of mouth? Lauren Passell 18:16 Yes. Matt Cundill 18:16 Podcast recommendations like it feels like a whole like industry unto its own. I mean, I think when I ask people, What do you listen to though I listened to Smartless, I listen to The Moth and then they're gonna list off 10 other podcasts I've never heard of before. I feel like that's every conversation I have about podcasting. Lauren Passell 18:32 I love that. I hope you're writing them down you should send them to me the recommendations you're getting. What are you listening to right now? Matt Cundill 18:38 I'm starting Scamanda. I do listen to Repurposed Radio. So I'll listen to a sports show at the end of the day, I'll do that for eight months of the year when the NFL Football season is in play. And then it doesn't get very exciting because I listened to a lot of podcasts about podcasts. Lauren Passell 18:56 I love those. Those are my favorites. Matt Cundill 18:59 So New Media Show, Podcasts Weekly Review, Dave Jackson's Podcasts, I'll listen to those and I'll and The Feed. Lipson's The Feed. I'll just listen to those. Yeah, it's not exciting stuff, but it's the stuff I like to listen to. Should my podcast be on YouTube? Lauren Passell 19:16 I mean, it depends. I talked to a lot of podcasters who say, wait a second, I got into this podcast thing because I didn't want to be on video and I don't want to do my hair it is it can be a big investment. If it's really going to bring you down I wouldn't do it. If it's really gonna bum you out to do it. I wouldn't do it, but I think there's some pretty like easy things you could do. You know, YouTube is the biggest search engine. So thinking of ways to spice up your content and think of ways that people might be searching for that content using questions and lists like how to put your podcasts onto YouTube. Here's a clip. So if you could make a few video clips that drive people back to the podcast I think that it's worth it, but right now we still don't, I think have enough information about what is available to us on YouTube and how it benefits podcasters and also, I'm an audio person, I'm always going to say, cherish your audio first. But you know, who knows? I'm sure that answer will change soon. Matt Cundill 20:21 So I either did something really brilliant today or I made a big mistake. And that's I let it leak to a few people that I would be talking to you today. Lauren Passell 20:29 Uh oh. Matt Cundill 20:30 Can you ask her some questions for me? And they are asking me things that might sail over my head. Lauren Passell 20:37 Okay, maybe mine. Matt Cundill 20:40 I hang out with podcast people and now they're asking podcast questions that are, you know, sailing sideways on me. Does Lauren agree with the concept of low conversion levels that come from podcast clip marketing Tiktok, Funnel to Apple, Spotify. Lauren Passell 20:52 I believe in all kinds, you know, anything that will drive people and I don't know what low level means. I think that we put so much emphasis on a download, but download isn't the only goal you should have as a podcaster. So, I don't know. Is your goal to also get more Tik Tok followers? You know, is your goal to reach Tik Tokers? Are you is your goal to reach Gen Z people like I kind of think everybody first like step back a couple steps and say what is my goal? I in fact, I asked podcasters that a lot and they're like, huh, no one's ever asked me that before. And I'm like, wow, let's think about that first, because one of my clients was someone with a business and their goal wasn't actually to have tons and tons of downloads. They just wanted to get a few new clients a month that was really important to them, and it made a big difference to them. So that was their goal. So really think your goal doesn't have to be getting 10,000 downloads that episode. Matt Cundill 21:47 Can you get the same SEO results in views from putting your audio on YouTube as opposed to doing straight video? Lauren Passell 21:53 I don't think so. I mean, I think that's what is so great about YouTube. That's where you can make the most out of your SEO. Matt Cundill 22:00 So 42% of Americans listen to a podcast in the last month. That's the number we're given from Edison Research. Last April, you and Ariel Nissenblatt got together for Adopt A Listener month. How many listeners were adopted? And did the program work? Lauren Passell 22:16 The program worked, but not how I thought it was going to work. Matt Cundill 22:21 Really? Lauren Passell 22:22 Yeah, we went out and spent an entire day in Washington Square Park and I thought it was going to be me giving people podcast recommendations. I mean, like, oh, my gosh, you love Ohio. Here's a podcast all about Buckeyes just for you. You know, that's not what happened. It was more of a podcast awareness campaign, people needed to hear the word podcast for the third time of their lives and be reminded that that was there. One woman thought we were lying to her that podcasts exist. I had to show them on her phone, you know. I'm in a bubble, my understanding of how many people listened was really far off. I don't know how many people were converted. Technically, I thought it would be more of people coming to me and saying, my aunt did not listen. And now she listens every single day and that was my hope okay but what ended up happening was I got people talking about sharing the idea of podcasts as a an awareness campaign, like the Got Milk campaign. And what I hope for is that every April, next April, more people join me and it turns into more of a reminder of what we have here what they are, and get it in, in more people's brains. Matt Cundill 23:28 And that's a great lesson really, for podcasters and people in radio, or any form of media, and that you can't read the label inside the pickle jar, you've got to get out of the pickle jar and go out and meet people and find out that they really don't know much about the whole thing. And I think he probably use my favorite tactic, which is when somebody says, oh, I don't know anything about podcasts, I don't know where to find them and then it's give me your phone. And then you go to this purple thing. This is your purple app, you will always use the purple app for podcasts and then people can go in and go, oh, I didn't even know that that this existed. Then comes the next hump I think for which is really where podcast recommendations come in and I think it's a problem with Netflix. Let's watch Netflix, it takes seven minutes to find something to watch. What can we do when we search out a podcast to listen to what can we do to make sure that we find what we want to find in a minute or two and we don't get into that Netflix trap of just the endless scroll looking for something to listen to. Lauren Passell 24:27 If you only have a minute, oh, first, let me say this is another good thing about promo swaps. It's not just a good way to help podcasters grow. It's a good way to get podcast listeners the correct recommendations because you probably have set up a promo with someone like minded. And so if I'm listening to the daily zeitgeist, and I hear a promo for American asteria that's a recommendation I should take. So I feel like listening to podcasts is the best way to get more curated recommendations and that's through promo swaps. Matt Cundill 25:01 So like I said at the beginning, Lauren is joining us from New York City, which can be noisy. I'm guessing what you're about to hear is a fire truck that goes by and I'm telling this for the benefit of those listening in the car, that the siren is on the podcast and not in your immediate vicinity. You see, Lauren was on a roll. So I made an executive decision to leave her on a roll. I knew you'd understand. Lauren Passell 25:26 So take note, don't let your brain skip over the promo swaps actually listen to what they're saying and if your podcasts or listen to how they're using their promo copy also, as a side note, you know, if you only have a minute, I think that another good thing is the newsletters sign up for every single podcast newsletter. I mean, if you're a podcaster, you need to be subscribed to podcast newsletters, you absolutely must. So that you can pitch yourself but also to know what's going on in the industry and that's a lot of my go to when I'm like running out not that there's ever going to run out, but if I'm like I need something new, I need something that I don't already have in my library. I will go through my list of podcasts newsletters. Matt Cundill 26:04 What should podcasters do to adopt a listener? It's something we could and should be doing year round. I'm glad you brought it to fruition in April, but what can we be doing year round to recruit more people to podcasting to get that number from 42%, perhaps to 50%. Lauren Passell 26:19 So going back to my Ohio example, I'm from Ohio, so I thought it would be really like oh my gosh, you are living in Ohio. You're going to love this podcast about Cedar Point Amusement Park, you're gonna love it okay. That was what I thought because I know so many podcasts, I love niche, weird podcasts, I can find a podcast for anybody. I was like, I'm gonna nail this okay. I had a conversation with Tom Webster and he changed my mind about this. He said, Lauren, don't get too cute about it and I knew what he meant. And he was right and what he meant was, send them the best. Don't send them something specific if it's not the absolute best. So at Tink, we made a list of what we thought were some of the best storytime the ones that you're like, how could you not love This American Life? I'm sorry, just it's so good. Don't forget about this American Life, there's so many new shiny shows don't forget how good it still is. Send them something amazing to make them fall in love with audio. That is my biggest advice. Matt Cundill 27:20 What can we do to get together to lower the number of microphones that appear in podcast artwork. It absolutely makes me nuts. I actually banned it from my company. I still have, there's still a couple of microphones kicking about, but the people I work with, I said we're gonna get rid of those. Lauren Passell 27:39 I love that you said that I almost brought that up earlier. I do something called podcast therapy, which is consulting and I can't tell you how many times I start and say right off the top. We know it's a podcast you don't need the microphone there. I have a question though. Because I tell people this and sometimes people are like, well, I should have one because my podcast is about podcasting, or you know what I mean? They have some, do you think it's there any exceptions to this rule? Matt Cundill 28:03 I'm going to say no. I still think you can do it without a microphone. Lauren Passell 28:09 Have you ever seen it well done? Matt Cundill 28:11 Artwork for a podcast about podcasting? Lauren Passell 28:13 Two questions, I guess: Artwork for a podcast about podcasting and have you ever seen it done well someone using a microphone on artwork? Matt Cundill 28:22 I'll give a shout out to Denver Wine Radio, which is a podcast that I work with that actually had the wine being poured into the microphone. Oh, I saw I'd let that one slide. I think the feed is fine. I think I there's no microphone in that I don't believe and I get what I need. They changed the cover the artwork, but the episode number and I think it's a fine use of artwork shows up nicely on Apple CarPlay. Effective, at least listen, it's not the cover of Fleetwood Mac rumors, but it but it gets the job done. Lauren Passell 28:58 Our work is important. I think, you know we judge books by covers it's so important. Matt Cundill 29:03 Okay, so let me ask you what makes for good artwork? My advice to people is can you recreate Fleetwood Mac Rumors, if you were going to release your, if your podcast was going to be a piece of vinyl, and you would hold it up, what would it be like? And I say don't put don't do book covers could book book covers have writing all over it. You don't want writing all over your artwork. Can you make Dark Side of the Moon? Can it be Fleetwood Mac Rumors cannot be the Boston debut album what sort of artwork is out there? Lauren Passell 29:37 I love thinking about this. I mean, I think basically, I rarely think someone's picture should be on a podcast. Most podcasts need a little bit of a descriptor or a subhead. I think unless the title says it all. I don't think you always have to say with you know, and then the person's name. I also love it when people do things like the podcast this is dating I think they went out to like a painter or something like that, like finding non traditional ways to get that art. I love it when people do that. So I love your idea of the album cover. Because it is like, yeah, can you enjoy this on its own? Like, oh my god, most of the time for podcasts, no. But isn't it such a treat when you see one that you really love and that it's art on its own? Like, I think we need to start thinking about that more, because I worked with a podcast called City Of Ghosts and we got it featured on Pocket Casts, which, you know, isn't the biggest app, it's my favorite app, but the artwork was so beautiful and positive, it really did well, and Pocket Casts and I'm positive it's because the artwork is beautiful. Look it up City Of Ghosts. I can attribute downloads because the artwork is so good. So I really do think it's important. Matt Cundill 30:48 And now that Apple podcasts is starting to integrate more into their apps, it's more important than ever, so much so that I hired a graphic designer had to it's just it just somehow just got just a touch beyond Canva for me. Lauren Passell 31:02 How often do you think people should change their covers? Matt Cundill 31:05 Whenever they want. I'm more concerned about changing the imaging at the beginning of the show audio wise, you know, if you have any, a lot of people don't, I still think you should have 15 seconds of audio branded right at the beginning of your show, just in case somebody puts your podcast on their website, so at least you get the credit for it. You just need 15 seconds, it's just sound design. Don't read the description. You know, you've already sold the car to the to the listener, they're driving away with it, and you're still selling them the car. If you if you're reading the description back then just this is the name of the show. Here we go. It's just and think, think sound design don't think audio and words. Lauren Passell 31:45 That's I mean, it's very good advice because I think a lot of podcasters forget that, like I might be coming in cold and have this is might be the first episode I've ever listened to. I might not have read the description so I do need information. You know, I think there's so in it sometimes. They've listened to every episode they've been there, obviously. They forget how you need to get someone who has might have been dropped into your world and have no idea where they are. Matt Cundill 32:11 But you should be able to tell somebody about your podcast and eight seconds, title of the show. It's about this, here we go. I don't think I need your LinkedIn biography to get to the beginning of the show. Lauren Passell 32:21 No need to think about the listener. Matt Cundill 32:25 You read three to five books a week? Lauren Passell 32:26 Not anymore. How did you know that about me? Matt Cundill 32:29 Internet. Lauren Passell 32:31 I used to work in book publishing. And I did when I worked in book publishing, and I still try to read as much as I can now, but it's not three to five books a week anymore. Matt Cundill 32:42 But eventually it's three to five podcasts or more. Lauren Passell 32:44 Oh, yes. I mean, I listen to probably six hours a day, possibly five to six hours a day and usually it's a little sped up. So and more on the weekends. So lots of podcasts. Matt Cundill 33:01 So that was going to be the very, very personal question is it 1.5x is a 2x? Lauren Passell 33:08 I mean- Matt Cundill 33:08 How sped up? Lauren Passell 33:08 Sometimes depending on the show, I'll go 2.7. I feel like if I'm at 1.7 it feels like my brain is warped. I think at 1.7. I feel like it's one. But if I'm listening to a show that deserves my full attention, I'm listening to Caitlin pressed or a music podcast or something. I will listen at 1.0 Also, my husband I listened we listened together and I have to listen at 1.0 with him. So because that's what you do when you love someone you listen at one point speed with them. So I do listen to one sometimes. Matt Cundill 33:46 How's your anxiety because I find that when you listen to sped up, it creates anxiety. Lauren Passell 33:51 I'm on Lexapro it's all good. Matt Cundill 33:53 You mentioned it and I was actually going to title podcast episode this, but you've already mentioned it and I felt like Ding. Oh, I love that idea. Do you feel like a podcast therapist? Lauren Passell 34:07 I do. Because a lot of times, I am not a therapist, first of all, but in these therapy sessions, it is consulting, but it's so much more. Because there's a lot of emotion. It's a lot of pouring out of your soul and vulnerability and also podcasters aren't always sure. They're not getting feedback sometimes. So I feel like the podcast therapy sessions, it's like, it's more than just, you know what should go on your cover. It's so much more that would be a great honor. If I could be considered a podcast therapist, someone to listen real I'm listening. Some someone if I could be considered someone who's really listening, and that you could trust to go to and listen. That would be a big honor. Matt Cundill 34:51 Lauren, thanks so much for being on the podcast. I appreciate it. Lauren Passell 34:54 Thank you. I can't wait to listen to this episode. Matt Cundill 34:56 Are you speaking a Podcast Movement? Lauren Passell 34:58 Yes. Are you? Matt Cundill 35:00 I am not. I'm going to be there. I will definitely be there. It's my summer camp. Lauren Passell 35:06 Me too. Matt Cundill 35:07 I have to get out of Winnipeg. It's, it's like all I do is I sit here I gotta get out of here. Like, I can't be here anymore. I gotta go hang with my people. Lauren Passell 35:16 I'm so excited. The Sound Off Podcast is written and hosted by Matt Cundill, produced by Evan Surminski, edited by Chloe Emond-Lane, social media by Aidan Glassey. Another great creation from the Sound Off Media Company. There's always more at soundoffpodcast.com.

Bryan Goldmark heads up Sales at the Locked On Podcast Network. The Network was founded in 2016 by Utah Jazz radio announcer David Locke and sold in 2021 to Tegna. Today it is home to over 200 podcasts and 25 million listeners who want to enjoy a daily fix from a podcast about their favourite team in the NHL, NFL, NBA, Major League Baseball, and College Football. In this episode you will hear all about Bryan's radio experiences. (Spoiler: His dad worked in Radio at stations like WRKO and Hot 97 in Miami, while Bryan got a crash course in radio sales at 1010 WINS). Bryan will share what it takes to join Locked On as a content creator, how often you'll need to produce content, and how good you'll need to be. One of the thing I found very interesting is how much Locked On feels like one big on demand sports radio station. Locked ON has worked alongside with Jeff Vidler at Signal Hill Insights and Jeff says, "They have a really interesting business model... local content at scale, by tying it to a national sales footprint. Very smart." We agree. There were a few points in the show where we said "wait... what?" It felt a little like radio but also having a connection with national sales. This is my favourite LOCKED ON show: TRANSCRIPTION Tara Sands (Voiceover) 0:02 The sound off podcast. The show about podcast and broadcast starts now. Matt Cundill 0:13 I met Bryan Goldmark at a cocktail party last year at Podcast Movement under the downtown Dallas heat and over a couple of expensive margaritas. He told me about the locked on Podcast Network. It's directed at those p one sports fans in local markets. Perfect if you cheer on anything from the Buffalo Bills to the Carolina Hurricanes. Bryan's no stranger to radio. His dad worked in New York, Miami in Sacramento, and Brian himself also has experience in sales. Once working for the late CBS Radio, he now heads up sales for locked on. The company was founded in 2016 by David Locke, who is the radio voice of the Utah Jazz, the company was purchased in 2021 by Tegna, which is part of Gwinnett. Now in the past, you may have heard me talking about my podcast network, which is a community of content creators who wish to stay independent and make money their way. That's not what locked on is. Bryan is going to tell us how they do things, and locked on borrows a lot from what makes radio successful. Brian Goldmark joins me from San Francisco. Your dad was in radio. Bryan Goldmark 1:21 He was yeah, I come from a long background of radio. My dad worked in radio since the 70s. He worked at some major radio stations WRKO in Boston. Hot 97. In Miami, I think you've worked in over a dozen markets. So it was fun when I started working in the radio industry and moved to New York. And a couple of people recognized my last name, which was a lot of fun. Matt Cundill 1:44 So it was back in the day it was town to town and up and down the dial but you get to be the kid in the family who does that. What was it like being a kid growing up and knowing that we have to move to Boston or away from Boston or to another market. Bryan Goldmark 1:59 I was fortunate that my father only moved us once I moved from Miami to Sacramento, my dad had the opportunity to take over the cluster which was at the time easy telecommunications, I believe now at CBS radio for a cluster of stations here in Sacramento, which included at the time now it's K H T K, which is the sports radio station that covers the Sacramento Kings. So I had an opportunity to be very much involved in sports broadcasting from an early age. Matt Cundill 2:31 And sports is all the rage when you're you know, 18 to 24. Sports Radio was something that came of age in the 90s. And you likely grew up alongside of it. And so what was your first job in sports radio, Bryan Goldmark 2:44 technically, my first job would have been an unpaid voiceover for a mother and son getting a booster shot I believe when I was about seven years old and my, my dad needed voiceover work in the studio for a client outside of that my first real job in radio was fresh out of college. And Danny Bortnick hired me at CBS radio here, out in New York City, you know, and that's where I was really working at a radio station. It was a it was a hot AC. And that's where I got the job. But with the CBS cluster, I had an opportunity to start to sell into, you know, 1010 wins and the CBS Sports station out there in New York. Matt Cundill 3:21 I mean, that's market number one. So I can only imagine how cutthroat that is, Bryan Goldmark 3:25 it was definitely a good place to start. And my father like to joke that I was getting my master's degree in New York City in sales, Matt Cundill 3:34 give me one story about a personality. Bryan Goldmark 3:37 Not really sure I have one honestly. Matt Cundill 3:40 That's that's fine. I don't think the personalities and the salespeople work that closely together, back then. Bryan Goldmark 3:45 Not at the time, you know, now it's much different. Now at locked on, it's a much different experience. We work so closely with our hosts, what we do in sales is so impactful down to the hosts, it has to be one of the most rewarding sales jobs I've ever been in because of the connection that we have to the talent because of the influence and impact that my role has on their day to day lives. It's pretty incredible to see. I spoke with one of our hosts this morning, actually. So it's we're very, very involved here at locked on verse. My time at cats are at a local station. Matt Cundill 4:23 How did you know that time and radio and radio sales was going to I don't want to say in for you, but transition out of terrestrial radio went into a digital sphere? Bryan Goldmark 4:31 Yeah, you know, I knew I wanted to be in radio from a very early age, you know, I was exposed to what radio was back in the 90s. And growing up with a sports radio station and going to the Sacramento Kings games in 2001 2002. And we had our playoff run. I was exposed to the best of radio and that really encouraged me to pursue a career in radio after I had some time in local and I moved to LA National at cats, I just saw the evolution coming, I started to lean into more of the digital properties that cats had to offer. Spotify was one of their clients at the time, and I just leaned into it I connected with the product, I could see the evolution you know, it's not, it's not very often you get to join a heritage medium, and be a part of the innovation. See, see the wheel being reinvented. And that was something that really excited me. And I wanted to be a part of and Brian Forbes gave me the opportunity when he pulled me over from CATS, radio to Westwood one to be the Digital Sales Manager for the podcast network at Westwood one. And, you know, that's when I had the first opportunity to really jump into the deep end. Matt Cundill 5:48 So when I look at a sports network, like locked on, it kind of reminds me of a sports radio station only we're going to be everybody's sports radio station, we're going to be available 24/7. But we've also got a much larger clock, it's not like we have to fill 168 hours of the week, it's kind of infinite, how much time you can fill this is this. This is sports radio on speed for you. Bryan Goldmark 6:12 It is nonstop. And sports engagement never ends either. We like to meet the fan, wherever they are, whenever they are, we always joke there's no offseason for the real sports fan. I've been a diehard kings fan, even when they've been terrible for the last 15 years, sports fans don't turn it off. And we don't turn off our shows either. Matt Cundill 6:32 So tell me about the recruitment process. Let's say I have a podcast and the podcast is in whatever market and maybe you've got an availability for that. How do you bring a podcaster into your sphere? Bryan Goldmark 6:44 Yeah, I mean, we have an incredible group of people that scout for talent, Tom Lee is our Director of talent scouting and development. And I've talked with him about this, you know, what we look for when we're trying to find a new host to either bring on a new show, whether that's a new college show, we're always growing our college network as we add more universities, or we're elevating a current show whether something happened with a host or we're bringing it on for the first time. What we look for is more than anything, I think, a passion for their team. You know, our end goal is to make this sports fan experience better. Our listeners are committed to their team, they are diehard fans, and you have to be that same type of fan to be one of our hosts, you know, there's no there's no passive sports fans in the lockdown network. And so, you know, a knowledge or a history with the team is very important lifelong fans. It's it's okay to be a fan. You know, journalism, a journalist or a radio personality, absolutely will help you become better, certainly put you in a better position to be a great podcast host. But you have to be a good entertainer. You have to love what you do. You have to share in the wins and losses with your team. I think that a really passionate listener can feel that from the host. And that's what it takes more than anything to be a great sports podcast host a great locked on host media experience helps, but it isn't everything. Matt Cundill 8:17 You mentioned recruiting from podcasts. But have you ever recruited straight out of sports radio? Or maybe you check the trades? And then somebody has been laid off? And oh, I think there's an opportunity here? Bryan Goldmark 8:28 Oh, absolutely. I mean, our network was founded on a radio personality. Right. David Locke, our founder president, he is still a contributor of Locked On Jazz. He's the host. That was our first podcast locked on Jazz and the network grew from there. Absolutely. We're looking for those opportunities. There have been a lot of changes as of late in the local sports coverage. Space certainly opens up a lot of opportunities for elevated talent. Matt Cundill 8:55 What's the compensation like? Because when you and I spoke in Dallas over I think it was two or maybe three margaritas? We were talking a little bit about the compensation for for host, I mean, locked on you guys would own the podcast. So how does the performer get paid? Bryan Goldmark 9:12 Yeah, I think that that's a really important factor of how we're structured. You know, we own all of our podcasts, everything is locked on blank. And that's a very different model than most podcast networks where they represent the show's hosts come to lockdown. They want to be a part of the lockdown network because we can offer so much as a network to support that host whether that's the brand recognition, support and distribution efforts. But when it comes to monetization, it's really your opportunity to make this either a full time job or just part of your sports broadcast portfolio. The larger your audience is the larger share of revenue that you're able to take, you know, so so if you can grow your audience if you can lean into what it takes to Be great. Bring in your audience for that sports team, you have the opportunity to to grow your income. We definitely have podcast hosts that do this as a part time job. We also have hosts that do this full time, you know and have been able to support themselves and their families, by home send their kids to the school they want to it's really incredible. It is what you make it with lockdown. Matt Cundill 10:23 I've seen some numbers from the Toronto Maple Leafs. I've seen numbers from the LA Lakers. And they're astronomically awesome, probably because they got big followings. But then I look at a team like the Jacksonville Jaguars. So I mean, is it safe to say that the person in LA is going to wind up with a much bigger check in a bigger house and the person who's doing the locked on Jags podcast. Bryan Goldmark 10:45 And that's one way of looking at it. Definitely. Matt Cundill 10:48 I don't mean to single out your your Jags person here. But I just comparing markets. Bryan Goldmark 10:52 He's amazing too. He's amazing, too. It really is what you make it we sell as a network. I think that that's what's really important to understand. We don't sell individual shows ever. We sell the locked on NFL Network, the NBA network. And those shows collectively compete with some of the biggest shows in the country. And while yes, the LA Lakers podcast host might be making more the locked on Jaguars host is making more as part of the lockdown network than they ever could as a standalone local podcast. And I think that that's one of the really unique factors of joining the lockdown network. You know, I saw a recent report from a Cass and Magellan that reported that 44% of advertising spend goes to the top 500 shows how would the local Jacksonville Jaguars hosts ever make money? How would they ever compete with those top 500 shows? The answer is locked on is joining the locked on network, right. So individually, they would never compete with the top 500 shows it would be very hard to monetize that individual show. However, when they join the collective locked on NFL Network, the locked on NFL Network is in fact a top 10 Sports podcast every day. And so collectively together, it's not about the Lakers hosts making more money or that obviously we're crossing sports here. But it's not about one host making more money than another. It's it's they are all taking part in making money. They are all getting a piece of the pie that I don't think that they would truly see without being part of our larger network. Matt Cundill 12:36 So what if they bring a sponsor to the table? Bryan Goldmark 12:39 Tremendous, we will handle them with care. There is definitely a difference between local sponsors and national sponsors. If you are a host that can go out and sell as well and bring a local sponsor onto your show. You take a much bigger piece of that pie for sure. We make sure that all of our hosts have the resources to be successful, whether that's them going out and selling their own show to a local sponsor, or host of locked on Auburn does an absolutely phenomenal job of doing that. Or if you just want to turn over the responsibilities of monetization to our sales team will do all the heavy lifting for you. Matt Cundill 13:18 Yeah, so sales idea whether it'd be Lowe's or Home Hardware or Home Depot tables, target them to Buffalo Bills, fans, they need them every Sunday, right? Bryan Goldmark 13:29 They do. They're gonna go through some plastic tables, that's for sure. Matt Cundill 13:31 Do you ever come to any difficult decisions when it comes to really big market teams are teams that travel well, like the Packers and the Cowboys? I mean, how many cowboys Podcasts can you have? How many packers podcast Can you have? Bryan Goldmark 13:43 We only lean into one, right? So we will only have one primary locked on packers show. And we just we put all our resources to that becoming the number one packers podcast in the country, especially in their market. You know, we lean into marketing and promotion and distribution efforts. Our parent company Tegna has innovated the way that we distribute and build our hosts credibility, whether that's opportunities for being on linear TV actually on a Tegna news station, or distributing their podcasts on OTT or CTV or fast TV. We are giving every possible resource to our hosts to grow themselves as a sports personality and improve their reach for that podcast. So we don't want to muddy the waters. We don't want three packers podcasts. We want one packers podcast and it's going to be the best packers podcast in the country. Matt Cundill 14:42 And how often are they obligated to produce a show? Bryan Goldmark 14:46 Every day all year long? Monday through Friday. That's a big part of becoming a lockdown host is buying into this and really committing it is five days a week. 30 minute episodes every show is 20 to 30 minutes in length always and Monday through Friday. There's a there's a slight offseason. There's about a month in every offseason where we come down to three Shows a week. Outside of that very short hiatus window. All of our shows are Monday through Friday, which is pretty impressive to have over 200 shows producing every single day to watch manage. Tara Sands (Voiceover) 15:25 transcription of the sound off podcast is powered by the podcast Super Friends, five podcast producers who get together to discuss podcasting. Sharpen your podcast and creation skills by following the show on the sound off podcast, YouTube or Facebook page. The sound of podcast supports podcasting 2.0 So feel free to send us a boost. If you're listening on a newer podcast app. If you don't have a newer podcast app, you can get one at new podcast apps.com Matt Cundill 15:57 So I went and zeroed in on the market that I'm in right now. That happens to be Winnipeg. Indeed there is a locked on Winnipeg Jets. And indeed it is producing content every day. As we are recording this. It is July. What could you possibly be be talking about? Again, it's that's Harrison Lee, who's doing it notably based out of Baltimore, also a Cavs fan but he's covering the Winnipeg Jets every single day doing doing locked on with the new episode every day. Bryan Goldmark 16:26 As I mentioned, you know, there is a common misconception about the engagement or interest in a in a sport or a team. When games are not being played. You think about the NFL right? April, what's happening in April, the games ended Super Bowl was in February, the draft. It's the biggest time of the year. Shortly after that there's trading camps and trade deadlines. I don't know if you're seeing in the news right now of what's happening to running backs in the NFL with a lot of major running backs not being resigned and what that means for running backs. The fantasy football drafts are right around the corner. There is a lot to talk about training camps, trade deadlines, you name it, whatever sport there is a lot that goes on in the quote unquote offseason. That is what I mean by we are talking to the most passionate fan, the folks listening to the Winnipeg Jets podcast right now. That is the most diehard Winnipeg Jets listener or fan that you can possibly speak to. And I think that that's one of the most important factors, especially when we talk to advertisers about who we're reaching. This is a leaned in audience, this is the most passionate fan that you can reach. And so there's plenty to talk about right outside of maybe what you think is tentpole headlines. Matt Cundill 17:51 Yeah, and I think with the diminishing of sports radio in Canada, I mean, this is just absolutely perfect. I mean, I hated listening to radio and hearing them break down the third line, power player, the third line center, and who's going to be on the fourth line and all that crazy stuff, but it's really the perfect place to be doing and design a podcast. Bryan Goldmark 18:11 What's been very interesting is the trend that we've seen lately of a lot of broadcast networks, starting to not lean into local sports coverage, which I think opens the door wide open for locked on to become the go to destination for local sports fans looking to engage with their team. You know, I one of the one of the challenges for a really passionate sports fan. Listening to sports radio, is not knowing what you're going to hear legendary Ken br San Francisco, I'm a diehard 40 Niners fan, but I am not a warriors fan. When I turn on K and br I don't want to be met with updates on Steph Curry and the Warriors. I don't want to sit through listening to updates on baseball and basketball, I want to hear about what's going on with my 40 Niners. And that's the key difference between locked on and traditional sports talk radio is that you get exactly what you're looking for when you want it. There's no fluff. This is really high quality sports talk for the sports fan. And so you come to us and you get exactly what you're looking for. Matt Cundill 19:26 So you've also got locked on Atlanta locked on Cleveland locked on the Bay Area. These are podcasts that are really dealing with, you know, the entire market. So a little bit different first of all, why those cities? And secondly, how's the structure different for those particular shows? Bryan Goldmark 19:42 That's a new strategy for us called the locked on city model. We are leaning into some of the most passionate sports markets in the country that have many teams for sports fans to engage with that coincides also with Techno markets that are really important, right? So Cleveland, something that we're leaning into with our innovative distribution methods is fast TV. If you're not familiar with fast TV, essentially, that's free TV, when you plug in your new Samsung television, and you have no apps or anything else downloaded on it, you have a preset list of free television chive. TV is always my favorite example of fast TV, you know, you turn it on and 24/7 in these markets, we're able to lean into fast TV, and have all of those podcasts on there. Actually, they're produced on linear television as well, in some cases for Tegna TV stations. So this is just kind of next level sports broadcast, podcast television, it's kind of the culmination of everything you want as a sports fan in one place. Matt Cundill 20:54 Tell me about YouTube and video. And, you know, I think a lot of sports podcasts, probably, I mean, some of them could have started out on YouTube and then say, Oh, look, we can put the audio in as an RSS feed. How do you look at the relationship between video and audio? Because I know with audio, it's, we can put the programmatic ads in. But now you've got some videos. So how do you handle that, Bryan Goldmark 21:17 we might need to circle back to programmatic. I have some thoughts on that. But video has become very important for us. I spoke with Bryan Levine recently, who's our Director of Production, just about the importance of video and what we're doing lately, we've leaned into it much more in the last year and a half. I think the relationship, the differences between video and audio are really the opportunity to connect on a more personal level with your listeners, right? We think of our own industry, right? We could talk over the phone and over emails for however long, but the moment you meet in person, it's a more deeper, more meaningful connection. You know, our hosts have the opportunity to brand themselves brand, their personalities, and you put your face out there, you're inviting listeners into your studio. And with that you can create a deeper, more meaningful connection. And I think that that's the power of video, just from from a listener standpoint, is is connecting on that next level, the video also has helped improve distribution, and marketing in a sense, but more distribution in that YouTube is the fastest growing platform right now. And so like I said, we meet our listeners where they are. And so I think if you're not using YouTube, if you're not using video, you're just missing out on a massive portion of listeners that are they're ready, hungry for the content of it's just about meeting them in their environment. And that's what video allows us to do with YouTube, whether that's on YouTube, or as I mentioned, OTT and CTV. Matt Cundill 22:54 So what are those thoughts you had on programmatic that you want to share? Bryan Goldmark 22:57 It's been an interesting path down programmatic. I remember last year at Podcast Movement, that was the buzzword, programmatic it was everywhere. It was it felt like the only thing anybody was talking about. I've gone down the path, I've explored it right of monetization, I think, you know, I refer back to the AKs. And Magellan report about podcasts revenue only reaching the top 500. I think that there has been this narrative, that programmatic will help the little guy that is how podcasters outside the top 500 are going to start seeing revenue. And and that's how we're gonna get to a $10 billion industry, right is through programmatic. But I just I think that that narrative is slightly skewed towards larger publishers, in order to really see programmatic revenue, you do need to be a part of a larger publishing network, right, the host of locked on Auburn wouldn't go seek out programmatic ad revenue on their own, they wouldn't have the resources as a local host. But then when you're part of a larger network, even still, the CPMs are so low, the revenue is distributed so widely across 1000s of shows that it's really hard for the little guy to see any sort of meaningful revenue. And so I think that there's just this misconception that programmatic advertising is is to the benefit of all of the shows outside of the top 500. I'm not so sure that to be true. I think that programmatic will be valuable to the top five top 10 publishers and it will help improve advertising adoption for brands like Procter and Gamble, who need those data points and are looking to kind of transition from traditional digital advertising into our new space. I just think that we need to be careful about how we position it, how we talk to hosts about the value of programmatic still today, the best to podcast advertising, that will drive the most revenue that drives the highest rate that performs at the highest level continues to be the host read ad rate. Matt Cundill 25:10 Fascinating, because I always thought that maybe locked on would have their hand in some programmatic in some capacity. But I'm going to guess that you're in charge of 100% of the inventory of the network. And the clients that you're chasing, if you were to open up the programmatic tab, they would just find a very low CPM to come in and take your inventory as opposed to you charging a proper CPM, correct? Bryan Goldmark 25:34 It's it's a great question. We are available on programmatic we have gone down that route. I went to the same school as Tomas Rodriguez from the trade desk. And so you know, it's definitely been an area of interest that we've pursued. But I think it's a different advertiser. Right. And it's a different campaign in its entirety. Programmatic is I think it was Marshall from AD results. That said, the live host read ad continues to be beachfront property, and locked on, we've kind of talked about it that a programmatic ad is sure you're gonna have a seat for the game, you know, but you're in the nosebleeds. When you buy programmatic ad, when you buy a live read, you're in the lower bowl, you have floor seats, right, the quality of the ad is so important. There was a report recently that said that creative was the most important factor in an ad campaign. So the value of programmatic advertising versus traditional host read, there are a few different channels for creative. Sounds Profitable recently published an article saying 51% of agencies Mark quality of ad creative, as the most important factor when choosing podcast partners locked on is available in programmatic. But that's going to be your nosebleed seats, right? That is going to be the last available unit in our waterfall of ads. Right. So the priority levels, first, our internal host read live reads, you know, and then it continues to go down from there from our premium ad partners, like megaphone that will serve digital ad insertion into our network, all the way down the waterfall to programmatic. And even if you buy our network programmatically, that does not guarantee you have the opportunity to run on our network. So I think when advertisers are looking at programmatic, it has to be a very small piece of the pie of how they will tap into podcasting. If you just want to be on podcasting, you want some data points, it's available, it's there. But it's not premium podcast advertising. That's not why advertisers should be coming to podcasts to advertise locked on does an incredible job. It's one of the things I'm most proud of here is our creative and how we've worked with brands to develop creative that really holistically integrates their creative into our shows for our listeners in a very authentic way. Matt Cundill 28:08 So I know you know the Miami market. And it was just a few days ago that Lionel Messi signs a big contract in front of people who there's there's not even a game going on. I mean, is soccer, something you're going to be looking at at the network? Bryan Goldmark 28:24 Soccer is something that we have talked about, I think the most important factor when locked on considers a new channel is its appeal or opportunity to stay local. That continues to be our driving factor is local. We are the number one local sports Podcast Network, and we will continue to hold that position. I've talked about golf, I'm a big golfer. How do we how do we produce a podcast around golf but there's no sense of local to golf, soccer as MLS continues to explode onto the scene in the last few years. I think that there could be an opportunity there. It's definitely something that we've discussed. And I'd love to I think that there's I think there's demand from both the listener and the advertiser with interest in soccer. Messi certainly brings a bit of a wow factor to MLS for the first time in a while, Matt Cundill 29:22 well, I'm not going to put any pressure on you or the company to you know, open up a European division and start to cash in on all the popularity of those champions league teams. But has anybody talks about that? Bryan Goldmark 29:35 Yes, and no, I think that David Locke would definitely be a little bit more in tune with what's going on from production concepts than myself. Candidly, I try to keep my head very focused on improving our brand partnerships, improving our product, the quality of our ad capabilities, our revenue channels, and I leave the creative To the creative minds at work, predominantly, David Locke our founder and our channel managers and as well as Carl Weinstein, our COO and Kylie young are head of operations, who's been a part of the network for since the beginning. So it's a team effort. When we come up with things like that Matt Cundill 30:17 very kind and diplomatic response, all you had to say with, that's not my department. As we look towards Denver, and Podcast Movement is coming up, what are some of the things that are going through your mind that you really want answers to? Is its monetization? Is it going to be technological? What's the one thing that may keep you up a little bit at night that you're saying, I hope I get the answer to that in Denver? Bryan Goldmark 30:43 I think that there's a couple of trends that I've been paying attention to the most, you know, first is ad recovery. I think that we've all been closely tracking the recovery of the ad market. We've seen digital audio come back in I know I saw bas local advertising forecasts predicted the ad recovery to take up until 2027. With Auto and technology not recovering until 2025. I think that we're already seeing a resurgence in the ad market, you know, things like horizon forming a dedicated podcast division or group M's of forecasting digital ad revenue growing 10% in 2023. I'm feeling pretty bullish on the opportunities ahead for the ad industry. When you get into Podcast Movement, and you have an opportunity to engage with other publishers hear how things are going for them what trends that they've seen, Thomas van cousy has always been an incredible resource. I've worked with him. I know Thomas Mann koozie, since my days at CBS, it's it's interesting when you talk with other podcasters and other publishers to hear what they're seeing, at the same time having the opportunity to connect with brands, agencies and advertisers to hear what they're looking for and what they want to see in the next year or two from the podcast landscape. I think one of the other big trends that I've seen that will be very interesting, and I think, possibly palpable at Podcast Movement is the changes that we've seen from some of the biggest podcast publishers as it relates to local sports coverage. Some of those publishers have cut back significantly on their local sports podcast coverage were locked on has doubled down on local. So it'll be interesting to see where sports continues to fit in. I know that podcast sports was recently the overtook news as the number one revenue category in podcasting. So it's just an interesting trend to see where sports is right now. And, you know, I'm pretty excited about the opportunity to go into Podcast Movement as the number one local sports Podcast Network. Matt Cundill 32:59 So you see the numbers. And you know, every city's reputation when it comes to sports, what's the one market in the US that you could tell me has so much sports activity, I would be floored or surprised to know that that city is punching above its weight when it comes to sports. Bryan Goldmark 33:17 The demand for local sports. Minnesota is another one. I think when you look at our low our city model, there's your answer, right? We lean into the markets that have the highest demand for local sports content, the most rabid fan base. Vegas is also an interesting one for my perspective, just because they keep stealing all of our San Francisco teams, that market continues to grow with new sports teams. I think that they were just making a play at a new NHL team in Vegas as well. Sorry, what was it? Maybe Baseball, baseball MLB they were looking to add a team so it's it's crazy vague what Vegas is doing investing in stadiums and arenas and so but I think Minnesota and Cleveland are sleepers when it comes to the most diehard sports fans. Atlanta as well is a really good one. Matt Cundill 34:17 Brian, looking forward to seeing you again a Podcast Movement and carry on anybody who wants to get involved with locked on and possibly become a podcast and work with you all the informations in the show notes of this episode. Bryan Goldmark 34:28 I appreciate you having me man. I'm really looking forward to seeing you next month. Tara Sands (Voiceover) 34:31 The sound off podcast is written and hosted by Matt Cundill. Produced by Evan Surminski, edited by Chloe evolve Lane social media by Aidan Glassey another great creation from the Sound Off Media Company. There's always more at http://soundoffpodcast.com

Jodi Krangle knows audio. She's a long-time VO talent with a voice as smooth as melted butter, and the host of her own podcast, Audio Branding. If our show is trying to find the intersection between podcast and broadcast, then Jodi's has already found the crossroads between voiceover and podcast. With over 100 episodes, she's explored every possible angle for enhancing your business through the use of audio, including podcasts. Jodi and I discuss our love for audio, what got her into it, and the two sides of audio branding: how business owners can use it to expand their brand image, and how VO workers can use their talents to build themselves a strong brand. We also talk a bit about the impact of AI on the audio industry, of course, but this episode can mostly be summed up in one big question. What makes sound so darn special? I think you'll find that Jodi's answers are certainly worth hearing. If you want to keep up with Jodi (or hire her for one of your gigs, which I would recommend), you can connect with her on her website, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, or YouTube. But the real audio gold are her Clubhouse sessions which are full of audio secrets. You can connect with her on Clubhouse here We also spoke about using Clubhouse on a desktop computer rather than your phone through an app called Clubdeck which you can access here. You should also listen to the latest episode of her show, Audio Branding. Jodi is especially proud of a recent episode she recorded with Rob Greenlee about Free and Open Podcasting. Here is the YouTube recording, but if you are RSS podcast purist, you can listen here. By the way, this episode has been chosen as a Podcast Staff Favourite on the 𝗡𝗲𝘄 𝗬𝗼𝗿𝗸 𝗖𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗣𝗼𝗱𝗰𝗮𝘀𝘁 𝗡𝗲𝘁𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗸! TRANSCRIPT Tara Sands (Voiceover) 0:02 This sound off podcast. The show about podcast and broadcast starts now. Matt Cundill 0:13 Jodi Krangle is lots of things audio, professional voice talent podcaster. And the show she hosts is called Audio branding, the hidden gem of marketing. She's hosted well over 100 episodes on the subject of audio branding, why we love it, why we moved to it, and some of the best ways to associate our brands with it. And of course that includes podcasting. Now you've come to know the sound off podcast as a place that is searching for the intersection between broadcast and podcast. Well, Jody show is found the crossroads between voiceover, and podcast. And now, Jody Crangle joins me from her home just outside of Toronto. I have never started off a podcast with this question, but I thought I would do it with you. And that's Do you have an early memory of how sound moved you? Jodi Krangle 1:04 Oh, pointed back on me. My parents were very musical. And so they raised my sister and I are doing sing alongs instead of storytime. So we didn't read stories at bedtime. We had singalongs. My dad played the guitar, and we would all gather on one of one of the kids beds. My sister and I and my parents and our dogs, and everyone would join in in a song or two. And it was a really wonderful memory. And they definitely instilled the love of music in me from a very early age. I think I started singing when I was about six. Matt Cundill 1:46 What were some of those songs, Jodi Krangle 1:48 All the diamonds in the world? Bruce Cockburn. that was one of their one of their favorites. My parents harmonize together on that song, my dad plays guitar and my mom sings and my dad sings, but doesn't like to say he sings. And it was recording that I remember from a really early age, and I have always loved that song Matt Cundill 2:13 was singing the gateway drug to voiceover. Jodi Krangle 2:17 You know, I think it was mostly because it got me comfortable with using my voice in a well, professional capacity. Not just as a hobby, because I went through high school, doing the music, concerts all through my high school years. And I was never actually a member of the program. So I don't read a note of music, and I never have. And that was part of why I couldn't be in the music program in high school, but I was already writing and singing my own songs on the piano. So I would do the Christmas concerts and just perform a song of my own making in the concerts. And I did that all through my high school years. And then in grade 12, they actually awarded me the Music Award for the school with someone who was part of the program. So it was it was interesting. It was it was a lot of fun. And I did that for a long time and really enjoyed it wrote songs, graduated to having a website on songwriting, in 1995, called the music news. And started asking questions in HTML format, having people send me their responses and email and then putting it up. Matt Cundill 3:48 How did you get started in voiceover then, Jodi Krangle 3:50 voiceover was a progression from volunteering my time at the CFPB. And for anyone who is not in Canada, that's the Canadian National Institute for the Blind. I did that in 9596. And we were reading magazine articles on to reel to reel tapes at the time for the blind. And it was a very educational experience, both in the voicing and in the use of the tech, which I found both to be equally fascinating. So because of my early experience on the web, and my love of computers and all this stuff, I'm kind of right and left brained. It's kind of a weird, like, I have this logical part of me that loves computers and everything the Internet has to offer and running the tech. But I also have a creative side, which was being filled by songwriting at the time. And then when I did the songwriting website, I ended up facilitating a lot more that I ended up actually writing and so that creativity He kind of pulled back a little. And when I was exposed to voiceover, that kind of fed a different part of my creativity in a way. And it was all behind scenes. So I was happy. I didn't want to be in front of the camera. I like doing podcast interviews, because people ask me questions, and I get to answer. But it's not something that I typically would seek out as far as like doing film or theater or anything like that, like that just never, never was my go to I'm I'm too shy, kind of. It's less shyness, it's more introversion. And being on stage and having a spotlight on me, I can do for a certain amount of time. And then I absolutely need to flee. And having to make a living like that would be super, super uncomfortable for me. So yeah, voiceover took a while, actually, because I did that in 9596. I was doing internet marketing and SEO. That's because I started my songwriting website, I was promoting it on nothing. And I figured out how to do that in the early days of the internet. And then people started hiring me to do it for them. So that's what I was doing. On my own. I was already self employed by probably about the year 2000. And when I got really, really bored with SEO and internet marketing, and Google was it, there was nothing else left. I just said, Okay, time to switch the shingle. And I just switched my focus because I was already self employed. So just just I just had a decision on what to focus my attention on. So I focused it on VoiceOver in 2007. And never looked back. Matt Cundill 6:48 You mentioned that you started out doing some work with the CNIB. Have you ever done any descriptive audio for television or video? Jodi Krangle 6:56 No, I never did that. I never did end up doing that. I mostly settled into the corporate narration commercial. In the beginning, I was doing elearning. And that kind of world, because I had a lot to learn. And those were the opportunities that I found and that my voice apparently lent itself to. So those were the things I was getting hired for. And in our business, you do what you get hired for, right? Matt Cundill 7:29 It's true, I thought I had the voice of monster truck and some classic rock and something like that. And then I was told, yeah, you're going to be the voice of our adult contemporary market, radio stations. And then the next other job that came up, I was doing a kid's voice. And so you think you're one thing, but then it's always somebody else? Who says, Yeah, you're actually something else. Jodi Krangle 7:54 Yeah, well, I mean, you can always fight against that there's not nothing saying that you can't branch out into different things. But you need a demo for that you need training for that you need all of those requisite tools to make that possible. And then you need people to listen to you in that capacity and hire you through that. So it's a bit of a process. It doesn't just happen overnight. So when you're just starting out, going where you're hired, at least pays the bills so that you can move into whatever other direction you want to go into. Matt Cundill 8:28 I've always thought you know, the riches are in the niches when it comes to podcasting, and you've chosen one that's quite unique. And that's audio branding. So what makes sound so special? Jodi Krangle 8:40 Oh, so many things. My goodness, sound can influence what you taste. It has so many wonderful, emotional qualities to it, it makes us feel. And I often tell people this with the analogy of turn off the sound on the movie or watching. Just turn it off and watch the movie. Do you care? You know what's going on? But do you care? And that's the big question, right? music, audio voices, they make us care. They give us emotional context. And so if you really want to put a fine point on it, that's how we relate to the world in a lot of ways. So it's not just our eyes, all of our senses were together, first of all, but there's something really special about sound and as a voice actor, as someone who makes my living in the area of sound on a daily basis, and you do too. So I couldn't not make this podcast about awareness on how important this subject actually is. Because I think in a lot of cases and you've probably experienced this too, when we are contacted by a client, often where the bow and the present are the icing on the cake or you know the last thing that they Think about just to finish off the project, right. And I find that that is kind of a backwards way to do things. Because if it hasn't been thought of from the beginning, then the visuals and the audio aren't quite working together. They're they're more pasted on each other. And that doesn't make a cohesive project, it doesn't really hit people where they live. So if you really want the gold, you need to be thinking about how those things relate together, and how they work together, and where one fits into the other, and how they enhance each other. Because it's not just one or the other. Matt Cundill 10:40 Walk me through what happens when you get a script, you get the script from the client will use corporate narration, which you do a lot of, and what's your thought process to how you're going to be able to bring those words to life on the microphone? Jodi Krangle 10:56 Well, a lot of it has to do with the script itself, because the script itself will have words in it that are indicative of who that corporation is what you want them what you want people to feel about that corporation, I'll often ask them also, if they have chosen a piece of music that they're already going to put behind that. Because my voice changes based on the music that they use it that gives me really, they don't have to tell me anything, they can put a script in front of me and give me a piece of music that they're going to put behind it. And I can I can figure it out from there. They don't need to say anything. Because that music, the type of emotional context that they're offering me with that music gets me exactly where I need to go in a split second. And that's really the easiest way to do it. But if I don't have the music, and often that is the case, then looking at the words themselves will give me a big hint. For instance, are they really formal? If they are they're not using contractions anywhere in their copy? If they aren't, then they're they're writing in a very conversational tone. What adjectives are they using? What do they use to describe their company? Is there any particular tone that I feel I'm getting from reading those words? And you know, that just that really tells me exactly what I need to know. Also, they hired me for a reason. My voice goes in certain places, right? Your voice goes in certain places. So they've heard my demos, they know what I do. They've heard your demos, they know what you do. They're asking you to do this because they feel that your voice is right for the project. So just be comfortable with the process. Matt Cundill 12:42 Sometimes I'll get selected for a voice job. And then I'm like, Oh, I wonder what they want. Then I have to think oh, wait, I auditioned for this. Let's go back and listen to the audition and why I was chosen? Jodi Krangle 12:54 Sure. Yeah. I just wanted to mention, I often get contacted by people through my website without them asking for an audition. And that probably happens to you as well. So that's really what I'm talking about here. If I had an audition, I definitely would go back and listen to that. But often there isn't an audition, they just decided because they listened to something on my website and they they emailed me. Matt Cundill 13:15 Then you walk the script over to the microphone. And what is your microphone? Jodi Krangle 13:20 The microphone that I have in my booth is a Sennheiser 416. So that's my everyday mic. And the one that I'm using right now is for podcasts when I happen to be on video, because it just looks a little better than being in my studio. And the video is the cameras a little better as well. But yeah, the studio itself, the booth is a five by four. So when I'm on video in the booth, it's very close. And I don't really like that look a whole lot. So I'm happy to be on camera. If people want me to be on camera in the booth. If they're directing me, I don't have a problem with that. But if I'm on a video podcast that's going to be around forever. I'd like to have the choice. So the one I'm using right now is a hyper X. It's a gaming mic that I can change the color of as you can see. And it's a USB condenser mic and because I'm close enough to it, it sounds great. So and as George Widom has said often if it sounds good, it is good. Matt Cundill 14:29 In 2019, when you had your podcast, you weren't really thinking about video, and then you made a jump into video. And you've been quite conscious about setting up a microphone and being personable. Tell me about that decision to move into video a lot of podcasters struggle with how do I do it? Should I do it? First of all, why did you do it? Secondly, what's been your experience so far? Jodi Krangle 14:52 Well, I did it because I had a YouTube channel and I wanted to put something on it other than a static picture with waveform And I just thought it would add more to the channel. Also, YouTube is a different channel than the rest of the podcasting universe. It's a different audience. And it's an audience that obviously prefers video. So at the first bit of that, I actually wasn't posting my entire interview. And if I was doing a solo podcast, I still was not posting video that that had no video to it. But when I started doing what I call Sonic snippets, I was using, like a little bit of an intro that was less than a minute long to use for shorts. And I was using five minute or less Sonic snippet. And that was okay. But I think that people just wanted to see the whole thing. So at a certain point, I decided that, you know, I was already recording the video, why not just use the whole thing, it's not going to be perfect. Like a lot of live streams usually are not perfect. But it's something that people enjoy watching and listening to. And like I said, it's a different audience. And so I thought it was worth experimenting with. And the experiment has worked pretty well, actually. So I can't complain. Matt Cundill 16:23 Well, your YouTube channel looks great graphics are their sound is great. It's well organized. I like it, Jodi Krangle 16:32 I've had some help. I have definitely had help by myself, I would never have been able to do that. Matt Cundill 16:40 You and I are recording right now on squad cast. But there are so many choices out there when it comes to recording your podcast. And you of course, have integrated some video as well, what's your choice, Jodi Krangle 16:51 I use Riverside. And the only reason that I'm really doing that right now is because I actually pay someone to be an audio engineer when I'm on those Riverside sessions. So his name is Shawn Savage, and he's a fellow Canadian. And he does a really good job of helping my guests feel comfortable and helping them go through any tech issues they may have, and knows what they're using on his end, because it shows him exactly what what their audio hardware is. And so he can troubleshoot pretty easily and, and get them into a place where they feel comfortable enough to do the interview, as opposed to me doing that by myself. Where I mean, I'm totally patient. And I have no problem with people who have tech issues. This happens. We all know this happens. But I don't always know the best way to fix the problem. And so that adds stress to all of us. And if Sean's there and he can fix the problem and knows how to address it, and has come across that problem multiple times. That just takes that off of my plate, and I can concentrate on the interview and making my guests feel comfortable. And that is really the most important point for me. So I pay someone else to run the session. And it's been a godsend. Matt Cundill 18:13 So you strike me as a very techy person. Yet, you've got people like like, Shawn, and you've already mentioned, George, who are really tech experts. What do you love about tech so much? Jodi Krangle 18:25 I find it exciting. I just find it exciting to experiment and try different things. And what I find really to be the most worthwhile part of that is finding the things that work for me and sticking with them. So I don't mind doing these things. To start off by myself, I obviously had to learn enough to have many interviews before I hired Sean. So I was using Riverside, I was using squad cast actually as well. And those have been definitely options for me. But at some point, I kind of figured out that that was not my zone of genius that these particular places were things that I was interested in, and I liked experimenting with but people who had that kind of training already, we're going to help me get a lot further a lot faster. And I don't want to spend for instance, four hours editing my video. I don't want to do that someone else can do that for me, I could maybe do it. Maybe I could teach myself how to do it. But I wouldn't be nearly as good as someone else who does it in an hour. So why put myself through that? Hell? Matt Cundill 19:39 I mean, same thing with me if you get to the end of this show. There's a whole bunch of credits that happened all those people were actually working on this particular podcast, and we thank them for it. Jodi Krangle 19:49 Totally. Oh my goodness. I couldn't do it without them. Umberto Franco is my audio and video editor and he is outstanding. He's amazing. And I couldn't do do this without him. Matt Cundill 20:01 What about the decision, you've made a couple of them to migrate your podcast between podcasts hosts. You can actually look this up if you want. I think pod news can give you the information. But it's gone from Lipson and then I think went to Buzzsprout. And now it's got a nice home on Captivate. What are the things that go into making a decision to move it to another podcast host. Jodi Krangle 20:23 For me, I think one of the biggest things that I was looking at was a company that was interested in expanding and doing more things for their podcasts. And I wasn't finding that on Lipson. They had been in a rut for a really, really long time. And, and I know, they were around from the very beginning, so I understand why. But their interface was so clunky, that I found it supremely annoying to just upload my show the simplest thing that you should be able to do. And it was really annoying. And I know that they have since changed a bunch of things. So I am not saying anything against you know how good Lipson is or what they're doing now. And I'm sure a lot of people are very happily on their platform. But I at the time in 2019 was not too impressed. And so wanted to make life easier on myself and decided I would go to Buzzsprout, which was the next thing that I heard about on the various different message boards. And well message boards, Facebook groups actually really, and what people were telling me, and I was there for a little while, but they they had a show of their own. And I really appreciated the show, but I didn't see that they were adding a bunch of stuff that would help someone get to the next level with their podcast. I just didn't see that at the time. So I was probably there for maybe a year. And I was also paying a bunch of money to archive a old podcast of mine. And when I saw that, Captivate allows you to have as many podcasts as you want for the same amount of dollars. And it just had to do with I believe downloads and stuff like that in a monthly period, which I had no danger of even approaching at the time. I was I was just moved to go over there and I have met Mark Asquith in person. And he is a pretty dynamic individual and very interested in upgrading everything to do with podcasts because he has a bunch of podcasts of his own. And he's really into that. And I was just liking where the company was going. And I liked what the player looked like, too. That was a big deal to me, that it didn't necessarily have to have the Captivate logo all over it. You know what I mean? I just found that they were an up and coming hungry company that I was interested in seeing where they ended up and I've been there the longest. Matt Cundill 23:04 So Mark Asquith is somebody that we're going to get on the show, at some point because he's such a forward thinking person. I've heard him on a number of podcasts and you know, his his take an idea on everything from the RSS feed to podcasting 2.0 and what the future could be he's just seems like a very innovative and open person. I can't wait to get him on the show. Jodi Krangle 23:27 Yeah, he he'll be great. Tara Sands (Voiceover) 23:28 transcription of the sound off podcast is powered by the you may also like podcast, the show about people, places and things. Follow the show on your favorite podcast app, or at You may also like dotnet. The sound off podcast supports podcasting 2.0, so feel free to send us a boost. If you're listening on a newer podcast app. If you don't have a newer podcast app, you can get one at new podcast apps.com. Matt Cundill 23:59 What impact did the pandemic have on your business? Jodi Krangle 24:01 Oh my goodness, it actually increased my business. Weirdly, there were some industries that quieted down or completely died for a while. But other industries sort of took their place. So what ended up happening for me was that anything travel and tourism, which I love doing and still love doing and would do in a heartbeat now and it's actually powering back up again. Now, thankfully, that all went away. That and anything to do with conferences or movie going or anything like that, like it just died, automotive to automotive went away almost completely. And what took its place was healthcare, and finance, and streaming services, anything that do to do with tech that made our lives easier as far as staying home was concerned. And those things are things that I really enjoy doing as well. So it just changed. Matt Cundill 25:00 You mentioned conferences and I know you're a big champion of pod fest, pod Fest was like the last event before we plummeted into the pandemic. Know, you're a big fan of that event. Tell me why you love pod fest. Jodi Krangle 25:13 Because it's a family. It's much more family oriented in the feel of it. It's a lot less about the corporate, and the big show, and people talking to you from on high about how great they are. And, and more about sharing a stage with a bunch of people who are interested in what you're doing, whether you are having a million downloads, or 50. And people just starting, are there people who've been there for a long, long time are there. And Chris Crummey TSOs, who runs it is a fantastic guy, and so easily approachable. And just really interested in forwarding the whole podcasting community, and making sure that we all get as most as much benefit from the conference as possible. So I think he's actually collaborating with sheep podcasts this year. So they're going to have a section at the actual conference, which is their 10th anniversary this year. So very excited, and I'm definitely going to be there. Matt Cundill 26:22 Do we know where it is yet? Because I heard he was moving in Florida. Jodi Krangle 26:25 No, it's still in Florida. It's in Orlando. I don't recall off the top of my head, which resort it's at right now. But it's a resort that's a lot less expensive than the one that we were at last year. Matt Cundill 26:37 And by the way, I think he holds that at a time of year when it's a good time to go to Orlando. Jodi Krangle 26:42 It totally is and I will already be there. That's kind of why I'm I'm already signed up. Matt Cundill 26:48 You mentioned something earlier, when something is working for you, you go with it. And you've really embraced clubhouse, I look at clubhouse as being some sort of hand Demick thing where everybody piled in, we all had lots to do. And then everybody dissipated, but you're still doing it on a regular basis. Tell me why you love clubhouse, still, Jodi Krangle 27:12 you know what it to me is the only place where people can directly talk to me about my podcast, unless I'm already connected with them. It's really hard for people to actually have a conduit to you directly. And not a lot of people are going to email you not a lot of people are going to do anything that you ask them to do in a podcast, because it's such a passive medium. That's why they're listening. They don't want to actually have to interact, they just want to listen while they're doing other things. And I get it. I mean, I'm the same way, if I'm listening to a podcast, I don't want to be asked to do anything. I'm just listening, that's what I'm there for. But if people do want to actually connect with you giving them enough places to do that in a meaningful way, can help you build up your podcasts audience and it can help make people into actual fans as opposed to just passive listeners. So for me, the idea of actually having a space where I could have discussions about the power of sound in various different methods, because sound is such a huge topic. And podcasting and voiceovers are only two of the many. I talk about audio branding. So I talk about how sound induces us to buy and what it does in advertising and marketing and branding. But sound is such a huge topic and it influences everything we do. So talking about music, talking about the science of it talking about sound and healthcare, talking about things like podcasting, and voiceovers and public speaking. And all of those things are, I think they're important. And I think using your voice. And actually being able to hear someone speak the words, in their authentic way allows you to make a deeper connection with the people you're having that conversation with. So being on clubhouse to me is being authentically myself in my voice and letting people get to know me. Matt Cundill 29:18 Thank you, by the way for inviting me on to talk podcast once a month, Rob greenlees there too. But you also have different events for voiceover and all those other components. And so it's not like you do this once a month. You're a regular is it once a week you do it. Jodi Krangle 29:34 Well actually, I kind of do it twice a week. Because Wednesdays is Wednesdays at 2pm Eastern is the usual power of sound rooms whatever the topic happens to be. And we have regular rooms on music now. That rich green is running rich green is a fantastic musician himself, but he's also one of George Williams team. So that's how I found out that he was a musician and into that kind of thing. And he's often on the discussions we have about audio tech, which are also once a month with George Widom and anyone on his team that wants to take part. And Rich talks about music and the love of music and whatever he wants to talk about on that topic. And then we have podcasting. And I do sometimes do other talks about, like I said, sound and healthcare and audio branding, and all of those kinds of things. And on Thursdays at 2pm, Eastern, and getting Gusa, Cheryl howling and myself all have a room called Voices in podcasting. So what it is, is it's a kind of amalgam of voiceovers and podcasting, because all of us have podcasts, and we're all voiceovers. So we talk about both and we talk about where they meet in the middle. And often it it really, I mean, it kind of depends on who's in the room? Because it depends on who's asking the questions and what the questions are. So we get all sorts of really interesting questions. But I like to think of that as my party room. Because because we do that every week. And we just have a bunch of regulars show up. And we have discussions about anything we want to talk about, really, and we pull it back into voiceovers in podcasting, but we have fun. It's a big party. I didn't Matt Cundill 31:27 even know that you could do this, but you can have clubhouse on a desktop. How does that work? Jodi Krangle 31:33 You totally can. And that's how I do it. It's an app called Club deck. So if you go to club deck dot a PP, you can download the program and put it on your desktop, Mac or PC. And I really find it much more much easier to use than any of the actual phone apps. And I don't like using my phone for these kinds of things, especially because then I can't really use this mic. Or maybe I could, but it's not quite as easy to do. So I can use this mic on club deck. And it comes through very nicely. The sound is fantastic. And I don't have to worry about constant going in and out because I'm wired into my internet. So that makes it a lot better. And of course sound is my big thing, right? So I want the sound to be good. Matt Cundill 32:23 Or you've got music intros. You've got all sorts of things. You have a voiceover at the beginning of the clubhouse hour? Jodi Krangle 32:29 I do, why not? You know, I do it myself. I am my own brand, right. Matt Cundill 32:35 There's a few things in podcasting. I'm like, Yeah, don't do that. But there's something that you do that, I still think to this day, I would not do that. But you're you do it. And that's divide your episodes into separate parts. So you bring a guest on and then you'll go part one and part two. And first of all, tell me why you do that. And then tell me why that works? Jodi Krangle 32:57 Well, originally, I wanted to do it because I thought 25 minutes or so was about as long as I wanted each podcast episode to be, that was just my thought on that. And it wasn't based on any, you know, data or anything like that. That was just what I wanted to do. And most of my interviews are actually 60 minutes or so long. And I wanted to have some ability to edit, you know, take out stuff that maybe didn't work or whatever, and then have a nice, bite sized chunk of good audio and interesting interview to give to people. But I thought that it actually created a bit of a buzz about the first part, and then leading into the second part. So it would make people more likely to listen to the second part if they liked the first one. So that was kind of my thought process on that. And I don't know, I don't necessarily try for a cliffhanger. But sometimes it works out that way. Sometimes it doesn't. But yeah, I just thought it was a nice way to do things. And then the reason that I've that I've kept up with it is because it's given me a bit of a buffer zone, as far as creating the episodes are concerned. So I've been doing this weekly since November of 2019. And I have never missed a week ever. So what that allows me to do is to program out ahead of time enough of these interviews so that, you know if I'm going to Florida for a month or two in the winter, which you know, we Canadians often do. I can do that. And I can not worry about my podcast because we have enough programmed out there and it's evergreen enough that I'm not worried it's going to somehow be non relevant by the time it comes out. And I just find that it works really well. I've been doing that now for over three years and it works out well. Matt Cundill 34:53 I have reasons for why that's a bad idea. But at the same time I'm like I'm just upset that you causing anxiety in my life? Oh, I gotta remember to listen to the second part of that episode. Don't forget to listen to the second part of the episode with Marilyn Wisner. You know, the seven days of anxiety that you cause me to do that. But I can see, though, that it would really help your completion rate. Because the number of times people will you know, you get a 40 or 50 minute interview, like the one we're doing now, people might put it down, and then maybe they don't come back. And Jodi Krangle 35:33 they forget about it. Yeah, like you did with that second part of Mary Lynn whiskers interview. Matt Cundill 35:41 You know, just to spite you, I still have to go back and listen to that second part. Okay, I will do it. Go ahead slightly. But I'll bet you anything that your completion rates are way higher than they would be, if you put it all together in one part. So there's a benefit. Jodi Krangle 35:56 I think it is easier for people to listen in bite sized chunks. I think that podcasting as itself in an as a medium is okay. I just, I'm expressive with my hands. And I Well, that's Matt Cundill 36:13 what voice throwing my word around. Jodi Krangle 36:18 So, yeah, so I think that people are listening to podcasts while they're doing other things, which is why podcasts work so well. And I think why they're getting so popular because people are multitasking, they're doing a bunch of different things in their life. You know, now they're actually commuting again. So that's happening. But people are also taking care of kids, they're taking care of parents, they're taking your they're cooking dinner, they're doing the laundry, they're going on a walk, you know, they're, maybe there's some other person watching television in the background, you know, like, you don't know. So I think that making it bite sized, makes it easier for digestion. And it also allows them to not have to multitask that long. So mentally, I think it gives us a bit more, just a bit of a rest. You know, it's not, it doesn't need to be four hours long. Matt Cundill 37:17 And you've had Jeff Fiddler from Signal Hill insights on your show. And I think back to Jeff, when he tells me, he's gonna go select the podcast, he's actually looking at how long it's going to be. But you've got this great guarantee that the show is going to be under a half hour. Jodi Krangle 37:32 And most people can spare that in their time, especially if you're multitasking. Matt Cundill 37:37 I mean, I have some episodes where I bomb people with with a 90 minute episode. And that also creates that same anxiety I was talking about earlier, Jodi Krangle 37:46 right? Yeah. But maybe you split it into two. Matt Cundill 37:50 I've never done that. But I promise in the next year, I will do that with an episode. Jodi Krangle 37:55 Okay. I'd love to see what the numbers are. I'd love to see what happens. I'm quite certain the completion rate would be higher. Yeah, you're probably right. Matt Cundill 38:03 How do you take care of your voice? Jodi Krangle 38:04 Right now? I am not having dairy. That's how I take care of my voice. Matt Cundill 38:11 Has that been for a long time? About three months? Jodi Krangle 38:13 Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I find actually, that not having it at all, has given me a lot more control, and less clearing of my throat. Because I have a lot of thoughts on this kind of thing. I really don't think that humans are meant to drink milk or have dairy. I don't think it's it should be part of our diet. I know people do it and that they're not everyone gets a stomach ache. And that just means you don't have your early warning system. It doesn't mean that you're actually benefiting from it. But you know, it's such a part of our society, that it's really hard to do without it. And I've been discovering in the three months that I'm a little happy to be doing without it. Matt Cundill 39:00 Same something that I've relatively given up I'm not dairy free. The only thing I will let slide is cheese on a pizza or cheese on a burger and that's it. The rest of its gone. But in terms of I ever have pasta, it's going to be Pecorino, which is a sheep's cheese, little salt here. And that's really the extent of anything, anything dairy and it does make a big difference when it comes to your throat your digestion your stomach. Jodi Krangle 39:25 Drinking a lot of water too. Yeah, is a big thing being hydrated, so six to eight glasses of water a day. Really, those are hungers your body needs, your body needs moisture. And if you give it the hungers it needs then you can sort of not be so at the whim of your own better self let's say. So I can I can pass up on things that I know are not healthy for I mean, not all the time. And I'm not a perfect person by any means. And I'm not saying that anyone has to be a perfect person. But if the majority of times you can say no to the piece of cake, or the doughnut, when you don't need it, and there's no reason to have it, then so much the better for your health, because your health is really something that you need to be able to do this job. Matt Cundill 40:25 There's a lot of people who have podcasts who maybe are thinking about an imaging voice or a voice for their audio brand. What advice do you have for them? Jodi Krangle 40:36 It's an interesting question, because the voice really needs to go with the rest of their branding, which might also include sound effects, and music and anything else, that they're putting audio wise, also their visuals, because the visuals coupled with the audio are going to make you feel a certain way. So I would say, think of the emotion first, what emotion are you trying to make people feel. And when you can zero in on that, you can pretty much zero in on the type of voice that you're going to need for that kind of emotion. And, really, I mean, it's, it's so subjective. This is, this is not a perfect science, even the people who've been doing it for years, like you ask people that, say, caesium salt, and they, you know, they've been doing this, I don't know, since almost the 1990s, I think, like a long, long time. And even they will tell you, it's a mix. And it's it's more of an art than a science, it's both. But, you know, coming up with that perfect combo for whatever client anyone's working on is, it's a combo deal. It's a, it's a collaborative effort. There's a lot that goes into it, Matt Cundill 41:49 a lot of people say, Well, I don't really need a voice or an imaging voice for my show. One of the things I would recommend, though, is that you should probably have one at the beginning of your show. Let's say your guest on your podcast goes and embeds the show onto their website. And somebody comes along and hits play, you want to have that branding at the beginning of the show, so that the viewer or listener doesn't assume that the podcast is from that website, you want to have that branding at the beginning. And at the end. Jodi Krangle 42:17 Yeah, something else that I would mention also is that if you are your brand, then by all means do your own intro and outro. Like if you feel that you can do that, and you want to do that and you are your brand. Go ahead. If you want someone to say nice things about you at the beginning of your podcast to introduce you, it's a little less awkward to have someone else do it for you. Matt Cundill 42:43 I know you're going to have a unique take on this because you touch everything that is audio. And you know the question I'm going to ask because I can see it on your face now. And even people can hear it through their headphones. Ai? Uh huh. Yeah. What are your feelings about AI as it pertains to either podcast, voiceover or both? Jodi Krangle 43:06 I think it has a potential to help in a lot of ways. I think that there should be some legal issues tackled, in order to make sure that this is actually useful and not harmful to the people that are having their voices cloned or writers that aren't writing anymore. Or, you know, how are these AI learning what they're learning? are they learning this from copyrighted material that they shouldn't have access to? Or are they learning it from other data mines? Are they taking stuff that they shouldn't be taking and using it without permission? A lot of this is about permission. And if permission is given, then go to town. That's awesome. If money is paid, and permission is given, and licenses are out there on the table, and everyone knows everything that's going on, then yeah, transparency is needed. And I think AI could be a wonderful addition to helping a podcast get itself out there in many different ways. And helping people figure out how to get ideas for blogs or, you know, make a particular title 160 characters because it needs to be 160 characters to fit into some field of some kind, like, you know, I get that that's just, that's no brainer stuff that I think would be fantastically helpful. But when it comes to voiceover, there's a really weird gray zone that I think that we need to define. So it's all about permission. It is really all about permission. And I want to get ahead of that curve. So I am looking into ways to clone my voice and have me be the owner of that clone and be able to license it out to people, which would be less expensive than my regular sitting in a live session voice or my recording voice. is at home. But, you know, maybe the spark isn't quite there. You know, I think it could be with time. But that would be something that I could license out for, let's say doing long form narration, which I don't do, I don't do anything longer than five minutes of finished audio, that's part of my, my career, I've made that my, my niche. So I just I wouldn't do long form. But if someone wanted my voice to do long form, I would do it with my licensed, cloned voice. And whatever that would cost would probably be less than it would cost for me to do it personally. And then they'd have access to updates and such because of course, they could just substitute in a word or two whenever they wanted to do that. And it makes updating a lot easier. So if I happen to have a cold, or you know, if I'm traveling or something, and I can't be there, they could just license my MyClone voice and go for it. I really think that that is a great way to stay relevant for voice actors. And I think that we should own that. And part of my problem right now is that most of the AI options for voiceovers are on subscription based services. And subscription based services basically pay us pennies on the dollar, like Spotify paid to musicians, and I do not want my voice to suddenly become Spotify. It's not what I'm into. So yeah, I'm being careful. I'm aware. I'm being careful. I'm looking for the Matt Cundill 46:37 future. Well, it sounds like you kind of thought it through. Yeah, kinda. And I think the voiceover people are ahead of the radio people in this, there's a lot of panic over in radio about you know, what's going to happen. I say, Listen, you have to understand you're now in the licensing business. Yeah. And that's a great idea, by the way that you suggested. And that's record yourself and then retain it all yourself, and then you can distribute it yourself. Jodi Krangle 47:03 Yeah, the problem becomes that that takes software for learning the clone making the synthesis. And so you really do need to partner with some kind of a software company in order to make that possible. But is that software company going to take 80%? Or are they going to take 40%? You know, are they going to take less because all they're doing is supplying a piece of software that you're then paying monthly for? There's so many different ways this could work. But I do think that voice talent will need to partner with software companies in order to make this possible. Matt Cundill 47:38 Well, it was back in 2019 in the greenroom at voice over Norse that we got together and I said you know God, I've got to have you on my podcast and here we are in 2023 only took a little while. Oh, thanks for still saying yes. Jodi Krangle 47:55 Thank you for inviting me. This was a lot of fun. Tara Sands (Voiceover) 47:57 Our podcast is written and hosted by Matt Cundill. Produced by Evan Sieminski, edited by Chloe emo Lane social media by Hayden glassy another great creation from the sound off media company, there's always more at sound off podcast.com

This October will be 10 years of Canadaland. Jesse Brown joins me to talk about his short time in radio working for the CBC, and why he started his podcast. In this episode, you will hear why Jesse started Canadaland, his decision to create a network, the incredible story of how the Jian Ghomeshi story broke, and some thoughts about recent laws passed by the Canadian Government that are causing havoc with content creators and news organizations. (Both Canadaland and our parent company, The Sound Off Media Company, qualify as both) We also talked about some throwback internet things like usenet, message boards and Mirc. Jesse also shared his wins and losses when it came to monetizing the show; first via ads, and later with Patreon and other methods of public support. Want to be apart of Canadaland? Jesse mentioned that Canadaland is currently accepting podcast pitches. TRANSCRIPTION Tara Sands (Voiceover) 0:02 The sound off podcast. The show about podcast and broadcast ... starts now. Matt Cundill 0:13 Jesse Brown is the host of and owner of Canada land. It started as a podcast nearly 10 years ago, and today is home to a number of podcasts, which makes it a network. The story of Canada land is worthy of notetaking. Jesse could easily host any number of Podcast Movement sessions, how to build a podcast from scratch, how to build a podcast network, how to monetize your podcast. He's actually done those last couple of years and will do so again next month in Denver. We're also going to dig into two of Canada's controversial bills which are actually now law. C 11 Is the law which is designed to roll Netflix and other online streaming services into Canada's content regs, and CA teen. That's the law, which forces Google and Facebook to pay for the links they use from Canadian news outlets. as I record this in July of 2023, Facebook and Google are in the process of blocking Canadian news outlets from sharing their links. As someone put it earlier this week. It's like creating a tax on lemonade, and then Google and Facebook saying Fine, we just won't sell any more lemonade. And if you're listening from the US or around the world, do not skip over this. There are similar bills before various forms of government that are going to be asking for the same thing. The Canada treatment may be coming to your Google and Facebook feed soon. Jessie Brown joins me from the home studios of Canada land in Toronto. Jesse, how are you? Jesse Brown 1:39 I'm good, Matt, how are you doing? Matt Cundill 1:41 Good. What did you major in at McGill University? Jesse Brown 1:45 English, a stream of their English department called cultural studies. Matt Cundill 1:51 How many times did you close down the peel pub? Jesse Brown 1:53 Wasn't my hangout I was one of the those pretentious students who issued the standard Hangouts. How was the Montreal experience? I loved that I fell in love with Montreal and I thought this is my town. I'm not I'm not leaving. And I stuck around there for another five years or so. What do you do in that time in Montreal. I was at McGill. At this time, right after they got rid of their film department. And I wanted to be a filmmaker, which was a strange thing to want to be at a school with no film department. But a bunch of us got our hands on the equipment that was left behind. And we found a few professors who were kind of like leftovers from the film department days. And they would allow us to make films and cartoons and animations in my case. And so I actually like was really interested in making comic books, but also animation and cartoons and fan films. And I had a buddy that I worked with Josh Colgan, who was also really a really talented musician. And this also was during like the first.com, boom, right when video was becoming a thing you could do on the internet, but before YouTube. So we were making these little cartoons instead of essays for our professors. And then we were getting them into like film festivals. And we were selling them to websites like it really felt like we could be cartoonists, we could be filmmakers, we could be animators, and we got a government grant. And so when we got out of school, we were like now let's get serious and make a real long, ambitious, animated film. And, Matt, we spent three years, we're supposed to spend eight months making like a three minute film, we spent three years making a 45 Minute. There's a reason why people don't make 45 minute films. That's not a thing. You know, we had so much more success with like one minute films, getting them into festivals, because it's just a fun little cartoon to program or you do a feature 45 minutes, nobody wants that. So a lot of my time in Montreal was just on a grand folly. On a fiasco, which is good. I highly recommend working on a fiasco, to you know, hammer out all of your early ambitions, squeeze them out of your, you know, soul. Had you find your way to the CDC. I initially was only doing journalism as a way of financing myself as I was, you know, more focused on making these cartoons, these films. So I was doing like humor, writing for magazines. And one of the people who read my humor writing was Michael Enright, who is CBC radio host. And I got a call from my editor at the magazine, etc, in a magazine and they said, Michael Emery wants to talk to you. And I said, Who's that? I had no idea. See, I wasn't one of those kids who was raised on CBC radio, I really had no relationship with radio, but he was interested in me doing humor work for the CBC, and that kind of opened the door and that's when I kind of found myself working, not just for the CBC, but working in the medium of radio and and realizing oh, I'm much better at this than it cartoons Matt Cundill 5:00 You also took some of that computer and web experience. Cuz I remember search engine was a show on CBC that you did. How'd that come about? Jesse Brown 5:10 That was my second series that I hosted. I went from producing for underwrites show and making documentaries for him to hosting. And then the second show that I that I came up with, it's called Search Engine. And yeah, it was you know, I, I was a kid of the computer like the firt. Like generation one computers and generation one Internet of like, never like a coder never really into the like that side of it never really had a math or engineering brain, but from the earliest age was interested in computer graphics and working with like Deluxe Paint. And I remember I had Disney Animation Studio and I played video games. And then I got involved in modems. I can't say the internet because we didn't have the internet. We had bulletin board systems BBs is. And I was interested in them just as a way of getting my hands on video games and graphics programs. But in high school, I had friends who sort of had similar interests. And we were just interested in how digital technology was opening up creative avenues. I remember HyperCard and quick time, early stuff like that, and playing around with cartooning. These guys were like, like me interested in animation and cartooning. And where does Where do computers fit into that? So anyhow, I saw the internet take off and was watching this stuff with great interest. So it was a natural thing for me to cover. Once I decided that I wanted to work in radio and wanted to work as a journalist. You know, this was like at the height of the first social media boom that I was hosting search engine for CBC. So you know, really interested in chronicling the policy side of tech. You know, I wasn't really interested in gadgets, I was interested in things like privacy and copyright, and all kinds of nerdy stuff like that. Matt Cundill 6:51 You might have been ahead of your time, because all this stuff is really coming to fruition right now. And you also brought back some instant memories of Usenet and merch. Yeah. So you were there to actually I was hacking satellite, satellite TV, I was making those those bootstrap cards that you could use to decode satellite. I mean, highly illegal. I don't think they'll arrest me for it now. But Jesse Brown 7:12 that's cool. You're a criminal? What would you charge for that? Matt Cundill 7:15 I did it for myself. I didn't charge anyone. I just did it for myself. So I could watch TV because I didn't, I wanted to watch ESPN. And I wanted to watch Fox Sports. And I wanted to watch a lot of things that I couldn't watch on conventional television, how would it Jesse Brown 7:31 work, you have to have a satellite subscription, and then you could hack it? Or was this like on desktop, you would take, Matt Cundill 7:36 you know, one of those simple reader cards, and you would put it in and then you would insert the code into the card and then slide the card into the receiver. And basically, I mean, it's you're stealing from Direct TV in the States, and you're not supposed to have it in Canada, and I felt entitled to just watch the TV. I don't like this idea of broadcast signals being stopped at the border. I wanted to watch it all. Jesse Brown 7:59 Yeah, for sure. While we're of the generation of like, basically, when it becomes technically possible, to get everything for anybody to be able to speak and broadcast and also to receive anything. There's something that never sat right with me about technology acting as a block. You know, the point and the promise of this, and the opportunity is that everything is possible. So for things to move towards locking things down. I always felt like a move in the wrong direction. Matt Cundill 8:28 Search Engine was cancelled by CBC, but then it continued on as a podcast. Was that your first podcast? Jesse Brown 8:35 That was my first podcast, and I think in podcasting years, that makes me ancient, because I guess I was podcasting in like, well, I don't know, what's that 2007 or something. There were certainly people podcasting. Before that though. It was really interesting at CBC That was a weird time where they were not interested in podcasts, even though they were leading in the charts, because they would just put the radio shows out as podcasts. And at the time, if you looked at the, you know, Apple podcasts, charts, or iTunes, as it was back then, in Canada, most of the big shows were CBC shows, but the executives told me, we've just invested in this proprietary video streaming platform. And that's where we're selling the ads. And podcasting is niche, and no one's going to listen to podcasts they're going to listen to, you know, it was a weird, a weird idea that people were going to like, go on the web and listen to a radio show in a video format, where they could sell ads. Anyhow. Yes, I insisted that a show about technology needed to have a podcast. So even when we were on the radio, there was a podcast. And by the time the radio show was canceled, the podcast was one of the top rated CBC podcasts. And I said, How can you cancel this? Look at this, we're, we're doing like numbers that are as big as your biggest radio shows. And they said, well, we don't really care. And at first they reassigned me to be a technology A reporter at large. And I said, I'll only stay on and do that if I'm allowed to keep hosting search engine as a podcast. And they said, you're certainly welcome to do way more work than we're asking you to do. So they let me do that. And then a year later, I was laid off with budget cuts. But I had retained the rights to the podcast of search engine. That was a condition I had when I first pitched the show to them. And I think they out they thought, well, what are you going to do with podcast rights? Nobody had ever done anything with podcast rights before. But I was able to sell the show to TV Ontario, who at the time, were looking at getting involved in podcasting. Why launch a fresh new technology podcast when you can simply pick up a very popular CBC technology podcast that CBC doesn't seem to want anymore. And so I went and I hosted search engine for few more years until I was kind of ready to move on as a TVO. Podcast. That sounds Matt Cundill 11:02 like a similar story to Terry O'Reilly's with under the influence where you get into a negotiation, and then it's like, that's fine, you can have that we don't care. Jesse Brown 11:10 It's funny, you should mention because Terry was somebody who was kind enough to give me advice when I was negotiating, because I knew that he independently produced a show for CBC. So you know, I'd had kind of a mixed experience with CBC on my first show. And I continue to have a tortured relationship where I love the place, I found my life's work through CBC and I was trained on how to make radio on how to host radio and how to make documentaries. And they gave me two shows, you know, they didn't have to do that. So I mean, I'm immensely grateful to them, and immensely grateful to specific people there who trained me, but they also canceled my shows. So I'm bitter, disgruntled person. So anyhow, when I went back to them to pitch them a second series, I was like, I don't want to, you know, they broke my heart once, what do I, what can I do this time? Maybe I'll be like Terry O'Reilly, and I'll produce it independently. And he was kind enough to tell me how he did it. And you know, he had this whole company, I didn't have a company at the time. So I said, Well, I'm going to do this within the CBC. I'm not going to do this externally. But if he was able to negotiate a deal for himself, and maybe so can I, and and I was able to do that. Matt Cundill 12:15 What did you see in the media market, or in the media stratosphere that urged you to start Canada land? Jesse Brown 12:22 Something was rotten in Denmark, I really had this, I think about this from time to time. And if you go back and listen to the first episode of Canada land, you'll hear me struggling to articulate it to Michael Enright, who was my first guest, who did me another great favor and coming on the show, when I was just trying to get it noticed. I was trying to articulate to him why do we need this this Show Canada land, where we talk about the Canadian media in a candid way, after hours over drinks. That was the original concept it was, I described it at the time as Canada's answer to things like Gawker, or on the media, you know, which are two very different things. But they both are critically looking at the media, one was looking at the media, in a very snarky, gossipy, let's take some shots at the powerful way. That's what Gawker did beautifully. And then on the media, in a very thoughtful public radio way. And then I was reading David Carr, the late great media columnist for the New York Times, and I was watching Jon Stewart on The Daily Show, who was doing media criticism of cable news in a very satirical way. There were all of these different media criticism projects in the States, and there was nothing in Canada. So I thought we needed something like that. And I was unable to sell that idea to any newspaper or TV broadcaster or radio, I just couldn't get any traction with it. So I thought I'll do it myself. So I could kind of explain that to you in that way that just candidate needed its own version of media criticism. But I also I also was aware kind of in my bones, that something was wrong. And I could articulate that in the terms of why was Margaret Wente a known to be a plagiarizing columnist for The Globe and Mail for years, they knew that she was doing this, and it was kind of, okay, everyone looked the other way. Why would the same standards that would make that not okay, anywhere else in the world, not apply in Canada? And then I knew a bit about Ghomeshi. You know, I knew from my friend Catherine Burrell, that he was a creep who sexually harassed her at work. And I knew he was not a good guy. I didn't know when I started Canada and the full extent of his violence and predatory behavior. But this was one of the most revered famous people and he was, you know, considered like the greatest, most sensitive nice guy and you know, it was known within the industry that he was not a great guy. And then it was like known that there were problems with Peter Mansbridge all kinds of whispers and things and no one was talking about it. And so I felt like I don't know if if if I'm long for this industry. I don't know if I'm gonna get another shot at a show. I don't know if I want to work in this industry. It was just a really, I've been freelancing for 15 years, it was harder and harder to make a living. I just started a family. And I thought, you know, if I end up leaving this industry, I want to at least, like take a real big swing, and really try to say, the thing that is most important to me. And what that thing was, was not even all that clear to me. But I had an instinct, I had a feeling that it was a some kind of a self reflection criticism. And it's at the essence of why you become a broadcaster, like, I have something that needs to be said, I have questions that need to be asked, why can't we have certain conversations? Why can't we talk about this stuff? And I think that that energy is why Canada land succeeded is that it was needed. Matt Cundill 15:44 And then comes the monetization part. Did you start this with an idea of how you were going to make money? Did you think it was just going to be ads at first? I don't know a FreshBooks was your first client. It was the first time I'd ever been served a podcast ad when I listened to his show. But was it going to be ad based? Or did you know it would splinter off into other things? Jesse Brown 16:03 I mean, the idea of crowdfunding podcasts really did not exist at the time. So the only way I thought I could possibly monetize this was from ads. And I think I was listening to American podcasts that had ads. So I was like, Okay, this is possible. And I had enough hubris and ego, that I actually held myself back in a way that I still regret. I felt like, I'm a national radio host, I can't be some podcaster podcasting, and this is before the podcast boom. You know, it felt like I was going from being a national newspaper columnist to some lowly blogger, you know, and not even a paid blogger, which is a job that I did for Maclean's, but like, you know, hobbyists, I was moving from professional to amateur status. And that held me back from just launching candidal. And for a good six months, it wasn't until I was able to convince Mike McDermott, the founder of FreshBooks, to be my founding sponsor. And then I thought, Okay, now, this is professional. Now I'm launching a podcast with a sponsor, I won't be laughed at by my peers. And really, that was just like, I would have been smarter to have just done it. And that was like Dumbo with the feather. You know, it was an unnecessary little totem that I needed to feel good about what I was doing. But I will always be grateful to him for I think, just being really true to one of the foundational principles of his company, which is like, Fresh Books. And I'm not being paid to say this. But I think, you know, he cares about entrepreneurs, and he likes when people have ideas, and he was willing to, you know, there was no real business case for sponsoring my podcast that had no listeners when I started. But that was the first, I guess, the first dollar, maybe it was the first podcast ad sold in Canada. For all I know, I'm not sure that anybody else in Canada had sold a podcast ad. But I sold that sponsorship deal. And that floated my boat for the first six months, and I ran out of that money. I was still doing some work for Toronto Life and Maclean's, but the podcast was gaining audience. And this show that was supposed to just be about candid conversations about the media actually became a home for investigative journalism, because once it was known, this guy wants to tell the truth about the media, people started bringing me stories. And the first stories that I was brought were that Rex Murphy and then Peter Mansbridge, were being paid by the petroleum industry to deliver keynote speeches. And they were simultaneously covering the oil sands and the petroleum industry as journalists, and they were not disclosing that they were taking pretty significant payments, you know, 10 $15,000, to speech, to speak for these industries. And then they would be, you know, in the case of Rex Murphy, he would be delivering these editorials on the national in favor of the oil sands. And in the case of Peter Mansbridge, he'd be, you know, moderating debates about the future of the oil sands and climate change. And the viewership did not know that these guys were being paid by, by this interest. So that was the first kind of scandal that we broke. And that attracted a lot of people to Canada land. And so we had this growing audience by this weird situation where it was becoming a very, very exciting urgent thing that people listen to every week. And guests was putting their hands up and saying, I want to talk I want to come on the air and and share my truths about this. And I was putting more and more of my time into it. And I was just operating at a loss every episode. Matt Cundill 19:25 So I'm a FreshBooks user because of those ads that you did. I'm still one today. Jesse Brown 19:29 All right. I'm glad to hear it. And you know, we are really a weird, you know, the way that a lot of podcast ads work is a sponsor will find a new podcast, and buy every available spot and you'll hear Fresh Books, Fresh Books, Fresh Books, or mails stamps.com Until that audience has heard so much that I want to hear another word about it, and then that advertiser moves on to another podcast, because it's a fresh audience. FreshBooks still does ads with us. It's been like 10 years. And then they're still doing ads with us, because the ads continue to convert. So that's a really weird thing for a podcast company to have the same sponsor for that for that longer period. Matt Cundill 20:10 And the decision to start to crowdfund the show, it was a leap. I think the first time if I recall hearing, you kind of put up the tin cup, but you also justified it by saying, hey, you know, what, if we get enough people to do this, our employees are gonna get benefits. And when I heard that, I said, Oh, that's, I get that. Yeah. Now I want to know, I want to contribute. Jesse Brown 20:30 Yeah, I think that I, by accident, stumbled upon the winning formula for crowdfunding. At first, I didn't want to crowdfund because the only crowdfunding that I was aware of when I began was like Kickstarter, or GoFundMe. And I felt like, first of all, you're afraid of failing, right? If you say, I need $1,000, or 10,000, or whatever you say, you need and you only get $100. It looks pathetic. And who cares? How many listeners you have? You just very publicly said, I need that. And then what? And then what do you do? Because if you say, I need $10,000, or I can't keep doing this podcast, and then you only get $10, do I have to cancel my own podcast now? Even if I like doing it, and even if people are listening to it, you know, I backed myself into a corner. So that's one reason why I was afraid. But I was also afraid of like, if I succeed, so what if I get $10,000? I can't live for that long off $10,000. So do I ask for $100,000? That seems ridiculous. And even if I got $100,000, do I just spend that time out of money? And then what do I do? It was a listener, who informed me of the existence of Patreon. I didn't know about Patreon, and this is like 2014. And I'm like, Well, that is the answer. That could work. If people sign up to give me and at the time, I was like, I don't care. You know, I think I had 10,000 listeners. So I said, if I get $1 A month from each of these people, I'm laughing. That's amazing. So that was my initial pitch, my initial pitch, I didn't have any staff. You know, I've given this advice to other people, like how do I get crowdfunding to work for me. And, you know, one piece of advice as well, the first piece of advice is you need an audience, because only you're aiming for one in 10, that are going to actually convert. And so if you wanted to have a full time job, I think you need 10,000 listeners to get 1000 people as your target. And then those 1000 people, you can't just say, give me money, because I want money. Like, it has to be real, and it was real, it was like, Look, I can't do this for free. I just can't do it, you know. So if I get enough money, for it to be a part time job, it'll be my part time job. If I get enough money for it to be my full time job, then I'm, I'm going to quit everything else. And I'm just going to do this. And if I don't get any of my goals, I am going to cancel my own show. And I meant it, you know, and it was rational like I had, I saw from that point of view that you don't get paid in likes or follows. You can't pay your mortgage in internet cloud, you do need revenue. So as much as I loved my show, and as exciting as it was to build an audience, I was prepared to walk away from it. And I think that that has to be real. So the first year it was like, basically, let's hit this goal, or the show will die. And, you know, I was just so amazed to see in the first hours hitting the first goal. And then it took just, you know, weeks to get to the point where it was my full time job, which I felt so grateful for. And then within months, we hit a fantasy reach goal, you know, they tell you and you know how to crowdfund just have a stretch goal. It's just dare to dream, it helps your your supporters to know that you have some grand, and I hadn't put the first thought into it. But I put on Patreon. I think it was if I get $10,000 a month, I will turn candidal and from a podcast to a podcast network. And we'll start publishing other podcasts and I'll hire other people to host them. And I swear to you, it was like, that's as much thought as I put into it. Like, do I want to be a publisher? Do I want to be somebody's boss? Do I want to hire people? Am I you know, I hadn't thought through any of it. Because I never thought we'd get to $10,000. But we did. And then I had to actually make good on my promise and became an employer and became the publisher of a network. And then in subsequent years, because I was at first, you know, we were not paying people. Well, we did pay people in stock in the company. And now the company is CO owned by some of those early employees. But then yeah, later, we added benefits and things like that. Matt Cundill 24:25 So in 2021, you're in Nashville. And I watched this through the wonders of the internet, and you're talking about your network, and owning a network and creating a network. Why a network? Why did you think a network was really the way to go other podcasts because I mean, networks are strange. I mean, I run into so many people who say I want to start a podcast network. I'm like, Well, have you ever tried to get strangers to agree? So what were the parameters? You know, for you to start this network? What did it have to be in right down to the IP? Who owns the podcast when it's done? Jesse Brown 25:00 Starting a network and building a network. It's the hardest thing I've ever done. It's so much harder than building my podcast. I mean, I approached Canada on the podcast with some rules. And one of my rules was a rule that I had learned in radio, which is just like, even though nobody really cares at first, whether you publish or not, or when you publish, treat it like it matters. Pretend that it's on the air on the radio, from coast to coast, and the show is there waiting for people every Monday morning, whether you've got a good guest or not, whether you have an idea or not, the show must go on. And that's how I built an audience. Now, I can show up and work for free on those parameters. But when you start hiring people for very little, and I've seen people try to start podcast networks just based on like, co ownership, nobody getting paid, things fall apart really rapidly, you need a lot of people working in tandem and treating it like it's real, for that to actually function. And I won't claim that I did it particularly well, at first it was in fits and starts. And we tried a lot of different things. And I had an attitude of like, let's just fail early and often taking a lot of you know, I had been involved in a tech startup and I had some of those ethics of like, if something feels fun, if you if you meet somebody talented, if you have an idea, let's just try it, you know, the cost of entry is low. And I learned the downside of some of those like tech pro values very early, because, you know, people put their heart and soul into a podcast, when when somebody wants to host a podcast, they really care about it. And you know, the whole idea like, well, let's publish your podcast. And you know, we don't have much money for you. But let's just put it out there. And if nobody listens to what I'm going to cancel it, we'll try something else. Well, you know, that's that it's not a terrible way of finding out what can work. But you know, it's not a great way to make friends, people, you know, get bruised along the way. And me while I was just learning how to be a boss and how to run a company, I don't know, I could probably go on and on about these things, because it's been such a challenge for me. But over the years, I've just tried to be equal to the opportunity. You know, the audience wanted the network, the supporters paid for a network, and I owed them a network. And that led to me owing my employees an equitable and fair place to work and all benefits and ultimately, they unionized. And I welcomed that unionization. So these are all things that I never really thought, like, part of my dreams were not you know, I sometimes I'd feel self pity and think, Man, if only my stretch goal, if I had just randomly chosen a different thing, like, Oh, I'll make videos, as opposed to I'll start a network and I look at somebody like Maron, you know, he got bigger and bigger and bigger without ever saying, Oh, I'm gonna publish 10 other people's podcasts. You know, he just built his brand. And he built his audience. And I'm like, wow, my life would be so much less complicated. If I just focused on my podcast, and I was just traveling around doing live shows and giving interviews and being a podcast personality and not having to worry about how's the politics show doing? How's the art show doing? How's the limited series doing? Is everybody happy? How are these teams, you know, but I've come to peace with it. And I think that as much as the country needed Canada land, there's a need for all these shows that we're doing. And we need an independent network like Canada land. I'm glad that I forced myself into this corner. And now I've got to like bite off what I you know, I gotta chew what I've been off. And I've just had the benefit, and the luck of working with some, you know, increasingly wonderful people. And now we're in this really rarefied special position, because now there's like, what, like 10 million podcasts. And the hardest thing in the world is to launch a new podcast and get people to listen to it. Unless you have a network. If you have a podcast network, that is like the most effective thing for building a new audience is leveraging your old audience. So that's sort of just where circumstances have kind of delivered us. Matt Cundill 28:46 I'd rather have a bank of radio ads to run somewhere. That would be my favorite. If I'm launching a show. Jesse Brown 28:52 Have you done ads on terrestrial radio for podcasts? Yes. Matt Cundill 28:56 They were. Have they been effective? Yes, very much. So. Jesse Brown 28:59 We should talk about that. We've done a little bit of that. We did that in a test market. And we saw a little bit of lift, but it's hard to measure radio. Matt Cundill 29:07 It's expensive. That's the problem. Yeah. Jesse Brown 29:10 Did you do it for like regional? I guess you got to do regional? Matt Cundill 29:13 Yeah, I put it in Toronto for a podcast with known Toronto people on it. And it works. It's just expensive. It's just a good way to launch it was just the launch budget. Jesse Brown 29:23 So did you compare that to buying promos on other podcasts? Matt Cundill 29:28 I have not compared it to that. Okay. That was going to be what we were going to be doing going forward? Was those promo swaps and putting them on other networks doing the ads on other networks. Jesse Brown 29:38 You know, what I wonder about is radio stations. Since you know time immemorial, have found it to be worth their while to do out of home advertising, buy shelters, billboards really expensive. And I always find the ads really low value. It's just like, you know, mornings with Jimmy and the chicken you know Just like the faces of two hosts, and telling you to go listen to their talk show, but they must work, because they keep buying the things. So I wonder, I don't think I've ever seen like, I've seen some ads in subway stations for podcasts, like in New York, you know, but I've never seen podcasts advertised on subways, and then bus shelters. And you know, on the on the expressway, I'm kind of curious if that would be effective. Matt Cundill 30:29 I actually saw the stats for a podcast that was being heavily promoted through Bell Media. And I could tell it was working simply because they always tell people to use the I heart app. And the I heart app for this particular podcast was scoring way above the average. So right there, you can tell that it's working people are going to check out celebrity podcast on the iHeart app. That percentage was it was like 15, or 20% of the listens came from that app. So the only people who would tell you to go use that app is would be built media, because it's I heart television or radio property. So you could just see the direct correlation right there. Jesse Brown 31:13 And where were these ads? What What kind of advertising? Matt Cundill 31:15 They're on TV and radio? Right? Yeah. So there's no other reason why anybody would use the iHeart app to go and listen to the celebrity podcast other than they were told to buy the TV or the radio, because you and I are probably scoring well below 1% With this app. Jesse Brown 31:30 Yeah. I mean, that's how CBC very quickly built a podcasting audience. After shutting podcasts for many years, they very quickly built a listenership. And, you know, it felt like I grumbled about it, because they have, you know, a massive audience on the radio, and they were even using TV ads to leverage their existing TV and radio audience to podcast and then once they had a podcast audience, they would do what we do and advertise, you know, if you'd like this podcast, maybe like our other podcast, they had this incredible advantage when they got in like it was I grumbled, because like, man, they're coming late. And they're and they're, it's not fair. I don't have a radio network, you know, but, but they were doing exactly what I would have done in their shoes. The job of Tara Sands (Voiceover) 32:10 transcription of the sound off podcast is powered by the podcast, Super Friends, five podcast producers who get together to discuss podcasting. Sharpen your podcast and creation skills by following the show on the sound off podcast, YouTube or Facebook page. The sound off podcast supports podcasting 2.0, so feel free to send us a boost. If you're listening on a newer podcast app. If you don't have a newer podcast app, you can get one at new podcast apps.com Matt Cundill 32:42 was the Jian Ghomeshi story, what really did that propel Canada land to another level? Jesse Brown 32:48 Yes, and no, the timing of things is really interesting. But it's also really specific. And there is this I think, misconception that that's sort of what made Canada land. The timing of it was just off enough that I can say with total confidence that we were fine. Without that story. We moved to crowdfunding right before that story. And I succeeded in crowdfunding, like the episode of Canada land before the John Ghomeshi story broke, you can go back and here it is where the crowdfunding had succeeded. And it was clear that I was onto something and I was going to be able to do this professionally. And then the story hit. And definitely there was a huge spike in listenership now there was not a spike in Patreon support, not immediately, most people who are joining us were hearing about me and about candlelight for the first time. And you know, they read the story in the star but but I was continuing that reporting on Canada land. And if you wanted to know what was going to happen next, you had to listen to Canada land. So we, you know, we went from, you know, wherever we were at, we had episodes that had like, you know, hundreds of 1000s of people listening. And some of those people left after that story died down, and some of them stuck around. And then the next year, when I asked people because I only really do crowdfunding once a year, the next year, a significant percentage of those people decided that candolyn was worth funding. So that's sort of how the show has grown over the years, that big stories be at Ghomeshi or you know, Mansbridge, and Rex Murphy, or our miniseries Thunder Bay, or we charity. And there have been a dozen, you know, smaller but significant stories along the way. Our audience spikes, people check it out for the first time because they're interested in that story. A certain percentage of that audience sticks around and then like a year later, a certain percentage of them become supporters. Matt Cundill 34:40 So who broke the story? If I remember it was a September of 2016. I think the Toronto Star was holding on to the story and you were waiting for it or they ran a story and then you added to the story. No, no, I'm one of the many who miss remembers. Jesse Brown 34:55 That's okay. What you realize when you get into investigative work is that everybody's memory Ah shit. You know, if you fact check people's memories, nothing ever holds up. Or you know, there's usually just small discrepancies. And it's just it's not no one's ever doing anything intentionally. But here's the nutshell of it. It happened much sooner than that it happened. The story broke in the fall of 2014. The story came to me initially a source came to me because of Canada land, somebody who had been involved in a relationship with Ghomeshi wanted to talk to the press about non consensual violence that they alleged he was responsible for him. And I got I got an email from this person, a source saying, and there are others, there are other women who he has hurt in this way. And they had been referred to me because I covered the media. And so I had this story, burning a hole in my pocket, and I received some legal advice. I didn't have libel insurance at the time, I shopped the story around to a few different possible partners, the stars, the one that said, Yes, we're interested in that story. And I was partnered with Kevin Donovan, and together with Donovan, we went and we investigated and we spoke to these women. I had already been speaking to some of them, but we spoke to more of them. And we thoroughly investigated it. And we also just sort of did our diligence on his history and whether or not it was possible, like did these people in fact, know him and evidence of the relationship and photos of bruises. And we were convinced that this was real. And then finally, we went to him for comment. And we received a legal Threat and Response, and the legal threat, singled me out. It said, our client denies this completely. we'll sue you if you publish it. And we'll sue you, if Jesse Brown continues asking questions about it. And that's when the star dropped the story. And this is a part that a lot of people forget. But the star was not interested in investigating further. Now, they didn't tell me we dropped the story. They you know, I was calling Kevin and saying okay, we've got his answer. We knew he was going to deny it. What do we do next? said, Well, the story is just not there yet. I said, Okay. Well, we've got three different women saying that this happened to them. How many do we need? Because I'm sure there are more out there. I'll go find some more. And I was never given a straight answer as to like, what is the story need? If it's not if it's not there yet? When will it be there? And the months went on? And eventually I said to Donovan, listen, our deal was, you know, there's been no movement on the story. We haven't been working together on it in some time. And my deal with the star is that if you ever dropped the story, I'm free to take it elsewhere. And he said, Okay, go take it elsewhere. So that was confirmation, they were dropping the story, they were ready to let it die. And I did go try to take it elsewhere. And I couldn't find anybody to take it. And I was trying to figure out how to get the story out anyhow. And, Matt, the way this happened is so wild. The week that our Patreon was successful, I spoke to my listeners, and I said, Thank you so much for funding Canada land. I am now working for you. I'm fully independent. I'm working full time, I'm not working for any other media. And that gives me so much freedom to investigate stories. And I have a huge story that I'm going to break next week. And it was true. I had just met Glenn Greenwald. And he had told me this incredible story about how the Globe and Mail had dropped a story about the Snowden files. Okay. That was the story I was talking about. The Globe and Mail, had Snowden files pertain to Canada. And they had let the story lapse. And I was going to break that story. And I was very excited about it. And I promise I teased it. I said we're going to break this big story next week, and it's going to be worse than embarrassing for certain people. Maybe I was over hyping it. But you know who heard me, promising that I was going to break this big embarrassing story, this scandalous story, Ghomeshi Ghomeshi knew that the Toronto Star had dropped the investigation of him. He knew that I had been investigating him because we sent him questions. And he knew because the publisher of the Toronto Star was one of his panelists, and he was back channeling with him. And he said, Why are you guys investigating me? Are you going to actually publish the stupid story about me it's not true. And he knew from the publisher that the star had dropped the investigation. And now all he had to worry about was this Jesse Brown character, and Canada land. And when he heard me, promised that this investigation was going to be published. He thought I was talking about him. And his ego is what did him in. And that's when he went to his bosses at the CBC and told on himself, and said, Hey, there's this freelance journalist who hates my guts, and he's going to be trying to humiliate me but these are all consensual relationships. And he showed these executives videotape of a woman with with bruises on her body because her rib had been cracked by him. And he thought this could exonerate him. And instead, the cvcs executive said, you're done here. And security walked him out the building. And that's when he went on Facebook, because word was getting out. that he was out the door. And he went on Facebook and tried to get ahead of the story, which he still thought was going to come out on Canada land. And if you read his posts on Facebook, he says, there's this freelance journalist who doesn't like me. And you know, there's a bitter ex of mine, and they're trying to do me in. And once the Toronto Star, read that on Facebook, they said, Okay, now he's made this public. So now we can publish the story. And then now they're calling me. And the star is saying, come back to the star. Let's break the story together. And I still needed their protection for a libel claim, which had been promised. And I came back and the story is written by me and Kevin Donovan. And it's, there's two stories, where we basically blew the lid off of this investigation. And that's the story of how this all happen. Matt Cundill 40:48 Okay, so that's an incredible story, I did not know all that. I feel like I should have. But that's absolutely incredible. And I guess, to the point where I can ask about this, because it costs a lot of money to do journalism, I think of all the time, and all the money investigative journalism, especially because it could turn up nothing, right. Which brings us to your company and where we are now in Canada, with this conundrum of Bill C 11, and Bill C 18. And you've spent two years really, you know, a little bit worried about this, and where it's all gonna go. And now both of them have passed, and you weren't going to sign up for it. And now you've signed up for it to be we're a news organization, we want to qualify for funding. So how are you looking at this today with Facebook and Google have effectively threatening or in the process of turning off the tap for Canadian news? Jesse Brown 41:42 I mean, it is a mess beyond comprehension, we haven't actually submitted ourselves for, you know, QC geo status yet. Nor have we submitted ourselves for I mean, I saw the writing on the wall that Google and Facebook, were going to shut off news. So it sort of became a bit moot. I initially said, I oppose this whole scheme. But then who cares what I say it was all moving ahead anyhow. And in anticipation of C 18. Google and Facebook were striking deals with publishers, and they were giving my competitors money. So at a certain point, who cares what my opinion is of this bill, we're being left out, and our competitors are being armed to you know, poach our staff and undercut us on ads and compete with us for audience and I'd be a fool to not try to take free money. So you know, can't beat him join him. I said, Okay, if this is going to happen, anyhow, let's try make sure that it's fair. And that small players like us don't get left out in the cold. But now that Google and Facebook have promised to shut off news, they're canceling their deals with those publishers. So the future is looking very uncertain if they don't relent, which they might, if the government blinks in the regulatory process, then there'll be no money for news publishers from Google or Facebook, in which case, I'd rather stay clear of the whole thing. All of this gets very, very wonky and detail oriented. But I think what you're hearing is, there is great uncertainty in the market. Nobody knows what the hell is going to happen next, you'd have to be an idiot to invest in media in Canada right now, with this level of uncertainty, you know, who would take a risk, you don't know, if you're getting involved in an industry where the legacy players are going to be propped up indefinitely, forever, you don't know if new players are going to have access to subsidy, you don't know anything. So it's just basically put a freeze, we're in a better position than most, you know, we're lucky enough that we're not a web based media company. So even though the majority of our web traffic comes from organic search, or from social media, well, we don't make money off of our web traffic, we make money off for podcast listenership. And that doesn't get mediated by Google or Facebook, you know, that traffic comes to us, you know, via Apple podcasts, and via Spotify, and a bunch of other places. And it's solid and growing. So I feel really bad for a lot of my fellow publishers who are trying to do news on the web, because this is an existential threat to them. I have no idea what's next. I mean, you know, Canada, land was always built with the notion that nobody's going to help us, the relationship has to be between the podcaster and the listener, and we can help each other. If people want this stuff, then maybe they'll pay for it. And we can help you with the information and the conversations that you want. And you can help us either, you know, giving us the attention that we can sell to advertisers, or preferably you can help us directly. So that's always how we've operated. That's always been our biggest revenue source. And that that continues to be what we're what we're banking on. Matt Cundill 44:53 So Bill, see 11 That's the one that sort of wants to promote more Canadian content to the front of yours. Spotify and maybe apple and your television and your Netflix and CIA teens, the one where Facebook and Google are going to be funding Canadian journalism. And we've already done a round of this where the Canadian government has handed out money to organizations, you publish the list. Thank you for doing that. By the way, I truly appreciate it, you get to see which news organizations got what money from the government. It's strange, though, it feels nefarious to have government funding media, and journalism. Jesse Brown 45:32 I'm not a fan of it. And we've done our best to add transparency, but we don't have all the information. I think that at a minimum, if government is going to fund the media, like, of course, the public needs to know which media and how much, but that's not the way it is. So we get the information for certain funds, but not others. And some companies are public. So they publish some of this information. But we don't know how much money you say the Globe and Mail is getting, you know, if you think about what the Globe and Mail has to do, they have to hold the government to account and they have to hold Facebook and Google to account those are two major companies. And who is giving the webmail money has been giving Google Mail money, government, Facebook and Google and we don't know how much. That's not right. I have my own kind of old fashioned ideas that the primary purpose of the news media is to hold government to account. And when you talk about the independence of the press, I don't know how you can make the argument that we are independent, and free to hold the government to account when we are literally dependent on them for our very existence. So we have refused to pursue government money. For me, that's a fundamental and a lot of people disagree with me on that. And they disagree with me out of that out of necessity. You know, it's just like a simple fact that a lot of places would just go out of business if it wasn't for these government handouts. But I don't know that the government subsidies are going to keep these places in business, it's not enough money. So the majority of the industry has decided they can live with it. At that point, I think you get into a question of well, who is the government deciding who gets the money? Which is the government deciding who's a real journalist and who isn't? And when you get into Facebook and Google making those decisions, that's pretty messed up to me. And then you get into this discovery question, which people need to read between the lines there as well, because we hear that C 11 is about making sure that Canadian content gets discoverability, and is prioritized on Spotify and places like that. Well, Canadian content already is getting that, you know, Netflix and Apple podcasts and Spotify, they already have their editorial teams in Canada, and they're trying to show that they're good, you know, good corporate citizens, and they're trying to show and there maybe there's even like, the audience wants that I'm not so sure. But all of those platforms, give extra algorithmic juice and extra editorial placement to Canadian content. What C 11 is going to do is not simply prioritize Canadian content, it's going to prioritize, can con and can con and Canadian content are not the same thing. Even content is content made by Canadians. Right? Anybody in Canada who makes a podcast in Canada, you know, that's Canadian content. Or if you're a Canadian, and you're making a podcast, but you live somewhere else in the world, you can still make a show and it's Canadian content. But cam Khan is an industry designation. Basically, it was created for the legacy film and TV industries. And C 11 is a bill for the legacy Canadian film and TV industry. That's who lobbied for it. That's who crafted it. That's who had benefits. So I am really, really skeptical that this is going to help new innovative companies like Canada land, unless we want to go and submit ourselves to, you know, be considered can con and check off the boxes of you know, all these different bureaucratic red, like, you know, maybe we will do that. But we've seen an incredible proliferation of Canadian creativity on YouTube on tick tock on podcasts, from people who are completely outside of the legacy Canadian can con system and this is not a bill for them. This bill is for the production companies that have been putting out you know, if you look at like Telefilm Canada, every year, they're funding you know, dozens of movies that you've never heard of, that nobody sees. There's no good distribution. These are not movies that break through televisions a bit more successful, but there's tons of TV that would not be made without the subsidies. Reasonable people can disagree on whether this is a good scheme or not to have these subsidies and to have this industry that is like propped up forever, you know, on kind of external funding, not based on the audience. But when they start to encroach upon this new media environment that I think pioneering digital publishers have created. We've actually found a way to make Canadian content not can con but Canadian content that people want to consume that people will pay for, that advertisers want to buy ads on. And now we got to deal with the legacy players trying to edge in on our platforms. And that concerns me Matt Cundill 50:00 I'm very concerned, it's one of the things that does keep me up at night. And how vague. Pablo Rodriguez and his department were about disclosing what this means. So does this include YouTube? And no, oh, yes, it does. And well doesn't bug me as a podcaster until I put my podcasts up on YouTube and YouTube is still trying to figure out how to do. They've created a bill for things that haven't been invented yet. Oh, and this will include musicians and Spotify. Well, our podcasts are on Spotify, and people are probably listening to it right now. So you know, not being able to get an answer from this department, does this include podcasts. And then the other thing is what we call the algorithm. Now, if you want to have a laugh, the CRTC has a Myths and Facts About C 11. And they're asking for comments. And in brackets on three of them. They're like, this does not affect the algorithm. But anything you do does affect the algorithms. So I feel like we're still in no man's land. Jesse Brown 50:58 Yeah, that's exactly right. The debate has been taking place in a really dishonest way, in a way that is, basically it feels to me, like the heritage minister, has been with C 11. Taking this as like, a conversation between so called regular Canadians uploading videos of their kids. And he's like, Don't worry, don't worry, this doesn't affect you, you're just a regular. This is for the pros out there. The network's the film companies. So he's kind of created these like sort of imaginary two categories. What is not considered as this no man's land, which is like the modern internet, everybody lives in this no man's land, unless you are NBC or you're just a hobbyist. There are people who have YouTube channels, and they turn on monetization, or they get a sponsorship, they're still regular Canadians, but they're, they're creative Canadians who are making stuff, podcasts are still a small enough industry that I guarantee when you ask the question, and when I asked the question, where do podcasts fit into this, they don't have a clue because they haven't even considered it. So you know, we are doing this. Professionally, we are doing this as our business. But we are neither the amateur who they're trying to console. Don't worry, this doesn't affect you, nor are we the legacy industry that they're trying to placate. We are caught in the middle. And they have introduced again, you know, nothing so much as uncertainty. Nobody knows. Nobody knows what this is going to mean for us. And that is itself, introducing so much uncertainty into the space that, you know, like, I never really understood, when you'd hear people talk about like God, government get out of my business. And it always seemed to me to be this reactionary right wing thing of like, people who just don't want to be taxed or something. But I'm appreciating for the first time, what business people and entrepreneurs go through. When you put up your own capital, you risk your own time and money to launch a business and like you get there and you're employing people and you're paying your taxes. And then government regulation steps in and starts to usually from a place of ignorance, not really understanding what you do. So now I understand like, the organic dairy farmer who wants to make raw milk cheese like I understand a lot of people who are saying government get out of my business. Matt Cundill 53:15 Can the problem be solved if we put a 3% tax on foreign digital advertising? Jesse Brown 53:21 I think that's an elegant solution that's better than what they're doing. Now. I think that you know, if you want to tax Google and Facebook in order to give money to news companies, then just tax them. And they've actually said this, they've said like we would prefer it if you just taxed us created a fund and paid it out. What we're paying for here is the cowardice of the current federal government who want to be able to claim that these are market based solutions. It's a very complicated thing that they've gotten themselves into. Nobody wants the job of determining, okay, Canada and your news, media, rebel media, you're not news media. And then there's something in between who's nobody wants that job, you know, and governments should not be in that business, right. So the government thinks they can basically farm that out by putting a lot of the burden onto Facebook and Google or onto some other part of your body. If you want to subsidize the media, you are going to have to decide who deserves the subsidies and who does not. And then crafting this really weird scheme. They have complicated this in a way that's that's hurting everybody. If they just had a tax, that would be simpler. Matt Cundill 54:27 I mean, the money, went from radio, TV, newspapers, and then moves to Google Facebook. We do this with steel, we do it with whiskey, we do with a whole bunch of things. You put a levy on it. It's a form of protectionism. So we would just do this again, the Liberal government would put a 3% tax on your advertising, which is going to Facebook, that money gets redirected back to Canadian journalism. It is cowardice I think by the government. They don't want to come up with another tax because they're always unpopular. Jesse Brown 55:00 that too. They don't want to say, Oh, here's the new you know, I remember when Stephen Harper campaigned on the no Netflix tax, that became a dirty word. Ultimately, though, I think the solution is not quite so simple. I think the solution that governments are moving towards around the world is breaking up the tech giants. And you know, Canada is not going to be brave enough to take a leading position on this, we'll probably do it at some point after the United States does it or some other country does it. But that's really the problem here. The problem here is that these companies, they've been able to grow unchecked under the idea that they're just so innovative and wonderful, that governments should just steer clear. In fact, they're just doing the same types of predatory things that any monopolist does. And they're actually stifling innovation. So we need to break them up. And that's going to happen sooner or later, I want and hope and then Canada will follow suit. after that. He made a Matt Cundill 55:49 very, very impressive hire in the podcast world recently. I believe her name is Julie Shapiro. Jesse Brown 55:54 Julie is, is excellent. Julie is one of the most respected people in audio, she's worked at the top of everything from PRX, to radio topia third coast, I didn't even know the story until we started collaborating, I knew that she was one of the minds behind the ear hustle, I didn't know that she picked that needle from the haystack, your hustle won a contest. And it was the one show out of I don't know how many hundreds that were submitted. And Julie said that one. So she is helping us build our slate of new shows. And we've got a similar process underway. And we've received hundreds of pitches for new programs. And she's helping us go through them and pick the next incredible winners, the needles in the haystack. And you know, there's no one more respected with a greater network, no one with a better ear. So couldn't be more thrilled than to be working with Julie, Matt Cundill 56:45 what sort of podcasts you're looking for. Jesse Brown 56:48 We're looking to be surprised, and we're getting it. You know, on the one hand, we kind of know what our values are, we're looking for, you know, Canada land, I think has a history of finding really shocking stories that are Canadian stories, but like never in the boring way more in the like, oh my god, I can't believe that's happening in Canada kind of a way. We definitely are looking for stories that are, you know, challenging to the status quo, challenging to the establishment that are like, you know, important stories, not just not just thrilling stories, but stories that really like cry to be told, we always want stories that are told by people that you haven't heard from before. It's just interesting to hear from people who haven't had a chance to tell their stories. Like, there's all kinds of stuff that we know, are consistent with our brand. But we also want to be surprised ourselves. So we're getting it. We're getting such great stuff from people. We're curious about kind of spreading out a little bit. What would a comedy podcast from Canada land sound like, you know, questions like that. I hate the term lifestyle programming. But you know, our stuff typically is about media and news and politics. That's only one small part of life. There's a lot more to it. And we're curious about other other types of things that you can talk about on the podcast. So we're finding these incredible creators, we're finding these incredible ideas. And it's, it's fun again, you know, it's kind of back to the square one of just, you know, who are the people we most want to be working with? And what are the ideas that we find most exciting? Matt Cundill 58:10 So I had this question down. I didn't ask it. I forgot to ask it. But at the same time, I can also solve one of your problems, and you should get a comedy podcast on Canada land. How do you know sugar Sammy, and when does he get his podcast on Canada land? Jesse Brown 58:24 Ah, sugar, Sammy can write his ticket. I'm sure you get a podcast, whatever, whoever he wants. So sugar Sami, come talk to me. I know, Sammy. from McGill. We went to school together. So we were like, you know, I guess 19 years old. And I had him on the show. And I didn't mean to embarrass him. But I remember, you know, I told you earlier that back at McGill, I would hand in films instead of essays. Well, Sammy was a brave soul. He was just starting to stand up. And he asked one of these professors, I was in the same class as him, Can I do stand up instead of an essay? And he got in front of a little workshop class of about 20 pretentious university students and delivered a set of stand up in this academic environment. And he, I mean, I don't even know if you can call it bombing, you know, you bomb at a comedy club. Like this was just not the place to be telling dick jokes. You know, it was it was painful. And when I some years later started to hear, Oh, that guy's doing really well, and then saw him perform it Just For Laughs. I was like, oh, man, that guy stuck with it. And that guy got good. And then you see the kind of career he's he's built for himself in this really interesting place that he occupies in the culture in Quebec. And, you know, that's a Canadian original right there. That trigger said he wants a podcast on Canada land. He's got it. Matt Cundill 59:45 Jesse, thanks so much for for doing this podcast. It's been a couple years in the making, and I'm so glad you took the time to do it. Jesse Brown 59:51 Thank you for having me, Matt. It's been fun talking to you Tara Sands (Voiceover) 59:53 The soundoff podcast is written and hosted by Matt Cundill. Produced by Evan Surminski, edited by Chloe Emond-Lane. Social media by Aidan Glassey. Another great creation from the Sound Off Media Company. There's always more at https://soundoffpodcast.com

Coming off the heels of a positive vibe at Radio Days North America, the radio landscape is flooded with bad news regarding 1300 layoffs, 6 Canadian AM radio stations being closed down entirely, Canada's Bill C-18 leading to the throttling or complete shutdown of news on Google and Facebook respectively, Bell asking the CRTC to reduce its local promise of performance and the launch of Futuri Media's Radio GPT on Portland's KFFX leading to some inner-industry outcry. Matt Cundill once again has some thoughts on all of it. In this episode you will hear Matt talk about the buzz around AI Ashley, the new rules for talent to negotiate their contracts with radio stations, he deciphers how we got here, and then unpacks as much as possible with Bill C-18 and Facebook blocking news in Canada. Matt also suggests that if Canada really wanted to take a stand, they would simply tax digital advertising to foreign entities. Matt also made reference to never buying an AM radio station and rebranding it Sound Off Radio - because he would have difficulty airing this episode of Writing Class Radio and this episode from The Blue Hotel. Did you catch AI Ashley's Appearance on Newsnation? I also mentioned that we will aim to get Phil Becker on our show. He is the Executive VP of Content at Alpha Media and shared his thoughts on Radio GPT and some best practices on his new podcast. TRANSCRIPTION Matt Cundill 0:00 Welcome to the 2023 radio summer of discontent. You know summer got a head start with AI making his radio appearance on Alpha media radio in Portland, Oregon with AI Ashley, whose full time job is actually in Michigan. We also had mass layoffs in Canada with bell unloading many of its staff and also shattering once famous radio signals, Bell decided to close down 6am signals and are selling three others. They're not to be outdone by themselves, Bell filed some paperwork with the CRTC asking for relief on their local broadcast promises. Plus Bill C 18. Past causing Facebook to turn off news in Canada. So there you go. We're off and running with the summer of 2023, three and a half big stories before school's even out. I'll address each of these stories individually with my very unpopular thoughts starting with AI Ashley. Ashley, by the way, is Ashley Elzinga, or Ashley Zee. Ashley, by the way, is Ashley Elzinga. And it will be doing the midday show at live 95 Five in Portland, Oregon. Unless, of course, Ashley wrote and program the show, then I would feel compelled to say that she will be doing the midday show at live 95 Five in Portland. And I'm using that obnoxious pronoun reference as my point. If you're a performer, you immediately have to start thinking about the usage of your voice as AI. For instance, after you get fired, how long will the station be able to use that AI data after your departure? And what exactly is your licensing fee going to be for them to use your voice in the form of AI? Will that data be erased at any point in time? You see, these are the kinds of questions that are already being asked right now by voice over talent. And it's also the reason that writers are on the picket lines in Hollywood. The minute that AI hit the airwaves and radio means that you are now officially in the licensing business. And you should probably have a lawyer look over all your deals. Back in 2017. On the show, one of the smartest people in radio, Sherry Lynch pointed out that talent needs to be negotiating and thinking about their digital rights. And along with your Facebook Lives, your IG lives and podcasting. This must now include the usage of your voice and AI. So go ahead and be aI Johnny or AI Kathy. But make sure the company that you're working with deletes your voice the day that the real Johnny or Kathy gets let go. And by the way, if they do accidentally use your voice on the radio, in the days after you're firing, make sure that that day becomes the new start date of your severance. I think AI voices are going to be good for radio. I've said that a few times in the show. I can't tell you how many atrocious voice track breaks I've had to endure over the years. Hopefully AI gets rid of them. But now let me flip it around a bit. What if you own the station? What's your responsibility to let the listener know that the voice they're listening to is AI? The answer is yes. You gotta let them know. And alpha media already does this. And just if we're keeping score at home, Live 95.5 is a CHR that is less than a three share in the Portland market. It is sitting 15. And they are only replacing the voice tract Ashley with AI Ashley feels like an upgrade for Ashley, the radio station and the listener. I think for radio. It's not the arrival of AI or that it exists at all. It's going to be how it's used. And for radio talent is going to be how you negotiate it. I mean, you should already be doing this with your social media in mind, who in fact owns that podcast you're recording in your basement about basket weaving? And how's your content gonna get used in the future? By the way, someone I've wanted to have on the show for a while is Phil Becker. He is the executive VP of content at alpha. And he has released a podcast, the show was called philosophy. And the title of the one episode in the feed is will AI ruin or revolutionize radio? I gave it a listen. It's a pretty good episode. And Phil has some great takes on this experience thus far. With radio GPT and AI. My final thought on it. I hope it replaces all the shitty voice tracking I've had to endure for the last decade actually make that two decades. Radios demise reminds me of an iceberg melting cracks have it fall off bit by bit. It's rather noisy. We identified radios erosion with the Telecommunications Act of 1996 in the USA, followed by Napster radios failure to embrace digital in the 2000s and later social media in the 2010s. And then what about the rise of Spotify? I mean, at some point radio execs had to have seen that the only difference between them and Spotify is the ability to be local and personalities. So why were there so many layoffs invoice tracking. It's been pretty much the same story in Canada with absolutely no regulatory action taken. And now we have radio stations being shut down. If we could see this coming, why didn't anybody do anything about it? airwaves is supposed to be public trust. And that would fall upon the licensor and the licensee for its care and its state. So how did we get into this shit show? Anyhow, I'm not going to spend too much time criticizing bell for turning the station's off, because frankly, I would not buy an am signal for $1. I mean, what would I do with it, rebranded his sound off radio, the hydro bill and transmitter maintenance would make life expensive. But moreover, I wouldn't be allowed to air any of the content that we make here at my company. Last week alone, we released a podcast episode called outsourcing my orgasms for the show writing class radio. And then we have the blue hotel, they had an episode called Three's Company, which sounds very tame. But if you look at the description, Georgia and Lennie longed for more and in Caleb, that's exactly what they find in this mmf threesome. Yeah, I don't think I'm going to want to put this on the radio. But if you are interested in the content of those episodes, you can find them right now at sound off dot network. My point is radio should have been working with federal regulators to deregulate content years ago. It's not just about F bombs and offspring songs. It's things like creating subscription, radio innovating brands, moving viable and brands to FM and working on new ideas for AM. Instead though, we're just letting AEM go. Now you've got Congress in the United States introducing a bill to keep am radios and cars. At this point, I think we should just let this go. There's either a use for am radio or there isn't. We're really never going to know how useful AEM can be in this era unless we hand it over to people who want to innovate. And it's clear that the current license holders aren't not interested in that. And by the way, if you take a look around, there's still some viable and products on the air across North America right now. Anyhow, the shuttering of 6am signals in Canada a few weeks ago was sad because it was preventable. However, there is likely more at play because Bell also asked the CRTC for an amendment to their promises of performance because they, like many in journalism these days, are finding that delivering the news is not a very profitable venture. Listen, Belle's a Smart Company, and are very good about showing good returns to their shareholders, no matter if it takes 1300 layoffs, selling three stations and closing six stations just to show them. But in terms of creating a future for the radio business and upholding journalistic integrity for a better democracy, it doesn't appear they have any interest in that. And other companies in Canada are also feeling the pinch. And I think they would rather get out of the news business altogether if they could. This brings me to the last thing I want to talk about. And that's Bill C 18, which passed just before Canada's Parliament broke for the summer. Like they literally pass this bill and play that song as they headed to the lake. The bill is designed to level the playing field between Canadian news organizations and companies like Facebook and Google who have taken their traditional ad revenue as the bill reads. And as the stories go, news organizations want to charge these tech companies for using their links, links that are used to redirect traffic away from their platforms. And back to the news organizations website, where you and I, as the listener are gonna get bombed with 3/32 ads before seeing 30 seconds worth of content. And there's no limit. So expect a news organization to hire a million social media people to litter Facebook and Google with links in hopes of fleecing these companies for money. It's a massive scam. In response, Google has been throttling Canadian news for certain users and Facebook, will they just turn the tap off. So if I share something from a Canadian news organization on my Facebook page, maybe some Americans might see it, but but it will be severely suppressed in Canada. Facebook claims that only a small percentage of their shared content is news anyhow. So they're just happy to get rid of it altogether. So a big congratulations to the Liberal Party of Canada and Pablo Rodriguez, you have now made it harder for news organizations. You basically created a loss of big tech would have to fund Canadian journalism. By the way, all this should sound vaguely familiar to Canadian radio, people who were around when Ken Kahn came into play. Radio has been legislated to spend a lot of money to fund the Canadian Music Industry many different ways since 1971. This, my friends is an old strategy. But if Canada's Liberal government, we're serious about this. They should steal this idea. Why not put a thick levy on foreign digital advertising. That money could be used to fund Canadian journalism. And you'd be good to go. It's no different than putting a levy on say, steel, sugar ketchup. But that would bring a lot of Canadians into the discussion. A lot of people would get engaged and figure out that the whole thing is a big scam. And the conclusion is mixing government and journalism funding is not healthy. And I don't want you to misconstrue that things like the BBC. CBC are bad things. They're actually good things, but to fund an entire industry, no facts. So I wish the Liberal government of Canada good luck with your smoke and mirrors trick, Facebook and Google don't care about your problems and probably won't pay you. Your best case scenario is the Australian model where the tech companies negotiate their own deals with each organization, a model which comes with its own set of flaws, including making it hard for startups to get going in journalism. That's it for this week. There's a lot more in the episode page over at sound off podcast.com. If you have anything to say about this episode, feel free to write me the address is Matt at sound off dot network. Our voice imaging talent for the show is done by Tara Sands, whose job is now to tell you the rest of the show credits

On this week's edition of "Producers Interviewing Producers," we've got Kattie Laur, a podcast producer from the Toronto area. But she's more than just that. In fact, the main subject of this episode is her newsletter, Pod The North. Pod The North is designed around the idea of creating a community for Canadian podcasters, since in all her years of working with audio, she noticed there wasn't really a space or a resource for us Canucks to come together and talk about podcast stuff. So what could she do, but create one herself? She also works freelance for Canadaland, as well as AM640 radio in Toronto. We speak with Kattie about all these things, before getting into a hefty discussion about Bill C-11 and whether or not we think it'll actually lead to a positive change in the Canadian media space (Spoiler alert: we're doubtful). For more of Kattie, check out her website or follow her on Twitter or LinkedIn. And if you haven't already, definitely join the Pod The North newsletter on Substack. You won't regret it. In this episode, we both made mention of Rick Harp who has been the host of Media Indigena, a weekly roundtable about Indigenous issues and events in Canada and beyond. The show has been running since March of 2016. I have referenced how disjointed the Canadian podcast community was once; I discovered this podcast at a conference in Chicago yet the show was being produced in my own city and contained issues that pertains my locale. Here's hoping that new RSS podcast tags can help make discovery of podcasts in your neighbourhood more discoverable. Also of note... The APTN News Brief which is hosted by Rick is another important listen. It is a daily update on what is making headlines in Indigenous country across Canada and beyond. Transcript: Tara Sands (Voiceover) 00:02 The Sound Off Podcast. The show about podcast and broadcast starts now. Matt Cundill 00:13 This week I'm speaking with Kattie Laur from Pod The North. Actually, Pod The North is not a place. It's a newsletter. Kattie's got her own company where she makes podcasts for her clients as well. She freelances at Canadaland, and at AM640 in Toronto. Kattie recognized that there was no community for podcasting in Canada, so she decided to start one with her newsletter. If you can right now, go sign up for her Substack. It's in the show notes of this episode. Now, Kattie Laur joins me from her home studio in Toronto. Before we get into the nitty gritty of the entire show, there are 31 long term drinking water advisories in effect for 27 First Nation communities across Canada, and you lead your newsletter with that every week. I think I know why, I think we know it's a good thing. But specifically to that issue, why? Kattie Laur 01:08 When I first found out about this, I immediately was just shook, because there's no reason why anyone shouldn't have access to clean drinking water. Especially in a country like Canada that is pretty wealthy in terms of its global standing and everything we have access to here. For me, it's been important to bring recognition to that every newsletter, because it's not just like a one off issue either. So every time I release a newsletter, I just want to kind of provide an update on where things have been going in terms of water advisories across the country, and how usually that there isn't really much of an update. Like, I think- I started the newsletter in September of 2022. And I think there's only been like maybe two updates since then. And it's kind of toggled between 31 and 32 water advisories being dismantled. So it's pretty upsetting, and people should know about it. Matt Cundill 02:02 And I'm glad you put it in because, you know, Justin Trudeau made this an election promise, I believe back in 2015. And then it shows up in your newsletter and I'm reminded- What, this shit's still happening? Kattie Laur 02:13 Exactly, exactly. Matt Cundill 02:15 We can't get this fixed? Kattie Laur 02:16 Yeah. And like the sad part is that there's a lot of initiatives that are going around, usually run by indigenous folks already in Canada that are trying to make this not a thing anymore. And it's pretty sad that you know, they're the people that need to fight for this when this is a fundamental human basic right. Matt Cundill 02:33 I'm based in Winnipeg. Kattie Laur 02:35 Oh, I didn't know that. Matt Cundill 02:36 Is that good? Kattie Laur 02:37 That's great. I love to hear that. Hello, fellow Canadian. Matt Cundill 02:41 I'm not far from Shoal Lake. So I'm gonna have to click on the link to find out if Shoal Lake still has a boil water advisory or possibly two of them? Kattie Laur 02:49 Yeah, I'm pretty sure. I mean, I'm 10 minutes away from the Six Nations reserve here and just outside of Brantford, and yeah, it's- I think there's still one there as well. And it's so close by, like this is- at this point, this is the GTA, right. There's no reason why there should be any boil water advisories here. Matt Cundill 03:06 What came first for you? Was it the radio, the written word, or the podcast? Kattie Laur 03:10 That is a great question. Um, I would say probably radio, stemming from me being a very, very young kid, I have like very vivid memories of driving in the car with my parents and listening to CBC Radio and listening to Vinyl Cafe, and just falling in love with Public Radio and narrative audio. And then I've also been journaling since I was a very little kid. I have like a very, very early version of a diary, where I just wrote, I went skating today. And like, for some reason, writing has always been very cathartic for me. So I think radio and writing kind of happened around the same time. Matt Cundill 03:51 And you're a graduate of Toronto Metropolitan University, the former Ryerson. Kattie Laur 03:56 Yep, I am. Matt Cundill 03:58 Did you choose to go there because you knew you would get into communications? Kattie Laur 04:01 I think I- knowing and wanting, I think were probably about the same thing. Basically, the RTA School of Media was kind of like my number one choice. I knew I wanted to go there. I applied to a couple other universities and was like, honestly, if I don't get into RTA like, I don't know if I'm going to go to university. I'm just going to try again. That was like my number one choice. I knew there was a whole bunch of other CBC people that had graduated from there. And so I kind of saw that as the pinnacle of getting into radio and media. And like, I was a- audio kid, a media kid in high school. I was on the Announcements team. I was out there running for class president or prime minister trying to like, use my voice anytime I could. So I think it was sort of destined for me, but yeah, I'm really lucky that I got into that program. I loved it so much. I had such a great time, and it had a very small amount of people that actually got accepted into that program. So I'm always grateful that I got in. I've learned so much from that. But when I was there, there was no podcasting program. And now there is, so I'm like, should I go back? Matt Cundill 05:10 Why did you start Pod The North? What did you see, that was missing from the Canadian podcast landscape, that made you say in 2022, we need to start a newsletter and we need to get a Canadian podcast community going. Kattie Laur 05:24 Yeah. So I have, like a very vivid memory of going to one of the Hot Docs podcast festivals happening in Toronto, probably in like 2018 or 2019. And at that point, I had graduated from the RTA School of Media in 2014. So I had been kind of graduated, looking to get into radio and podcasting for a number of years. And I had been just doing the work on my own, I was applying to jobs, so many jobs, but nobody was hiring me. And so I was like, Okay, I'll start podcasting on the side and just sort of keep my skills relevant. So I was going to Hot Docs podcast festival. And you know, CBC podcast is one of the major sponsors there. And they had a kind of afterparty event that was hosted by CBC, and you could go and meet a whole bunch of people that worked there, the, you know, senior producers and executive producers and everything like that. And I was so excited. I was like, Man, this is my chance to go to this event and say hi. And when I got there, it was a whole bunch of indie podcasters, sort of on one side of the room, and a whole bunch of network producers on the other side. And I felt so uncomfortable. I felt like I wasn't really welcome to go and say hi, like, it just- there wasn't really a great opportunity to feel like I was welcomed into that space, even though like it was clearly, I don't know, sponsored by CBC podcast? I don't know. Something about the vibe was just offered me. And after having spent, you know, like four years, five years applying to jobs at CBC and getting zero replies, like nothing was coming out of it. I was just so frustrated. At that point, eventually, in 2022, I had started freelancing for about three years at that point. And I started freelancing because nobody would hire me. And I knew I had the skills to produce podcasts and write podcasts. So yeah, I started freelancing and still applying to jobs and having credentials under my belt showing that I could get the job done. And still no one, no replies. And so eventually, I was lucky to become a contractor with Vocal Fry Studios under Katie Jensen's belt, which I love her. She's amazing. And she gave me the space to write on the Vocal Fry Studios blog, sort of an open letter to networks, asking them to stop abandoning indie podcasters, and freelancers, and all the talent that was out there. And I then posted it, went on vacation, expected to come back from vacation thinking like, Oh, this is gonna blow up. Because you know, Vocal Fry Studios has like connection to a number of people in the industry. I got back from vacation, and nobody had read it. It was basically like, nowhere. And, yeah, then I was frustrated. So throughout that summer, it was still- I had the itch, I was like, I need people to recognize that, like, talent is out there. I need recognition. I don't know what's in me, but I feel like I need it. And so then I just decided to write the first issue of Pod The North and kind of see what happened with that. I really only anticipated like 15 people would be reading it. And lo and behold, it's nearly 1000. So clearly, I scratched the itch of some sort of community here. So yeah, that's the big, long winded history of where it came from. Matt Cundill 08:40 Well, that long winded history just opened up about five other questions that I have. So my experience was different. Because you know, 2015 and 2016, I went down to the US to see what the podcast scene was all about. My experience was the opposite of yours. It was open and warm. And exactly, I think what you envisioned and wanted it to be, where the indie podcasters could work alongside. You could go up and talk to people at NPR, or Stitcher, or any other companies, and, you know, Hey, have you met Blubrry and you know, you can get your own dot com. And there was all this, you know, incredible opportunity. And when I left, I was- think I was driving back to Canada. And somebody called me said, we want to talk a little bit about the Canadian podcast landscape. And it was, you know, this time was 2016. I said, Well, I don't know, I do a podcast and I know a guy in my neighborhood does Witchpolice Radio. Toronto Mike has been doing it a long time, Humble and Fred have been doing their show there, and Canadaland's pretty amazing. And I guess that's really it. There's not much else out there after that. So I can definitely see how we're not very connected as Canadians. Kattie Laur 09:50 Yeah, that's basically what I felt like, and also like my perception of the Canadian podcasting landscape at that point was pretty minimal too, because I only knew what was in front of me. I didn't know what I didn't know. So I knew Canadaland. I knew CBC, I knew, you know, the producers that I had seen at various talks around the community, because I'd been going to a lot of like panels and meetups and everything trying to meet more Canadian podcasters and see who was in the industry and put my name out there and pick their brains. But yeah, like, I didn't really realize- I didn't know like all of the OG podcasters that existed out here for a long time, too. And only did once I started kind of digging more into the Canadian podcasting landscape and seeing what was out there, I was like, wow, there's a whole bunch of people out there that don't get recognition either, who've been in the game for a long time. So I kind of was thinking about that when I started my newsletter as well. Like, there's a lot of people that are working really hard like me as an indie podcaster, a lot of people that are working really hard as freelancers. And a lot of people that haven't had the recognition that they deserve who've been in this for a long time. So it's more than just CBC and Canadaland. There's it's a huge landscape out there. But nobody knows who anybody is. Matt Cundill 11:01 I had to go to Chicago to meet Rick Harp. Kattie Laur 11:05 Oh, really? Matt Cundill 11:06 Yeah. You know, I met him there. And I had absolutely no idea that, you know, his show, which is a very important podcast, was happening. It was, Why did I have to travel to another country to find out that this was going on? Kattie Laur 11:19 Yeah, the American landscape is truly amazing to watch happen. I mean, it's sad right now with all the layoffs happening at big podcasting organizations, but everybody seems to be very supportive of each other within the production space and the indie space. And that's what I definitely want to see here, and I think I have seen it over the last year for sure. Canada is really starting to blossom, I think, which is exciting. Matt Cundill 11:43 But I still see a lot of inequality when I'm looking at, let's say, the Triton ranker has 20 CBC podcasts on it. That's not great. And when I see the Alberta podcast network, you know, ceasing, just shutting down, it didn't go bankrupt or anything, it just stopped. There are some giant holes to fill. Kattie Laur 12:02 Totally. Matt Cundill 12:03 How are we going to fix that? Kattie Laur 12:05 Man, I wish I had that answer. Like, I mean, with my newsletter, I'm just trying to have people know like, what's happening here, so people can find whatever way that they can to support the ecosystem. I don't think I'm the answer. It's just sort of like, I think of my newsletter is sort of just like a bulletin board where people just post their updates and, and let me know like what's going on. So I can get that out to the ecosystem. But like, even my newsletter, not everybody knows about, right? Like, and I don't think it's ever going to reach all Canadian podcasters either. Like, I think that's a pretty bold assumption that it would. So I like to see what's happening now in terms of like, specifically with Canadaland, and their recent announcement for podcast pitches. I specifically remember Jesse Brown mentioning my newsletter and saying that my interview with CBC podcast is what sort of inspired this movement knowing that, you know, they were only realistically willing to work with podcast producers and production houses, and there was no partnership with indie podcasters out there either. And all the talent that exists. And specifically Canadaland does a lot of collaboration with journalists and other podcast producers, like I'm a freelancer with them. So they are already sort of putting themselves out there. And they're like, What can we do more? And that kind of move is exciting for me to see, and I'm hoping that there's going to be more of that because there is money here, too. It's just a matter of where it's being spent. And I also am worried about how big networks like CBC podcasts and Rogers would ultimately impact the indie space, because we want to keep indies indie, and let them do their own thing too at the same time. But right now, like we don't have much grant funding for podcasters, and podcasting as you know, takes a lot of time and energy. And it's usually a side project for a lot of people. So I'm hoping that we can see more money in the space at some point, more grants and more accessible grants. But yeah, I don't have all the answers. That was just sort of like a whole bunch of ideas that I just threw out there. Matt Cundill 14:05 Of which I liked them. By the way, when we talk about, you know, a company like Bell that will, you know, back the Jann Arden podcast, or Rogers, which has a whole bunch of their own podcasts. It is highly promoted stuff that gets regular people listening to podcast stories. And if they start to listen to that, maybe they'll find my show. Kattie Laur 14:30 And I've noticed too over the last like year, I think, I don't know if I take full credit for this or if it's something else. But I've noticed that more and more people that I reach out to that are sort of in the big podcasting landscape, like CBC and Rogers and Bell, and I've noticed more willingness to chat and be open and talk about things with me. And even like Spotify. Like I've- I've been chatting with some folks at Spotify, too, who are really interested in the Canadian podcasting space and figuring out ways to support it, it's just a matter of like how- the fairness around what that support would look like. And I don't have all those answers or even an idea of what that is yet. But I think there's just more willingness to have these conversations, which is good news to me. Because before I wasn't even getting replies. Matt Cundill 15:16 How are we going to look at the numbers between Canada and the United States? We mentioned it's great to be beside the United States, but at the same time, they're a big elephant, and we're a mouse in comparison. And we're never going to have the same size downloads unless you find a way to export your content down to the United States to get, y'know, big download numbers. So I guess the question I'm asking you is, should we be looking at downloads? And then how do we define Canadian success? Kattie Laur 15:43 Ooh, I'm sort of a big believer in the downfall of podcast blockbusters. And I think that's a global concept. So when it comes to Canadian success versus American success, I think they're all sort of playing in the same game. They're all in the same field. And that's the kind of global audience. And within the global audience, there are a bunch of niches. So to me, that's what I measure success for podcasts at this point. Because sure, like anyone can strive to have like the next Serial or This American Life. And those are at this point, like, those are well established podcasts that came out in the early, early days of podcasting, kind of blowing up. So I don't think we can at this point, expect a podcast to exist of that magnitude at this point, I think, where success lies is in niches. So whether or not that's a Canadian niche, and that niche only exists in Canada, like, you know, people who are pet owners in Canada, I don't know. But like, for example, like my indie podcast, Alpaca My Bags. It has a niche. But it's not just Canada, it's based in- it has a global audience. And actually, the majority of our audience is American. And I think for me, success would mean that we are sort of the go-to podcast within that niche. And so sure, I would consider us like a Canadian success if we were the go-to podcast in that niche. But it doesn't have to do with like the audience. I think it just matters, like, who created it? And yeah, that's sort of how I look at success for Canadian podcasts. I don't know if we can necessarily take over the American landscape. And I don't know if that's like, even a realistic goal at this point, or even like a goal that matters. I think it's just a matter of like, where we sit in terms of all of the niches, and if we tended to be the leader of the pack of a lot of niche podcast communities, then that would be pretty impressive. Matt Cundill 17:42 I'm glad you mentioned that because the riches are in the niches, as they say, and we don't necessarily need money really, it can refer to audiences. Kattie Laur 17:50 Yeah. And that's where I think a lot of advertisers are looking now too, right? Where if you have a very engaged audience in a niche, then they know that that audience is likely to buy whatever they're selling on your podcast. So I think everyone's starting to look at niches more with more impact now. Tara Sands (Voiceover) 18:10 Transcription of the sound off podcast is powered by the Podcast Super Friends, five podcast producers who get together to discuss podcasting. Sharpen your podcast and creation skills by following the show on the Sound Off Podcast's YouTube or Facebook page. The Sound Off Podcast supports podcasting 2.0, so feel free to send us a boost if you're listening on a newer podcast app. If you don't have a newer podcast app, you can get one at newpodcastapps.com. Matt Cundill 18:43 What's the biggest obstacle for Indigenous podcasts? Kattie Laur 18:46 I would say, time and money. And internet access. So I can't speak, you know, from experience because I'm not an Indigenous person. But from the conversations that I've been having with Indigenous folks is that there is not enough resources, whether that's time and money for Indigenous podcasters to create podcasts in the first place. There is not enough internet access across the country for us to have a wide range of different nations and Indigenous folks across the country, and then burn out, because we tend to see a lot of the same folks from indigenous communities in Canada being represented on the podcasting stage. And there are a lot more talented people out there that deserve the spotlight. And when I've spoken to, you know, Phelan Johnson and Connie Walker, they are both feeling the burnout of just being like the go to person that everybody invites to chat and talk. And they're like, we would love to pass the mic at some point. But it's just a matter of finding those folks out there. And when people don't have internet access, it's harder for them to podcast because you need internet for podcasts. And if you don't have time and resources and money to be able to set aside time to create a podcast, then we lose out on those voices too. Matt Cundill 20:05 Speaking to somebody who just saw Phelan last week. Kattie Laur 20:08 Yeah. Matt Cundill 20:09 Talking, right? So. Kattie Laur 20:10 How's she doing? Matt Cundill 20:11 She's doing great. Had to thank her for her podcast because I enjoy it a lot. Kattie Laur 20:14 Yeah. Matt Cundill 20:15 And if anybody wants to connect to it, it's in the show notes of this episode. Kattie Laur 20:18 Oh, yeah. And Rick Harp is also one of my favorite indigenous podcasters, too. I love his show. And he's asking a lot of really important questions. So definitely one to check out. Matt Cundill 20:29 I was also thinking to another issue, you mentioned internet access, but this stuff just gets harder and harder and harder for, you know, indigenous communities, because oh, look, now you need to incorporate some form of video, or it'd be nice to incorporate some video if you'd like to get a little bit of marketing. And we're barely getting the audio out through the slow internet. How are we going to get the video out? Kattie Laur 20:52 Yeah. Matt Cundill 20:53 So I mean, the problems do get worse, you know, as the weeks go by. Kattie Laur 20:57 Yeah. And then it just all comes down to, you know, massive socioeconomic problems that exist in general. And a lot of solutions that need to happen that would fix everybody's life at this point, like water and internet at this point, are like basic human rights. And you know, it's the same sort of decision makers that need to make sure that that kind of stuff is accessible to everybody. But it's like, what can I as a podcaster, or Canadian podcast writer, like, do about that? It's just bring awareness and try and build community around it. It's a really difficult thing to unpack and very complex and nuanced. Matt Cundill 21:36 You do a little bit of work, for Corus radio at 640 in Toronto, what do you do? Kattie Laur 21:41 I am a fill in producer. I just started a couple of months ago. So I just come in and produce shows when the regular producer is not available. So that's me. Matt Cundill 21:51 And I mentioned that because you're surrounded by good people there. I know Dani Stover has been on this show and has a podcast that launched, and Amanda Cupido. She runs a show there. And she's podcast first. I know, she's got the title of brand manager, program director, but she came from the podcast side of things. Kattie Laur 22:07 Yeah, yeah. It's been really fun getting into the radio world. This was like, originally, my vision as a teenager was eventually working in radio. And then I kind of fell in love with podcasting and realized that podcasting is just radio on demand, basically, public radio on demand. But yeah, getting into the radio world is really fun. And it's live and exciting. And sometimes you are wondering why guests that you had lined up for a certain block aren't picking up their phone. And that's always good times. So yeah, I get to produce content for- and I'm a content producer, fill-in content producer. So I decide on sort of the topics that somebody is going to cover, and who those guests might be to cover them with them. And yeah, and it's talk radio, too, which is always an interesting thing to be a part of. Matt Cundill 22:53 So from where you sit, because we're about 24 hours removed from Bell shutting down a bunch of radio stations and laying off close to 1300 people, but you're inside a radio station, and you're producing podcasts. What do you think the opportunity here is then for podcasting and radio? Kattie Laur 23:13 I don't know, to be honest, I don't know if I have a solid answer for you on that. Since the beginning of podcasts kind of blowing up globally, I would say on the North American stage, there's always been the re-listens of radio shows available on websites and as podcast forms. So I wouldn't be surprised if that sort of where things ended up. Especially with talk radio and 640 in particular, you know, all of those shows are based around one specific personality who's the host of the show. So yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if they kind of all decided to go to podcasts. And you know, 640 turned into a podcast network. That would be unsurprising to me. Matt Cundill 23:52 Yeah. And I just came out of Radio Days, North America, where there was a lot of discussion of, you know, what happens if you can have the Live button on your podcast where if your show goes live, that you can listen to it live, and then after the show, it just sort of morphs into a podcast. So these possibilities are- they're coming. Yeah. And Kattie Laur 24:11 Yeah, and they're already existing too, with, you know, virtual podcast studios, like riverside.fm, you can hit a Live button there. And people can tune in and be a part of your audience and submit questions and all of that stuff. And you can stream your podcast right to YouTube, or Twitter, or whatever it is. And I'm also curious to know what's going to happen with Twitch on that note, too, because, you know, Twitch is kind of also a live platform as well, where people can do podcasts live and incorporate that video element as well. And there are also plenty of studios around the country and around the world, where you can also set up your live streams too, and stream it right to YouTube and then it just exists forever. So I wouldn't be surprised if more live stuff happened and became a trend, it's just more stressful but also a little bit easier for the video edit, because that's what's sort of happening with one of my clients right now is we've just incorporated video on to their show. And the way that they approach that now is they record it in a studio, and then they have a video producer there who's switching between cameras, and all that switching happens live. So all those edits are happening live. And then we've kind of got a rough version of the video at the end of the show. And then once I'm going through for the podcast edit, I'm just highlighting chunks that we want cut out. And then we're like, hey, just cut out this big chunk. So it's not the same, it's two different products. So we've got a video product and a- an audio, podcast product. But those big editorial chunks, we can still cut out at the end. And it's super simple. So I wouldn't be surprised if people were kind of landing in studios more and studios became more popular, and maybe more expensive, but I don't know, we'll see. Matt Cundill 25:02 That's interesting, actually, because I sort of equate in my head that video editing feels expensive. Kattie Laur 25:58 Yeah, I think it is. Anytime I talk to who is like- anyone I talk to about video, I'm like, You're gonna have to hire a video editor. Like this will be a second person on your team. I'm not that person. I'm audio only. And to me, I do a lot of my recording virtually as well. Right? So that's like, what we are doing right now, that would be two separate video files, and then they kind of cut and chop up at the end. But having the ability to do it live is an interesting concept, because then that cuts out a lot of time, and just being able to maybe spend another hour after recording to cut out chunks, and then you're done. Matt Cundill 26:36 I know that sounds crazy to say, oh, video editing is expensive. I mean, I taught Charles Adler to do it like two weeks ago, and he learned it in five seconds. Kattie Laur 26:46 It's the same as audio editing, just with visuals, different visuals. I'm working with waveforms, other people are working with faces. Matt Cundill 26:54 All right. I'll jump into that pool now. Kattie Laur 26:59 I'm not going to do it. I'm still sticking with audio only. I like audio only, and you can tighten things up a lot smoother. I still have the opinion that they're two totally different products. Matt Cundill 27:09 They are. Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Like when I talk podcast now it's like, here's the audio one. Here's the video one. Here's the live one. In fact, I actually recommend to people to have a different sounding intro on the audio one against the video one. It's wildly different. And if we get 56 minutes of video, it's okay if we have 42 minutes of audio. I'm happy with that. I don't mean to talk about myself. Sorry about that. Kattie Laur 27:37 I'm talking about myself! Matt Cundill 27:38 I want to ask you about branded podcasts, because branded podcasts are- I think a lot of people don't know what makes a good branded podcast. And it's sort of evolving. So you've done a couple of them. What's been your experience? Kattie Laur 27:53 Yeah, they're an interesting concept to me too, because I think the hardest part about branded podcasts is trying not to be too salesy, and too boastful of your brand, and making it something interesting to listen to, to be honest. I'm working on a show right now called Building Good. That's a podcast by Chandos, which is a construction company. And so I'm out here trying to write scripts for conversations about the construction industry. And luckily, I'm really loving the show, though. And I think so far, I think I'm doing a pretty ok job, because my executive producer is giving me some good notes. And our client is giving me some good notes. So that's all a good sign. But we're also lucky because we've been able to- and I think this is important for all branded podcasts, is to figure out what your mission is for your podcast and like, not just like, finding more clients and finding customers. But in terms of like an audience, what is your- what do you want your audience to get out of the show? Like what's the purpose of your show existing in the world for entertainment only. And so for our show, we are really focused on how the construction industry can be a source of good. And so that's really shaped all of the episodes that we then create. And right now we've opened up our next season to be just more stuff that we're all just generally interested in that exists in the AC sector. So just like why cities aren't as walkable, and how much co2 emissions are happening when you tear down a building, and like just all these things that were just genuinely curious, that exist within the sector. And I think that opens up a whole lot of interesting things that you can learn about, that anybody can be interested in. So instead of taking the time to sort of just like have an interview and talk about a project, maybe that you built, I think it's important for brands to open up the conversation to answer questions that the general public are curious about, and have a mission in terms of the show. And also, any brand that is interested in podcasting should be listening to podcasts themselves, and finding what they find inspiration from and what they really love, and what formats they're interested in. Because I think that will help shape something really engaging to listen to. So I've talked about this before, but The Cut on Tuesdays was one of my first podcast that I got really, really into, and used as a show that would ultimately shape a lot of the branded shows that I created, because I loved what they did with engaging a lot of their writers in part of the show, and just asking them like regular human questions. Like not asking them about things that they wrote about, or things that they've been uncovering, more just being like, so if you were to host a dinner party, like what would you make? Kind of thing, like you get an idea of who's working on the inside and what their opinions are. And what is sort of the life source, and what's the bread and butter of this company at the end of the day? And bringing in people from the inside, I think is a really interesting way to do that, rather than having a podcast that's just hosted by a CEO, you know? So I think there's a whole bunch of different ways that branded podcasts can do it really well. And I would say a successful branded podcast is one where you don't even know that it is created by a brand. Matt Cundill 31:11 I think something about podcasting that I knew, but didn't get to experience, but now I'm experiencing and that's the loneliness of of creating by yourself, and maybe feeling like something's an issue, and then you'll send me the newsletter. And I'm like, oh, somebody else is thinking about this. Especially when it came to Bill C 11. I honestly thought it was the only podcaster in Canada, who was really concerned about the whole thing. Oh, me and Jesse Brown anyway. But you posed a question. And that's what's going to happen to podcasting in Canada under Bill C 11, which has now been passed, and it's now a law. So what are your hopes for it? If any? Kattie Laur 31:49 Yeah, like, it's weird, because Bill C 11, as it stands, even though it's passed, still is like, totally vague. Makes like no sense. Like it really, at this point in time, like, it could apply to anything. And it could apply to nothing. And so it's really hard to say like, what that's going to mean for podcasting. I think, if anything, I'm hoping that there is some follow through in terms of getting money from big tech companies, I mean, if they're able to do that, if the CRTC is able to pull off that stunt, like I will be deeply impressed, because I don't know how they're going to get money from Google. And from Spotify, and from these big organizations, like I don't know how they're going to do that. But if they do, I will be clapping, I will be fully applauding the CRTC. And if they are able to get money, then I would love to see some more funding for diverse podcasts in general, and especially indigenous podcasts, because I think- this is the whole thing, right? Like, tax the rich, and give it to the people who deserve it. And that's what I want to see happen. I want to see money going towards uplifting indigenous voices and people that are true representatives of Canada. So yeah, that's what my grand hope for Bill C 11 is, but I don't know if we're gonna see it happen. There's a lot of things in the bill that say that it could. There's a lot of hopes and dreams in there, I think. Matt Cundill 33:14 It's crazy, crazy stuff. And I look at the podcasts I work with, including my podcast, I'm like, I don't want to be a part of that. I want to continue to export my show to the US and around the world. I don't need any of your help. Yet, I'm working with some other podcasters who could really use some help. And I don't know how you can just pick and choose who gets promoted, and who gets this and that. I think you touched on it well with you know, maybe there should be a well of money for some good Canadian stories to speak to Canadians, but trying to go and wrap up all these podcasts into one sort of big Canadian bundle and promote them to people. A lot of podcasters don't need your help. Kattie Laur 33:55 It's weird, because C 11, so far, seems very focused on streaming platforms like Netflix and Disney Plus and everything, and uplifting productions that are Canadian. And in those ways, it's very easy to figure out whether or not a production is Canadian. And I think that's where the main focus is. But obviously, because it's such a broad scoped bill, they have to fall under that umbrella just because of the way it's written. And it's weird to me that it seems like they haven't thought that through that far yet. Because the big question for me is like, how are you going to find all the Canadian podcasts? Because we are not the same as a TV production, or a movie production. We don't always have all of our producers and writers and everything credited in the shows. So I don't- like, I can barely find Canadian podcasts without the key word Canadian or Canada within their descriptions or their show titles. And like I am probably doing it more than anybody out there currently. So I don't know how the CRTC or anyone or big companies are going to be able to find shows that are produced by Canadians. Unless they're kind of like looking at IPs, and where somebody has uploaded something from but even then, like, you know, the, the show might have been totally produced in like India. And then they just have like, you know, a virtual assistant in Canada who's doing the uploading for them. So I don't know how podcasts will even be vetted in that capacity. And that brings up a lot of questions to me then too about, you know, is there going to be like a little Canadian leaf sticker on like, all of our artwork or something? I don't know. And then like, if that's the case, why isn't that happening to like, all of the podcasts out there around the entire world? Like, do we all need, like, our little flags on the corner of our artwork? Like, I don't know, I don't know. So many questions, so many unanswered questions. Matt Cundill 35:46 I look at one of the podcasts I produce, it's Writing Class Radio. And I looking at seven people who are contributing to it every week, there are two American hosts and an American musician. And there are four Canadian producers. Kattie Laur 36:00 Yeah. Matt Cundill 36:01 So all of a sudden, is that Canadian? Or, how many Canadians does it take to make it Canadian? Kattie Laur 36:06 That's the question. I mean, like in music, we've got the maple standard, which is, you know, the... Matt Cundill 36:13 Music, artists, production, lyrics. Kattie Laur 36:15 Yeah. And then I think three out of four of those things, make it Canadian, or two out of four? Two out of four of those things make it Canadian. So I'm curious if it's going to be something like that. But I don't know. Like podcasting is so far into the game to implement something like that. Like, I don't know how that would even happen, let alone like all the indie podcasters out there. Like, there are so many. There's like 4 million podcasts out there already. Like how are you going to find all the Canadians in there? Like, ugh. It's a daunting task that I definitely don't want. Matt Cundill 36:45 Yeah. And after you put out that letter, I actually put up a post saying, check out the myths and truths of the CRTC. We will not be messing with algorithms. I'm like, well, how are you going to do anything if you don't actually manipulate an algorithm? Kattie Laur 36:58 So many questions. Yeah, so many questions. Matt Cundill 37:02 Kattie, thanks so much for being on the show. I really appreciate it. Listen, if anybody is going to connect with you, it's in the show notes of this episode, whether they want to make a branded podcast, they have maybe a podcast idea, you can put them in touch with Canadaland. You did a great job on on your latest newsletter with that, and continued success with all the podcasting you're doing and of course, let's keep Pod The North. Yes, let's Pod The North. Kattie Laur 37:24 Thank you so much, Matt. This is so fun. Tara Sands (Voiceover) 37:28 The sound off podcast is written and hosted by Matt Cundill. Produced by Evan Surminski. Edited by Chloe Emond-Lane. Social media by Aidan Glassey. Another great creation from the Sound Off Media Company. There's always more at soundoffpodcast.com.

If you were ever a fan of radio, there's a good chance you had a favourite morning show. A particular host, or group of hosts, who showed up every morning and gave you a laugh or a smile on your way to work. Unfortunately, it's also very likely that your favourite show ended at some point. Time marches on, budgets shift, people change, and eventually the hosts you know and love will inevitably take their services elsewhere. But in this day and age, when radio is on a slow, steady decline, where do they go? Well, in Tyler Glen's case, it is Twitch.tv. After hosting and programming morning shows for more than 20 years, Tyler has now made the shift to live streaming his own morning show, to resounding success. Tyler works out of Brandon, Manitoba, which is a tight but unbelievably supportive market. They've been with him for years, after all, and fans of his new show even give him free advertising out of the goodness of their hearts (as you can see on the right). Between being his own boss, gathering a number of generous sponsors, and the support of an incredibly loving community, Tyler couldn't be doing better. In this episode, we get all the details of Tyler's storied morning show career, including what prompted him to switch from public broadcasting to online live streaming, and the results of that decision (which are mostly very good). We also get quite a few more anecdotes about the incredible community that exists in Brandon, Manitoba, and honestly, his testimony is making me consider moving out there myself. To listen in on Tyler's morning show, drop him a follow on Twitch, and maybe subscribe if you're feeling generous. He's live every weekday morning from 8am-10am. You can also connect with Tyler on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, or on his website. Transcription: Tara Sands (Voiceover) 00:02 The sound off podcast. The show about podcast and broadcast starts now. Matt Cundill 00:13 This week I'm taking the show to Brandon, Manitoba, where Tyler Glen has launched his new morning show online. He was on the air as morning show host and program director for 20 plus years, and worked alongside great talent like Chrissy Troy from Virgin Radio, and Heather Prosak from HOT 105 in Winnipeg. Now, a few months ago, Tyler launched his show, and he had a little assistance from Eric Zane, who shared his game plan with them. By the way, you can scroll backwards in our episode feed and catch that episode with Eric from July of 2022. Now, to tell you how he did it, Tyler Glen joins me from Brandon, Manitoba. Did you think you would wind up doing this when you were at WABC studying to become a broadcaster? Tyler Glen 00:58 That is an excellent question. No, absolutely not. Although I took the TV program thinking that maybe someday in my skinnier days, I would maybe waif over into television. But you know, the radio was the thing. That is what bit me and that's what I stuck with. So no, I had absolutely no idea that something like this would happen. It's crazy. Matt Cundill 01:21 What did you think you would do in TV if that opportunity ever came up? Tyler Glen 01:25 I wanted to be a TV weatherman. I am a big fan of Stan Kubachek. And Cam Clark, who is my general manager at the radio station, knew Stan and actually arranged for me to have him on my morning show one day because he's selling Windows apparently, or at least was when I did an interview with Stan. And I had him on my show and just told him that I wanted to be Stan Kubachek. That's what I wanted to do as far as a TV career goes but radio pulled me in the other direction, so. Matt Cundill 01:53 And when you found your way out of WABC, where did you go? Where did you start? Tyler Glen 01:56 I started actually here in Brandon, I worked for Steve and Taya on CKLQ doing the all night show back when they still had them. They had records, they had CDs, and you could pull your own music at that time. They had some guidance cards that were like a recipe card that you'd pull out of a little Rolodex to have the music but no, we were queuing up records and I worked from 1am till 5am. And I pulled all the records and carts and CDs for morning man Bill Turner legendary morning man Bill Turner in this market. When I worked in all night shift he'd never lift a finger, and I did that for three years. I made sure every piece of music and commercial was pulled for him and then they all night show I just played records and tried to hit posts and at that time I was listening to 630 CKRC in Winnipeg and they were flaming hot country at that point. Was it 630 or 680? I can't remember. Matt Cundill 02:51 1290? It was CFRW. Tyler Glen 02:54 No was CK RC and it was... Oh boy, that's going back so long ago. But they were playing flaming hot- they were doing with a country with basically like a CHR version of country, and they were flamethrowing. Talking on the backside of records and then using the full intro and just hitting every- Doug Anderson. I was a huge Doug Anderson fan in the late 80s, early 90s. So I was trying to emulate Doug Anderson and spent some time at Q and then I went out to Alberta and worked for what is now Stingray out in the Wainwright Lloydminster market. I was out there for a year, worked for the stations that are like the Wayne FM and there's like a cat country or something out there now, and then I got picked up by Rolco and I spent most of my career with Rolco in Saskatchewan in Prince Albert. I did- that was my first morning stint was at Power 99 working for Garth Callen in Prince Albert, and then I got tied up with Mike's polyphony and Don Collins and Tom Newton in Regina and then I went and did drive in Regina for three years and morning fill-in in Regina, and then I got the call from Don Kill in Brandon were- when I was doing the all night show in Brandon, it came full circle because I was doing remotes for who was at that time the sales manager of the radio station and we had just had our son in Regina, and he said "What are you doing?" and I said I am loving life, we bought a house in Regina, Rolco was just a wonderful company. Pure radio company at that time. We still had the stations in Ottawa in Toronto at that time and actually had a chance to go to Toronto and my wife was she's from very small town Manitoba was just like that wasn't even in the realm of possibility as my one shot to get to Toronto Bruce Bruce Elliot took it Bruce up in Regina and he came back but anyway, we moved to- back to Brandon because Don said hey, I'm going to start a radio station to go with your old AM station that you did all nights on, and he was no longer the General Sales Manager. He bought half the radio station, and I said ugh, I'm set up in Regina. I don't know we're kind of having fun. I was I was a Rider fan. still kind of am and I grew up in Manitoba, but I got inoculated. And anybody that's spent any time in Saskatchewan knows what that's all about. You go to a few games and have a few beers and some Polish sausages and you're done. There's so much fun. You wear your first watermelon helmet and you're a goner. So we thought about it. And since we had our first child is like, boy, the grandparents are like, boy, you could move home. And then I said to Don, I want to do the morning show. Because I missed mornings, I was doing drive. But I was filling in for Cece and Laurie, when they're gone in the mornings, and I just loved doing mornings. It was just so much fun. And there was so much interactivity at that time. Of course, it was well before social media. So it was all about working the phones and I just loved that. And so I thought if you let me do mornings, I'll come back and start this station. And that's what happened. And then we had our second child and I spent 22 years here in Brandon doing mornings and running star FM. And we had a lot of success in Brandon, a lot of success, because at that time, there was just a classic rock station at a country station. And we came in playing Hot hits. And we just nearly dominated the market. There was a two year span where I think it was standard radio paired up their Winnipeg station with their Brandon station. It was a hot format. CHR, hotter than us, we were still hot AC and they were CHR. And so their rotations were a lot tighter, the production was hotter. And they took the younger end of 1849 from us for a couple of years. But other than that we had a two decade run, top Morning Show top station. It was a dream for me because not many guys, you know, when we were at conclave together, that was like the comment that I took away, stuck with me the most, you know, when guys are saying you went to your hometown and started a radio station and did mornings there? Yeah, for two decades. It's like you look back and go, Man, I won the radio lottery. It's over now. But God it was a great run. Matt Cundill 06:52 I thought the radio lottery was won in Regina at Z99. Afternoon drive. I would think you're good there. Tyler Glen 07:00 Thanks, man. I had so much fun there. It was definitely the highlight of my on air time. I mean, I gave away $10,000 in cash to one caller one time. I mean, we'll never see that again. We'll just never see that again. budgets aren't even 10,000. Matt Cundill 07:17 That's very Rolco, by the way. Tyler Glen 07:21 Definitely. Matt Cundill 07:22 And by the way, you were mentioning about some of the things that Standard was doing. Just for disclosure, some of those formats were created in my office in Montreal and then sent to Brandon. I just can't remember which ones. Tyler Glen 07:35 Well, they were likely country, this market and it was just filled with country. And what's incredible is that both stations appear to be still doing well. I don't think like Toronto doesn't even have two country stations. Is there a country station even one in Toronto? No. There's one in Vancouver, we have two and basically our service area at best on a day where everyone's home and all the lights are on we might have 220,000 people in our service area like the city and the surrounding towns because we have a lot of big towns that surround Brandon, which gives us like a kind of a population around 220 But have two country stations. That's crazy. Matt Cundill 08:10 I've only been to Brandon one time. Tyler Glen 08:12 Well, you got to make it twice, we'll have lunch. Matt Cundill 08:15 I know it's two hours though. That feels like a long way. I mean two hours to Grand Forks to go to the Paradiso for Mexican food. But two hours to Brandon. Tyler Glen 08:25 That's an argument. But I did offer you- we'll meet in Portage. I'll take the lion's share of the drive. I don't mind that drive. It's better than going the other way. I loved living in Regina. I did not love coming back to Manitoba from Regina. Because as the saying goes, you can stand on a phonebook and see the back of your own head. It's so damn flat there. It's crazy. Matt Cundill 08:45 By the way, when you got to Brandon, the format was hot AC and there wasn't a lot of radio stations doing hot AC at that time. So there were a lot of people in Canadian radio paying attention to what was going on. What was going on? Tyler Glen 08:58 Well, at that time, it was 2000 And I mean, Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears and the Backstreet Boys. It just seemed like there was this reinvention of pop music that was going on at that time. I mean, it was much bigger than the 80s New Kids on the Block reborn this was something much much bigger and at that time, I had just come out of Regina and I remember Doug Pringle flying into Regina from Montreal and the CRTC had come up with the regulations that took the hit non hit away and radio stations went bananas. It was the lottery that we had been waiting for. Oh my god. You mean we can play Hit Me Baby One More Time. Backstreet Boys Justin Timberlake in sync, you know hit after hit after hit it was like yep, can con that's basically it. Let's go. And Doug came in and they completely ripped apart the library and it was so much fun because we had changed our positioner like literally within hours. I was getting new liner sheets handed to me there at five o'clock. We're changing to this. It was almost the closest thing I'd been to a format flip when they changed those rules, and so you know when I came to Brandon and we had the hot AC on here in Brandon, there was a lot of Christina Aguilera and vertical horizon and Nickelback, I guess? And it was definitely an interesting time because it was almost like hits for adults. You know, pop music wasn't the bubblegum stuff anymore. There was a lot of moms and daughters and moms and sons and minivans listening to the station and that's really what a lot of hot AC stations hung their hat on. Matt Cundill 10:29 When did you become PD there? Tyler Glen 10:31 Right out of the gate. I was PD in mornings right out of the gate. They brought me in in February of 2000 actually had to stay on in Regina I signed a deal in the fall of 1999- God that's a long time ago- 1999 And we had just flipped CJME from oldies to a talk station, and I was helping Don Collins with that. That's how I got wrapped up with Don Kollins and then got wrapped up in what's now my Twitch show, because that too has come full circle. But because Tom Brown had left I was doing morning fill-in on CJME to kind of get them rolling into 2000 and then I came to Brandon in February. So my wife set up the house set up the kid I had a one bedroom apartment for six months in Regina and we got CJME rolling and it's still to this day, hugely wildly successful talk operation that you know Don Collins was obviously instrumental in ensuring that that thing was a huge hit and is to this day and then I came to Brandon in February. And we didn't actually start till June, there was a lot of delays like a lot of Industry Canada stuff, I had to hire staff I had to bring in Chrissy Troy was my very first midday girl from Thomson, she's with Ace Burpee today. And there was Chris on there who's a big week with Golden West down in the southern part of the province. He's my first evening guy, and it was so much fun to bring these people in. And then they moved on to bigger and better things. And I just kept the tubes hot at Star for a couple of decades while I raised my family. Matt Cundill 12:03 What was the change in Brandon, around that time? Because the market felt bigger than it was, the radio sounds bigger starting around 2000. Did anything change in the city in that period? Or did the market really realize, Oh, look, we've got all these outlying areas that have a lot of things in common, we can do two country radio stations. What is it about Brandon, that makes it a little more important than we would think? Tyler Glen 12:28 Well in 2000. And you know, I don't want it to seem like I would take any credit for it. But the fact of the matter is, is that one of the things that Rolco taught me and I love this even to this day with what I'm doing now, it's even more important. It does not matter how many people live in your town. If you're listening to this podcast, and you are in armpit Alberta thinking that oh my god, I'm never going to get out of here. I'm never going to be discovered or I'm never going to be big. Rolco drove it into your head that it doesn't matter. Do you feel like New York? Do you feel like Los Angeles or Chicago? Then act like it and bring that. Because, you know, what's the difference? It's a microphone. When we were at Conclave in Minneapolis and had the opportunity to meet those guys from New York. And that was my first question. I want to see if it's true. Is it true? Like what's it like sitting behind the board in New York City and talking to millions of people? He's like, What is it like where you are, it's the same thing. You just bring your best a game each and every day. And so when I came to Brandon, they've given me a station. And I just literally just came in here and said, we are going to put the biggest station we can on the air with the budgets that we have. Now. If you ask the owner to this day, he has gray hairs because of me because I was in his office every few weeks and I need more money for jingles. He's like what are jingles like they hadn't even heard of jingles in this market. And you know, this is the flame throwing CHR that had been launched in other markets and we were doing the hot AC version. And I'm like, No, we need like flaming hot. We went to Tim century got some jingles done. He's like, Oh my God, we get that little audio for 1000s and 1000s of dollars. I'm like, yep, it'll check the station. It'll sound great. These imaging guys, we got an imaging guy out of Vancouver to do everything initially for star. And he's like with the pay for that. Can't we get like somebody in because there was a lot of small town mentality for the radio. And I'm like, Look, if we're going to be in a competitive market, we're going to ratchet it up a notch. And it was so exciting because, you know, I came in and I looked like I knew something when really I just been in a bigger market. That's it inoculate the entire staff to feel that don't believe you're in Brandon, you know, believe you're in a bigger city believe you're talking to the world because someday we will. Radio stations will put the audio online we weren't quite sure how that was going to happen. But eventually it did. And you know, a lot of those staff moved on like I say to bigger markets and bigger positions. But I think that the other companies in the market just went holy cow what's going on here and then they up their game. And then the whole market just got lifted up and it was fun, super competitive. Just like again the old days of radio where guys are showing up at each other's remotes and special events. And it was a lot of fun. Matt Cundill 15:05 I think one of the things that was instilled upon me, having to do a little bit of work for the Brandon station that was owned by Standard is that, hey, this is a fight. And this is a very competitive fight. And you really need to think this one through about all these decisions that you're going to be doing, you know, send the records out, it comes back with half the playlist slashed, no, it's a little more competitive than 700 records, you're gonna have to cut it down to 500. Tyler Glen 15:29 Yeah, well, and it's such a delicate balance, too, because you have so many people living in the rural areas, not to make a horrible comparison. But I will. It's like in Toronto, you've got the City of Toronto, and then you've got Mississauga, Scarborough, all these different communities around Toronto, and on a very, very, very, very small scale. In Brandon, it's similar, where you've got these communities, our city proper is only 60,000. But you've got a ton of towns that are 4000 5000 6001, that's 11,000. And they're all kind of in the surrounding areas. And they're all feeding in Brandon. So these people are driving to work 40 minutes. So you've got almost the equivalent of what would be a metro commute, in addition to people living in the metro area that only have five minutes to get to work. So yeah, it was definitely a balancing act to make sure you had the best songs on all the time, while realizing there were some people sitting in the car for quite some time making that drive and then doing a thing called Road reports, which is essentially the rural version of a traffic report. I mean, a big city, you're doing accidents, traffic congestion here, I mean, you get some wind hitting the highway. It's essentially a rural traffic report. And people live for that, even to this day. They're super, super important. Matt Cundill 16:43 That brings me to the next point. And that's talent, and finding talent in the year 2000 is a lot easier than it is in 2020. So walk me through the years as it came to finding talent. I'll just assume that at the outset, people sent you a cassette and you would listen to the cassette. And then eventually it turned to an mp3. And then there's no all night or evening shows to draw from, and it must have gotten harder to find talent. Tyler Glen 17:10 Absolutely, I mean, it's not a secret that it was like that across the industry. And in 2000, I think half were tapes, and half were CDs, people were putting some stuff on the recordable CDs, but I do remember when we put star on it, it's funny because we put the ads in, you know, your usual cast of characters. It was you know, broadcaster magazine, Milky was running and at that time, John in Ottawa was running his operation. And I'm not sure who else we would have posted through. But anyway, I betcha I had 30 to 40 people to choose from in the original cast of characters. And I thought to myself, This is great, I'm gonna have this proverbial drawer that you know, one talent leaves, I'll just reach into my drawer and pull up the next one and the next one and the next one. And I remember it was probably around 2006 2007, where the well had run dry. It was right at the time when this new internet medium was coming along where you could talk to friends and show pictures. And it was prior to Facebook. What the hell was it called? MySpace was coming along and Friendster, maybe, but it was around that time, you know, 2006 2007, where it really started to get dry. And it really, for us at our station because we've always been the tiny little locally owned and operated Little Engine That Could, we didn't have the carrot and stick to wave in front of talents face. Whereas the Standards, the Astros, the Bell Media's could say, Hey, kid, want to work in Toronto, cut your teeth and Brandon, and we'll get you to Toronto. I couldn't do that. I said, you know, it's a great town. And I call all the shots so the buck stops with me. And I'll help you as much as I can and give you as much creative leeway as you can. You will not be aligner jock is all I can promise them, I'd say look, you won't be aligned or junk with me. I expect you to do the hard work of investing in show prep and good content. And that's how I managed to fill the roster for the back half of 15 years. Matt Cundill 19:10 I think right in that time. That was when I got to Manitoba. I was working at Power 97 as the program director, and the talent shortage, I think happened because there were a lot of licenses that were passed out to a lot of stations in Calgary, Edmonton, Halifax, and the talent just got super thin. So someone like me would go and pluck one maybe from Brandon if I got lucky, and that would leave you and Brandon looking, Well, where am I going to find someone? Tyler Glen 19:38 And it was near impossible because, you know, you're wondering where these Dauphin people come from? Or the Paw or Flin Flon or these small markets. But I think at the end of the day, it just boiled down to who was able to compensate the most and even though you had some stations that weren't talking to a big community or necessarily had a big audience, if their sales were good enough, and they could attract people with the money, that's how they would get some talent to move to a small town like the poor Flin Flon or Thompson or even a Dauphin or a Brandon. But you know, it's going to be interesting to see as time moves forward, you know, with the development of AI. And now with my new venture, I've got my finger on the pulse of what's coming down the pike, and it is unbelievable, we thought we saw change, Matt, in the last 10, 15, 20 years. We're going to see more change in the next five to six months than we have seen in the last five to 10 years. I think like this time next year, things are going to be drastically different, mark my words. The next 12 months. Matt Cundill 20:45 When it comes to talent, you've had so much go through. Talk about some of the talent that you got to air check or even work with on the air. Tyler Glen 20:52 Well, I loved every single one of them, it was just so much fun, because we would just talk about the audience and their ability to reach the audience and communicate with the audience that we are trying to target. And again, like most stations now it's that 18-49 or 25-54 year old female and just talking to them, you know, and finding out what it is that they want to learn about and hear about. And there was nothing better than having an air check with a jock that was able to connect had great phones great energy and those air checks were just so much fun to do. They were just absolutely so much fun. The toughest Air Checks to do were the ones where most times you would have talent that had something else going on and we can talk about that now more because post COVID Things like mental health and personal issues and stuff there's a much more candid space for that and talent talent is its own monster because it myself included I am in that boat is that there there was a lot of not just on air coaching but personal mentorship almost you hate to say you want to be a friend because a supervisor or boss and I never allowed that to be used at the radio station and you can take that up with everyone from Heather Prozac to Chrissy T to anybody that worked for me over the years, they were never allowed to call me boss. You know I had one employee say, Hey boss, nope. That never like- because I was on the air too. And I was just a team member. I always considered myself the Paul Newman on Slapshot. You know if you've ever seen the movie Slapshot, Paul Newman was the coach of the team. But he also played on ice. And so it was the ugly fat version of Paul Newman on the radio station. But I really enjoyed getting to know the staff and really being able to help them through some tough times. Should that be something that I needed to do. And they really felt like they were building something special. And we were because we came in with that belief, again inoculated by Rolco, that we could be as big as we want to be. And we always celebrated Matt, like, if we had a ratings when and they happened a lot. We were very blessed. We always celebrated. And that was another thing that was new at the time and now has gone by the wayside is that when you when you need to stop and celebrate, and high five, and there's this culture sometimes of well, we don't want to get too big for our britches, or oh, they might not. They might ask for more money, or we don't want people's heads getting too big. Their talent. This is the gas that goes in the gas tank, they love the high fives, and the the accolades and the parades. And so we have a lot of fun. It was just a lot of fun. Matt Cundill 23:34 So I look at somebody like Heather, who worked with you for- how many years were you guys together? Tyler Glen 23:39 We were trying to figure that out. I think it was four or five years we were together. Yeah. Matt Cundill 23:45 Well, I mean, no wonder she's got mornings down and programming down and pretty much all the things that you did, she does and has done in Calgary and Winnipeg. And I mean, truly phenomenal in terms of a breeding ground of radio in Brandon. Tyler Glen 24:00 Yeah, there have been so many talented people that have not just, you know, obviously come through the station I was at, but even the competitor, you know, it was a great learning community. It's a community that loved and still, to some degree loves radio. And those are things that get lost in bigger markets rather quickly. I know when Bruce, I'd spoke with him earlier at Z, when I didn't go to Regina, or to Toronto, and he did and he came back and he says like, look, my time at KISS was awesome. I loved being able to do radio in Toronto, but people don't know who you are, like, show up on location and people say oh yeah, you're with that station. What which one are you? Whereas if you're in a smaller market, you know, they know who you are and you are a celebrity and it's just fun to watch your fellow staff. It's fun to take part in and then it's fun to watch your staff you know, walk into a store and essentially get mobbed. And especially when we put star on the air. That- those first five years, man, I mean, we were the only station in the area. I think at that time there was a station in Winnipeg doing it too, but I mean, there was maybe two stations in Winnipeg playing Christina Aguilera and Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake. So the kids were just all over us like white on rice, it was just so much fun. Matt Cundill 25:12 Thinking back to when you went to the Conclave, that was 2019 when you went. The last one before life shut down, as it were. And we went through all the nonsense of COVID. Tell me why you and Cam went? What was the process of the decision making? Because normally I thought I was the only Canadian who would go, but you guys also made the trip. But that's an investment and an investment that a lot of people aren't always prepared to make, especially to take a trip to an American conference. Tyler Glen 25:38 Well, you know, Cam Clark deserves all the credit with that. And it's interesting you ask that question. It's been on my mind an awful lot lately, especially considering that some of the success that I'm enjoying today, I owe two in some small way to both Cam and the Conclave. He had proposed the idea. He said, You know, there's this conference, have you heard of it? I said I had. I asked if there was a lot of Canadians that went down and he said there wasn't. And I said, Well, I love Minneapolis. I'm a big Vikings fan, as you know. Bills not so much. Hahahaha. Sorry, man. I like the Twins too, and been to Minneapolis a number of times, and I saw any chance I get to go to the Twin Cities, I'd love to go and especially American radio, folks, I'd love to hear about their challenges and network a little bit. So it was a really quick, easy decision. We just jumped on the plane and went down. And we came back from that conference him and I I'll never forget the drive from Brandon to Winnipeg. And we both were so excited. It was to this day, in my 30 years of radio, that event was the best thing I had ever gone to, to be in a room with so many talented people have big markets. And to have them talk to you like you were in a big market to was a thrill for my career. Because like I said, I in Brandon, it's not a big place. But 99% of those Americans couldn't find Brandon on a map if you handed it to them. So they didn't care. They just knew I was a program director and a morning guy. And they were sharing some of their secrets with me. And it was just phenomenal. And it was at that time we both had seen and talked to Eric Zane. And I remember after his speech gone, there's something there. And I think you and I both I mean, you're obviously Mr. Podcast guy, and he's in the podcast realm doing very well in Michigan. And so you know, you guys are talking and I'm literally eavesdrop. And going there's something here like this is going to be where things are going. Because he had just come out of free beer and hot wings. And he was doing his shtick. And I'm thinking this guy, something's feels right about this. And I remember thinking, I'm standing in the lobby of the Delta hotel in Minneapolis going God if someday, like we come back from Conclave, and they say, Here's the door, here's your off ramp. That's a guy I want to remember. And then COVID hit. Like you say, the whole world went to crap. And everything went topsy turvy. And you know, for me, that's where my story ended up was that Don Collins called me after I had parted ways with my company. And when he said, you know, we should do this, you should come on to Twitch, I thought, oh, Eric, Eric Eric Zane! I'm just going to give him a call. And while he was an email first, because I thought he probably won't return my call, because he had completely taken his show to the next level, he's doing very, very well. And that I tell you, I sent the email, I got an email back instantaneously going, Dude, if you're going to do this, I will help you every step of the way. I am in your corner, this is going to be great. You're going to knock this out of the park. And that's where part two of my journey started. Matt Cundill 28:45 How much did the pandemic have to do with you departing your station? Tyler Glen 28:51 I mean, we parted ways. I had moved off the air, the end of 2019. They wanted me to be running both radio stations exclusively. And that meant coming off the air, which I had agreed to do. And if you remember the pandemic, there was this next month, things will be back to normal. Next month, things will be back. It was just this constant awful waiting for crap to come back to normal. And it just never did. And I never got started. It never really got moving because like most things, nothing really ever progressed because nothing was normal. And of course, radio in general took a massive, massive hit because everything was closed. And then they would open for a couple of months and then they would close again and then car dealers couldn't get cars because the chips couldn't be shipped in. And so it just was yeah, I this is this is not this is this is just not going to work for anybody. This is just not going to work for anybody. And it's been two decades and it was interesting. I was thinking about this driving around town, thinking about you and I sitting down and having a chat today. And how ironic it is that I sat down 10 years ago with the CEO of Westman. And I was 41. And he said, So where do you see yourself in 10 years, you know that conversation, we were sitting at Eastside Mario's restaurant. And I said, Well, all I know is I need to be retired by 50, I'm going to be out of the radio business by 50. But anybody listening to this podcast will attest to and likely smile, 50 comes pretty damn fast. And all of a sudden, I'm 48. And now I'm gonna be 50 This fall, and the ride is over. And it's kind of what I wanted. That's exactly what I wanted, but not the way that it all kind of had happened. So I basically was going to embrace the whole voiceover business in 2019, I had an incredible year in my studio, I started my own voiceover studio in 2007. And it was very, very slow buildup. And I have been very, very blessed. I have clients in California, Chicago, and all over the place, and it just grew. And then when 2019 hit, I'd had a phenomenal year, in fact, my studio, I was probably compensated more in my own studio than I had in the radio business. And I thought to myself, maybe now is the time to take the off ramp, potentially, you know, and say goodbye to the business. But not like many people, you just can't let it go, you just got to stick with it. And so in 2019, because I had such a good year, and there were talks of potentially going to California for some possible work I had applied for my US visa and got it like two years later, because of all the COVID delays. So this past June, it's coming up to a year that was in 2019. So I got it and of course you get it and go okay, now what because everything is remote now and everything is done through Zoom it so I've got it. And ironically, the first time I used it was to go see Don Collins in San Francisco when I was setting up my operation now. So it's amazing how things are so connected and cyclical, really, whether it be personally or professionally, everything just kind of runs in a cycle and eventually comes around. So you know, if you're a young person starting out and you are in this business or any media business, just be kind to people try to be as kind as you can, because you just do not know who you're going to be working with, or working for, from one day to the next. So it's as good to be as kind as possible. And a guy like Cam Clark really believed that and lived that every day. Tara Sands (Voiceover) 32:28 Transcription of the Sound Off Podcast is powered by the Podcast Super Friends, five podcast producers who get together to discuss podcasting. Sharpen your podcast and creation skills by following the show on the Sound Off Podcast's YouTube or Facebook page. The Sound Off Podcast supports podcasting 2.0. So, feel free to send us a boost if you're listening on a newer podcast app. If you don't have a newer podcast app, you can get one at newpodcastapps.com. Matt Cundill 33:00 I've had Eric Zane on the show. For those of you who are listening and are wondering what that guy is all about, you can back it up in the catalog and go listen to it. Because I really do think that he's got a playbook. And you know, it doesn't surprise me that he wanted to help you so much. I think anybody who's gone through this and made all the mistakes, they're happy just to make sure that you don't make the same mistakes or encounter the same frustrations. But you know, he's in I think Grand Rapids, Michigan, you're in Brandon, Manitoba. There's a lot of local touch points. I'm trying to figure out what the process is of what you do, definitely high touch point with the sales. But from what I can see, and just correct me, the first 15 minutes seem to go live across the internet on whatever platform is available. And then it seems to disappear behind the wall of Twitch. Does that sound about right? Tyler Glen 33:47 That's exactly what happens is, you go basically anywhere you can be seen by video, live stream, and then you kind of corral everybody up. As I explained to people who aren't in the media business. It's like you are going to the bar, and the bar is packed with people and everyone's having a good time. And you're saying, Hey, I'm having a house party who wants to come to my house. And some people will say, you know, it was fun to have a beer with you at the bar. I think I'm good. Well, at least I got to have a beer with you in the bar. And about a quarter of those people will come to your house for house party and that's what Twitch ends up being. And the reason for that is you're corralling them into Twitch, because there's the potential for talent revenue through various forms. And like you'd said, Eric talks about- I heard you that one of the many podcasts that I listened to of your your various interviews, but Eric explains it quite well that that's why you corral all these people to get them onto the Twitch platform. And you know, a lot of people asked me, you know, what about YouTube, or what about Kick? And right now as it stands, and again, I got my finger on it because I'm thinking guys like Tucker Carlson from Fox is going to go over to Twitter, and I'm reading that Elon Musk is going to have a creator compensation program. And so it's almost like radio, right? It's like okay, so who's going to treat you better and give you the better compensation deal. And then if that has to move, the entity moves, the show moves. So someone like a Zane or a Tyler or a Matt or whatever, would just move to another corralling point, so that the entity can advertise to them in addition to the sponsors that you have, so. Matt Cundill 35:26 I find that Midwestern and a lot of people on the prairies are really sort of slow to the uptake of online platforms. Only natural, because we don't spend nearly as much time in our cars. So if I went back to a study from 2017, podcasting was smallest in Saskatchewan and Manitoba. I think that's changed. And I look at somebody like Ryan Jesperson, who's managed to get a big podcast audience by doing what he does. I mean, people are listening to this, as they're in their big John Deere tractors and doing their thing in the fall. And so for you, when you are telling people locally what you're doing, I mean, it's one thing to say, we're on Apple, we're on Spotify, we're on Google, I think people would understand that. But when you say Twitch, is there a little bit of an uptake that you have to do a little education piece for the people who want to consume you? Tyler Glen 36:14 Most definitely. And I think it can be put into a couple of boxes, one of them being age. And the other one, I hate to say it, but it's sex. And I had mentioned at a client meeting just before we sat down, a potential client, and Matt, of all my sponsors, and I have over half a dozen, 90% of the ones that I've had come and go or be on the show are women. Women are predominantly much more interested in social media, and understand social media, understand the digital landscape better than guys based on my experience only, but in this area, from the people that I've spoken to, they are very, very heavy social users and completely understand the strategy, how it all works, because it's based on connections just based on connecting with audience, and they just completely get that. Guys? It's been a challenge. And you know, so if you see an older guy, and he's asking you what you're doing, it takes some time. Younger guys, much less time, and women under the age of 50. If you can believe like women 50, even 55 and younger, no problem. It's very, very, I'm doing- I think the biggest question I had was, what isn't Twitch The Video Game platform? Isn't it where people are playing video games? And absolutely, for sure. But just as you know, McDonald's is known for hamburgers, they also sell chicken nuggets, I'm the chicken nugget of the operation that they're you know, the bulk of what they do might be burgers, but they- y'know. And at that time, Don made it widely known that Twitch was trying to expand their game because they had owned all the gamers, they are the gamer place and to this day, in all fairness to Twitch when it comes to streaming, because I'm poking around now and I'm in the space. And I want to see who else is doing it. And you've got Rumbl and you've got Kick and YouTube just, yeah, they do it. But YouTube is the monster static video place, the place you go to hit play, watch something larger form, usually not live, but they are so video dominant that when you think of internet video, people are thinking YouTube, but the social spaces are getting into it, there's going to be huge growth there. Because the social spaces are getting into compensation for content. And there is this fight for content to bring this home for radio. You thought it was bad five years ago trying to find talent, this is where things are going to change because Facebook is courting people like me to say, hey, how much money you make in a twitch? How much money are you doing on this platform or that platform, and what you're gonna see is creators make a whole bunch of money on a variety of different platforms, and you're gonna be able to make a living on the internet, because that's kind of where people are going to consume content. And so they enter content creators to be compensated by these big companies. I just hope that they don't make the same mistake that media companies did and not compensate their talent the way they should, because then you start to lose your stars. And if you don't have your stars, then you don't have much, you know? Matt Cundill 39:14 Well, I'm here to tell you early on as a podcaster. YouTube may not be your friend, if any indication about how they're planning to treat podcasters in RSS feeds, oh, we'll take an RSS feed, but we're going to keep it and do what we want with it. Not what you want to do with it. We'll put our ads in it and Tyler Glen 39:31 Yeah, well, and I mean, the whole YouTube Google landscape, you know, this ChatGPT was one of the greatest disruptors of the whole Google empire that we have seen since the arrival of search with Yahoo and remember Netscape. And you know, they're worried, because you type in what you want to learn in ChatGPT and it'll find it for you, and they're ferociously trying to catch up and they're using the artificial intelligence in YouTube. I know firsthand because I get a notification that Hey, how come you were talking about this? Or how come you had this little clip on? That's not a licensed clip. Okay, it was like a two second, YooHoo! Oh, well, that belongs to Matt, Cundill, and Winnipeg. So unless you're going to pay him that has to come down. And you're like, whoa, like, they cannot be watching and listening to everything, but they are, using AI. Matt Cundill 40:22 I think Tara Sands, who does the voiceover for this podcast, I think she started to sing a Cheryl Crow song, I got a YouTube flag for that, with the irony that her great grandfather had actually penned the words. Tyler Glen 40:34 Wow. Matt Cundill 40:35 Yeah, you know, you can be deplatformed. And I'm worried about being deplatformed. So I think the most important thing is, you know, at least have a website and a place where people can, you know, find your content and consume it from there, if the worst case scenario happens. Tyler Glen 40:50 And then you've got the big company deplatforming, and then there's government deplatforming, you know, we've got the CRTC. Now there's going to be looking at regulating Internet content. And I'm reading that we're probably about 10 to 18 months away from that actually, getting emails from the government wanting to know how much of our money that we're making on the internet, and then they're going to take some of that and put it into Canadian content development, perhaps. And if you read the fine print on that, it's $1. If you make $1, on the internet, you're considered a professional content creator. And there's some people that are making some videos just to you know, for beer money making $2 $3. I mean, they're gonna get caught up in this. And I hope that doesn't happen. I really don't. Matt Cundill 41:35 Why did you gotta go and get me all started on the Bill C 11, and the C18? Tyler Glen 41:41 Because it could be a problem. And you know, we were talking about my visa. And I keep that in my backpack. And I will keep it renewed because Brandon is only 60 miles from the US border, and we have a small town just across the line. And if I had to go down and get an apartment and maybe do content from North Dakota, I certainly could. You'd hate to have to do that though. And I hope it doesn't get to that. But I'd be lying if I said it doesn't feel kind of like the old movie we loved, Matt, Pirate Radio. Do you remember Pirate Radio? Because in the internet, you can almost get away with quite a bit. And that's fun. And that's the way it should be. As long as the lines are there for a reason, the big lines, you know, just make sure that you're not hurting anybody, hate speech, things like that. Stay clear of all that stuff. But you know, if you've got a weird opinion on something, that's how ideas are shared, you know, and how we learn. Matt Cundill 42:33 About 10 minutes after you and I had finished one of our political discussions, I had a knock on the door from Ben Carr who was running in my riding. And I said, Oh, well, we're going to have to have a discussion, at which point he lost about 15 minutes of his campaigning, where I explained to him about what I really thought about Bill C11 and Bill C18. But I do want to share this one with you, because I really, really want your take on this. So as it stands right now, the CRTC is asking for input on the law that has been passed and what's going to happen. So I just want your take on this because this is what the CRTC has up right now, as I'm sharing my screen, they're talking about the myths and facts of the whole thing. So I'll just glean through the whole thing: Myth, the CRTC will regulate content and digital creators. And then they're saying the fact that we're only going to regulate broadcasters. And the myth is that CRTC will regulate social media users and use your content. And then they again pinned it to broadcasters, and then the one here at the bottom that you and I would be interested in- the CRTC will regulate the algorithms of online streaming services. And the fact is, we will not regulate algorithms. And so I wanted to share this with you to say, do you think they're lying? Or are they telling the truth? Tyler Glen 43:44 Well, the framework is there for them to basically regulate the internet like they regulate traditional broadcast? And the answer to that question is directly proportionate to how much you trust the government. And I think that there is a very strong case to be made that they are going to clamp down again, it's more of a not an if they're going to clamp down Matt, it's when they're going to clamp down. Because what we've seen with Bud Lights of the world and Target and what's going on in just coffee shop talk, let alone what's happening on the internet. There's going to be a point in time where the government is going to step in, and they're going to use things like artificial intelligence to go well, we'll we'll we'll we'll wait a second. back that up. What were you saying there? What were you talking about there? You can't say that, or you can't talk about that. Or we noticed that you are not talking about enough issues that matter to Canadians, which according to us, the top three are this, this, this and this and if you're going to operate your for profit organization, your business essentially you have to adhere it's just going to be another Canadian content type of recipe where they're going to respectfully ask as a condition of your ability to conduct business that you adhere to the following the rules. And so I think it's going to happen. It's not if, it's when. And my game plan, and likely yours too, Matt, is that, you know, in 20 years when this thing will really be clamped down tight, hopefully it goes to 20. It might be shorter than 10 for all I know, we'll have entered the twilight of this as far as our careers go. But if people think that the wild west of the internet is going to be around in 10, 15 years, it's- It won't be. It will not be. It will be heavily heavily regulated, it's coming. Matt Cundill 45:32 Yeah, I just think that we're way ahead of government, they're just not smart enough to keep up with all this. They have created a law that is trying to really extract money from Netflix and the streaming services, and like Facebook and Google too, when it comes to news. And Facebook's Like, yeah, we'll just turn it off. And Google's like, yeah, we're already turning it off. And Netflix is like, we're not making as much money because we don't have a pandemic anymore. So I see this entire law that's designed to really pull money out of these streaming services. And when they don't get it from them, my fear is they'll come after us. Tyler Glen 46:06 Well, and I think that- and on its surface, most Canadians, even the Free Speech capitalist kind of red white and blue Canadians like I would consider myself, really don't have a problem with them saying, Look, Netflix, if you're going to do business in this country, we should get a cut. I've never loved Canadian content. In fact, I've hated it. But the fact that they are able to take some money and put it back into Canadian content development. I've been a fan of that. Because if you talk to any creators, in my old radio days, musicians and stuff, they need more money, to make their music, to make their videos, and so on and TV shows. So on its surface, it looks great. Y'know, sure, get some more from Amazon, from Netflix, from Google. But I think that what's going to happen is they're going to get that cash. And I worry more about the content regulation issue, and the money issue not so much. Because I think that what you're going to see Matt, you watch this, is if they don't see enough of the Canadian content that they wish to have from creators like you and I, they'll incentivize us. What do I mean by that? I mean that they will ask you to do something like a podcast or a half of your podcast, if you can dedicate it to, enter subject here, approved by the Canadian government, in which you interview someone at a university about this particular subject, we're going to cut you a check for $5,000. And then as a struggling content creator, I go, Holy cow, sorry, what was that? Oh, we want you to interview this professor about this Canadian issue, we're gonna cut you a check for- where do I sign? You know, that's another way. And you know, depending on who you talk to, some people say, Well, what's wrong with that? You know, it's just another form of compensating Canadian content developers no different than compensating someone for their movie production. You know, I still like the organic getting by and being a success or a failure based on your own merits and not having anyone's finger anywhere on any scale. And I hate to segue a little bit, but I am starting to see that with the social media companies, as somebody, like you said, who broadcasts on all the social media companies, when I was putting out content as just a Joe Schmo from Idaho that no one knew and wasn't making any money, Facebook would- oh, I was a superstar. And you have to designate with Facebook, Instagram, Google, and everybody that okay, now I'm a professional content creator, there's throttling going on, because they can't have talent. If all of a sudden Matt Cundill in Winnipeg is getting more eyeballs and ear lobes than any other digital entity, that's a huge problem for their advertising operation. So while we're using each other, to feed ourselves, there's still some competition going on there for advertising dollars, between, you know, the platforms that I use to get my content out and my content itself. Matt Cundill 49:06 I just wonder how they think they would be able to do that to a podcast. If I'm on an RSS feed, how are you going to regulate that if you're not going to deal with algorithms? I just looked at that sheet that one-sheeter that I had up on the screen, which by the way, I've also shared on our episode page, if you want to go look at it. And yes, I'm like you I don't believe the government. And by the way, we don't believe the government. We really mean the Liberals. Tyler Glen 49:30 Well, and you know what I mean, you and I, obviously, we're opposites. We could have our own political podcast, which would be highly entertaining, because we're different sides of the spectrum. But on this, we would likely agree. Matt Cundill 49:41 I don't think we are- I'm conservative, but I happen to be a Progressive Conservative. Tyler Glen 49:46 Oh, really? Matt Cundill 49:47 I'm an Eastern conservative. Tyler Glen 49:49 You're a Montreal conservative, aren't you? Those- that's a Mulroney conservative. They're just so old and gone. I'm a Westerner conservative. So see that- well and you see what happened with Danielle Smith lately, like holy cow. So, you know, it's the whole, are you happy about Danielle Smith getting in? Or are you concerned, and I'm probably part of the Happy Camp, because I've had it. None of it's working. It's not working, you know, but the point I'm trying to make is that regardless of the spectrum, even if Danielle Smith is the is the prime minister someday, in some parallel universe, some liberal's gonna say something that she doesn't like, and she's going to clamp down on them. And that's not right. From what I believe, I don't think that's right. You know, just because someone disagrees with what you have to say, does not give you the right to shut them down. We can't learn that way. You know, we have to have disagreements and discussion. That's one of the reasons I loved the business that I got into. When we were talking before the show started about, you know, the evolution and the downturn of talk radio, they used to be so much fun to listen to. People get into heated discussions and sharing of ideas. And minds were changed. But we're getting away from that. And, you know, someone who has started down that path, and has kind of evolved in his own way was Jordan Peterson, he's big into that whole free speech realm and making sure that we protect that, and I'd have to agree. Matt Cundill 51:09 It's gonna be very interesting, by the way, one year from now, to look back on this part of the conversation to see exactly where it landed, because I think we made a lot of predictions. And it's- it's nice to know, I'm not the only paranoid one out there about, you know, Bill C11. Tyler Glen 51:22 Well, and I think that we will probably be affected more by what's happening with AI in the next year, then we will by government because I agree with your statement, when you said governments move slow. I think again, based on who I've been talking to, and what I've been reading, we're looking at about a year to 18 months before, there's this, Hey, wait a second, and we'll start talking to show you did you get an email like this, or this is kind of weird, and those things will start popping up. But AI, oh, my god, that is- a year from now to listen back to this and see where AI has taken us is going to be very, very interesting, because it's not just going to change the media landscape. This is a big, big deal. This is moving from the horse to an automobile, or, you know, moving from the candle to the light bulb, this is a very big jump. And it's gonna affect media in a big way. Matt Cundill 52:15 And you twofold, as well, I twofold, because we both do voiceover and there's a lot of voiceover that's being done AI, and they don't need a personality, or at least the client doesn't feel that they need one. And they're gonna go and use an AI piece of software to recreate what you and I would have done in the past. Tyler Glen 52:33 However, remember what I said about women and young people and social media? It's the exact opposite in the voiceover world where if I can get old guy clients, they're like, We want a voice. We don't want the robot to be reading the- you know, so I love them all. I love everybody. There's like a spectrum of the technology. And you want the late adopters in voiceover that go, You know what, I should still want a voice with proper inflection and proper enunciation and so on to do my commercial. But you know, on my show, I have two AI guests. You know, I use AI Annie, and we have Annie on the show regularly, and she interacts with my audience. We have also named the ChatGPT function on my show, and his name is Archie. And he does features on the show too. So you know, I've integrated the AI so that it can be also part of the conversation because it's not going away. And it's going to, you know, I'm hoping that I can provide some entertainment value and at the same time, a little bit of education to make people aware that look, this is coming and when you pull up to a drive thru in the next year, don't be surprised if it's AI taking your order. Matt Cundill 53:37 Oh, there's already robots doing that in places. I just can't remember if it was a Wendy's or a Burger King. But there was a robot taking some orders. Oh, no, wait, there was a McDonald's with absolutely no one in it. That's what it was. Tyler Glen 53:49 Yeah, I remember that McDonald's taking orders in another state. I think that was even in North Dakota, that when the oil boom was on and they couldn't get workers then, this is 10, 15 years ago. And they have- I can take your order, you know, Southern drawl. They're like, This is North Dakota. Well, we're in Texas, you know, they would just take the orders in Texas, and then tell the kitchen and get the food out. And now technology is great. Matt Cundill 54:12 How much time are you spending working sales and walking the streets of Brandon to sell ads? Tyler Glen 54:19 Not as much as you would think. I'm still relatively new at this. I only started on March the first, and I don't really go out and sell per se, I simply go out and visit businesses. And because this is a- I hate saying semi-retirement venture. But this is not like a super critical, gotta hit my budgets for Bell media's huge conglomerate operation like in the traditional sense of the word. Plus, I have the flexibility to say, well, you know, what do you want to do this month? You want to just do a week, you want to do a month? I mean, you make the rules. So when you run your own operation, I mean, you know how it goes. It's like a voiceover you know, if you've got a completely clear afternoon and someone needs a commercial. And they're only going to shoot you, you know, 40 or 50 bucks to do an ad when you normally make several hundred. And you're just sitting there anyway. And you can say to yourself, do I want to take a quick 50 bucks? Or do I want to go watch some Netflix or whatever. And that's one of the beauties of being your own boss is that you can kind of just take it as it comes. Now, on a personal note, you know, I have committed to the end of the year to do this project, I am going to see it through, I've told my audience, there's going to be two seasons of the show. This is season one, it'll wrap in July, the second season will start first week of August and run till the end- or till Christmas. And then I'll evaluate and maybe I'll need to be hitting the street a little bit more, if that's something that I decide to do. Or maybe I don't, or maybe it just the project doesn't continue. I'm just going to take it one step at a time. And so right now, because of my radio life, I have a relationship with a lot of the businesses in the community. And it's just nice to go and see them. And they're curious as to what I'm doing now. And I'm curious how they recovered from the pandemic. And that's how the conversation starts. Matt Cundill 56:06 You know, we've talked so much about you being live and what you're doing when you are live, there's an on-demand component to the whole thing as well with podcasts, and you've teamed up with Red Circle. I don't know anything about Red Circle, other than what Eric Zane once told me. So how does it work? Tyler Glen 56:21 Well, Red Circle, I also got tangled up with courtesy of Eric and because I did not know anything aside from you know, Podbean and your regular major players, he sold me rather quickly on again, the compensation model that Red Circle has built. Now, just like with Twitch, it's a really good video compensation model. But make no mistake, nobody is getting rich, there's not huge numbers involved. But you know, Twitch can easily put a tank of gas in my car each month. And at the rate that I continue, probably by the end of summer, can make a car payment for me. So you can use your imagination there. And Red Circle is about half of that and can continue to grow. Plus they have advertising that they'll drop into other podcasts for you. And you can voice your own ad in the podcast that they'll drop. They make it very easy for people who aren't really tech savvy. And I've quite enjoyed working with Red Circle. Good support. They're not the biggest company in the world. But again, they do have a lot of respect for the creator. And realize that there's two goals to connect with the audience and then make some money. And they're very quick to point you in the right direction to help you at least get a trickle in the door. And then the rest is up to you to get the audience built up so that you can turn that trickle into a good stream. Matt Cundill 57:44 I was listening last March, it was middle of the afternoon when you were on. But it was early morning in Brandon. And you and Heather were talking and reminiscing about old times. And of course, if it comes to old radio stories, I'm there for it. But it's nice to be able to do it in the middle of the afternoon in Spain. You were just starting out at the time. But when you look back now on the last few months and I guess summarize it, what lessons have you taken away from it? Tyler Glen 58:08 You know, it's interesting that you mentioned Spain, because that's probably one of the biggest lessons and something that I thought I was prepared for, but still I'm not totally comfortable with is that probably 40% of all my stats, audience views hits, things like that do not happen in the live portion of the show. It truly hits home that we are living in a world where we are not on our clock, we are on their clock. I have people texting, me messaging me, I spend my lunch break with you now, you're the first thing I put on my TV, when I get home from work and you just- as an old radio broadcaster, or any kind of broadcaster, it's kind of one of those things that you're just like, really? You don't wake up and put it on? As an old morning guy, that's what you know, you thought that everybody did. But it's not like that. And it's interesting, because you get so much data and coming from the radio realm where there's hardly any real time data at all is like, I don't even know if I could do an analogy. It's like drinking a glass of water and then getting to a swimming pool. Like, as you know, Matt, like the digital realm is just so data rich. This worked. That didn't work. This show was good. That show wasn't good. Here's who's listening. Here's where they are. Here's how long they listen, here's the device they listened or watched on. And you just go, holy cow. And in the early days, it was really easy to celebrate the great shows and say, I'm not gonna do this. I can't do it. On the bad shows. And so that was the hardest thing for me to learn. And a couple of my clients here said that, is that you're just a business person because you think the cash register rings every day. It don't. Some days you have lots of money coming in and sometimes there's not, and you just have to ride it, but in radio every book was, oh, it's the Book Day, here comes the results. Oh, this is it, my life depends on this. We got- these numbers are everything, and then you're lucky if you got them twice a year. And the bigger markets get them three times a year. But this is every day. You get it every day. And those Twitch users or those Twitch streamers, you get comprehensive report, you turn off your stream, that report's in your inbox within the hour. And I try not to celebrate too much when I have a great show. And I try not to get too down when I have a bad show. Matt Cundill 1:00:32 By the way, today is the ratings day. Tyler Glen 1:00:34 Oh is it really? Wow. Yeah, don't miss that. It is just- I can't believe it. It seems like a dream some days that I'm even doing this, because it's really just about connecting with audience, right? And it goes back to that Rolco saying, you know, that when we put the station on doesn't matter how many houses and how many listeners you have, shoot for the stars. And now, maybe some days, I don't know, maybe I only have 150 people watch or less, even if there's two people, who cares? You know, there's a microphone, there's content, there's crap going on in the world. There's fun stuff to talk about. And as long as there's someone on the other end, willing to watch or interact, then it's worth getting up in the morning. And I guess I've just come to terms with the fact that that's probably why I was put on the planet, was to do something like this. Matt Cundill 1:01:18 Cool. I love it. I love that you're doing this. Tyler Glen 1:01:21 Well, thanks, Matt. I appreciate your support. And you've been obviously a great supporter of mine and a great supporter of people in the digital realm and podcasting and you're highly respected. And you know, in the industry, people are listening to this podcast and just keep it up. Just as Eric taught me. It's like, half the battle is just getting out of bed in the morning and making sure you're there. The rest will fall into place. Be consistent. He would always say to me, you feel like crap? Get out. Get behind the microphone. Don't worry. They love you. They love you, man. He's just great. Eric is just a fantastic guy. Him and Don Collins, like I just couldn't say enough good words about Eric and Don. It's just, I owe them a lot, so. Matt Cundill 1:01:59 Thanks for doing this. I appreciate it. Tyler Glen 1:02:01 Hey, thanks for having me on. This is just so much fun. Tara Sands (Voiceover) 1:02:04 The Sound Off Podcast is written and hosted by Matt Cundill. Produced by Evan Surminski. Edited by Chloe Emond-Lane. Social media by Aidan Glassey. Another great creation from the Sound Off Media Company. There's always more at soundoffpodcast.com.

This week, we're back with another old friend of the show. Charles Adler was last on in 2019, and at the time, he was about to be on-air with Corus Radio. Nowadays, he's joining the ever-growing list of radio vets who have decided to go digital. Charles is starting up his own podcast, The Charles Adler Show, in just a few weeks. We know this, not just because he told us, but because The Sound Off Media Company is going to be handling the production side for him. We won't be hosting the show, though. Instead, you can find him on Dean Blundell's network, Crier Media, once the show goes live. As usual with radio-stars-turned-podcasters, we talk with Charles about what made him decide to make the transition. It does get a bit political, since that's one of the main themes of his shows. You've been warned. We also discuss the direction of his new show, as well as how he's had to adapt to social media, and the love and hatred he's been exposed to through the lens of Twitter. As mentioned, keep an eye out for The Charles Adler Show on Crier Media. If you want to keep up with Charles in the meantime, you should also drop him a follow on Twitter or check out his personal website. Transcript: Tara Sands (Voiceover) 00:02 The Sound Off Podcast. The show about podcast and broadcast starts now. Matt Cundill 00:13 This week, Charles Adler returns. Again. We had him on the show in 2019 when he was headed back to Corus radio. This time, he's headed over to the digital side. Joining Dean Blundell's Crier Media. And here's the disclosure piece. The sound off media company is going to be handling the podcast and production side of the show. This episode was recorded live on a Sunday morning in June, which means you can watch it on YouTube if you want. Now, Charles Adler joins me from Winnipeg. Charles Adler 00:43 I think I think you did that. I think you had something to do with it. I was having coffee with you. Okay. All I know is okay. So correlation, and causation are not necessarily on the same planets. But all I know is one day I'm having coffee with you. And you're telling me about to Dean Blundell and some of the other folks that you're associated with at Crier and how fond you are of them. And the next thing I know, they're calling so I, you know, made the assumption, and I realized that, you know, assumptions sometimes only require feelings are not facts. But I made the feeling based assumption that you said something kind about me, because you always do, in this case to Dean and that Dean was triggered to do the right thing. Matt Cundill 01:30 And Dean got very excited. And normally, like, I've always worked with the, you know, independent podcasters we give them a chance and a voice to, to get out there and do the thing. And you know, like you said tough to keep a good man down and you're active and alive. And well. I'm not here to say that you've retired to Florida anytime soon, because you've been quite active and you know, on Twitter, and I know you're somebody who counts your analytics. And so you are active politically on Twitter. That is a form of broadcast. Charles Adler 01:56 It is, and I do Ryan Jespersen 's show me and I've done a bunch of shows as a guest but I'm a regular guests with with Ryan on real talk you've had Ryan on this podcast before he is one of the very very best that I've ever worked with. And so I'm honored to be associated with with Ryan I honored to be associated with you and and with Dean Blundell. Matt Cundill 02:16 What do you think of people like Ryan who have taken- well who've been you know, shown the door by Corus or told their work is not wanted? And the next thing you know, you can do what we're doing right now in an independent fashion. Charles Adler 02:31 Well, you know, it's I mean, a company can say that they don't want you associated with their company, you know, whatever, that's their choice. It's a it's a free country despite but some people on Twitter like to say they're free to do that. And Ryan is free to go on with his life and access his audience. You know, I'm my whole life has been small family business that's kind of you know, where my, my head got into this world, in my dad's little tailor shop. And so my dad taught me when I was you know, six seven, that the customer is always right there lots of ways to access the customer. The government expropriated My dad's a store because he was in the way of a freeway they were building in in Montreal, you know, well, it's your hometown, that to carry expressway, so that the carry expressway needed to be built my dad, my dad's store was in the way they they expropriated him. But what did he do? He went a couple of clicks up the street and opened up a another shop on Queen Mary road. They couldn't keep Mike Adler down. Matt Cundill 03:30 I didn't know that that store had been expropriated to you know, for what the world's greatest trench. One big giant traffic trench, the big ditch? Yeah. Yeah. And that part of that part of Montreal, you know, now down in, he moved over to Queen Mary. And of course, had his- had a store and Queen Mary. And, frankly, Queen Mary was a much better location for him. And I remember when he was moving there, my my father taught me a lot about the small family capitalism. My father moved to an area where they already had three people who had stores very similar to his. And so I remember asking my dad, I was just just, I guess, beyond toddler stage seven, eight. I said, Well, why are you moving to a neighborhood where they've got lots of people doing what you were doing? And he said, because if I moved to that neighborhood, it will attract lots of customers for what I'm doing. And the customers will then make their choice. And within about 10 years, he was the only one left standing and that's not to disparage his competitors, but really, the market ends up deciding and the market of customers for tailoring and dry cleaning, became Mike Adler's customers. How did you spend the pandemic? Charles Adler 04:43 Very isolated, you know, doing radio in the most isolated way I could, which is odd. You know, I did it from my home and I'm doing it. I'm doing podcasting from my home. And when I had to do radio from my home, I felt that I was you know, being punished by his straight because I love the smell of a radio stations with Robert Duvall and pocalypse. Now I love the smell of napalm the smell of smells like freedom. So radio is what smells like freedom to me and radio stations. But in this case, the you had the pandemic rad to do so I felt, you know, not very good about it. I mean, you know, it's easy to easier to get home after the shift, because you're already home. And there are some other advantages. I can be around my dogs, which I love. But I still missed the smell of a radio station now, in doing what I'm doing, you know, I'm thinking about someday if things go right, and and the podcast world evolves as it should I look forward to being in some kind of massive podcast studio with with with 50 or 100 screens, somewhere in the world, it doesn't really matter to me where, because, like you I live inside my brain, and my brain still craves big studio. Matt Cundill 05:58 Do you think we'll go back to studios at all to get together in that? Because I think a lot of people have been sent home. And now we've got the workforce, man. Hey, I can work from home. Yeah. Is there a craving for people to go back to work? Yeah, I know you have it. But does do other people have that same sort of sense to get back? I don't know, I'm not. And I'm not trying to say that I don't care. I mean, I care intellectually, I guess I've got some interest in that. But Emotionally, I love the camaraderie of being with with fellow pros, whether it's called broadcasting and podcasting, communications, it doesn't really matter to me, those are just, you know, infrastructure issues. But as far as working with some other people who are involved in creative activity, old expression, you know, one and one is three, if you're working with the right people, the collective agency of that is going to is going to get you some somewhere, it's I think, to higher ground. So if you're asking me the question, do I miss working with fellow professionals in the same room? The same studio? Yeah, I do. And I don't, I don't, I don't apologize that if, if other people prefer doing it solo, that's fine. We're all individuals, but this individual misses the big communications factory. What do you think the legacy of media and the pandemic is going to be? Because you spent some time on Twitter, you took a small break at some point because it did become quite toxic. And then there you are, you know, you're back again on it. And you're seeing, you know, what, what's gone on? I guess this is my way of saying and asking what's what's happened to people? Um, I think there's, there's, there's an anger out there. And I think a lot of it comes from, from isolation, I think we are social beings. Social media, it's kind of an ironic name. Because social media has done more. To get the anti social out of the people than than anything I can imagine. I'm not suggesting that all of us have turned into, you know, the Unabomber. But I don't think that social media has improved the world, it has not improved our reactions to our fellow human beings. Obviously, I'm generalizing because I'm talking about an entire planet, that social media in many ways is very convenient. But in other ways, it turns people into shut ins. And I just don't think that we're rocks on islands. I think that we're human beings, who crave affirmation from our fellow human beings, we crave fellowship, we crave fraternity sorority, I don't know what the politically correct term is of still split things into he and she, sorry about that. But I think that the real world for real human beings, for the most part, there is a small percentage, just like in any group, there's a small percentage that are anomalous that they don't they don't apply to us. But I would say that well over 90% of human beings thrive in the company of fellow human beings. And social media has walled people off from each other, and created one I guess the term that's often used now is the silos I prefer silos for grain as opposed to human beings. But we're on these little islands silos, whatever you want to call them. And we're only commiserating with people on social media platforms who agree with everything we're saying. So they don't challenge us. We don't challenge them. That's a Faustian bargain. I find it rather odd that a lot of people will say things on social media, but then when I meet them, they don't come off nearly as crazy because they would never say all that crazy stuff to me and in front of my face. And I find there's more common ground with people when we do get together and talk and speak rationally. But social media is quite an irrational land. What's also phony I mean, or to use the more polite term performative people are performing they're performing roles, you know, they're arts, right wingers are far right wingers and they're they're far left wingers or, or progressives. I think a lot of it is, is frankly silly. I think it's silly that if a person is a it's a conservative, but they say some things that don't apply to the modern conservative model. They're castigated as commies and socialists, what have you. It's, it's it's juvenile. And it doesn't really accomplish very much except for for the troll farmers. And the troll farmers absolutely love Twitter, and other social media platforms. I mean, it gets them what they're looking for: Chumps. A lot of people- I'm not going to ask you to, like, put you exactly where you think you belong on the entire scale of, of a political spectrum, which I'm not even sure is the scale of any sort. It's could be just went big football field this point. But a lot of people will say that you're not really speaking for conservatives anymore. And they'll say, Well, you know, you've gotten a little bit taller. I think you've gotten liberal. I've heard just about every accusation made about you and seen it on Twitter, and it, it feels weird. And it's like they've changed know, you change and everybody wants to put everybody into a slot and not really listen to anybody's perspective anymore. Yeah, I mean, I have always seen myself as a small c conservative. I'm fairly traditional. I am for criminal justice being applied correctly. I think that, you know, some people do belong in in prison for a very, very long time. Yeah, they have they have rights, I think that we all have a right to a certain amount of the most important freedom, which to me is freedom from fear. And the only way that we can cut down on on on fear on needless fear is for government to be strong, and for government to enforce the laws. And when we talk about Canada, being about peace, order, and good government, I am very pro Canadian. I'm very pro Canadian democracy. And for most of my adult life, I felt that the Progressive Conservative Movement was the most Canadian, of movements, but the Progressive Conservatives died. And I have to just sort of admit that, you know that the bugle has been blown. Taps have been blown for Progressive Conservatives. And so you now have this radicalized Reform Party that is called the Conservative Party of Canada. That name means nothing to me, because conservatism to me, is a lot more refined, a lot more intelligent, a lot more human than the Conservative Party of Canada. And so when I say things like that, whether they're on Twitter or here on, on this podcast, conservative stalwarts, you know, the pure poly of crowd will say that I'm a socialist or liberal or whatever, then whatever the label of conveniences, whatever label is getting them the most amount of flex, but no, I don't identify with them at all. Safe to say that the party died in 2003? Yeah, yeah. I mean, they're, you know, under under Peter Mackay, under I understand why he did what he did he, he did his deal with with Stephen Harper, and he did his deal in good faith. And I don't think that most of Peter Mackay believed that the Conservatives once they united once the the Alliance united with the Progressive Conservatives, I don't think that Peter Mackay, who I happen to be a fan of, as you can tell, I don't think that we could make a thought that, that the Harper Conservatives would spend the next few years devouring the Progressive Conservatives trying as much as possible to smear them, as people who aren't really conservative aren't good conservatives, and aren't good Canadians and all of that. And I think that, that over the last number of years is has only gotten worse. You know, I'm very big on addition, I'm not big on subtraction. And I think the modern day conservative movement has eliminated a lot of people. I don't think that I'm the the only one I think there are many of us who who feel orphaned. And I don't mean to speak for you, Matt. But I have a feeling that for the most part, we're on the same page on this. Yeah, a shout out by the way to Acadia University. Peter Mackay is a graduate of there. So am I, I just have to get that mentioned and wherever I can. I don't know why I do it. I just do it. 2019 was when we spoke last I can't remember if it was before or after the Peter Mackay famous line where he said that the Conservatives missed an open net. And I feel that the last two elections have been that way that they are genuinely missing an open net to remove Trudeau from from office or at least get a minority government out of it. It seems like in the past, the math would have added up you can get a couple of maritime provinces in Quebec, but I don't think you can start building an election by Kenora. Well, yeah, he just, I don't I honestly have never understood when I say never in the last number of years. I have not understood This thing that the conservatives have have, well, we don't need we don't need half the country we can just work on on the western half of the guy and I'm a Western. I'm a proud Westerner. I wasn't born in the West but to the West has become my adopted home and Winnipeg is my, my adopted home that the places in Western Canada where I have been most at home where Winnipeg and and Calgary and everybody who pays attention to what I do on Twitter or pays attention. Over the years, I've said that loudly and proudly. But I have no idea even though despite my faithfulness, and my and my political proclivities and all the rest of it, I do not understand why the Conservative Party pretends that it does not have to acknowledge the mathematical power of Quebec, and the mathematical power of the parts of Ontario that it has trouble winning for all of the self evident reasons. They don't appeal to new Canadians. They don't appeal to people who are second and third generation Canadians, sons and daughters and grandsons and granddaughters, of immigrants, and I'm an immigrant myself, it's very easy for me to plug into it. It doesn't matter whether I immigrated in the 50 6070s 90s you know, whatever it is, it doesn't matter. I have no trouble understanding immigrants and, and the children and grandchildren of immigrants feel. And the modern day conservative party I would say the the post Peter Mackay Conservative Party alienates multiple millions of Canadians makes no sense to me not on it's not about it's not about morality. It's not about ethics. It's about mathematics. In the end, everything is about math. So I look at Joe McLeod, who hosts the podcasts on require media, I think, the 905 podcast, I think it's what it's called, and apologies if I got that wrong. But they talk about what goes on in the in the 905. And I think for many years, conservatives and liberals have taken a look at this area just outside of Toronto. I think it's, you know, mark up north and sort of, it's everywhere, around Toronto, and how blue, can you make an if you can make it blue, then the conservatives have a chance, but how, how does it look right now, for conservatives to to maybe pull some, like the majority of seats out of the 905. I know every inch of 905 because I spent several years working in Ontario. And when I was in Ontario, I was a professional Moonlighter. And I had a job and then I had two or three side hustles it's just the way it was, which means I spent a lot of time on the 401 and the 400. And you know, the QE and I know I know every inch of 905. And so it's very, very easy for me to understand why conservatives don't do well there. They did very well there when when Jason Kenney. This is the pre premier Jason Kenney, the other Jason Kenney, that one I was very good friends with Jason Kenney. Understood 905 By the way, Jason Kenney. A lot of people think because Jason Kenney was the premier of Alberta and he's well known for being an MP from from Alberta and a cabinet minister there. Jason Kenney was actually born in 905. He was born in Oakville, Ontario, another one of the many Yes, stomping grounds of mine. And so if you if you if you know, Mississauga, and you know, Milton and you know, Oakville and you know, all those areas, you know, who's been moving into those areas for the last 1020 30 years. You look at all that and then you look at some of the the rhymes and the slogans on Pierre Paul leaves, Twitter, and you say to yourself, What the hell does that have to do with these folks? How does it represent these folks? Doesn't work. So walk me back into again, the pandemic, and Jason Kenney is premier of Alberta. And I think you and him went at it on Twitter. Yeah, no, we went out well, no, we didn't really go out. We went out it on on the air. Yeah, about. This is June and it was it was April of four years ago. So approximately 15 months ago. We went out on the air. It was about a candidate of his who had said some really ridiculous things, you know, pandering to his social conservative audience in a church. So he was doing I guess he was doing a late pastor. thing he was I guess he was the guest pastor. And he talked about women killing their babies. You know, abortion, is what he was talking about. But he insisted on some women killing their babies. And then he insisted on the idea that men cannot love men, you know, is a homophobic message, your anti anti LGBT message, and it was really hideous stuff. And so I had Kenny, listen to it. Not that he hadn't heard it before. Although he said he hadn't heard Before, I guess I'll have to take his word for it even though he did a news conference about it a day earlier, I don't know how he would have done a news conference about it. He had listened to. But anyway, he did not want to take this candidate out of the UPC, but essentially the Alberta conservative that ecosystem, I didn't expect him to tell people not to vote for the candidate. This was just a couple of weeks before the election, I expect that he would do what both of us had agreed on the air about a year earlier. And Alberta conservative leader would do if they had a so called Bozo eruption, a previous leader of the Wildrose party who happens to be the premier now Danielle Smith, had a problem with with a candidate who was massively homophobic, is known as the lake of fire a sermon. And Danielle Smith did not want to disassociate the party from him. And that cost her the election. So Jason Kenney and I just talked about this on the air the same way as we went off the air. And on the air, we both agreed that if something like this were to happen to his party, his United Conservative Party Down the road, that he would simply say something like, look, this candidate is on the ballot, and it's a democracy and the people in the writing, want to vote for the candidate that that's there as the Democratic option. However, I want the people in that particular writing this case in Alberta writing, I'd want them to know that that candidate will not be seated with a caucus because that can be doesn't represent the values of Alberta the values of the United Conservative Party, Jason Kenny's values, and that expected candidate to say precisely that about this particular candidate, and he didn't, you know, he went into I don't know what you want to call it, the political mode. And I felt really insulted. And on a personal level, I felt I felt betrayed, because I felt I had his word that he wouldn't go forward with this kind of kind of nonsense. And that was an easy way out. And I thought he would take it plus, I just thought from a polling perspective, I mean, he was well into the double digits ahead of the NDP, there was no doubt who was going to win. And so the idea that he was desperate to, to pander to the people in that writing doesn't make any sense didn't make any sense. And it's not like that candidate was going to lose that. Right. And, you know, we know that in many ridings in Alberta and other parts of the country, that people are cemented to their political brand. And it doesn't really matter what the name is, because in the overwhelming majority cases, people couldn't decide the 70% 80% 90% of the time that people aren't voting for the candidates anyway, they're voting for the political party. So he had, he had no downside. And I don't know why he chose to do what he did. But you know, it basically put my own credibility on the line. I was known as a friend of, of Jason Kenney. And I was until I guess that night, when the friendship was was torn asunder, but I certainly wasn't going to have him destroy my credibility. I certainly wasn't gonna sit there and go, okay. Okay. Okay. I think Thanks, Mr. Kenney. Now, let's go on to talk about oil prices. I just I, I didn't let go. I was a dog with a bone. And then I had to ask him a few character questions related to his past. Past stuff that was on the record. And he just, he failed. He failed the character test that night. And I guess most of us failed the the friendship test. Tara Sands (Voiceover) 23:30 Transcription of the Sound Off Podcast is powered by the Podcast Super Friends. Five podcast producers who get together to discuss podcasting. Sharpen your podcast and creation skills by following the show on the Sound Off Podcast's YouTube or Facebook page. The sound of podcast supports Podcasting 2.0, so feel free to send us a boost if you're listening on a newer podcast app. If you don't have a newer podcast app, you can get one at newpodcastapps.com. Matt Cundill 24:03 Why is it that so much of the nonsense that goes on is permitted? And I don't want to say that, that there's no cost to it. But there doesn't seem to be any personal cost when a politicians, you know, throws out a bunch of nonsense. I think there's a cost to the party. I don't think some of these parties are performing nearly as well as they could because of the nonsense it scares off. Maybe the progressive side or I guess anybody with a social conscience from from voting. But But how come people aren't paying personally anymore for incendiary views? Charles Adler 24:35 Well, because the the people involved in in what we do are really afraid to alienate them, you know, they they feel that they're absolutely connected to the audience that has these people as their heroes. So a lot of people in my position simply would have let go would have asked a couple of questions of Jason Kenney about that issue and then moved on to something else because they wouldn't want to alienate him. And they wouldn't want to alienate his staff and they wouldn't want it alienate the social media that his staff gets involved with. And they would want to alienate his base, not trying to be sanctimonious about it. That's just not a game that I'm willing to play. You know, ultimately, I work for my conscience. I don't work for a company, I don't work for the company I'm contracted with those contracted with chorus, I've got a contract now with with crier, and that that's, you know, those are those are business relationships, but don't work. I didn't work for chorus or for crier, I work. I worked for my conscience. And if I am asked to do and I'm not suggesting chorus asked me to do anything and inquire is not asking me to do anything. But if I feel that I'm now having to work for the conservative base, and not my own conscience, well, frankly, that is, to me unconscionable it just goes against my ethics. People can choose to follow whatever ethical whatever moral compass they wish to follow. I follow Mike Adler's moral compass, my late father, he's on my shoulder, all the time, not trying to creep anybody out. I think a lot of people feel this way, about the people who they've been very, very closely associated with mentored by. And even though they're now technically in the in the past tense, you know, that the spirit of my dad is with me at all times. And I'm not going to do anything to embarrass him. I'm not going to do anything to embarrass the family name. And all that night in April, of four years ago, had I just, you know, rolled over like a rug, for Jason Kenney that would have embarrassed Mike Adler a great deal. Matt Cundill 26:34 I sometimes wonder when leaders make decisions, are they I think they're going for social media clicks more than they're going for political power, it's almost like the game is over if they gain political power, because then they would have to govern. And governing is is hard. And in terms of being an effective opposition, I'm not seeing a lot of effective opposition, you know, across the country anywhere. No, you're right. I mean, they're going for clicks, they're going for donations, they're their staffs are going for clicks and donations, the moment they're their bosses, anything, they're immediately on Instagram or Twitter, tick tock, whatever, whatever it is, whatever their favorite platforms are, to see what kind of bang, what kind of coverage their leaders are getting on social media, that becomes the big metric. It's kind of crazy anyway, because so much of social media reaction is not even real. It's just driven by the algorithms, that the the troll farmers are so good at exercising, and Matt, I don't know whether this is a time when we should actually do a little bit of splaining. And I'm more into entertaining than I am into explaining, because I also want to want to keep the audience I don't want to lose them by going deep into the, into the policy weeds. But is it worth talking a little bit about how fake so much of what social media is all about in terms of the incendiary reaction that's coming from people who don't even really exist? Yeah, absolutely. We should talk about that. I mean, I'm, I find myself to scrolling past it, because I know it's not real, fake accounts, bots, just so much junk that that's out there. And of course, stuff that's, you know, driven and funded by dark money, I guess Charles Adler 28:17 Yeah, dark money. Sometimes it's- sometimes that money is from foreign powers. Sometimes it's just the dark money that is associated with a particular ideology. So when that particular ideology is programming, let's say algorithms to go after people who criticize the conservatives, whether it's the conservatives in the UK, or the conservatives, in the USA, or Canada doesn't matter. When, when certain dark money is programming those those those algorithms, you end up the moment you say something that is not complimentary of the conservative movement, all of a sudden, all this, you know, all these replies and up on the and your Twitter replies, and I've said to people in, in so many different ways, just just ignore that stuff. It's, it's not real, it's not relevant, that doesn't represent the country. It just represents a, a fact of life in social media. That certain level is called dark money is a nice way of putting it. Certain people are invested in in their message they in this case, the the right wing message being the only message and if anybody wants to contradict it, they're going to be slammed, they're going to be bashed, they're going to be smeared. And and that will drive away those people who want to publicly criticize the dark money message. Matt Cundill 29:33 So there's a lot of accusation that American style, right wing politics, those strategies have come to Canada. But if I were to look at that, it looks like it looks like a loser book. Trump lost three elections really. He lost the house, he lost the Senate lost his own the presidential election. So I don't know why anybody would want to hook themselves to that wagon. And then the midterms came up, and midterms that Gimme, there's the open net again, you should be able to make some substantial gains. And they did not. So Democrats wound up making some some key gains during the midterms are not a great record from Joe Biden. And I think what it really came down to was was candidates, how strong were the candidates, and they ran, the Republicans ran real losers. And I think this comes back to you know, just about anywhere, that if you're going to run losers, you're going to lose, Charles Adler 30:30 Losers get you the wrong kind of publicity. And, you know, in the most recent US midterms, they went whole hog into this so called pro life message, by the way, I don't, I don't really understand how a forcing women to stay pregnant, even if they've been raped, even if they've been insisted I don't, I don't understand how you can call that pro life. I mean, it's just, it's such an inhuman thing you're torturing people is not pro life. That's just, you know, there it is, when I my so called progressive opinion, that's what makes me a, a progressive, the conservative. To me, there's nothing a traditionally human about the forcing women into any kind of behavior that they choose not to be in, because you're wrapping yourself in, in some interpretation of, of what the Lord wants. I just, I'm just not on that train. But in any case, the many of the Conservative candidate and the Republican conservatives during the midterms who won their primaries, and remember, primaries are only voted in by the most active by the most partisan of the players, whether they're partisan Democrats or partisan Republicans. They don't represent the mass of Republicans, the mass of Democrats was one of the reasons why sometimes the House of Representatives is not really representative of the American public. I don't want to go too far into that field, either. Except to say that in the midterms, many of these wacky radical people ended up being candidates. And so a lot of people who ordinarily weren't Democrats voted for the Democrats, because they just couldn't stomach these, you know, freak show Republicans. Matt Cundill 32:18 Does that sort of cast away the- the myth that people will just vote down ballot though this Republican and then put X's all the way down? I think people are a little more choosy. Charles Adler 32:27 Well, a lot of people, a lot of people do vote that way, where they just, you know, vote the entire the entire ballot. So every everything from the President to the dogcatcher is either all Republican or all all Democrat. A lot of people do vote that way. But some don't. And of course, in the midterms are a little different, because there is no, there is no president to vote for in the midterms, you're you're voting much more much more local. Not as many people vote in the midterms. That's another story. But in general, I mean, the general proposition is that for those people who think that just running the most radical of people on the left, and the most radical people on the right, for people who think that's a good idea of bridging the divide of uniting a country, whether it's called the United States or Canada, no, it's not a good way. And ultimately, it's not good for your political party, either. Because you're, once again, if you're just thinking about addition and subtraction, you're subtracting people every time you do that, and the American context, if Marjorie Taylor Greene becomes your, your, your poster person, if that's your representative of the Republican Party, you will lose a lot of Republicans, you will lose a lot of moderates, you will lose a lot of independents who might lean Republican, but don't want to be in the same postal code. Excuse me. We're talking Americans. You don't want to be the same zip code with Marjorie Taylor Greene. Matt Cundill 33:49 Can you look to the future and tell me how you see it plays out for the Republicans, with Trump and DeSantis? Well, if Trump wins the nomination, and I still think that he is easily odds on favorite to win the Republican nomination, I think that he can be relatively relatively easily defeated by Biden or if Biden chooses for age reasons. I'm not an ageist, I've been inveighing against ageism for the last few new cycles here. But if he if he if he if he chooses to think that he ought to turn the baton over to someone else, I think that someone else, for the most part that someone else still has a good chance of beating Trump, simply because most of the independents who are generally sent her right to not want to have Donald Trump back in the White House. There are some people who feel that DeSantis is a great candidate because he's very Trump like, but he's a lot younger, and he's done very well. In Florida. I don't I don't see. I don't see DeSantis becoming president. I. I could be wrong. I think the Democrats are favored in any case, for the oldest reasons most incumbents were presidents. Most presidential incumbents win a two terms whether they're Republicans or Democrats. Yes, there are anomalies and you know, George W. Bush's dad George HW Bush, only one term but there are other people who say well the only one one term because he really was doing Reagan's third term. You know, and and Ross Perot is involved in that upset that particular applecart. The thing is that unless the Democrats do something really foolish, unless something really horrible happens to the economy, for the most part, or of course, if there's a huge national security issue, but for the most part, it's about the economy. Unless the economy craters in the next 18 months, I don't see the Democrats are losing the White House. So by the way, we need to get a name for your studio that you have there. We should probably put it up for some naming rights. But I saw you took to Twitter from your studio, and you talked about ageism. But you know, the I mean, there was a time Reagan was 17. We all thought that was too old. And now we're looking at Bernie Sanders, Donald Trump, and Joe Biden. It cuts across party lines. I mean, everybody is is over 75. Charles Adler 36:18 Matt, would I- would I destroy our friendship if I mentioned the little incident that happened? Just moments before we started podcasting today? Matt Cundill 36:29 No, no, you go right ahead and talk about that accident I had. So you seem to trip over something, it was out of camera range, so I wasn't sure what you tripped over. So why don't you tell us what you tripped over. So I put a new camera in. And by the way, I want to apologize to everybody for my whiteness today. White with this brand new high, it's not a high watts. It's a 1080 P. So it's a fancy camera. And this is sort of what the crier media standard is, is that we want to have 1080 P cameras now I've got a wide shot of my room anyway, I thought I would go and adjust the light. And it didn't obviously wasn't terribly successful, because my whiteness is just spilling out across the internet. But as it came around again, it fell over sideways and crashed. And I'm just thankful that it worked or I'd be broadcasting in the dark right now. But there was there was an accident where it fell over sideways. And I'm thankful that it works. Charles Adler 37:22 So you must have had this accident because you're 80 years old, and you're just too old for this right? And I'm only making- I'm only making the point that Joe Biden tripped on a sandbag, as Matt Cundill could, as I could, as a million people could, whether they're eight years old or 18 years old. Joe Biden happens to be 80, but the idea of going after him for being too old to be in the White House because he trips on a sandbag, something that could happen to any of us, is ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. Matt Cundill 37:49 So let me throw out something a little more hypothetical. And let's say Joe Biden doesn't run who would be the front runner? Well, the immediate front runner would be the vice president because that's, that's quite traditional. And many people who are elders of the party tend to automatically vote, you know, at least support at the beginning of the Vice President, but there would so that'd be Kamala Harris. But Kamala Harris would still end up in a primary. And once once you're in a primary who knows where it goes, the last time she was in a primary, she didn't do very well, at all. It may play differently as a vice president, I think the world of Kamala Harris just to you know, put it all on the record here. And I think she was ineffective prosecutor and when Kamala Harris was on Democratic Senate Committees, prosecuting some rather sleazy ethically challenged people. I think Kamala Harris, you know, carved them, several new ones, I think she was actually the that most people who see the Kamala Harris of today see a much quote softer version of the Kamala Harris that that made it up the political ladder as it were. However, once again, there would be a primary there would be challenges from other people. So who knows, but if you're asking me who the front runner is, right now, Joe Biden steps aside, it would be the vice president. Do you think Bernie Sanders has an impact on the next election? Charles Adler 39:17 No, I think without being ageist here, I mean, I could simply say, you know, Bernie's past his due date, but I think that would be a just I don't I don't think it's about Bernie's age, although I guess he's about the same ages. As Joe Biden is just, you know, he's, he's just been to the well for that job too often. And the other problem that Bernie Sanders has, and it's not even talked about in the States, nevermind, Canada, Bernie Sanders refuses to become a Democrat. I mean, I know this sounds crazy, but the keeps running for president as a Democrat and he wants people to think that he's going to be available again and again and again to run for president that. Bernie Sanders doesn't Like the Democratic Party, and there's that's fine. I mean, you know, you can be an independent, there's nothing wrong with that. But if you want everyone in the Democratic Party to take you seriously, as someone who wants to be a standard bearer for the Democrats, at least join the party, pay the 10 or 15 bucks a year and, and be a member, it's just a little bit odd. And although some people say that doesn't really harm him at all, I've never believed that I think it's always harmed him. But if, if anyone wants to go back to the Hillary Clinton versus Donald Trump contest, I think it was Bernie Sanders that cost Hillary, that job, because Bernie Sanders was very, very effective for months and months and months of inveighing against Hillary Clinton for two things. One, the vote that she cast to side with George W. Bush, going into the war on Iraq, Hillary Clinton tried to spend that in a number of ways. Ultimately, she ended up apologizing for that vote. Bernie Sanders went after her day after day after day for voting to commit Americans to a war in Iraq. And the other thing that Bernie Sanders went after her on, was the fact that she did all these speeches on Wall Street for Goldman Sachs and other firms, and that she didn't want to release the transcripts of those speeches at creating this impression that she said something to them that was politically untoward. And then that really caused her then of course, there was a business about the emails, but Bernie Sanders didn't go after her on emails, he went after her on her connections to Wall Street to big money, and to the war in Iraq. And I think that that cost her with a number of base Democrats, and I think it took them out of the campaign. They didn't want to vote for her. They didn't want to campaign for her. And I think that's what delivered Donald Trump a relatively relatively room service election. I don't think we'd be talking about Donald Trump right now. If it hadn't been for for Bernie Sanders' efforts in that campaign to destroy, politically destroy, Hillary Clinton. Matt Cundill 42:04 And with an assist to the Russians. Charles Adler 42:06 Oh, yeah, the Russians get an assist. Lots of people, you know, CNN gets an assist. I mean, even though CNN has spent a number of years and of course, is a relatively new and different CNN right now, which I don't think is very good, actually. But even though CNN positioned itself is very anti Trump, CNN just kept giving Trump exposure because when Trump was on, viewership was up. And producers were just told to, you know, let Trump call him anytime he wants to, because it gets us viewers. And so I think CNN also contributed, and obviously Fox contributed to Fox was much more openly pro Trump and Trump was on the Fox a lot. But But Fox is, for the most part, the loyal Republican base, you know, it's preaching to the choir, but with the Democrats and Republicans sharing a lot of the viewers and independent sharing a lot of viewers on CNN, in the days when CNN had much bigger numbers trumping on CNN all the time, really helped. It's impossible for me to sit here and not admit that CNN also played a role in in the Trump era. Matt Cundill 43:11 Well, I think both those networks are feeding into all sorts of like Looney Tunes like Marjorie Taylor Greene in the Jewish space lasers. And when I hear that stuff come out, and all the nuttiness, what am I supposed to think about Hillary's emails and Hunter Biden's laptop? I don't even know if there's a serious because I don't even think serious stuff is being reported. So how is anybody supposed to decipher what is truly a problem and what isn't? Charles Adler 43:34 You know, I'm never gonna say that Hunter Biden doesn't have severe personal problems. I mean, he obviously is a person who is required to rehab for a reason. But of course, the Republicans have really dined out on the the Hunter Biden thing. They've taken it to all sorts of interesting places, conspiratorial places, as far as Hillary Clinton's email, and the server. Should she have had her own server know that she make mistakes on that front? Yes. Did she wait way too long before offering explanations and apologies? Yes. Is Hillary Clinton a fabulous retail politician? No. But is Hillary Clinton better for American stability for World stability? Is it better to have someone who wants to challenge Putin as opposed to kiss his ring? Of course, of course, she is. I mean, you know, there's all sorts of lines about how you only have a limited amount of choices on the ballot. It's not between, you know, this particular choice and the Lord. It's, it's this particular choice versus versus Donald Trump. To me. That was an easy choice, even though in the American context, and I worked in America for a number of years. Nobody would have mistaken me for being a liberal Democrat or even a moderate Democrat. I was associated with the the Republicans, I put all my cards On the table, just as I was associating Canada with the conservatives, so these different people can tag me with all sorts of names and make claims that I've made these incredible, you know, changes and been, you know, Machiavellian, and all the rest of the stuff that is ascribed to me. I don't think that at the core, I'm any different today than I was when I was, you know, seven years old working in my daddy's store. Matt Cundill 45:26 What can we expect from your show? Charles Adler 45:29 You could actually expect what you're- what you're getting right now, Matt. you can expect as someone who is spontaneous, as someone who's relatively speaking, animated, very alive, very tuned into what's going on right now very tuned into the, the human condition. I think that I do still over the years, despite more successes than any human being deserves, and therefore the privileges of of those success, I think that I still have a common touch. I don't think that age is taken away from me. I don't speak any more slowly. I don't need people to complete my sentences. For me, I do think I have three things that are absolute necessary ingredients for any personality who expects to command a significant audience and those three things in this order, our intelligence, a sense of humor, and the most important one, empathy. I still think that, despite every nice thing that has happened to yours truly, I still think I can walk a mile in anyone's shoes. I think I'm a pretty good listener. And most important, and this once again, introduces my my father to this conversation. My father is the most honest person that I've ever met. I'd love to be half as honest as my dad. It just incredible, incredible capacity for honesty, for integrity for for strong values. And I still think I'm a pretty, pretty honest guy. There was a great country song a number of years ago, more than 40 years ago, I guess, that in my brain was playing all the time, it's still under the turntable of my mind. It's by a country artists called John Conley called the common man. I'm a common van common man, and I drive a common van. And my dog doesn't have a pedigree. Well, I don't drive a van and my dog does have a degree, but I still think I'm in touch with a common man, I love that tune. I love the spirit of it. And that's who I am. And I think that whether it's a broadcast or podcast that still connects with with common people. Matt Cundill 47:33 Good and you know, one of the things that you and I have talked about is the ability to go live, we're doing something live right now. You happen to be very good at it. Over the last number of years my company has been working with on demand audio so I've learned to kind of turn audio into you know, think a little bit more Netflix when it comes to this stuff, but you're not afraid just to turn it on and turn on your Twitter and go live now just go. Charles Adler 47:56 The thing is, and I'm not suggesting you're trying to conceal anything, because you know, we all have different needs for control of you know, for perfection, and I don't mind being bruised up the odd time having a little bit of the pie on my face having a little crow to eat, but I do love live I love the energy of live I love knowing that right now we are in the moment with people there's a there's an energy to that, that I really relish. It's the sandbox that I play in. Matt Cundill 48:26 Good, well we're gonna get you some pathways out there. I mean, YouTube, Twitter, which I know you're you're active on every single day and if you're not following Charles do so right now. It's at Charles Adler, super, super easy to do that. And Twitter is changing as well. Twitter is now becoming a little bit more live. I think Elon Musk is you know, opened it up to Donald Trump a bit who's and who's the other guy? Oh, Tucker Carlson. Tucker Carlson has now taken his act to Twitter. And so you know, it's becoming a little bit more of more video heavy and there's certainly a little bit more content out there to be consumed. It's more than tweets. Charles Adler 49:02 Yeah, I prefer- by the way, I- Twitter's been, Twitter has been very good to me for the most part. And it's gotten me a lot of play a lot of exposure with really good people around the world. If anyone is looking for me to become a Twitter basher not happening. I'm not I'm not here to stroke Elon Musk or or any of the people that you've talked about. That's not the issue at all. To me, the issue is, does the platform allow me to access as many good people as possible on this good planet? Yes, it does. And as long as it does, I'm with Twitter. Matt Cundill 49:35 I found it really interesting that a lot of people decided to go and leave Twitter for whatever reason, and then they realized that their audiences don't live in other places necessarily. And from the I think it was Edison Research that you know, do their homework on Twitter, and even tech survey from from Jacobs media, but the numbers didn't drop for Twitter. Twitter usage is the same as it ever was. And the CBC left And then they came back. I thought that was humorous. Is the CDC back on Twitter? Yeah. All right. Well, welcome back. We're leaving. Okay, we're back. Charles, thanks so much for doing this and joining me on the podcast. Charles Adler 50:14 Thank you and, and you never have to apologize. I gotta, I gotta say something, folks. One of the reasons I'm so happy to be associated with Matt Cundill is because he is so meticulous when it comes to audio and video and you have no idea how difficult this is for him today. Because on this particular podcast, he does not have the exact lighting that he wants. He's convinced it makes a difference in terms of getting out his message. It doesn't. You're beautiful. I love you. I love being associated with you. Matt Cundill 50:44 Thanks, Charles. Tara Sands (Voiceover) 50:45 The Sound Off Podcast is written and hosted by Matt Cundill. Produced by Evan Surminski. Edited by Chloe Emond-Lane. Social media by Aidan Glassey. Another great creation from the Sound Off Media Company. There's always more at soundoffpodcast.com

A few episodes ago, I interviewed Jeff Smulyan about his new book. As I read the book "Never Ride a Rollercoaster Upside Down", I wanted to hear more about the construction of some of the great radio stations like KPWR (Power 106) Los Angeles, and Hot 97 in New York. Rick Cummings was apart of those and number of other radio success stories. In this episode, Rick shares some great radio stories like what it was like to build Power 106 using a coalition of records from both pop, dance and Latino influences. You might think that the stories gets embellished along the way but no; there was true consternation amongst music and radio on how to handle a station like Power 106. (Check out the episode page for proof) You will also hear about Rick's favourite mistakes, (his three favourite to be exact) and how Emmis accidentally purchased a top ranked radio station in WLOL. Rick also shared his experiences working with great talent from David Letterman to Big Boy. You'll hear Rick a few times say that they didn't care what people thought about the ads on television or to what chart they would report to... if any. It was enough to make the news locally in LA. TRANSCRIPTION Click here to download a copy Tara Sands (Voiceover) 0:02 The sound off podcast. The show about podcast and broadcast starts now. Matt Cundill 0:13 This week I spent some time with Rick Cummings, who is the president of Emmis Communications. Rick has worked for some great radio brands, many of which were mentioned a few episodes back when I interviewed Jeff Smulyan. You know, as I was interviewing Jeff, I thought I can have an episode for each one of these radio brands. Now, I'm not going to do that. But today we're going to talk about stations like KSHE 95 in St. Louis, WLOL in Minneapolis, Power 106 in LA, and Hot 97 in New York. Just a reminder: to get the full effect for this show, check out the Jeff Smulyan episode either before or after you listen to this one. Now, Rick Cummings joins me from his home in Los Angeles. How would I get to Cloverdale, Indiana? Rick Cummings 0:54 You would fly to Indianapolis, rent a car and head west on Interstate 70 for about 30 miles. And when you get to the junction with US 31 south, you hang a left and five minutes later you're in Cloverdale. But if you blink you'll miss it. Matt Cundill 1:16 What was life like in Cloverdale? Rick Cummings 1:18 Life was great. My grew up there Cloverdale at that time was population 800. I think I think it's now Around 2000 people, very rural area. In a less than flattering article decades later, the Indianapolis Star compared it to Appalachia. But I don't remember it that way. I remember people were either farmers or they hopped in their station wagon and commuted to Indianapolis to work in factories. Matt Cundill 1:49 What was there to listen to on the radio? Rick Cummings 1:52 There was a local station where I got my start, a Greencastle, Indiana station 10 miles north, an FM station, WXTA, that did lots of high school basketball games, etc. It's where I got a chance to cut my teeth doing play by play. But generally speaking, kids like me who were into the radio listened to WLS in Chicago, we listened to WIFE AM in Indianapolis, which was a great top 40 radio station. They were the hosts for The Beatles 1964 concert at the Indiana State Fairgrounds. And they had something like a 30 share of listeners. And those were stations that for me were iconic at the time. Matt Cundill 2:37 What attracted you to radio in the first place? Rick Cummings 2:39 That's a good question. I would love to tell you that. It was my obsession with play by play and my obsession with the imagination that is created by radio and that was part of it. But the true story is that my dad ran a station in Cloverdale, not a radio station, a gasoline station. And one day he was approached by an account executive for the station in Greencastle who wanted to sell him commercials probably for something like two or $3 a pop for the high school basketball tournament. My dad being always watching out for me said sure all by a schedule. But I want you to talk to my son. He's interested in sports broadcasting. And that led to an opportunity for me to do play by play on some of the local high school games. And I have my father to thank for that. Matt Cundill 3:34 You went to Butler? It seems obvious given where you live, but why Butler? Rick Cummings 3:39 I did. Well, I looked at two or three schools my senior year in high school. I took one look at Indiana University. I think the student population was like 25,000 or something. And it was just overwhelming for a kid from a rural town of 800 people. I took one look at the commons and said this is not for me. I can't do this. And I wound up visiting Butler and they had a great Radio Television department. I had dreams of being the next Howard Cosell at the time. And it was clear that as a student, you got a lot of hands on work at the radio station. And so I said this is the place for me. It's smaller. It's not as big as an IU or Purdue. And I think I'll be able to do what I want to do. And that turned out to be the case from the time of my freshman year. I was on the radio there and learned a lot. Matt Cundill 4:34 Did you get to call any games? Rick Cummings 4:36 Oh, yeah. Yeah, called college basketball and college football games for Butler for three years. And I think I had a great time doing it. But I think I about my senior year, I realized that there were probably 100 great play by play jobs in all of America. And the chances of me getting one weren't all that great. So I started to broaden my horizons and I went to work for a Susquehanna music station my senior year at college. And that was my first taste of commercial radio. Matt Cundill 5:11 What was the format? And what did you do? Rick Cummings 5:14 The format was, I guess you would call it beautiful music. I'm trying to remember the slogan. Oh, yeah, music for the good life, WFMS. And I did the overnight stint during my senior year at Butler and then I worked there for about another year before moving on to other things. Matt Cundill 5:35 Those call letters seem very familiar, WFMS. Rick Cummings 5:39 They are. About a year or two- Part of the reason I left was I kept saying to management, what we're doing here is not going to be effective. It's not an effective format. There's already someone in the format that is dominant, and we need to do something else. They didn't agree with me at the time. And so I left at their choosing. And about a year after I left, they flipped to country. And FMS is and has been one of the premier country radio stations in all of America for the last 35, 40 years, something like that. Matt Cundill 6:13 Absolutely. Those are call letters that resonate. And what did you do after that, after they voluntarily exited you? Rick Cummings 6:20 Yeah, after they exited me. I was on the beach for a couple of months. And a friend of mine who I had worked with at FMS called and said, Hey, there's this new news talk station in town. It's a daytime am radio station run by Jeff Smolyan. And Jeff has lots of job openings, including a production director. You have those skills you might want to apply. And I went down and applied on the southeast side of town and got the job. And that station W N TS was an all news talk sports radio station. And you got to wear a lot of hats at that radio station. So I not only was the production director, I was the Philippine sports host. I appeared on the afternoon guys show on a regular basis. That guy was David Letterman, about six months after I got there that made me program director. So I got a lot of experience. I got editorial experience, I got management experience, and I got to hang out with a pretty talented comedian who left about a year later for Hollywood and the rest is history. Matt Cundill 7:30 There's an automatic de facto default question, I have to ask everybody from Indiana. And that's what makes radio in Indiana so different than the rest of the country? Why is it been such a breeding ground for creativity? For talent? And for listening? It seems to Scott the hattrick. Rick Cummings 7:48 Yeah, you know, I don't really know the answer. You know, Johnny Carson had Midwestern roots, Letterman had Midwestern roots. I don't know what it is about Indiana, maybe, at least as far as NTFS is concerned, the ownership was willing to take lots of chances. Here's a guy in Letterman, who was probably 25 years old, and he's doing a talk show on a station whose natural demographic is 60. And he did some pretty wild, creative and pretty funny stuff. And I think part of the reason at least in our case, that we were doing crazy stuff like that is that we had to do things like that to get attention, because we were up against the Juggernaut WIVC. So that was part of it. And I think also, frankly, part of it was because we were all young guys who didn't know any better. We were out there doing crazy stuff, because no one had bothered to tell us that it wouldn't work. And in a lot of cases, that didn't work, but we learned a lot of great things along the way. Matt Cundill 8:52 What did you learn from managing a young David Letterman? Rick Cummings 8:55 I think what I learned with David was get out of his way. There was no coaching somebody like David, he didn't need a coach. He needed support. And so that's what I tried to give him and frankly, didn't need a lot of that he would drag me into his show every day for a segment called I remember Cloverdale a collection of recollections with your little buddy. And we would talk about my days living in Cloverdale in my high school years and that sort of thing. But David needed no direction, no help from anybody. The tough thing about David was he was bound for much bigger things. You could tell that from the minute he walked into a radio station that he was not going to be there long. He had bigger hills to climb. And he did. Matt Cundill 9:46 Tell me about what went on at WENS because the TV commercials it was almost like you just said there was nobody there to say no when it came to marketing ideas. Rick Cummings 9:56 Yeah, that's right. The early TV commercials worked sold around the theme we let our Music Do the Talking. And they were animated commercials where we basically did caricatures if you will impersonations of some of the well known better known talent in town at wy BC Gary Todd at W N AP the rock station Chris Connor at W F BQ. The harder rock station atom smasher, we basically went on and made fun of all those guys. And so the commercials would be Chris Connor saying I partied so hard last night. And Gary Todd named dropping tomorrow I'm playing golf with the governor and that sort of thing. And we did these basic impersonations of these personalities in town. And then the tagline was, aren't you tired of all of this? Wouldn't you like to just hear some music, we let our Music Do the Talking. And it was an immediate hit. Jeff tells his story in his book that he was standing in line as people did back then to see a movie. And the people in front of him. This was like, like maybe a month into the radio stations launch. And the people in front of him were talking about how great the commercial was that they saw for W E and S and how funny it was that we were making fun of all of these personalities in town and how much they talk. And that was a pretty good indicator that we were on the right path. Matt Cundill 11:22 What else went into some of the marketing and branding of a radio station? Yeah, I Rick Cummings 11:28 think that's a fair statement. And we did have a consultant a guy named Bob Hanbury, who was famous ABC Radio programmer back in the day and we had hired him. And the notion we had when WNS was launched was that there had to be a position somewhere between wy BC which was the big am juggernaut that we bought many years later, that was kind of a middle of the road radio station. And W N AP was was sort of the Rock Top 40. And there was nothing in between. And we were just hearing about these stations called Light FM. I believe in New York, I think there was one in Philadelphia, if I'm not mistaken, and maybe one in Los Angeles, these easy rock stations that were positioned to be more mainstream and more contemporary than the MLR am radio stations, but softer than the top 40 stations. And we said, well, let's do that. That makes sense. And we brought in Bob Hanbury, who was our consultant and Jeff and I literally sat at his kitchen table with Joel Wit burns, top 40 Pop book, and we picked out the titles and there was no research involved there. It was like, Oh, this Doobie Brothers song, listen to the music that works. That fits. Oh, this is easy top record now? Probably not. And that's how we pick the record library. And that's what we put on here. Matt Cundill 12:55 And that's a story. I think that resonates with a few of the brands that I want to talk about here. Because there were so many great brands tied to Ms. When did you get to La Rick Cummings 13:06 1984. Jeff bought the La radio station at the time, I think he paid $12 million for it. And people said this poor Midwestern rube he's stupid. He's paid way too much for this. It'll never be a success. But what Jeff had figured out in a very short period of time from the time he started ens in 1981, was that the city of Los Angeles? Yes, it had at some radio stations. But there were really 20 Full FM signals in the market. Everybody else was you know, either an am station on its way down, or an under signaled FM on the periphery of the metro. And so there were really 20 competitors. And Jeff said, you know, in a market this big with this much revenue, even if we're 20th, it makes sense for us to be there. And so we went in and we had a and this is typical amendments. We initially were doing what I would call hot AC magic 106. We had Robert W. Morgan and mornings, and we were kind of a soft top 40. We weren't an AC station, that traditional light FM, and we weren't a top 40 we're sort of in between, and it failed miserably. It did not work at all, we certainly wound up in 20th place. And it's interesting because 10 Years Later hot AC was a thing, but we were way ahead of the curve in 1984. With that, and so it failed. And we went through a couple of years of spending a lot of money on marketing and doing this hot AC with Robert W. Morgan and some other personalities and not succeeding at all. And we got to the end of 1985 and we said okay, we just spent another giant amount of money. I believe it was an incredible price catalog type a mailing contest and we said if this stuff doesn't help us in the fall ratings, we're going to do something else come January. And we had been talking about this notion that there might be some kind of a coalition contemporary format that appeal to not only Hispanics assimilated Hispanics, which were growing rapidly as a population in Los Angeles, but also to African American people who were underserved, and some of the Asian audience. And so we started talking quietly about that throughout the fall of 1985. And sure enough, the ratings came out, I think it was January 3, or fourth whenever it was, and we still sucked. And by then we had talked to a consultant named Don Kelly and brought him aboard and we said, we're going to do this coalition format. And we're going to launch it if the ratings are bad. And they were, we put the format on the air on January 11 1986. And by July, it was number one in the market. Matt Cundill 16:05 Okay, so I just did some fast math. And that's eight days. So did you have the format sitting in a drawer ready to go? Rick Cummings 16:13 Pretty much, literally, we laugh about it now. But it was literally a format in a box, we had the music assembled. And on the carts that people played back then we had everything sort of literally put together in a box, and the ratings came out and they were terrible. And we spent two or three days out there, it was obvious to the staff that something was up that we were going to change. And on that Friday night, January 11. During drive time, we switched the format, and we put on power 106. Matt Cundill 16:48 How did you keep it a secret in the building? Well, I don't know Rick Cummings 16:52 that we did, I think, yeah, it was obvious to people in the building that something was up because all of the quote unquote, suits were in town. We all wore suits back then. And it was obvious that something was up because we were all there. And I remember Robert W Morgan making a joke on the radio that the CEO Smolyan was flying into town. And he was probably stopping in Detroit to pick up the Curtis blow records. So there was some buzzing around that we were doing something. But they didn't know precisely what until we put it on the air. And I still remember bringing the Air Staff into the lobby at five o'clock on that Friday night, and telling them to the best of my ability, because I didn't exactly know. But here's what we're doing, guys, here's the playlist. Here's the music log, let's go get it. And we went after it and it worked. Matt Cundill 17:47 What was your role at the station at the time? Rick Cummings 17:50 Well, I was the program director for the first 12 weeks something like that. I was out there still living in Indianapolis. But I was out staying at the Mondrian hotel was just not a bad place to stay. And programming the radio station through its transition has changed to power 106. And then looking for a real program director, somebody who could really take it to the next level. And I had Jeff Wyatt recommended to me he was at power in Philadelphia. And I remember speaking with him at length one night for a couple of hours. And we flew him out and hired him. And he started I want to say maybe March or April of that year. And like I say within a few months, the station shot to number one, it was really a remarkable thing. When it was magic 106 All my friends in the industry used to say, well, your problem is your signal, your tower is on Flint peak, which is not ideal, and your signals not great, and a lot of areas and that's why you can't be successful. And so we put on this new format, and the legal ID at the top of the hour was 72,000 watts of music power k p WR power 106. And those same friends, six months later, we're saying Well, no wonder you are successful. You got one of the biggest signals in Los Angeles. Same same signal. Had nothing to do with the signal. But I do remember literally the first weekend that we put the station on the year, walking down Sunset Boulevard and hearing it coming out of cars. And I never heard that was the prior format anywhere. Never heard it. You had a really hunt to find us before we made that change. And after we made the change it was like station was everywhere. Matt Cundill 19:41 I want to harken back to something you said earlier about you can take the records and you can put the Doobie Brothers here and you can put this that there and everywhere. And you mentioned finding a coalition of audiences. So I guess he had to do the same thing again, because the top 40 tracks at the time were all very strong 1984 incredibly strong, as good in AD Five, still very strong, and at six, even with a little more rhythmic bass, and then you could populate the rest, you know, out of really what you needed to do to shape the format. So I could see being scared going in. But yeah, I can also see how this worked. Rick Cummings 20:14 Yeah. And we saw really, really quickly that we were on to something. And you know, I remember the trades, or the radio and records and billboard and set her reaching out and saying, We want to call you, we want to label you an urban station. And we said, No, that's not what we are. We're not a black radio station. Well, we can't call you top 40. And we said, we understand. If we don't fit your box, we don't fit your box. And they say, Oh, if you want to agree to urban, what are we going to call you? And we said, Don't call us anything. We don't care. And if you look at our playlists early on, kiss was pursuing kalo s. And so it was very Van Halen heavy. In between the Madonna records that were playing a lot of rock titles. All we did was play the rhythmic titles off kiss, and then we supplemented with some urban titles Sherelle, that sort of thing. Alexander O'Neal, Luther Vandross at the time. And then we were playing some crazy stuff. We were playing Don Quixote by magazine 60, because it sounded great. We knew it was what big in the clubs with Latinos, and no one else would touch that record. So every chance we got to play a record that we thought no one else would touch, we played the hell out of it. We played it every hour, we had a new rotation that literally played every single hour, 24 hours a day, because we said this was going to make us stand out, it's going to make us different Voiceover 21:44 72,000 watts of music music KPWR in Los Angeles. Rick Cummings 21:53 And those same friends, six months later, we're saying, Well, no wonder you are successful. You got one of the biggest signals in Los Angeles. Well, the same signal had nothing to do with the signal. But I do remember, literally the first weekend that we put the station on the year, walking down Sunset Boulevard and hearing it coming out of cars. And I never heard that was the prior format anywhere. Never heard it. You had a really hunt to find us before we made that change. And after we made the change, it was like station was everywhere. Tara Sands (Voiceover) 24:34 transcription of the sound off podcast is powered by the you may also like podcast, the show about people, places and things. Follow the show on your favorite podcast app, or at You may also like dotnet this sound off podcast supports podcasting 2.0 So feel free to send us a boost. If you're listening on a newer podcast app. If you don't have a newer podcast app, you Get one at new podcast apps.com. Matt Cundill 25:03 So I'm sure a lot of people were thinking, Oh, the Indiana guys got lucky in Los Angeles. But there was similar success stories in New York, and I'm speaking specifically of hot 97. And how did that station come together? Rick Cummings 25:17 Yeah. And you know, I wouldn't disagree with anyone who said the end, you guys got lucky we did. We also were unlucky at times, as witnessed by our attempt to do hot AC and magic 106. But had we not made that mistake, it wouldn't have led to the big win that we had with power 106. And with hot 97 power had gone through a period after about three or four years where it slumped in the ratings, because it was really heavy with freestyle records by the cover girls and expos A. And suddenly, we found ourselves in 10th place, and we started doing some research. And I still remember sitting in focus groups somewhere in the Hollywood area. And all these young Latinas talking about hip hop, and one of our people, Sybil, what's hip hop, never heard of hip hop before. And I thought, okay, we're in some serious trouble here. If our own people don't know what hip hop is. And sure enough, we started looking into the charts and looking into what was happening in the clubs. And we frankly, just missed it, we were having so much success, we stopped innovating. And the minute we stopped innovating, it caught us. And so we had to fix that. And we did fix it. And the key component was playing all those rap records that nobody else would touch. And the urban stations would only play them at night because of pressure from the black community and church groups and what have you. And so there we were, once again, playing slam bionics at seven o'clock in the morning, pretty much by ourselves. And that worked. And when we started seeing it work, and the ratings were revived in Los Angeles, we turned to hot 97. And we said we need to do the same thing here. And hot took it even a step further. We were the first in LA to do it. But hot really went to town with Biggie and Tupac and all of those giant artists, Wu Tang Clan, Wu Tang Clan, but aren't 97 on the map. And the more we fed that machine, the bigger it got. So that's kind of how that came about. Matt Cundill 27:31 And both radio stations have incredible relationships with artists. It feels my mind but somebody shot a video at power. 106. And you know, you'd have artists stopping by hot 97 I mean, continuously, forever since the dawn of time. Rick Cummings 27:48 Yeah, the late Steve Smith told me a story a couple of years ago that I had forgotten about Steve was programming hot back then. And he said, Don't you remember we had a code Tracee, Florida. He was the music director. And he said Tracy and I had a code to avoid Jay Z because Jay Z was just getting started. And he would show up unannounced at the studios to beg for us to play his latest record. And we couldn't get anything done. He was there all the time. And so we had a little code where JC would show up downstairs and the guards would let Tracy know that Jay Z was way up. And Tracy would call Steve and they'd get behind closed doors to have a quote unquote meeting so they wouldn't have to hear Jay Z's latest pitch on his latest record. But that's how coveted AirPlay was back then on hot 97 and power 106 artists would do anything. I mean, they would play they play your shows for free. Those days are over. Matt Cundill 28:49 Did they play your show for free when you did the big summer concert promotion at hot 97 Rick Cummings 28:54 They don't any more than a million dollar ticket these days. But yeah, back then they played those shows for free. And a lot of those special appearances special surprise appearances. Literally word that, you know, one year Michael Jackson showed up on stage there were the famous onstage beefs, Nas was involved in one of those. But yeah, we've got a video someplace circulating if I can find it. I'll send it to you. But it's Kanye West talking about riding the metro bus and dreaming about being on the Summer Jam stage. And yeah, back in the day, these artists they realized that we made or broke careers and they were willing to perform free of charge for those shows. Matt Cundill 29:40 Tell me about the talent that you would put on the air and I'll think specifically a big boy at kp WR who just the longevity I think he went right through to 2015 it was still in the air before transitioning out. But what was the approach to bringing in talent and then having the talent stay around so long? Rick Cummings 30:00 Well, early on before even Jeff Wyatt took over and started programming the station, it was really obvious to me that the Air Staff we had, which was a holdover from the magic 106. Time just didn't fit. They just didn't. They were really good disc jockeys, but they just did not fit the music or the culture at all. And as we tried to find people who did fit the culture, we found out that they weren't really radio people, you know, most of the radio disc jockeys were just not of that culture and did not speak the language naturally. And so we started to say, Well, maybe it's not important that we have polished disc jockeys, maybe it's more important that we have people who are of the culture, people who have lived the culture, who have a natural affinity for hip hop, and we can teach him where the microswitch is, we can teach them to say the call letters. I still remember when I sat down with big boy, I said, here are my instructions. Don't say fuck, can't do that. And say the call letters at the top of the hour. Otherwise, have fun. We gave them very few rules, because we felt like the more we gave them disc jockey rules, the more they would sound like disc jockeys. And we didn't want that we wanted people who sounded like they belong to the culture, and you can teach radio tricks you cannot teach personality, in my opinion, either got her, you know, Matt Cundill 31:35 1996 was actually kind of the era that big boy went on the air. But this is also the time when that hot AC thing begins to really resonate. Did you manage to get that format on any market? And did it work for you? Rick Cummings 31:49 No, we never did. We never did. But I thought blow up and a lot of places. It's funny because we bought the nationwide station in Houston, and we put on a station called energy 96.5, which was a terrible idea. And it was basically a version of power 106 Never did well. And then guys, the podium came in, maybe nationwide bought it from us, I don't remember now. But guys volume came in and put on what was hot AC called it MCs. And it was number one on the market and matter of months. I mean, it was huge. And that's what we should have done in Houston. But, you know, I've seen this man over the years, a lot of the mistakes we made led us to making really great decisions later. And I'm fortunate to have worked for a company for 42 years where if you make a terrible mistake, and I made many of them, you don't get shot for it. And so if you learn something from a bad mistake, you know, you can make a good decision later on. And I think a lot of our success came from a company saying, Well, you know, that was a bad idea turns out, but that's okay. Let's do something else. And usually when we got a second chance at something, we got it right, generally speaking. And so I think that was the great thing about working for Ms. But I will also say that Houston was a great example energy 96.5 was a great example of what I would call hubris. We had so much success in Los Angeles, and so much success in New York that I honestly think it affected the way we read the research and the Houston market. And we looked at it so well does Scott work here. Look at all these Hispanics in Houston. It'll work here. It worked in New York, it worked in LA, and it failed miserably. Matt Cundill 33:47 What about the middle of the country? Think of a station like Kashi 95. That was all rock. It's been there as long as I can remember, my only relationship to it is seeing it on the boards because clearly you bought some advertising for the St. Louis Blues. What keeps that thing so durable? Because a lot of companies find a way to bail on rocket the first excuse. Rick Cummings 34:07 I think well, first of all, St. Louis is a rock town. When we first bought KSHE and that was part of the purchase from Century broadcasting. We bought what turned out to be Power 106 Magic 106. Back then, in 1984. We bought KSHE in St. Louis. And I remember going to town and being told by the staff there that this is a rock town. And I had no reason to disbelieve that I'm from the Midwest too. And that made sense to me. But I would listen and think Yeah, but I don't know any of these Rock Records they're playing. They're like the ninth track on the album. And so we came in and we just said, Let's flash this list. I believe the library had something like 1500 tracks and we cut it in our minds back then to the bone to something like 752 racks now that would be outrageously heavy, it'd be more like a 300 song library on probably is. Hubbard owns a noun. I'm guessing that's close to the right number. But taking off half those titles back in 1984, meant that people actually heard the hit Van Halen record and the hit Rolling Stones record. And what we realized very quickly is that there was this tremendous affinity for the KSHE brand. It's the oldest rock station in America, still running, and just close to 60 years old, and people loved it, or wanted to love it. It was famous for the KC kite fly. It was famous for various other concert events. It was famous for the mascots we'd meet who had a joint in his mouth and the ring in his nose. It was famous for a lot of stuff. They just weren't playing hits while we put hits on and the station was, I remember, the station had something like a 14 plus share 12 Plus in 1984, because the internal slogan at the station was a one five in 85. We wanted to get to a 15 Share. We didn't quite get there. I think we finished it like a 14 eight or 14 Nine. But that's how big that station was how beloved it was in the community. And all we did was clean it up and do a little advertising and it exploded. Matt Cundill 36:30 So many rock stations celebrated their 50th at KQRS in Minneapolis showman Montreal did a few years ago. And here you're talking about a station that hit 60 years. Tell me also in the Midwest, up in Minneapolis, WLOL Rick Cummings 36:44 Yeah. Yeah, the story about WLOL was that was the second station that Emma's on Jeff bought it, I think in 82, or 83 might have been 83. He had an agreement, in principle, a signed agreement to purchase the station. The station was not doing great. It was billed as an AC station. And I forgotten the gentleman's name that Jeff bought it from. But quietly, the ownership was out of town, I think in Michigan someplace. And quietly the management there had switched lol from an AC radio station to a top 40. And they did it just as MTV was taking off. So you had all of the prints and Michael Jackson and Madonna. It couldn't have been a greater time and top 40 than those early years in the 80s. And station just took off like a rocket. Well, when Jeff made the agreement to purchase it, it was something like a three share AC station not doing well at all. Before the deal closes, the ratings come out and lol was number one in the market. And the owner tried to renege on the deal, he wanted to cancel on the deal. And Jeff said, Sorry, we've got a signed deal. We're gonna go through with it at the purchase price we agreed to. And so here we were some of that Emma's early magic, we bought a station that was not doing well. And by the time it closed, it was number one on the market. Matt Cundill 38:16 Well, you're so right and say hi to Sean Ross, who always talks about 1984 being that pinnacle year when there were so many great songs on the chart. And a lot of them today just don't get played even though they were fantastic songs. It was really just timing and you mentioned it you know, Madonna Prince Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie on and on Ron. Rick Cummings 38:36 It was an unbelievable two or three year period there. And I think MTV had something to do with it, because he also had all of those one hit wonders, the you know, the minute work and flock of seagulls and all of those kinds of bands that had one giant hit and then kind of went on the Holiday Inn circuit a few years later, but between those one hit wonders, and those iconic artists that are some of the bigger artists in the last 50 years, 100 years, it was a pretty big year for top 40 Matt Cundill 39:08 get w lol it's at number one. And I've got to say that there's another top 40 or even two that you've got to do battle with immediately. Rick Cummings 39:18 Yeah, Brian Phillips and I still have running commentary and jokes about it. Brian was, of course he's heads up cumulus content these days, but Brian was the program director at KDWB and I had hired a guy that you may have heard of named Greg Strassel. And Greg was our program director at lol and the battle between those two stations was pretty epic and depending on who might be on this call with us if Brian's on the call Brian will say yeah, but we unseated lol before it was all over we beat them and if Greg were on the call Greg would say that may be but the final book for me. Sold WLOL to Minnesota Public Radio To the final book, we beat KDWB and he's still got a copy of that. Matt Cundill 40:07 I'm sure to run into Greg in the next couple of weeks. So I'll see if he has a copy on his shirt pocket. Rick Cummings 40:15 Yeah, he probably does. Matt Cundill 40:19 You know, so much of the radio station, you know, efforts that go in so much of it came down to marketing. So if it were a pie, we talked about talent, we talked about records, what percentage of marketing is involved here with the success of the stations? Rick Cummings 40:32 Well, I think back in those days, when we all did marketing, I think our marketing was crucial. And I think it was a really key component in the success of hot 97 Power 106. The Fan in New York, I think some of the advertising TV advertising we did for the fan in New York was some of the most creative advertising ever done for radio. Wieden & Kennedy, the famous ad agency do those campaigns. And they were unbelievable. And, you know, we continued to do I think pretty creative marketing and advertising, but probably one of the last ones to stop doing it. Until the radio industry economics reached the point where it became very, very difficult to do those kinds of campaigns. I mean, I don't remember the last time I heard someone talk about a TV campaign for a radio station. It's just kind of unaffordable. But back in the day, that was a really critical element. And I'd say we did pretty well. And it was a significant part of our success. Matt Cundill 41:35 What was your favorite mistake? Rick Cummings 41:38 I used to keep three of those little mini billboards that you have from outdoor campaigns on my desk when we were based out in Encino. And I remember somebody being in the office one day and saying, Why do you have these little miniature boards up it was x 100, San Francisco energy 96.5. And I don't remember the third one, it might have been smooth jazz, Boston, and this one exam, one for power 106, or for Q one a one or K shear hot 97. And I said, I keep these because they keep me humble, they're reminders of some terrible mistakes we made. In Boston, we did a great version of smooth jazz, only to realize after doing further research that a key component of the successful smooth jazz stations was having a 25% black composition. And numerically back then that was impossible. In the city of Boston. I mentioned the energy 96.5 mistake, x 100. And San Francisco was kind of a rock top 40 that we positioned up against cam Hill. And our theory was, hey, let's be different. And a Rock Top 40 is certainly different. And they'll have a lot of suburban appeal. And the truth of the matter is, it was a miserable failure. It was different. But I think what we learned from those three things, is that different is only good when it's good, right? You can be different slug. And those three cases that was the case Matt Cundill 43:15 from the President's chair, how does radio look today? And how does radio sound to your ear? Rick Cummings 43:21 I don't think it sounds as creative as it should. It's funny my thinking on this has changed as we've gotten more and more out of the radio business. We only own a New York FM and am now we've sold the rest of our properties. And as much as I love the business, I think it was a smart business decision. But I am a little bit involved in a consulting capacity in a few places. And I've grown to view things a lot differently in the last few years. In this regard, when PPM came along in 2008 or 2009 I think it was oh, away and then it had a false start. And then it came back. I don't remember now exactly what year. But it's been a good 15 years that PPM has been around and Ms. Like a lot of other companies went through a period of preaching to the air talent Shut up. Be brief, one thought per break. And we took some personality out of these radio stations. Because we saw when the jocks talked last time we placed stop sets in certain positions, we could sort of game the estimates. And in recent years, I've grown to believe that at least now that is the wrong approach. I really think what's left to radio is personality. You know, you can get a great record anyplace and you can get them in a lot of places without 1314 minutes of commercials every hour. And so that the notion of being successful as the station that plays most Drake records the most often is just not viable, I think what you've got to have is the station that has the most entertaining morning show, and night show and afternoon show that happens to play our Drake record in between some really good conversation and personality. That's where this thing has to go. If it's going to survive, in my opinion, I just don't think being a music delivery vehicle is a sustainable long term solution. And so in a few places where we're helping out some radio owners, we're increasingly telling them, Look, let's make big bets on personalities, you know, where's the next Baker Boys, where's the next big boy? Where's the next Woody, who's out there? Probably doing a podcast, who we can bring to radio, who is as a sparkling personality really has something to say. And once again, we'll teach him to say the call letters and we'll sell them not to use F bombs. But we need to get some people on the radio, the top 50 markets that do, frankly, what a lot of small market radio still does really well. And that's, you know, embrace their local community, support their advertisers, and show some personality. And I think if there is salvation, that's the salvation of the radio business. It's still a good business. But it's not the business he used to be. And anybody who doesn't acknowledge that it's just not looking at facts. Matt Cundill 46:33 Thanks so much for taking the time to be on the podcast and share your thoughts. Rick Cummings 46:37 My pleasure, Matt. This was fun. Tara Sands (Voiceover) 46:38 The sound off podcast is written and hosted by Matt Cundill. Produced by Evan Surminski. Edited by Chloe Emond-Lane. Social media by Aidan Glassey. Another great creation from the Sound Off Media Company. There's always more at soundoffpodcast.com.