I saw NLogic's President and COO David Phillips at a panel at Canadian Music Week not too long ago, and had some questions I needed to ask him. That, paired with the fact that he's leaving NLogic in the next few weeks, meant I just had to get him back for another chat. NLogic has been a supporter of our podcast since 2017. In that time, we've had David on the show to discuss the radio industry's relationship with audience data. In the current day and age, we have more audience data than ever before, and often we can't see what is relevant in the moment. In this episode, we speak to David about how he manages to take in all that data, and what the evaluation process looks like. We also talk about what radio stations can do to enhance their monetization opportunities, since it's become a bit of a trend that radio companies don't want to innovate. Listener be warned: this chat gets very technical, so hopefully you're a radio nerd like us. The other aspect we explore is television- what's the business model of the future? Is it subscription/streaming services? Is it completely free? And most importantly for us, how does that play into potential business strategies for radio? The two might seem unrelated, but I promise they're more closely intertwined than you might think. If you want to connect with David, or hear more of his thoughts, you can drop him a follow on LinkedIn. Transcript: Tara Sands (Voiceover) 00:00:01 The Sound Off Podcast. The podcast about broadcast with Matt Cundill... Starts now. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:00:10 One of our longstanding supporters is David Phillips from NLogic. NLogic does a great job in Canada helping their TV and radio partners decipher for solutions. With all that audience data, I had a chance to see David speak on a panel at Canadian Music Week about radio being up to the task of showing their value in a digital world. That was rather interesting. I scribbled down one note, and underlined it I wrote, the thing is not the thing, David, and I will tell you what that means shortly. He joins me from Toronto. You know, in the session that you did at Canadian Music Week, I was kind of taken aback by how the other people on stage and there was a lot of media buyers, people who handle ads across many platforms, but I kind of felt they treated radio as archaic from two fronts. One was on Attribution, but also in the amount of time that it takes to get advertising and copy together. And I felt that was unfair. Can you justify my feelings? David Phillips (Guest) 00:01:08 Why did you think it was unfair? Matt Cundill (Host) 00:01:10 I thought it was unfair because I have always thought that radio could turn around, copy faster, and get advertising to air faster. But I guess it turns out that that's not the case any longer. David Phillips (Guest) 00:01:21 I think there's a bunch of things going on, and also there's a difference between local sales and national. And I apologise. I have a very needy cat, but he literally goes in and puts his paw in water and splashes water all over my desk. So I have to cover up the thing. Okay, let's try that. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:01:37 And by the way, what is the name of the cat? David Phillips (Guest) 00:01:39 Jackpot. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:01:40 Okay, well, if Jackpot meows, we will give an audio credit. David Phillips (Guest) 00:01:44 Okay. Right. So I think there's different ways of looking at how easy it is to buy something and put it on air. And I think that there are obviously aspects of radio that are easier. I mean, compared to, for example, TV, the actual creative itself is easier and cheaper. Getting that trafficked and out is easier and cheaper. I think the trouble is that the comparison isn't newspapers and TV anymore, it's digital platform. So if you're looking at how easy is it for someone to plan by report, get creative through on radio versus digital platforms, then I think there's every reason why people say, actually, radio is too difficult. And I think, as I told you, I'm leaving this job in a few weeks. So I'm not unleashed because I'm British. But one of the things that's kind of struck me and maybe frustrated me a bit in the last while, has been how radio could make it a lot easier to buy than it has done already. And I think a lot of that's just well, I don't know. I have theories, but I think a lot of that is an unwillingness to change, which with some exceptions, I think we've seen some good things like Audio Velocity from CBS, Validate from Patterson. Rogers ad manager tool. They just announced that. So there's little pockets of good stuff for sure. But I think in general, it is too difficult to buy for a lot of people compared to what they're now used to. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:02:58 So can you talk a little bit about some of those things like Validate, and I did have the Rogers do it yourself ad buy. I kind of got excited and I've actually tried to do that with iHeart in the States and that's just go and buy some do it yourself advertising. So how do you look at that? David Phillips (Guest) 00:03:13 Yeah, I think there's a bunch of things, but when we say easier, there's a lot of things about what easier means. And I think what we spent some time doing is trying to divide up what does it easier mean? How do you split that up into tasks you actually complete? So I think part of it is operating on a platform. So our hypothesis is that the way that we as people interact with everything these days is via a platform. Actually, you can book funerals on platforms. You can do everything you like on the platform. I don't know quite why funerals came to mind anyway, but almost one of the few things you can't do is buy a radio campaign. So if you're not just an agency buyer, but if an agency buyer or you're a local buyer, it's weird now that you can't go to a platform and buy radio. And so what that means is already radio is a bit out of step. I have to do things that I don't like doing, I don't really know how to do. I have to speak to someone. That feels weird. And I think underneath that there's another few things where when you're on a platform, the platforms are very good at giving you the impression that you're in charge. When you book a flight, you get to pick the date, you get to say yes or no, you get to change it. Which is how if you're buying stuff on the iHeart tool is probably the same, or if you buy it on Facebook or whatever, it's the same. Whereas when you're buying your radio, it's like the old paradigm of, you hand the people the money and then they take care of it. So subtly, what it feels like is that you're not in control of the campaign, that the person who's taking your money is. So that's tricky when the norm is not that anymore. And I think there's other elements too about sort of making it easier, and some of that is related to the data and stuff like that. So how easy is it to sell the purchase you're making to yourself? So if you're a young junior media buyer and you don't maybe listen to the radio, to a radio thing you may be listening to on a stream, or you're listening to Spotify, whatever. Selling the idea of buying radio is already a little bit of a stretch because you don't do it, although that's your job. You should act on behalf of your client, not on behalf of what you do, but not all of them do. And then you have to do it in a weird way by calling up someone, and then you have to sell the idea internally. So where's the dashboard? Where's the ROI and reporting? Where's the perception? That kind of stuff. So when we say making it easier and bringing broadcast user experience up to date, it's not just technology, it's all the things that the technology and the platform can bring to the buyer to make them feel more comfortable. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:05:25 And I think the other part of that, the B side, because you said that there was two things really at play here, and this part is the attribution. And that if you make a purchase in social media or digital or maybe some streaming or perhaps even podcast, that you get some attribution and that you can sort of track a little bit about that ad. But in radio, I think you've actually came to me and said, we've got these tools. David Phillips (Guest) 00:05:48 Yeah, I think it's and again, the way we tend to think about it, or I can think about it, it's not so much what the Attribution does numerically, it's what that data does for your confidence. And it sounds a bit hippy dippy, but it's kind of like actually, the point of data is not really the number. It's the fact that it's giving you a sense that you haven't been ripped off, that you're making the right decision, and you can say those things to your boss if that's the kind of context you're working in. So things like Validate, which we've seen, we think is fantastic, begin to provide that, but it's still fairly isolated and it's still fairly small. And I think there's things that we could have already done across the whole gamut of forecast UX from being on a platform to offering reporting and dashboards that we've just been too slow on. And I think that's a bit frustrating. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:06:31 So tell me about your thoughts about Validate, because I think at one point I had somebody on this podcast talk about it, and I thought, NLogic is a sponsor of this podcast. I wonder how they would feel about that. David Phillips (Guest) 00:06:42 I think it's awesome. Yeah, I mean, I've seen a little bit of it. We're not selling it, obviously, and that's cool, but I think anything that moves radio towards what is now expected of a medium you spend money on is to be fully supported. I think it's great. I think we chat to the guys at Patterson who initially started it. The really good guy is really smart, Roger, and is passionate and dedicated and those radio inside out and the folks who've got working on it are really good too. So I think it's fantastic. And again, it's all frankly, no one entity in this industry can make the improvements by themselves. We need to make there need to be a bunch of different things done by different entities in this industry, including perhaps validate, that generally will move in the aggregate, will move radio towards a better spot in terms of offering local buyers or national buyers what they expect. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:07:28 It almost seems to me that it's more important to be able to track the ad through the medium than it would be just to measure the whole of the medium itself. David Phillips (Guest) 00:07:37 I think it's a bit of both. I mean, one thing- I wrote a blog post ages ago, which I know is on the tip of everyone's tongue, called Drinking Wine on the Roller Coaster. The point there is that what we did with digital, because of what digital was able to offer, by digital, I mean like the pure plays like Facebook and Google is we downweighted too much the context that the ads are in. So they were so focused on what the ad was, they didn't think about the context is. So I think Radio shouldn't fall into that trap. It doesn't really matter what the context is because it's the context that radio offers that actually adds that added value we talk a lot about. I think Radio connect is actually named. What Radio is able to do is create this incredible connections with its listeners, which that gets passed on to the advertisers and the listeners too, like, my boys are avid Kiss listeners in radio, and they will- they're 13 and 11- and they will talk about advertisers they heard on the Roz and Mocha Show because they love Roz and Mocha. So we shouldn't lose context in the grand scheme of things. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:08:35 And by the way, with Jackpot rubbing up against the microphone in that case, Jackpot has now earned an audio credit for this podcast. David Phillips (Guest) 00:08:42 We'll go against the vet bills. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:08:44 There's three of us now on the podcast, David. David Phillips (Guest) 00:08:47 Yes, sorry. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:08:48 So tell me a little bit about podcasting, because it appears appealing, but the only two bits of attribution you get are an IP address and a user agent. And then podcasters are forced to make a sale based on these two numbers. But most successful podcasters go a little bit outside of that and will try to sort of assert the value. And I'll use the example of Mary Anne Ivison with a podcast called let's Take This Outside, which is clearly a show about the outdoors. David Phillips (Guest) 00:09:15 I thought it would be about fighting. I mean, I know you've been in disreputable bars where I'm sure you've uttered the phrase let's take this outside. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:09:21 Of course, there could also be a podcast called Let's Take This Upstairs. And that would be a... Let's Take This Outside. It is about the outdoors, but it's very easy for somebody who sells footwear to make a decision about a purchase on a podcast like that, because who else is going to listen to this but people who are outside? David Phillips (Guest) 00:09:39 Yes, I think podcasting in a way has a couple of things going on in my mind, and you know 100 times more about podcast than I do. So this is an outsider's view in a way, but I think it obviously suffers from two things. One is, whenever anything's digital, there are outsized expectations of what can be offered within digital. So we've been talking a lot, especially to TV folks, but also to radio, about how are they tracking, for example, when a programme airs, yes, it airs on CTV, but it also airs on CTV.ca, or airs on the Corus through Stack on Amazon. And similar to a podcast, if you like what you're getting back on that you would think could be a huge amount of data. And actually it's often pretty restricted. It's kind of like number of streams or stop starts and stuff like that. And it's not what you'd expect. I think sometimes with podcasting you sometimes have that too. You go, okay, it's a stream, so you should be able to get this huge room of data and depending on the supply, you don't often have that. Podcast, I think, has the additional challenge, which is a sort of microcosm of where all the media industry is going, which is each individual one is usually quite small, which is obviously why smart people like yourself and others aggregating podcasts together to create networks. There's a lot of even if I can get the data, the data and size itself didn't lend itself to a lot of reporting, which I think it also goes back to that point of context. But fundamentally, when we're thinking about selling something and the role that numbers play in that, we can go too far in thinking you have to support everything with data, you also have to use your brain to go, let's take it outside. It's obvious to your point, it's obvious you should be advertising there. So the contextual cell still has to be very relevant. And I guess that's another thing. That what I found. Sometimes the broadcast tends to sort of try and copy whatever digital is doing, but actually it needs to go somewhere in between. It needs to go, okay, let's do the things that digital offers that people like, but in our own way, and let's take the strength of our medium specifically into account. So that's often context, it's not just sheer numbers. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:11:34 Well, I think back to the time when you reached out to me and said that this podcast seems to be a match for what we're doing at NLogic, and let's get together and find some ways to get into the ears of radio people. David Phillips (Guest) 00:11:45 Yeah, it's better for us to be somewhere where- I mean Matt, I know of few people that are respected more than you in the industry. You're obviously a behemoth striding through the airwaves, but you have a connection with your listeners about- because you have a specialty and you have an authoritative voice and you bring in authoritative voices, so the sheer numbers of that, although they're good, are less relevant to us. It's a good case study. We can advertise in the general interest and possibly reach more people, but the effectiveness is going to be far lower than supporting folks like you. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:12:17 And which is, I think, speaks to really about what a lot of advertisers want. Maybe they don't want a mass audience, maybe they just want the right audience. David Phillips (Guest) 00:12:24 Yeah. And I think what we need to figure out, what we need to do a better job in the industry, is making those decisions for advertisers easy. And I think sometimes what we've done is make those decisions to invest in us harder than it needs to be. So that goes back to the start of our conversation, which is, what does easy mean? So if I'm a marketer, what would make it easy for me to say, I'm spending money here and part of that is going to be better? And I chat to someone who's a CMO of a bank, and her digital versus linear sort of broadcast split was way out of whack. It was like 80% to 20%. And the reason was she was basically an accountant by trade, as you'd expect, and she found it really easy to justify the spend because she had lots of data. It wasn't a good buy because it was too biassed towards a set of media, but the digital media made itself easy to justify for her. So, you know, I sometimes think the broadcasters the hard things well, and the easy things poorly. The hard thing is creating this content that literally millions of people love. The easy thing is telling advertisers, well, it's a good thing in the way that they want to see it. And sometimes we've not been as good at that as we could have been. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:13:28 I look at the top ten in television in Canada. It looks exactly what I would expect for the top ten television programmes in Canada. David Phillips (Guest) 00:13:38 Yeah. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:13:39 That stuff is being measured many different ways. And I'm thinking, okay, so, you know, it could be consumed through a PBR, it could be streamed, like you said, it could be on a CTV.ca. I'm looking right now at my television, which actually has Canada versus Japan, which I think is being streamed. David Phillips (Guest) 00:13:58 Yeah. Is that TSN or something? Matt Cundill (Host) 00:13:59 Yeah, it's being streamed from somewhere on this television off to the side. Help me out a little bit on the radio. We know how radio is measured, we know how we come up with those numbers for the audience. But tell me a little bit about the television side and also your trip to Britain last year and what they're doing perhaps in Europe. David Phillips (Guest) 00:14:17 Yeah, sure. I think it actually applies to both. It's more evident in TV. So TV is, if you like, the precursor to what I think is going to happen, and it's happening in a different way in radio. So we recently reset our strategy as a company based on this. It's an ugly term, which I need to improve, but this idea of what we're calling a multimodal universe, in other words, if we're trying to say if I'm an advertiser or even if I'm in programming, I want to say, okay, I want to see how many people saw my ad or how many people saw my content. It's a really, really simple question that's increasingly difficult to answer because you have, as each distribution stack emerges, whether that's stacks from Amazon, whether that's Netflix, whether that's whatever, that's a different set of unconnected disconnected data from each other. So I now have some of my audience coming through. I have an audience to the same programme campaign coming through potentially ten places, for example, and those are all disconnected. So how do I connect those together? And it's a massive problem, and it's a problem that, frankly, no one across the world has solved. What's crazy is there isn't a single company in the world that has a currency of cross platform adjustment in TV, which is nuts, considering how big an industry is and how simple a question it seems to be. But it's actually a very difficult question. So we think we're entering into a phase where there's going to be lots of different numbers banding around for radio and for TV, but particularly in TV, just because there's more distribution stack. And so navigating that for a marketer is going to be really hard, and navigating that for a broadcast is going to be really hard. But for companies like NLogic, there's also, we believe, opportunities in that. How do we help people stitch those datasets together in ways that make sense? So that's what we're really focused on right now. But as a consumer, it's increasingly baffling. We do every week in our Friday meetings, we have media recommendations. And the first question when everyone says, okay, I'll watch this thing, is, where was it? And half the time people were like, not sure. I think it was on Crave. Maybe it's a sort of small reflection of the fact that it's getting a bit confusing out there. I do think there's going to be aggregation. Again, I think that we're in a phase where there's just too many there's too much being spent on too much content across too many platforms. And that's going to slow down, but not for a little while. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:16:21 Yes, we definitely have a content, because you can go through a Netflix or you can go through a Crave and get to the end of it after ten minutes and say, I think I'm at the end of this book, and change it to something else. David Phillips (Guest) 00:16:32 And it's also preposterous to the amounts of money being spent and the quality of the stuff. I mean, it's great in a way, but it's not sustainable. And one of the things we did when we set our strategy is I'm very boring in lots of ways. And one of those I love history. And I think if you look back, you see every industry goes through sort of expansion and contraction. So I was trying to go, well, where are we in those cycles? And I think we're in a kind of expansion phase. The amount that's being spent on content, the number of platforms there are, the number of suppliers trying to make sense to those platforms, it's not sustainable. It's a VC money, private equity funded money looking to get scale before there's some kind of consolidation. So I think we're going to see that in the next few years and possibly quicker than before because the economic situation getting a bit tight. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:17:15 In just a second, more with David, including the good data versus bad data discussion and how to read it. And you've heard by now David is leaving NLogic shortly. We're going to talk about what he's accomplished and what's next. And did you know that we're also headed into one of the busiest sports periods, like, ever? So why not talk a little bit about sports viewing? There's more. There's always more. Including a transcription of this episode at Soundoffpodcast.com. Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover) 00:17:45 Transcription for the Sound Off podcast is powered by Poddin. Your podcast is an SEO gold mine. We help you to dig out. Start your free trial now at Poddin.io. Tara Sands (Voiceover) 00:17:45 The Sound Off Podcast. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:18:00 Yeah, this is a fascinating part of the conversation we're going to enter into here because we have- well, it's already kind of started with the Japan Canada friendly on the telly right now, and that's the World Cup is coming in November with television sweeps with peak NFL football, the World Cup appearing at different hours around the clock. This is going to be the biggest sports consumption month in the history of mankind coming up. So I'm looking at it going, what's that going to do to the Netflix and the Craves and the other TV viewing that's out there? David Phillips (Guest) 00:18:34 Yeah, I think it's funny because one of the things, one of the stats I think is most overlooked is total time spent with media. So if you look at ten year trend of total time spent with media per consumer, it goes up every single year. And I think that what that talks to is a misconception we often have. So we often think that a new thing coming in isn't either or to what's existing. And it's almost never that. It's almost always a by band. And I think total time spent shows that because as new things come in like Netflix or Spotify, it doesn't necessarily reduce the linear bit or the bit that was there already by much, it's typically additive. So I think if you're looking at stuff like the World Cup coming up and the NFL, which is the wrong type of football because you use your hands for it, should be called handball. I don't think it necessarily means you're going to see a dip in Netflix and Crave. I think the other- the AVOD/SVOD players, I think it's typically additive. I think the question of sports and broadcasting in general is a massively interesting one, because that was sort of the last bastion of broadcasting is really sports because it has to be live. It has to be- the infrastructure required to get it and the expertise required to get it going. It's massive. But you're seeing Amazon has funded rights and Apple bought MLS rights. So that's a bit scary because you're looking at how much cash, in particular how much cash Apple has. It could buy the NHL and forgot it bought it because it's got so much money. So that's going to be interesting to watch is if the streamers get really serious about sports and live. Netflix is doing a- Dave Chappelle or someone is doing something live on Netflix next year, which is obviously a technical test of can we do sports or other live stuff and that's going to be interesting. Who buys the NHL rights in Canada next and rogers it up. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:20:16 So that's a great question. I'm glad you raised it because we did have a podcast episode going back to about 2017 when the NFL sold the rights in Canada to DAZN and a lot of people just couldn't get a grasp on it. And at the same time, DAZN wasn't really ready with the technology to deliver the NFL. A number of problems. And I'd like to think that this podcast actually forced their hand into- David Phillips (Guest) 00:20:40 Would suspect it's at least a factor. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:20:43 I know for a fact that the CEO of DAZN listened to the episode, and there were questions asked about this podcast when it happened. But I've been thinking a lot about sports and streaming and especially problematic for something like the NHL that feels like the number five sport in North America even now behind MLS. And then if you do go and sell everything to Apple and grab a big cheque, that you really run the risk of becoming irrelevant. David Phillips (Guest) 00:21:09 That was a huge risk. I think it was yesterday Apple announced their MLS pricing. I think it's $15 a month. And you go, you're going to make yourself a niche sport that's funded by Apple. I think there's definitely- in the UK, for example, I know there's legislation where certain events have to be broadcast free to air. So I think it was like the World Cup and the kind of Ashes or whatever in cricket. But I think if you're a sports rights holder, you've got to balance off a couple of things. I saw this interesting analysis. There was a guy called Ian Whittaker, who's really, really worth following on Twitter, on LinkedIn. He's a financial analyst in the UK who sort of writes about streaming, but from a financial analyst point of view, which is a perspective you don't always see. And he was saying that if you look at what Amazon has done to the NFL in the US, NFL loved it because it's a bunch of money. What's interesting is that the median viewership age of the NFL and Amazon is lower than broadcast TV. So that's also- is that good for the NFL? Probably because you're bringing new people in. I've got again, sample of two. But my boys and the NHL have an interesting relationship, and the NBA is becoming a bit more interesting to them because of the demographics and because of the ease of play and that kind of stuff. So all these sports rights holders seem to be in such a dominant position until you realise that they've got to take into account the growth of their sports. If you're Gary Bettman or whatever, your primary responsibility is to look after the future of the sports for your owners. And so if you're just isolating it because you've got a bit more money out of Amazon, that's very short term thinking. So I think it's impossible to predict. But you could certainly see what you're seeing in other countries where Amazon gets a few, the broadcaster gets a few. So the NHL contract, when it comes up in Canada, it's going to be interesting to see. I can't imagine it going fully to a streamer, but you can't imagine the streamer, a streamer getting some. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:22:51 Even today, I actually make the purchase of both. I'll buy the cable television and DAZN for the NFL, so I am effectively paying twice. David Phillips (Guest) 00:22:59 Yeah. And you buy NHL.com. You can buy the NHL app. So you could do it now. You're right. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:23:04 The Gen Z's in this house would like to watch the NFL on cable because they double screen, they watch with their computer and their fantasy scores will update faster than the play on DAZN because they can't stream the play as fast as Yahoo can give them the result of their player. I watched this go and I said, hey guys, I got DAZN and it's like, dad, can you go back to the cable? David Phillips (Guest) 00:23:28 No way. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:23:29 Because we want to see everything in as close to real time as possible. And I just finished watching the Playlist, which is about Spotify, and I watched that on Netflix, but Daniel Eck was really all about the speed. Can we get the song to the device in under a certain amount of time? And speed is really going to determine whether or not streaming does take off. Because if my fantasy score is coming in before- it acts as a spoiler. David Phillips (Guest) 00:23:54 Yeah, right. Essentially, I had dinner with Neil MacElhenny any obviously his head of numerous earlier this week, and at one point in his. Life. He was in charge of CBC Sports and he was talking about a little bit of, like, the infrastructure, like the trucks and the people and the kind of- what you need to get NHL aired and it's insane. Just the infrastructure you need and the amount of work you need. I think sometimes, again, this is both one of those classic either/or versus both/and questions. We tend to think Apple or Amazon just throw money at it and be fine. It's like, it's not that easy always, especially with sports, I think, to recreate all that infrastructure and that expertise and that knowledge. So we'll see. They do have a tonne of cash, that's for sure. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:24:37 I do like the NFL's approach where they'll just take the Thursday night game, give it to Amazon and see what they have. You can create different sort of tiers of exclusivity, right? David Phillips (Guest) 00:24:47 Well, yeah, and even the more buyers you've got, I mean, nothing is going to terrify a broadcaster more than the NFL or the NHL or the Premier League going oh, by the way, Amazon or Apple is interested. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:24:56 Whoever thought the term spoiler would have such relevance today? Because if the live event can be spoiled, such as your favourite football match, it makes it very difficult to exist on the planet. David Phillips (Guest) 00:25:07 But there's a very iconic old TV sketch from the 60s in the UK where a man was spent all day trying to avoid knowing the football score because it was going to air at like, 07:00 on TV. But the match finished at three, so he's desperately going around town not trying to look at electricians windows. The same, but it's in milliseconds as opposed to hours now. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:25:27 Is your wife home? David Phillips (Guest) 00:25:28 No, she's teaching today. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:25:30 Okay, you'll have to answer the question for her, then. Tell me about the thing is not the thing. David Phillips (Guest) 00:25:36 Oh, yeah, I'm glad she's getting credit for that, because that is her phrase. So there's two mantras I run my business life by, and one is ends not means. So focus on the end is not the means. And the better version of that is the thing is not the thing. And the thing is not the thing is, essentially that the driver of behaviour is never the reason that you're given, or rarely the reason you're given. So when people say, well, the best example is my boy's autistic, and one time my grandparents, his grandparents were coming to stay. And I said, Are you excited for Grandma grandpa to come? And he's like, no. Okay, cool. Why? And he said the sofa. Because the sofa, we're like, this makes no sense whatsoever. He's not like he's uneloquent, but we unpacked it a little bit. So the thing he was telling me was, I don't want Grandma and Grandpa to come because of the sofa. When we unpacked it, what happened was he loves routine. Every morning he'd have breakfast, go downstairs to the sofa, and watch TV. When Grandma and Grandpa came, my wife and I would go on the soap, turn the sofa into a sofa bed at night. So sometimes when he came down for breakfast, after breakfast to watch the TV, he didn't have a sofa. There was a sofa bed there. So in his mind, the thing was- the real thing. When grandma and grandpa come, my routine is disrupted. So when we figured that out, we went, look, if we made sure that the sofa was going back into a sofa by the time you come and watch TV, would you be OK with them coming? He said yes, and they were. So the trick there is to figure out what's really driving behaviour. And so this leads to a lot of the business strategy that we've adopted around Broadcast UX, which is people don't like platforms because of platforms. They like platforms because it gives them a sense of control, it gives them a sense of comfort. So whenever you're trying to figure out what someone wants personally, professionally, don't take it at face value. Always figure out what the driver of behaviour is. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:27:08 I absolutely love it. So, by the way, that is the title of this episode and I wrote that down when you mentioned it. David Phillips (Guest) 00:27:14 Yeah, I should actually just try and erase history and say that I came up with this great phrase. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:27:18 It also reminds me a little bit about data attribution, and sometimes we get some and then we start to make decisions about all the wrong things. David Phillips (Guest) 00:27:27 Well, data interpretation is a whole other area. And I think when we're looking at- it's funny now that I'm about again about to leave this job for another one, sometimes I spent a bit of time looking at all presentations I've done, and I gave this presentation to what was Shaw Media, which shows you how long it was, about 10-12 years ago, about data. And the fundamental thing is that very few people understand how to interpret data because we ask too much of it, we don't ask enough of it, and that's still true today. We either expect so when we ask too much of it, we expect it to tell us truth and we expect it to tell us everything we need to know. And we don't ask enough of it because we don't ask, well, where does it come from? What's it good at, what's it not good at? And I think you're seeing that all the time now, where people equate data with ROI and those two things are very, very different. A way of expressing it is data, but it's not the only way. And so I think as an industry, if we were to do one thing that would help us, it would be, everyone has to go on a "how to understand data" course, because we're all using it and making decisions based on it. And I would argue less than 1% of us know what to do with it. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:28:27 Well, that course can follow Media Literacy 101. David Phillips (Guest) 00:28:30 Yes. Which is also sadly lacking. And I love agencies to bits, but they were themselves admitting- I was at a PGTV conference in Toronto recently, and there was a sort of agency president's panel and they were like, unprompted, basically said our education on broadcast and how to buy broadcast is, like, woefully lacking. We don't invest enough in our staff in terms of how to buy and sell broadcast. And that's a problem. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:28:53 You mentioned it. You're leaving NLogic. Where are you going? David Phillips (Guest) 00:28:57 I'm joining the circus. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:28:58 Awesome. David Phillips (Guest) 00:28:59 I know. I'm going to be a- no, I can't say, I'm afraid. Hopefully I can say in December, but I can't say I can say it's not Netflix, because I did say that as a joke to some people, but it wasn't funny. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:29:09 Tell me about some of the fun things you built at NLogic that you're most proud of. David Phillips (Guest) 00:29:12 I've been thinking a lot about that, as you can probably imagine. I think that there's obviously things we can point to that are tangible. So I did a list recently, the things we launched that were first in North America, and there's about ten things, which for a relatively small company in Canada is pretty cool. Like the first ever APIs for data, the first ever trading platform for AEO. And this is going to sound horribly cheesy, but actually what I'm most proud of is the team and the culture. So we recently did a survey internally, and one of our objectives, the company internal objectives, is to make energy the best place people have ever worked, which is a kind of lofty goal considering people who work in different places. And the most recent survey, 88% people said it was the best place they've ever worked. Which that's probably the thing I'm most proud of, actually. But talking about the thing is not the thing. I think the work that we're doing, the area we're in, typically doesn't have a lot of significance. Like, it's cool and it's interesting, it's creative and it's important, but it's not, like, significant significant. But the way we treat people, the way we treat our vendors, the way we treat our clients, and the way we treat our team, I think has kind of like, lasting significance. So I think that's the thing I'm most proud of, that we created a team that is just full of excellent people, like the My leadership team, all the way through that. Everyone in that group, they're just really smart, they're really kind, they're really funny. If we have fights, it's usually be over because people want better things for our clients, which is a good fight to have. So I think that's the thing I'm looking back will last longest in my memory. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:30:32 So what was the work from home strategy from March 2020? I think obviously you have, but how did you migrate people back to the office? David Phillips (Guest) 00:30:42 Well, we haven't, but I think what's funny about this podcast is you're asking me to predict things. They're very confidently saying this is what's going to happen. And I remember the week before we all started working from home, a friend of mine said, you mark my words, next week we'll be working from home. I was like, don't be an idiot. Two days later I was like, okay everyone, so yeah, we've been basically working- predominantly working from home ever since that March date. And what we're trying to do is sort of what we're going to purposeful time back in the office. So for example, what we're doing now to go back to the broadcast UX thing is we've given people budgets to basically- and we're working with food banks so that we can understand firsthand what it's really like to buy a campaign on Instagram or on Spotify. We're splitting ourselves into teams and each team has got a budget and they will buy a campaign. We've got the Creative Food Bank and Food Banker Alliance us to do it. So we're going to be doing campaigns together as a group. So we're doing that in person and stuff like that and sort of social events, but typically we've just been remote. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:31:39 Tell me about that Friday meeting. First of all, I generally have like a small amount of disdain for anybody who schedules the meeting on Friday, maybe after twelve noon. But what is that Friday meeting like? David Phillips (Guest) 00:31:53 The Friday mornings? Okay, if I take a little step back, one thing I've come to realise in this whole work from home thing is that the most important thing for any leader to figure out is meetings. Because meetings are the best of times or the worst of times. And I'm in some meetings where I literally want to stick needles in my eyes and some meetings are actually enjoyable. So I think one of the most important thing a leader can do is like how do you make a meeting enjoyable? And so Friday mornings we get together and it's crossfunt company. We basically just a product update. So like where are we with new products? We've got tonnes of different things going on like new products launching and current products being have some features added and that kind of stuff, so go to that. But the bit that everyone might look forward to is we have media recommendations, book recommendations and other so media recommendations with shows you've seen or programmes you've watched. Other is like buy people Christmas presents or something, whatever, and book recommendations. And for some reason whenever I see something I'm so boring I don't watch anything. But if I do it's a media recommendation spin. It seems tough, but I think it's one of those things that if you make a meeting slightly enjoyable then more people will come to and contribute. It not that more people are good, but don't make the people who come to it will appreciate it. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:32:55 I don't think that's daft. I mean, it's actually marketing because word of mouth is the number one form of recommendations to watch a piece of content. David Phillips (Guest) 00:33:04 But it's hard to measure, so we always forget about it. We go, look at my social media likes, and I'll be like, no, no, that's like fifth on the list. Word of mouth is the biggest. But everyone's like, that's hard. Let's pretend it doesn't exist. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:33:16 If somebody was on Facebook and they said that they really enjoyed the show and then put a trailer to the show, is that word of mouth? That feels word of mouth to me. David Phillips (Guest) 00:33:25 Probably, yeah. But, like, actual word of mouth, like, so this is how, you know, this is this classic we think we're rational, we're not. I've got a 2007 Honda Fit. I'm getting a new job. I'm like, it's probably time it's visibly knackered. Like, if someone gave me $400 for it, I'd be lucky. It's rusting or whatever. I think it's probably time for me to get a new car. So I'm thinking about getting a new car. I grew up in a massive car head. My first job was working on a car magazine. Still look at a car magazine online, whatever. But when it came to it, I picked my friend Peter and said, peter, what car do you think I should get? He went, Get this. And I was like, all right. Tara Sands (Voiceover) 00:33:55 I know a bunch of, like, cars. But I'm like, I don't know. I'll ask Pete. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:33:58 Well, what car'd you get? David Phillips (Guest) 00:34:01 I don't get anything yet. I probably won't. I'm too lazy. But Audi A4, and my wife thinks it's the most boring car. Very secondhand, just in case everyone thinks I'm being posh, she looked at it and she was just like, oh, is that the person meeting you? Which is a bit harsh. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:34:16 Okay, well, just from what I see in the picture here, I don't see any moving boxes, so it doesn't look like you're leaving the country. David Phillips (Guest) 00:34:22 No, I'm staying in the country. Yes. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:34:25 Okay. Excellent. David Phillips (Guest) 00:34:26 I love Canada. It's great. I'm about to become a citizen, which is very exciting. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:34:29 Congratulations. David Phillips (Guest) 00:34:30 I decided to take the test. The test is really hard. I thought it would be like, how many letters are in the word Canada? And it's like, name the four fundamental rights and freedoms and whatever. I thought there's eight. I was like, oh, I'm actually going to have to study for this. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:34:42 I think you said you were a history buff. David Phillips (Guest) 00:34:44 Yeah, but the only things I want to study. I really, really try. I really try to be interested in it. And I will continue trying. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:34:54 1837, people were angry and set fire to Parliament. David Phillips (Guest) 00:34:58 Yeah, it's like the Rouge River and stuff. And I think something happened in 1812. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:35:03 Yeah. Well, we burned down the White House in 1812. David Phillips (Guest) 00:35:06 That's pretty good. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:35:07 Yeah. And then 2022, people were upset again and brought their trucks to Ottawa. David Phillips (Guest) 00:35:13 Freedom fighting, they told. Some pitchforks and muskets, some horns and misspelt signs having no credit to them. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:35:21 David, thanks so much for being on the show. David Phillips (Guest) 00:35:21 Pleasure. Tara Sands (Voiceover) 00:35:24 The Sound Off Podcast is written and hosted by Matt Cundill. Produced by Evan Surminski. Social Media by Courtney Krebsbach. Another great creation from the Soundoff Media Company. There's always more at soundoffpodcast.com.

This week, we're making what might be the longest-distance connection we've ever made for an episode. Tony Doe is a Nigerian Radio and Podcast Consultant who spent years on-air in the past, and remains a podcast staple in Nigeria. I'm willing to bet most of our audience has never really thought about the podcast and radio scene in Nigeria, but as Tony will tell you, it's certainly different from what we have in North America. Stable, cheap internet is much harder to come by, and as a whole, the country is much more fragmented- both by languages and by the fact that each person likely has multiple SIM cards and phone numbers for different parts of the country. Tony walks us through the way radio stations have come to handle these challenges, and what it's meant for the development of Nigerian broadcasting as a whole. He explains how he got into radio in the first place, how it's changed over the years, and some new developments rolling in that he thinks could change the landscape of broadcasting in a big way. He also shares some traditional broadcaster wisdom about what it means to be a great radio host, and how to make your show feel "complete." If you'd like to stay caught up with Tony, the best way is through The Tony Doe Podcast. If you're a fan of Arsenal Football Club, you can also check out his other show, UPGNRS. Or you could just do it the old-fashioned way and follow him on Instagram, Twitter or LinkedIn. Transcript: Matt Cundill (Host) 00:00:00 Osato, Iraq Payee. Sound City Radio Abuja! Question for you. Should I have Tony Doe on my podcast? VO 00:00:09 Yeah, I think you're going to like him. I think he's doing something really solid for podcasting in Nigeria. And he has a really good network across Africa as well. I'm seeing things he's doing with with other African podcasters. I like him. I've never met him actually in person, but I knew him off- He's been on radio for a long time, actually. So it's transitioning really neatly into podcasting as well. He's one of the leading podcast voices in the country. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:00:32 It also says Radio consultant. VO 00:00:34 Yeah, he does that as well. He was a presenter for a long time and then he's doing a bit of both. I mean, Nigeria, with the economy right now, you kind of like to put your hands in a lot of pies just to make sure everything's good. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:00:46 Yeah. He reminds me of me. VO 00:00:49 The grind is tough, man. It is tough. Tara Sands (VO) 00:00:52 The Sound Off podcast. The podcast about broadcast with Matt Cundill... starts now. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:01:02 This week, I speak with Tony Doe. He does a lot of the things I do. He worked in radio for a number of years and does a lot of voiceover work. He consults radio and podcasts, and writes a solid newsletter featuring a lot of the podcast things you might need to know if you wanted to start one. He also has a podcast a lot like this one. For instance, I had Valerie Geller appear on episode 256, and he decided to start his story of radio with Valerie Geller at episode one. This episode is an opportunity to hear about radio in Nigeria. A country, by the way, that downloads this show more than Australia, Ireland and New Zealand, and almost as much as the United Kingdom. Tony Doe joins me from Lagos, Nigeria. So Tony, how did you ever get started in radio? Tony Doe (Guest) 00:01:49 Let's see, was it by accident or was it intentional? I knew I loved radio from my very young days. I grew up in the early 80s, listening to a lot of local stars on radio and great music. So I think it was always a part of my life. I leave the radio on all night, maybe just turn on the knob on the volume and wake up to radio as well. I guess when the opportunity came, it was more like fate, even if I wasn't sure that was what I wanted at that time. I went into radio in 2004, was volunteering at the state-owned radio station as part of requirements for a Journalism course I was taking. I was trying to get certified as a broadcast journalist, and this was three years after I tried to get certified as a communicator. So I think I even had TV experience before I did radio. But yes, getting into radio for me started in 2004. I was working closely with producers. I spent a lot of time in the studios and then I think my break came when I had to do a PSA read. I was spending time with one of the producers because at the time I liked meddling with digital audio workstations, so I thought I could also be an artist. I was trying to wrap and sing at the same time, so I was a bit familiar with recording audio software. So I was hanging around with the gentleman who was working in there at the time and he was trying to get this particular talent to read the script and they seem to be having issues. And he looked at me, I was like, Why don't you give it a try? And I did, and I think it had the same day, and a few other presenters heard me and they were like, oh, you know what we could do with someone like you on our show. And I think it started from there. And three years down the line, I finally got into radio as sports presenter, and then I became an on air talent in 2007. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:03:41 But you started out thinking about journalism, so what was it about that field that made you want to go into that? Because being a journalist in Nigeria, it's not the most secure profession. Tony Doe (Guest) 00:03:52 No, it's not, but it's passion driven, just as radio and TV could be for some people. I like writing a lot, and I used to think I was a better writer than I was a talker, so it just seemed the closest thing for me to chase. And of course, I wasn't going to get involved in the political aspect of deep investigative journalism. I just wanted to be in a space that allowed me to write and express myself. I used to get diaries when I was young. It would seem natural that I feel like journalism would appeal to me. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:04:25 Tell me a little bit about the first time you heard your voice on the radio. So it would have been after you had recorded that spot. What station was it? Where was it? Do you remember what was in it and how excited were you? Tony Doe (Guest) 00:04:38 It was a COFM 89.7. There used to be 89.75. They took the five out a few years ago, and I thought it was kind of interesting. I doubted my voice. I didn't think it sounded anything like me at the time. But it was also exciting because it was an aspect of myself that I hadn't really paid attention to. So to have people react and be like, oh, you actually sound like this, you really could be doing this on-air. And I was like, okay, I didn't know this was what my voice could sound like, so it was exciting for me. Yeah, it was. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:05:13 And I'll roll you back just a little bit to when you are listening to your radio, how much choice did you have when you were listening to the radio in your teen years, how many stations were there? Tony Doe (Guest) 00:05:24 There were a few, but not too many in the regions I was in. For instance, I was in a boarding school in the 90s in a different state from where I currently live in. I'm in Lagos state. I was in a boarding school in Ogun state, which is about 150, 200 miles away from here. And the major video station in the state was kind of new. I think the station was just coming in at the same time I was getting into boarding school in Abel Katan, so they were kind of new, they were fresh. It was an urban sound, so it was one station in Ogun state at the time. And then when I was coming to Lagos, we had a Radio Lagos, which was on both the Am and FM dials at the time. And so I would switch from AM to FM in the evening, but listening to just one station, I think it later became Metro FM, and then we had radio stations popping up from the mid 90s. We had Ray Power, which had some of the most amazing signals, amazing playlists, amazing presenters, some of them moving from the radio station I used to listen to in Ogun state, which was OGBC Two. Many of the really great talents had migrated from OGBC Two to Ray Power when Ray Power came into Lagos. So they had great stars there. And then we had Rhythm, then we have Cool FM and we have a lot of them now. By the time, I would say between three and four radio stations had my attention when I was listening much earlier in my life. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:06:52 When you listen to AM radio in Nigeria, and you get to see what you could pull in, what is the radio station that came in from the furthest away that surprised you? Tony Doe (Guest) 00:07:04 I don't know if it's Radio Luxembourg? There was a radio station from somewhere in Europe, though. They did broadcast in English, but it wasn't from the UK and it was pretty awesome. They had great music, they had great presenters. I can't remember the particular name of the station because for me, a lot of those times it was a quick flip of the dials and then if it wasn't clear, I was moving on to the next thing. But sometimes I would just listen to the music for a while, depending on how the sound waves worked for me at night, and then it would fade off and then I would have to go back to what I was used to in Radio Lagos. But I think there was a station in Europe and I'm not sure of the name, but maybe when I find it, I'll send it to you in a DM. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:07:45 I'm going to say it was probably Radio Luxembourg, because that thing is powerful and was picked up everywhere. So I'm not surprised that that was your answer. Tony Doe (Guest) 00:07:53 Okay, well that makes sense then. One of my mentors actually listened to that as well, so. Okay, cool. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:07:58 You brought it up. Who are your mentors? Tony Doe (Guest) 00:08:03 I think this is one of the best things that happened to me on the job. I did mention Rhythm as one of my favorite radio stations at the time and I think Rhythm became the main station I actually really paid attention to, especially in the mornings. I was a bit obsessed with the Breakfast Show if I was out at school, I missed that a lot. And so when I came home, I would spend 6:00 to 10:00 A.m. with my radio set. I wouldn't be doing anything because of how much I missed it. There's a gentleman called Femme Showalu. He's retired now, and I used to think his voice was magical, and he used to have mentors of his who he admired the same way. But there was just something rich about the way he talked. It was a richness to his show prep. It was always so complete, and it was just him and a DJ. And the conversations, the segue between the speech bands and the music was always delicious for me, and it wasn't just a presenter talking on their music playing. It was how everything was well meshed and just sounded like this nice seamless flow of conversations and melodies. And I used to be like, well, the day I meet this man, I'm going to worship him and tell him all sorts of things. And then here's the interesting thing. This was like me in the 90s, my teenage years, and then down the line into the second year on the job, 2008, there's going to be a change in management and stuff and he's coming in as one of the consultants to have a look at staffers and then make decisions on who stays and who goes. And I'm working, of course I'm paying attention to work, but I know that this man is around and I'm like, whoa, who would have thought that this sort of situation would happen? And it so happened that I got laid off with some other people, and someone I hadn't had a conversation with, someone who didn't even know I had this amount of respect for had been paying attention to what I was doing on the job. And so he gave a condition that he was then asked later on to take up the position of being the director of radio programs. And he accepted. And among the things he said he was going to do was assign particular roles and expectations to certain radio personalities. And he had my name on the list and he insisted that unless they brought me back to the job, he wasn't going to kick off what he wanted to do. Now, bear in mind that this is somebody I'd always been in awe of. I'd never spoken to him. So it was really interesting to see that he liked what I was doing on radio, even if he didn't know that a lot of it was inspired by what he did. And when I came back and worked with him, it was like the best four years of my life, just being in the same space with him. And usually they say, you know, you shouldn't meet your heroes, that they won't be the sort of people you expect them to be. But he was all that and more. He was very inspiring. He was easy to work with. He was just amazing and it was a full circle moment for me. So, yeah, Femme Showalu was definitely one of the most iconic people I've worked with. And we're still in touch. We talk every now and then and it's just an amazing feeling. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:11:13 One of the words you use to describe him and his show is that you said the show prep was complete. And now, of course, you're consulting Broadcast Properties. What does it mean to have complete show prep? Tony Doe (Guest) 00:11:25 For me, it starts with knowing who your audience is and then doing your best to be as authentic as you need to be for that audience. And I follow Valerie Geller's three pointers, which is tell the truth, make it matter, and never be boring. Sometimes I do think that some great on their talents get away with being excellent liars as long as they are entertaining. So, yeah, it's knowing your audience, being authentic to them, and giving them what they need, what they want, without deviating from who you are as a person. This has always been something for me when it comes to being an online talent, on radio, it has to be something you have. There has to be something about you, a quirk, a weirdness, a sense of humor. There's something you're bringing to the job itself besides the voice. So it's being able to have those core characteristics and then creating a schedule or a rundown of how you're going to bring these bits of your person into your show during your different segments. It's about being prepared to give your listener the best experience they can get for that moment that you're right there, being attentive to them in such a way that they're not thinking of going anywhere else. Femme likes to ask questions. He likes to build teasers in such a way that if he was going to take a music break, he was going to leave you hanging with something he was saying. And you know that he's going to complete the statement when he comes back after the music break and you want to be there. So know your language, know how to talk to the people that you're prepared to talk to and give them the best of you while you're doing it. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:13:08 In just a second, more with Tony about podcasting in Nigeria, where it succeeds and how it can be better. We also talk about what kind of radio is the most successful radio, and what languages are available up and down the dial. By the way, our show now does Value for value. So if you're using one of those newer podcast apps, be sure to send us a boost. But do it only if you're getting value from it. That's how it works, right? And if you have no idea what I'm talking about, it's in the show notes. There's more, including a transcript of this episode, at soundoffpodcast.com. Sarah Burke (VO) 00:13:44 Transcription for the Sound Off podcast is powered by Poddin. Your podcast is an SEO gold mine. We help you to dig out. Start your free trial now at Poddin.io. Tara Sands (VO) 00:13:44 The Sound Off Podcast. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:14:00 So when I listen to the radio where you live. How many languages are being broadcast? I know English is very predominant in Nigeria. I see the downloads. There's a lot of English speaking radio stations in Nigeria, but what's the percentage and balance and how many other languages are floating out there? Tony Doe (Guest) 00:14:16 We have so many languages. We have so many languages. But the core language, of course, you've mentioned is English. But we do have the Yoruba language, we have the Igbo language, we have Hausa, which is even in some cases, more prominent than the other languages. And this being the fact that BBC has a very strong Hausa broadcasting presence in Nigeria. And so a lot of the guys up north in Nigeria have transistor radios that they're attached to, and broadcasters reach them in their languages. But commercially, of course, it has to be English. And then there's pidgin. So it's English pidgin, Yoruba, Hausa, Igbo. And then of course, there are still some other local languages, depending on the regions. You have Durobo in Delta state. For instance, Shakiri still in Delta state. We have Efic in Cross River state. We have Ibibio in Akwa Ibom. But these are smaller scales. And sometimes some of these languages feature as programs on major radio stations that probably have English or Pidgin as their major languages. But the major languages are English pidgin, Igbo, Yoruba and Hausa. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:15:26 And what is the reach of the BBC in Nigeria? Are they mandated to broadcast everywhere, or are they only in certain locations? Tony Doe (Guest) 00:15:34 Well, the BBC's reach here is... I think it's limited really to online accessibility, except for partnerships with local radio stations. I think that's where BBC Media action comes in. They have some programs that they partner with local stations, especially state-owned or federal stations, and sometimes some private owned stations to have programs featured on, but otherwise probably available on the AM band and usually in the northern area. But a lot of the content that comes from the BBC is, either through satellite TV or syndicated radio with local stations here. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:16:13 That is something that I have seen here in Canada, where some stations were licensed to carry CBC programming back in the- I'm not sure that we're continuing that in Canada now, but there might be a few stations that still do that. You also have a great sort of knowledge and idea about radio around the world. What's one of the things that radio in Nigeria does really, really well that the rest of the world should probably pick up on? Tony Doe (Guest) 00:16:36 I think local and live. It's still something I sort of envy, because one of the things I noticed is we're not really big on the standard formats here. I find that we reinvent how we want to do radio. It's my quarrel, and it's also my admiration for how we do radio here. For instance, more established societies have their formatted stations to cater to particular audiences, like, you have your news talk, you have your sports, you have your music stations. It could be pop, urban and so on. But over here, we find a way to bring everything together and then define our format, maybe by the language or by location. And so it's one of the things I find fascinating that when some people think of building radio stations in Nigeria, they usually go to locations or communities where they want to serve the communities. So we're kind of like a community based nation when it comes to building radio stations, but we also want to commercialize those platforms, so we do it our own way, and then we really don't have a format for it, because I know I've asked many times, what exactly is the format of this radio station? And they're like it's entertainment. It's for everybody. It's news and entertainment. We want to do everything. I'm like, okay, all right, cool. And it works, at least for the successful ones who've been doing it. It's been working. It's amazing. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:17:58 And along comes podcast. And now, of course, you're knee deep into podcasting as well, and you've started a podcast. Who's the first person you bring on your podcast? Of course, you go right to Valerie Geller. We think this is a very strong move, and we wholly endorse this. Tell me about the reach of podcast in Nigeria. Tony Doe (Guest) 00:18:16 Yeah. Let me put it this way. We don't have all the numbers yet, but I see us increasing daily. In fact, just before coming into this conversation with you now, there's a Twitter space where the future of podcasting was being discussed with some members of the community I belong to. So we're just starting to really pay attention to the numbers of what we're doing. But thanks to platforms like Anchor that have made it easy for podcasters to come on board, we're growing. I do a weekly playlist nowadays where- I think I started this about two or three weeks ago as a part of my newsletter- where I get to feature fresh episodes from podcasters I follow locally, and I find that each week my playlist is about five, 6 hours long. I'm asking myself, if nobody is listening to these fellows, why would they be recording so many long episodes? But it seems to be working and they're enjoying themselves. Then Spotify has just done something fascinating. They've put down $100,000 for 13 African podcasters and of the 13 African podcasters, three are from Nigeria. And I was like, I didn't know when this was happening. Did you guys apply? And they were like, no, what happened was, Spotify was keeping records of their performances, and based on that, they were able to reach out to them and say, you know what, we think you're good enough for our fund. And I was excited about that because having three from Nigeria and you have like 20 other African countries to fight with. I think Kenya had four representatives, and then South Africa, and then Nigeria had three representatives. It was inspiring. So I know that a lot of guys are going to get excited about opportunities for more recognition next year. And this year in September, we had our first ever podcast awards. We had over 2000 nominations and tens of thousands of votes. And it was exciting to see that people were actually paying attention to podcasting on the continent, especially content coming from Nigeria as well. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:20:18 There was a podcast conference that you attended, you did so online, and it was a few months ago. I can't remember the name of the conference. What was it called? Tony Doe (Guest) 00:20:25 Africa Podfest. That was in February. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:20:28 What was the biggest concerns that came out of that conference? What were some of the things that people sort of agreed on were holding podcast in Africa back? Tony Doe (Guest) 00:20:37 Internet connectivity was number one. It's a lot better than it used to be, but it's not as affordable as, you know, one would want it to be. For people to create the kind of content they want and reach the people they need, they would have to spend a lot more money on Internet connectivity and then still think about equipment and marketing strategies and making the best of social media platforms and so on. So, Internet connectivity is one of the issues we have, and then maybe not having enough platforms on the continent to cater particularly to African creatives. But I can see the Afreport and Jammit, for instance, helping to solve that particular issue. But yes, Internet connectivity, the fact that creating content might be more expensive than the average Nigerian or African will be willing to admit. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:21:32 So this podcast is going to be about 40mgb when I'm done with it. I guess it would cost about $3.25 US for somebody to just download it over cell phone or 3G coverage. I mean, I'm trying to explain this to North Americans to understand that it's not like we have unlimited data in Nigeria and parts of Africa, but over to the Internet connectivity issue. Does this leave people running around looking for WiFi to download their favorite podcast? Tony Doe (Guest) 00:22:00 Not really. What it does really do is create competition among the telecoms companies in Nigeria, for instance, everybody's battling to have more subscribers or more users. So sometimes it depends on the region you're in. For instance, when I had to leave Lagos to go to the southeast of Nigeria to take up a position. Co-Head in a station there. I had one particular SIM from a particular telecoms company, and I was made to understand that the signals in the southeast for that SIM card were not so strong. So I had to get myself another number, and I was told that those signals were stronger in the southeast. So what you get to see in Nigeria is people having multiple phone lines from different companies, each SIM card serving a different purpose. Maybe one is for your major calls and the fact that family and friends recognize that number, and then you're using another one for your Internet accessibility. But there's a lot of competition locally. One of the major platforms has already rolled out its 5G. It's not cheap yet, but it's exciting to see. So there's a lot of competition among the telecoms companies, and people actually go to where they think it works best for them. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:23:13 From the numbers that I ran, a lot of people do not own Apple phones over in Nigeria. I can certainly see that with the Nigeria downloads, it's only about 15% or 20% that would do so with an Apple product. But does everybody else use Android? And what is everybody's favorite app to listen to podcasts in Nigeria? Tony Doe (Guest) 00:23:33 In Nigeria, favorite app to listen to podcasts would be Spotify. In Africa Podfest's data analysis. I think that was all ranked number one in Africa. And of course, it's the same in Nigeria here. Now, why Spotify would work is because a lot of Nigerians already listen to music through Spotify. So there's a lot of music streaming going on on Spotify, and then there's podcasting on Spotify as well. I would also say Google Podcast too comes close, and then Apple. Interestingly, there are a lot of people who listen to podcasts via their desktops or Windows based PCs through iTunes, and then they access their Apple accounts through there. I know in the early days, it was the only thing available at the beginning for a lot of us. So for some who started that way, they've continued that way. But when it comes to devices, of course, Android devices are what reign supreme down here. But there are a few people who brag about their iOS devices. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:24:32 How many podcasts do you have right now? Tony Doe (Guest) 00:24:32 That I'm producing? Matt Cundill (Host) 00:24:32 Or that you host? Tony Doe (Guest) 00:24:38 That I host. Well, I host and produce both. So I have two. And then there's one I'm managing for a pastor. So I have the Tony Doe podcast, I have UPGNRS, which is dedicated to fans of the Arsenal Football Club in England, and that's off and on. But that's the longer running podcast I've had. That's been running since 2014, so it's been serving well. And then there's the Seun Osigbesan podcast, which is a curation of sermons from Seun Osigbesan, which I've been managing since last year. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:25:10 And the Tony Doe show. Tony Doe (Guest) 00:25:11 Yeah, the Tony Doe podcast, but I called something on the Tony Doe show a while back, so I didn't want to confuse it. Yeah, I've been doing that since last year. The idea was to make it a limited series. I just wanted a few people I really respected and revered to be my guests and then just have conversations with them that could last a lifetime. So things I could always go back to, refer people to, and just find circumstances in everyday life to bring episodes into the timelines again, to remind people that, oh, you know what, I had this conversation with this person on the show. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:25:47 And also you've got a newsletter. I think it's up on Substack, right? Tony Doe (Guest) 00:25:51 Yes, it is. There's a new edition out November 4. It's called Podcast Related, aka this Week in the Pod Verse, and I'm hoping to start a podcast with that too. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:26:02 So is this new podcast going to be a lot about what we find in the newsletter? Sort of longer details about some of the stories? Tony Doe (Guest) 00:26:09 Yes, that's exactly what it will be. Deep dives, sound bites from some of the people I have conversations with about things happening in the podcast industry as well. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:26:19 It started out with voiceover for you. That was the moment when you said, I'm going to become a presenter and I'm going to get involved with radio. And you still have this wonderful microphone that you're talking into right now, and you still do voiceovers, correct? Tony Doe (Guest) 00:26:31 Yes, I do. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:26:33 So if you're looking for a voice, Tony could be your guy. In fact, it's @TonyDoeVO, by the way, on Twitter. If you want to give him a follow. No blue check mark required. Tony Doe (Guest) 00:26:42 No, I've never really been fond of those, so I really don't know how to react to what's going on yet because I'm like, well, like, I never had one, so I really don't know what the association is. So why is everybody upset if somebody wants to put a price check on it? Matt Cundill (Host) 00:26:56 There's only one Tony Doe VO. Don't worry. Hey, Tony, thanks a lot for joining us on the podcast. I really appreciate you giving the perspective from Nigeria, talking about Nigerian radio and how podcasting is growing in Africa. Tony Doe (Guest) 00:27:10 Thank you, Matt. I really appreciate this opportunity. It's been a pleasure being on The Sound Off podcast. My favorites. I think when I started the Tony Doe podcast and then I was searching for similar podcasts, I think I found The Sound Off podcast on Podchaser. I was like, okay, I'm in good company, so I'm not doing anything too different. So this is really awesome. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:27:29 I love your show. Tony Doe (Guest) 00:27:30 Thank you. Tara Sands (VO) 00:27:31 The Sound Off podcast written and hosted by Matt Cundill. Produced by Evan Surminski. Social Media by Courtney Krebsbach. Another great creation from the Soundoff Media Company. There's always more at soundoffpodcast.com.

Evo Terra is ending his Podcast Pontifications show. The show has dissected all points of the podcast business and there have been moments of punditry, contemplations, skepticism, and at times political positioning. This show along with a selection of others have been my "go-to" shows to learn more about what is happening in podcasting. In this episode you will find out what Evo is up to next. We also discuss the value of Podcast 2.0 . We also talk a lot about fiction podcasts, audiobooks and narration which should give you an idea of what Evo will be doing next. Speaking of Podcast 2.0 and Value-for-Value, we have pivoted ourselves and are entertaining your support with Boosts. We are so new to it we have no idea what we are doing or talking about but this marks the first episode where we are swimming in the Boostagram swimming pool. (We started by downloading and listening to podcasts using the Fountain App. Sign up for his newsletter here. And Follow the Twitter account here. Evo also gave us one last podcast pontification on Twitter and announced he might be doing Twitter a little bit less and is involving himself with Mastadon. We mentioned above about some of the podcasts we listen to every week to stay sharp in podcasting. This includes the Following: Podnews. (Daily) It's also a newsletter and now has more than 25,000 subscribers. There was a weekly show called Podland that is in the midst of an incredible transformation and will be reborn as the Podnews Weekly Review. It is hosted by James Cridland and Sam Sethi. The New Media Show with Todd Cochrane and Rob Greenlee. If you apply yourself, you too can get a PhD in podcasting. Any of the Podcasts from the Sounds Profitable Network of shows. If you have to choose one - go with The Download. The Feed with Rob Walch and Elsie Escobar comes out every Fort Night. Plus I participate in one with four other Podcast Producers - The Podcast Super Friends gather monthly to discuss all things Podcast. Plus I participate in one with 4 other Podcast Producers - The Podcast Super Friends gather monthly to discuss all things Podcast. Transcript: Matt Cundill (Host) 00:00:00 Alexa: Play podcast pontifications. Alexa (VO) 00:00:03 Playing podcast pontifications from Amazon music. Here's- You have reached the end of Podcast Pontifications. Evo Terra (Guest) 00:00:16 Look, I'm not going to beat around the bush about this. What you are listening to right now is the very last episode of Podcast Pontifications that I will make. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:00:16 No! Tara Sands (VO) 00:00:33 The Sound Off Podcast. The podcast about broadcast with Matt Cundill... starts now. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:00:43 We had Evo Terra on our show back on episode 202. That took place back in May of 2020. He was the host of Podcast Pontifications, a short form podcast that talked about podcasting in a form of contemplation, perspective and opinion. I say was because in his most recent episode, Evo announced that his show will be no more. And for someone like me who has been listening and learning from Evo since 2016, I'm left wondering, what the hell am I going to do now? Evo is a podcast Hall of Famer who knows when to pivot. He's going to tell us in a moment what he's pivoting towards, and he joins me from his studio in Phoenix, Arizona. Well, I'm not big into change, and so when an episode comes out of Podcast Pontifications that says, that's it, it's ending, I honestly feel, what are we supposed to do now, Evo? What are we supposed to do? Evo Terra (Guest) 00:01:40 Fend for yourself, Matt. No, I'm kidding. I love change. But then again, you know that about me because you read or you read Podcast Pontification, so you know that change is a big part of me and who I am. So it's exciting. But yeah, it's a new wide world out there with one less rambling voice. On a weekly basis, at least. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:01:40 You say rambling voice. I think there are people out there who like to pontificate. Or also, I was trying to think of the word because you used it in your Twitter thread. Evo Terra (Guest) 00:02:10 Punditry. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:02:11 Be a pundit. Evo Terra (Guest) 00:02:12 Yeah. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:02:13 So you're getting out of the pundit game. Evo Terra (Guest) 00:02:14 Getting out of the pundit game. At least on the regularly scheduled pundit game. I guess that's one sort of way to do that, because it's not like I'm going to stop having opinions about podcasting. I mean, I still like to refer to myself as podcasting's professional contrarian, and I'll continue to do that. I'll continue to raise issues and engage where I need to engage and come up with alternate solutions, and also point out hypocrisies when I see them. I'm just not going to do that each and every week on Podcast Pontifications anymore. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:02:46 What was the moment when you said, this whole podcasting thing is getting super complex? Evo Terra (Guest) 00:02:51 I've said that for a while now, but I think it really started hitting about this time last year, honestly, when I started seeing things really starting to- I'll use the word fracture, but I don't mean that in a bad way. I just started seeing more pockets that were developing more and more, which isn't anything new. I mean, being in podcasting for as long as I have. Podcasting has always been a little bit of an echo chamber. People like you and me and the listeners to the show. We all consider podcasting an industry, and we go to these events and clearly we are a big industry. But there are plenty of podcasters in your same city. In my same city. Who have no idea what Podcast Movement is. Who have no idea that other podcasters are in this with them, and they don't even know about hosting companies. They're just not as up to speed. You don't have to be a part of that. So that's always been the case, but over the last year or so, it's just become really more noticed by me, I guess is the way I want to say that, and just something that it makes it really difficult for me when I saw my job on Podcast Pontification, which, as you know, is to make podcasting better, it was harder and harder for me to come up with topics that were germane to most podcasters because these new factions are breaking off, which have their own ways of doing things. And it just became more brainpower than I wanted to spend to try and come up with something that was watered down, that I had to have lots of buts and caveats involved with it. So, yeah, that's a long way to answer your question. It says a year ago. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:02:51 What does it mean to niche down? Because it's something I've been thinking about doing with this podcast. We're the podcast about broadcast, but what is broadcast really anymore? And why, if it's a podcast about broadcast, do you so often have podcasters and people in voiceover and audiobooks? And why do you have all those people on your podcast as well? So what does it mean to niche down? Evo Terra (Guest) 00:04:46 I really think it means understanding the fact that as things continue to grow, we sometimes even specialize. Although part of me hates saying that. There's an old saying I like to quote, and it's that specialization is made for insects, not for humans. And that's true. I mean, I am very much a generalist in all things. I've got a lot of knowledge in a lot of different areas, but I don't necessarily go deep on too many things. Okay. Podcasting would be one of them, obviously. And I think that when shows start like yours and mine have started, when I think about Niching down, it's like, okay, I was doing this big thing, but now inside of this big thing, these bubbles are growing and they are somewhat different from another one. So let me go grab onto one or more of those and start really narrowing down the focus. And sometimes it's less about narrowing down the focus and more about stopping the idea of continually broadening the focus. I don't have a lot of information to give people on subscriptions for podcasting and subscriptions and podcasting is growing big time. It was an afterthought for the last ten years or so. But this year it seems, thanks largely in part, I think, to Apple making it a built in process and to spotify to some degree that's different, but I don't have a lot of practical experience with that. I can give some general ideas, but I'm not running a show that has tens of thousands of listeners that is worthy of getting hundreds or 200 or so subscribers. So there's no help there. And that's not a matter of me niching down, that's a matter of the industry continuing to grow bigger beyond the original idea that I had. And my job is to recognize that and say, okay, if I can't do that, then I can't cover all of podcasting. Maybe it's time to get even more focused. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:06:25 Yeah, I don't think you'd be able to really speak to whether or not a subscription podcast works unless you actually have one yourself. Evo Terra (Guest) 00:06:31 Yeah, exactly. And the same thing when it comes to growth. How do you grow a show to reach tens of thousands of people? I don't know, I've never actually tried to do that, but there are plenty of people who have done that, so I knew right away, look, I can't cover everything, so let's just be more specific. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:06:49 But here you are with a podcast that is a little in the past called Podcast Pontifications, whereby you might be able to come up with a subscription model so we could go back and get some of those old episodes. Evo Terra (Guest) 00:07:00 Yeah, that's very true. That's been a model of subscription before there were subscription models. I know a lot of authors who podcasted previously, and even like Dan Carlin is an example of that from Hardcore History, one of the biggest podcasters on the planet. He sells his past episodes as digital downloads. I think it's only the last five or six shows are available. His episodes, if you don't know, last 3 hours, but he'll take them off the feed and then make them available. So that's always worked for a while, but now there's this new model to where we have windowing with content, to where new things are available, but only on these two platforms and then they go to everyone else. And how is that whole thing managed? And it's a mess, but a good mess. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:07:40 So if we could have music in podcasts, I would suspect that maybe you would have finished off the last episode with Closing Time, with the lyric, every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end. So what is your new beginning? Evo Terra (Guest) 00:07:57 Yeah, so I was trying to be clever with that and you're right, I had all sorts of musical ideas in my head, but again, I didn't really want the attorneys to come after me. So this is the end of Podcast Pontifications, but the start of the end, and the end is something I cooked up not long ago that shines a light back on fiction podcasts, audio dramas, radio plays, whatever you want to call them, once they've reached a conclusion. Now, the reason I'm doing this, Matt, is because I listen to more podcast fiction. So stories from individual authors who are narrating them to me, or full cast productions. I listen to that content more than anything else, and I have for forever. I mean, since I started in podcasting, that's one thing I helped start off back in 2005 was convincing a bunch of authors to start releasing their books as podcasts. So I helped to get that started and it's become my true love. That's what I listen to more than anything. But as a listener, one of the other things I know about me is that I like listening to things at my own leisure, not necessarily at the leisure of when the producer of the content has those episodes available. I want to just go mainline or binge that content. And that's the way I like to listen to things. That's the way I like to read things. I like my books to be complete. I usually wait watching television series until I know that they're done. That's just my preference. And in the podcasting world, you know, all of the marketing for a podcast happens when a podcast starts, because you want that bump, you want that initial group of people subscribing, telling their friends so that you can keep that train rolling and rolling and rolling. Well, that's fine for a regular weekly recurring series, but it doesn't work that well for a fiction podcast that has a definite endpoint. Whether that's five episodes later or 15 episodes later, no one is really out there pushing the shows that have reached a or the conclusion. And so that's what I wanted the end to be. It's the first time I think someone's really done that. It's pointing a light back at those shows that have finished, because now is a good time for people like me. And I found there's a lot of people like this now who like to wait until everything is available before they begin the journey. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:10:06 So I guess I'm not surprised that you're getting into this because you're an author yourself. Of a number of books, my favorite, of course, being the one about the beer and sausage diet. I look at audio books- First of all, I do voiceovers. I'm voice talent. But I find audiobooks is completely different than doing corporate narrations or acting out in a video game or any of the other things. I just find audiobooks to be, like, it's a separate bucket that sits over there. And at the same time, in podcasting, I look at audiobooks as being- maybe you could put them up in a podcast form, and maybe you could charge a subscription or, you know, it cost to download it. And then I also look at Spotify making a purchase of Findaway, which I thought was quite interesting. I sometimes see audiobooks on Spotify. So how do audiobooks and podcasting, how do they mix? And I didn't even mention Audible either. Evo Terra (Guest) 00:10:56 Yeah, and that's been a fun journey that I've also been on because I've seen that mixture. So I'm going to take you all the way back to 2005 for a second, Matt. Remember, this was before Amazon Kindle existed. In 2005, Amazon sold physical books, lots of other things, but physical books, no one- well, very, very few people were reading ebooks back in 2005. So I mentioned previously that I encourage a lot of authors to go release their books as audiobooks, but there was no ACX, which is the Audible whatever, the services that let people get their books on Audible pretty quickly. In order to get on Audible, you had to pay a narrator to do something which was expensive, or you had to already- And also you had to have your book previously published with one of the big five publishers that were out there. If you had self-published a book, you didn't really have much of a chance of getting your book available on Audible. And Audible was really small at the time. In fact, the audio book market was really small. This is back when you could go to a truck stop and buy a book on CD, except it was really a book on CDs because a CD will only hold 74 minutes worth of audio. So these truckers were buying literal boxes of CDs so they could listen to audiobooks as they were driving around. So that was what happened in 2005. And then podcasting comes along. We're going, hang on, there's an obvious play. Let's release some of these books as podcasts. And we'll do single narrate or just read it straight. And we were trying to be faithful to the audiobook world and as you know, doing voiceover work. Audiobook people, people who like audiobooks have very specific ideas of what an audiobook should contain. And that is whatever. The book contained the exact same thing. Read the front matter, read the book, read the chapter headings, read figures, and then read the back matter. They want the full, exact experience. And that's the state of what we started in 2005. But we saw right away with podcasting, it was different. We didn't have to follow those exact models. We could do things like put a musical score behind, and nobody who's listening to a podcast, we're going to complain. Now. Audiobook listeners would complain about it, but the podcast audience is like, hey, this is a new idea. Well, let's fast forward 18 years where we are today, and now we have these full cast audio productions that have 60 different actors that are making more of a movie for your readers than anything. And even the single narrator stuff has now become so soundscaped with different filters that are applied to them. Things you just couldn't get away with. In the audiobook world, there's freedom in fiction podcasting, freedom to do whatever creatively makes sense for you as a creator. And to me, that's what's so exciting is that, yeah, all of these new people are coming in and saying, this is a medium that I can apply my talents to, whether I'm a writer, whether I'm voice talent, whether I'm a soundscaper, whether I'm a mixture of music. All of these things can come together and make almost a new art form. It's not a new art form, but it is almost new because we now have a platform that we didn't really have previously. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:13:59 What's fascinating stuff, because I've spoken to a few people who do audiobooks, and they will often assume the role of the characters in the book. But I'm like, well, how do you remember what each character sounded like as you do this stuff? And so you can see how you can get tripped up and why this takes a lot of time to do. But you also mention movies and some of the best podcasts- It was Mark Ramsay, he said, if you can make this sound like a movie, if you can make your podcast sound like a movie, and if you can make- we talk about the trailer. If you're to have like a big trailer for your podcast and it's got like, sound design and a nice voice and you can sell it in a particular way, I mean, I know we talk about- it can sound like audio, but we really want it to sound like a big movie. Evo Terra (Guest) 00:14:41 Yeah, well, the word I like to use is immersive. When you're listening to fiction podcasts today, in 2022 as of this recording. Most people who listen to fiction podcasts today are assuming that cinematic, that immersive experience, because you just want to be plunged into the world. And again, even if that single narrator, even if it is the author of the book themselves, reading it, still using voice effects, using great soundscaping and scoring can really, really make that pop more than ever before. So what we see in podcast fiction and fiction audio overall, I think, is a trend toward the more immersive experiences, which I count as a good thing. Although the bad side of that is that becomes harder. The bar continues to be raised higher and higher and higher, which means it's difficult for people who either don't have the ability or don't want to have the ability to get there, to play at that field. And, well, that's part of the reality of people making the things that they want to make. If that's where the bar is, use your choice to jump over it or crawl under it. It's up to you. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:15:43 In just a second, more with Evo Terra. We're going to unpack more from the world of audiobooks and fiction podcasts. And Evo still has a few more podcast pontifications left in the gas tank, including a solid take on Podcast 2.0, which we are now getting into ourselves. There's more. There's always more, including a transcript of everything Evo and I have said, on the episode page at soundoffpodcast.com. Mary Anne Ivison (VO) 00:16:13 Transcription for the Sound Off Podcast is powered by Poddin. Your podcast is an SEO gold mine. We help you to dig out. Start your free trial now at Poddin.io. Tara Sands (VO) 00:16:13 The Sound Off Podcast. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:16:28 So if you're an author- Would you recommend that an author read their own audiobook or to go and get talent to do it? And considering also at the same time, I guess this would make it a two part question. Why is it that every time there's like talent reading the book, there's a one star review? Because they don't like the talent reading the book, or a five star review because they like the talent reading the book? Evo Terra (Guest) 00:16:48 Yeah, I mean, we're stuck in that same question that we've faced forever in podcasting and also forever in radio, which is, do I have the voice for that? I don't know. Diane Reams has a pretty good voice for radio, even though you wouldn't think she has a voice for radio. And Ira Glass, and you look at a lot of the NPR people. So, yeah, there's that question mark. I personally like it sometimes when the author reads their own book, because- I have a few friends of mine who have done it for a long time. There's one, I can think of his name as Nathan Lowell. And Nathan, it just sounds like a warm blanket wrapped around me when I'm hearing Nathan read. And in fact, when I read his books, he's written a few series that he hasn't released in audio form. When I read his books in print, I hear his voice, because I know exactly what he sounds like. And so that's a lovely, lovely thing. But look, not everybody is set up to make a fantastic- they're just not great presenters. They're good storytellers on the page, but that doesn't necessarily mean you're a good storyteller from your mouth. And I normally don't harp on this too much for regular podcasting, let's call it, because, look, there's a lot of things that you can do there and I'm certainly never going to tell somebody that they shouldn't try a podcast. But it needs to be- I always think about the listener experience, right? If the author is capable of giving a good listener experience by reading their own words into a microphone, then absolutely go for it. You don't have to be perfect. You don't have to have a deep radio voice announcer. You don't have to be those ways. It just has to be a pleasant experience. And so if people like listening to you read, author at your live events, then absolutely, you should totally take it up and see if you can narrate your own your own book. It's hard, but, you know, people might like the words coming from you as opposed to someone else. But expect that one star review because you didn't hire a professional actor, whatever. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:18:40 Who are you going to hire to narrate your autobiography? Evo Terra (Guest) 00:18:44 Well, the good thing is I do not write fiction and with an autobiography, it would have to be fiction for me anyhow. So I actually did narrate one of the books I wrote, I think a nonfiction book I wrote. And I realized that's pretty hard. Only six episodes and still, it is a really, really hard thing. Luckily though, I don't write fiction I don't have a talent for. I tried it once and I'm atrocious. But if I were a fiction creator, and again, I am not, I would likely go the route of something like the team behind Midst. There's a great podcast called Midst, M-i-d-s-t, Midstpodcast.com, and it is narrated by three different people and they kind of take turns. Think of like the Three Fates from like an old Shakespearean style of storytelling. That's how it's done, and it is mind blowingly good. Again, also with lots of soundscaping and various things. So I think if I did have something that was fiction, I probably wouldn't try to make it into your standard audio drama, your standard radio theater. I would probably do some weird hybrid model that made everybody go, the heck is that guy thinking? Just for fun. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:19:48 You're still going to be doing podcast consulting, though, with simpler media. Correct? Evo Terra (Guest) 00:19:54 Absolutely. Yeah. Simpler Media is what pays the bills. Running a newsletter where I'm talking to people, what great fiction podcast they should listen to because they're complete, does not pay the bills very well. But yeah, no, I have a production company, Simpler Media, and we make podcasts for businesses around the world. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:20:10 And your name came up a few weeks ago when we had Brian Barletta on. You're working with Sounds Profitable. Evo Terra (Guest) 00:20:15 I did for the longest time. I got Brian started on Sounds Profitable way back in the day in early 2022. For a year and a half or so, I edited almost every single article that Brian had written, but Tom joined the team and that was very exciting- Tom Webster of Edison Research fame- and now Brian have teamed up to make Sounds Profitable into this wonderful thing that's going well beyond the newsletter. But that was happening about the same time I was looking at- podcasting is getting too big for me. So it's been about three months since we ended the official relationship, but we're all still friendly and we still do some things together when we can. It makes sense. But yeah, good stuff at Sounds Profitable if you want to know the business side of podcasting. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:21:00 So for those who are out there looking for either a podcast consultant, what are some of the red flags that they should see when they're looking around to hire a consultant? Evo Terra (Guest) 00:21:10 Yeah, probably if they call themselves a podcast consultant. No, I'm kidding. Although only a little bit, right? So with podcasting, your challenge is how do you find somebody who has the relevant experience that you need. Look, you don't have to have somebody with 18 years experience like I do. There are some fantastic consultants who have only got three or four years of experience because they know the new current stuff. Somebody with 18 years of experience may not have kept up with the latest and greatest and what's new in the podcasting world, and in fact, many have not. That just becomes the territory, right? So I think part of it is having a body of work that they're happy to show, that they have some sort of information that they're providing to the people outside of just what they tell you on their page. Take a look at the things that that consultant is producing. Are they saying things that you think make sense, or are they just regurgitating the same stuff over and over again? Watch out for the cheap ones. I think, honestly, because you don't necessarily know how great that information is. If they really know what it is that they're doing, and they shouldn't be ashamed to charge appropriately for it, then you shouldn't be afraid to pay for that. So I wish there was an easy litmus test to say this is a good consultant, and this one was not. But there just isn't. It takes due diligence, like anything. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:22:31 So the last time I saw you, we were enjoying beer diet in Dallas. There was a large group of people and they were surrounding Adam Curry. And I was with Avery and we were all talking and she said to me, he seems important. Why is Adam Curry, and more specifically Podcast 2.0, important? Evo Terra (Guest) 00:22:48 Yeah, well, I think there's two different answers on that, aren't there? For those of us that have known Adam since the early days, as you know, and I'll just repeat it here in case the listener doesn't understand this. If it was not for Adam Curry and another guy named Dave Winer, we wouldn't have podcasting. They put their brains together in the summer of 2004 and gave us what we now today call podcasting. And there are others who will refute that. There are others who came before, and that's fine. But even then, Adam together did that. And more recently, Adam has come along in the last couple of years or so and started this Podcasting 2.0, which is, if not a reimagining, it's certainly a- kind of a, here's what's missing. Here's what we didn't continue to extend, and very specifically, what they didn't continue what we didn't continue to extend was the RSS specification, which is by definition, extensible. We can put new things inside of it. Apple has done a little bit here and there. I know that the crew from Blubrry and Raw Voice had done some early work that didn't really get adopted. But with the Podcast 2.0, they're really trying to change that. In fact, they are changing that. They have been the first group which has come along and made a true impact that benefits everybody in podcasting, not just their own app or directory like we had when Apple made their changes recently. So I think the Podcasting 2.0 movement is something that every podcaster should be paying attention to to a certain degree. The problem is right now it is all extremely technical. There's not a lot of information of Podcasting 2.0 that's digestible by normal human beings. It's ran by a lot of tech geeks and unfortunately, a lot of crypto geeks, but mostly tech geeks. And it's a little confusing. But I think what we're going to see over the next- I'm not even going to give a timeframe- unit of time. We'll see more of the Podcasting 2.0 changes roll through to your podcast hosting company. And you should be jumping on board when your podcast hosting company sends you an email and it says, we've added these Podcast Index or Podcast 2.0 tags to your dashboard. Go change all your episodes. Do it. Go change all your episodes. Because the more we podcasters adopt these tags and these tools, the more pressure that app developers will have to incorporate them as well. So all of our hard work can be seen enjoyed by the listeners on the other end. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:25:08 See, this is why I love having you on the show, and it's because you explain things so well. You have explained things so well to up and coming podcasters like myself over the years. I think I binge listened to you back in 2016, some odd, and I felt like I was catching up with all the podcast information I had missed over the years. So thank you for explaining things so well. Evo Terra (Guest) 00:25:28 You're welcome. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:25:29 I have a question, though. I'm going to ask you to pontificate one more time. Instead of just letting your podcast sit on Captivate and it disappears when it disappears, why not just move it to Anchor, where it lives for as long as Anchor lives, for free? Evo Terra (Guest) 00:25:45 Oh, man. Anchor. Yeah, that's not going to happen anytime real soon. I'm fine with people who use Anchor, although I'm getting at, you know, I've kind of been up and down on the fence on this one. And now that I'm focused on fiction podcasting, I actively tell podcasters, do not use Anchor if you're a fiction podcaster for one reason. Most fiction podcasts, I almost would say all, but I'm sure there's an exception. So I'll say most. Let's say the vast majority of fiction podcasts are designed to be listened to from the start. Not from the last episode, but from the beginning, the very, very first episode. And every other podcast host, and I mean this literally, every other podcast host, lets the podcaster set a tag which says serial or episodic. And for a fiction podcast, it's serial, which means listen to the first episode first, as opposed to episodic, which means present the most recent episode first. Anchor doesn't do. It. Anchor is the only podcast hosting company- Well, with the exception of SoundCloud, which I don't even barely refer to them as a podcast hosting company- they do not let that be changed. You can set season numbers, you can set episode numbers, but you can't set the serial tag, which is mind blowing because Anchor's owned by Spotify, Spotify just bought Findaway, as you mentioned. They're going to be presenting audio stories that are designed to be listened to from start to finish. And you can't with their built in hosting platform, you can't do it today. So, no, I will not be moving over to Anchor anytime real soon. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:27:07 It's Podcasting Cemetery. Don't you know? Evo Terra (Guest) 00:27:09 Well, that's the problem with free hosting, isn't it? And especially Anchor really made the problem even worse. Because it's not just free podcast hosting. It's pick up your phone, say three words into it, hit upload. So are those shows podcasts and a lot of people actually pontificate on? I'm not going to worry about that. I mean, there's probably just seem to be garbage information that's out there, and I'd like to see a lot of that stuff cleaned up. But hey, what are you going to do? There's over 4 million podcasts now. If you want to clear out a couple of hundred thousand, fine. A couple of million fine. Still too many for any one person to listen to. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:27:42 I'm always excited to have somebody who's in the Podcast Hall of Fame on the show, but I'm also excited when I have somebody who has a blue Twitter checkmark. And you've made it vocal that you're not going to be paying $8 a month to keep it. So I ask you this question, and one more thing to pontificate about, and that's if the Soundoff Podcast Network were to sponsor your Twitter account blue checkmark, would you keep the check mark or would you just dump it on principle? Evo Terra (Guest) 00:28:08 It's probably a dump on principle. I mean, I appreciate the $8 offer you just extended right there, Matt. I appreciate that. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:28:08 You can charge more. Evo Terra (Guest) 00:28:17 Well, that's the thing. I will charge you a whole lot more. I got that Twitter verified mark 2014? Whenever they started, when they made it available, I keep up to speed on a lot of things and I applied right away, which was a little bit challenging for me, but surprisingly I still got it. They gave me the verified mark and it was wonderful. Yeah. But now the rumors of being, oh, yeah, now it's going to be a privilege to pay and anybody can be verified. It's really not a verified mark anymore. It's becoming more of a- would you like to pay to have this badge on your profile. It seems a little too pay to play radio for me, and I'm just not going to play in that game. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:28:51 Evo, it's been great to talk to you again and to catch up. It was great seeing you in Dallas too, and I hope to see you again soon. Evo Terra (Guest) 00:28:56 Yes, I hope so as well. Matt. Thanks for having me on, my friend. And have an enjoyable rest of your day. Tara Sands (VO) 00:29:01 The Sound Out podcast is written and hosted by Matt Cundill. Produced by Evan Surminski. Social media by Courtney Krebsbach. Another great creation from the Soundoff Media Company. There's always more at soundoffpodcast.com.

This week's guest is Tessa Malisani. Tessa is a voiceover artist, and if you couldn't tell from the title, one with quite the diverse portfolio. Aside from her current VO work, you'd probably be most likely to recognize her as the voice of the weeknight shift on 99.9 Virgin Radio in Toronto, and overnights across Canada on the Virgin Radio Properties. You might also know her as the host of the backstage lounge at the iHeartRadio MMVA's. Or for her time on CTV and MUCH Music. Or for her interviews with A-list celebs like Dwayne Johnson and Cardi B... The list goes on. You can check out her demo reel here, or scroll down a bit to see one of many great culinary-themed YouTube videos she released throughout the pandemic in partnership with Cuisinart. In this episode, Tessa talks to us about her career path and how she's kept it so open. We go over her past, her present, and a little bit about her plans for the future. There's no shortage of juicy information and stories here. If you're an aspiring VO artist, radio host, TV personality, or any other position that puts you in the spotlight, this episode is a great reminder to think about all the ways you can leverage your skills. There's no need to pigeonhole yourself into one position- if you've got a great voice for radio, chances are you'll sound great on TV or in voiceovers too. Keep your options open, and hopefully one day your resume might look a bit like Tessa's. To keep up with Tessa, you can follow her on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and LinkedIn. If you're looking to bring her on for your next voice project, you can check out her website as well. Transcript: Matt Cundill (Host) 00:00:01 Matt Fogarty from Matt Fogarty voiceovers. Thanks so much for supporting this podcast. Matt Fogarty (VO) 00:00:05 Oh, thanks so much for having such a great platform for people to listen to. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:00:11 Do you know Tessa Malisani? Matt Fogarty (VO) 00:00:13 I do know Tessa, yeah, we met I think it was VO North 2019 at the Gladstone Hotel, downtown Toronto. And yeah, I think we went to dinner with a couple of people from the conference over at the Drake. Believe I had a bacon cheeseburger and it was delicious. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:00:28 You see, I was at that conference and I didn't meet her. Big fail. Matt Fogarty (VO) 00:00:32 Why weren't you eating cheeseburgers with us? Matt Cundill (Host) 00:00:34 Perhaps I had an extended happy hour. Matt Fogarty (VO) 00:00:36 Yeah, she's a super talented broadcaster, really nice person. You should totally have her on your podcast. Tara Sands (VO) 00:00:42 The Sound Off podcast. The podcast about broadcast with Matt Cundill... starts now. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:00:53 This week, I'm speaking with Tessa Malisani. The resume runs deep with Tessa. You've heard her on commercials, television and radio promos for Bell Media properties like Much and Virgin Radio. Perhaps you've seen her interviewing stars at the Much Music Video Awards, maybe in the past at Move 105.7 in the Hamilton Niagara region. Or now on Virgin Radio Toronto in the evenings and overnight on all the Virgin Radio properties across Canada. Tessa also teaches at Seneca College, just north of Toronto, which is where you might think her story begins, but actually it goes back further than that. Did you grow up wanting to be an actor? Tessa Malisani (Guest) 00:01:33 Yes, actually, from what I remember, yeah. Well, the thing is, I actually started doing theater when I was seven. So, yeah, I was taking theater arts outside school, just like on the weekends, weeknights. I was part of a group and I was in productions and whatnot. And then I started doing that all through high school as well. And then I actually went to theater school in New York City. But radios kind of started before that. When I was still in high school. I actually had my first radio show at CIUT 89.5, the U of T station in Toronto. So going back to the acting, you know, when I was in high school and I was, you know, part of all these productions and I just, you know, I have a passion for it. I love it so much. But I was at that age where I was thinking, okay, where is this going to lead me? Do I really want to be an actress? I don't know, let's be more realistic, type of thing. So I said, what's something similar that I would be good at? And I thought, okay, maybe like TV or radio. So I got into a program where I had a placement at the U of T station for radio, and I ended up really loving it. And I eventually got asked to work there. And I had my own show there when I was 18, when I was still in high school. It was an independent show. I interviewed independent artists and bands and whatnot, it was during the day. And then I found out about this acting school in New York. I thought, oh, my gosh, this is, you know, once in a lifetime opportunity. I auditioned, I flew down to audition, and I got in, so I said, I have to go. So I went, and it was great. I was in New York City for two years studying theater, and then I decided to move back to Toronto. I don't know why. I would go back and forth, back and forth to New York. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:03:13 So tell me about the New York experience, because you went to the American School of Dramatic Arts. That's like being on the TV show Fame. Tessa Malisani (Guest) 00:03:22 Yeah, a little bit. Yeah. A lot of people would say that. It's like, is that Julliard? No, but similar. Yeah, that's exactly kind of how it felt. It was like even like the old building and the studios that we would have our classes, and we'd have all types of classes. We'd have vocal production, which is singing and which I was terrible at. I don't like singing. I was trained to do it, but it's not my thing. I'd rather do other things. Obviously, we had, like, dancing, voice and speech and everything, so that experience was amazing. I loved it. It was better than I thought. And the training I got was amazing. And just living in New York City at such a young age, I think I moved there when I was 19 years old, so living on my own in New York after graduating high school was a pretty big deal. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:04:06 But you've got to have some pretty- I mean, today's parents, there's a lot of helicopter parents out there that just would never think of letting their 19 year old go to live in New York. And that's by today's standard. So your parents must have been... what were they? Tessa Malisani (Guest) 00:04:20 Yeah, I guess they were very supportive. I guess you would say that. That's for sure. Very supportive. So, I mean, I think I remember my dad being super emotional about it, like, after when they left me, and I was like, woo, this is exciting. But, yeah, it was just definitely like a no-brainer for me and for them. Something I had to do, an experience. And I'm really glad I did. I think I'd be a completely different person now if I didn't do that. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:04:45 Do you remember who wrote your reference letter? Tessa Malisani (Guest) 00:04:47 No, I don't. I have no idea. I just remember auditioning and that's it. I don't even remember what my monologues were. I don't remember any of that. It was kind of a while ago now, I don't want to age myself here, but it was kind of- it was a while ago, so. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:05:02 I'm unfamiliar with the school, so I went and checked, and by today's standards, you need two reference letters to get in. One is a dramatic one and one is a personal one. Tessa Malisani (Guest) 00:05:09 Yeah, I probably had someone in my family that may be like an acting teacher or something. I honestly don't remember who they were. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:05:17 And then you went back to Toronto afterwards, and what happened next? Tessa Malisani (Guest) 00:05:21 And then, you know, I was kind of auditioning. I just said, oh, you know what? Maybe I'll just audition like an agent and I'll go back to school to work on getting my degree, because why not? But I don't know. I don't think that was really good for me because I felt as though just taking a course in university that's just general was not for me. I mean, for some people it's great, but I feel like I have to specialize in something. So I did that for a bit and it was good. But there was a point where I remember I was listening to the radio as I said, I started radio before and I was like, oh, I missed that. I'm like that's me. That's my job. I was, like, getting to the point where I was getting, like, angry listening because I felt like I was supposed to be doing that. So I thought about it and I was like, Why don't I just do it again? I just decided to apply for radio broadcasting program at Seneca. At York. And I got in, and I was like, okay. And once I decided to do that, I said, this is exactly where I'm going. This is exactly what I'm doing. There's no turning back. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:06:24 What are those favorite radio stations in Toronto you were listening to, that you said, I want to be there? Tessa Malisani (Guest) 00:06:29 I think at the time, definitely it was 102.1 The Edge. I've always been a fan of that station. I think definitely that one. Yeah, I'm going to say that one is the main one because I know since then it's changed. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:06:42 And the Seneca experience was a positive one, and I'm going to assume it was because we'll get into it in a second, because I think you're teaching there too. Tessa Malisani (Guest) 00:06:48 I am, yeah. It was a very positive experience. I had a great time, actually. I kind of fast tracked it, so I did it in a year and a half where I just went straight through the summer, which was good because I was not there to waste time. I made a lot of really good friends, and yeah, I found the experience really good. So I already had a little bit of experience in radio, so I kind of knew where I was going with that and like, what I wanted to get out of it. I knew I wanted to be on air because I had that experience before. I knew this is my passion. Like when first time I sat in front of a board at school, I was like, okay, this is my environment. I already felt super comfortable. Also, I was really interested in the music side of things as well. But yeah, so I did that and then I had my first internship at Chum, so I did that and I was working in the creative department, a bit of production. And then from there, this is kind of the advice I give to my students because, yes, I do teach part time also at Seneca. I always say, you know, because everyone has to intern to get a certain amount of hours to graduate. Once you graduate, if you're still interning somewhere, ask if you can still keep going, if you can just keep going to your internship. Because once you leave school and you leave a radio station, you have nothing left to hold on to. In a way like, yes, you can apply to certain places, you can do this and that, but once you're in the door, you're there. And so whether you're making money or not, you're still making those connections, you're still building those relationships, you're still learning new things, you're still in the building. So go work for free or do whatever you have to do for free until you find your first job. So that's with my advice, because that's exactly what I did. I said, Can I just keep coming here? Like, I've graduated. They were like, sure. So I would go every single day because I was free and I would just apply, apply to jobs until I got something and then that was it. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:08:42 Was there any pressure given by Seneca to look outside of Toronto for work? Tessa Malisani (Guest) 00:08:46 Not so much pressure, but encouragement, definitely, because the industry is so small, in a sense, where there's only a handful of on air people within the country, let alone just Toronto. So they encourage you to go make your mistakes elsewhere, learn everything, hone your craft, whether it's a year or two years, whatever it may be, then come back to Toronto, right? Because if you make all your big mistakes in a large market, then where do you go from there? They would definitely encourage and also to just with your experience, realistically, getting a job in Toronto right away is very rare. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:09:23 Has that changed today with the students that you work with? It's always encouraged that you could do that, but is it as necessary as it once was? Tessa Malisani (Guest) 00:09:32 So that's interesting because I do think it is still necessary, but I feel like our market has expanded so much so now that the smaller radio stations in like Kitchener or London or Barrie are not as far away as they once were. Do you know what I mean? Because the GTA, Toronto, everything is expanding so much. So those small radio stations are not that small anymore. So yes and no. Yes, go outside of Toronto, but you don't really have to go that far anymore. You don't have to go to Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan if you don't want to. I think there's a lot of opportunity within reach. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:10:09 Yeah, I smirked a little bit because you said Kitchener being small and it's now a top ten market. Tessa Malisani (Guest) 00:10:13 Exactly. Whereas before, like, ten years ago, it was not considered. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:10:18 No, the market expanded largely because of tech. And as well, I think the region sort of all morphed into itself, and now it's a big blob of people. Tessa Malisani (Guest) 00:10:26 I know, it's exciting. Lots of competition. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:10:30 Tell me about interviewing, because there's a level of prep that goes into it. But when we watch you do it and you've interviewed a lot of famous people, what goes into the preparation for the interview? Because you do make it look easy. Tessa Malisani (Guest) 00:10:44 Thank you. Thank you for saying that. Actually, I think that's a really big compliment, making it look easy. And I think with that, maybe why that comes off, is because I go into any time I'm chatting with someone or I'm meeting this person for the first time, but I have to remember that they are just a person. You can connect with them in different ways. You know a lot about them, you have interest in them. So treat them like a regular person and go into it with that. Not so much intimidation. Like become their friend, or try to be, anyways. But in terms of prep, nowadays you can get so much information about somebody. Especially with social media. And that's such a good way to relate to someone, saying like. Oh. What they've been up to. Or what they've been posting on their Instagram. Or nowadays TikTok. Whatever it may be. Go in and see what they're up to, and create conversations based on that. Obviously, do your research to know. They obviously want to talk about or want you to know about the stuff that they're known for professionally, of course, because they're promoting music or their movies or what it may be. But yeah, I think it's good if you can connect with them by just being interested in them as a person. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:11:57 To me, it feels like you've narrowed the gap, really, between- if I tell you you're going to do a TV interview or you're going to do a radio interview, it almost feels like it would be agnostic for you to approach it, right? Aside from your presentation, with makeup and a little bit of clothing, the interview feels the same, whether it's on the radio and on television. That's what I get when I hear you. Tessa Malisani (Guest) 00:12:14 Yeah, I would say so. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:12:16 I guess my question is, as somebody who's just been working with audio forever, how did you narrow that gap? Tessa Malisani (Guest) 00:12:21 So when I was working in Virgin Radio in Toronto, we did like, a lot of videotaped interviews, so we used to have a thing called the red room. Now they do things a lot differently. There's a lot of things that are virtual and this and that. But when I started in radio, when I started in Toronto, it was a lot of in person interviews that were taped. And so I guess you just learned to- it's difficult because you have to make sure you have a presence, this and that. I think it has a lot to do with my acting background, to be honest. I just know how to position myself. I know that I'm being looked at. And you kind of want to have a presence. It's about having stage presence pretty much, right? So I think it takes a lot of practice, too, because when you're interviewing someone, it's different, like having a conversation on camera, because you have to be aware of yourself very much so, as you wouldn't be if you were just doing straight audio. So it's just being very aware, self aware, but also not being too self aware. It's like the fine balance. And I think it just takes practice, to be honest, because obviously, I'm sure my first interview, it was not as great as ones I've done more recently. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:13:34 In just a second, more with Tessa, including a lot of her television and voice work that you might have heard over the last decade or so. Did you know she was on Road to Avonlea and Goosebumps? She also got caught up in the layoffs and then pivoted in the pandemic to YouTube. And you know what? It was a good thing. Plus, Tessa tells us about her time in Halifax at the station formerly known as Bounce. There's more. There's always more, including a transcript of this episode, at soundoffpodcast.com. Sarah Burke (VO) 00:13:34 Transcription for The Sound Off podcast powered by Poddin. Your podcast is an SEO goldmine. We help you to dig out. Start your free trial now at Poddin.io. Tara Sands (VO) 00:13:34 The Sound Off podcast with Matt Cundill. Tessa Malisani (Guest) 00:13:34 Closed captioning of this Much program is brought to you in part by Aveeno Daily Moisturizing Body Wash. Use Aveeno lotion for twice the moisture and softer, smoother skin. This Wednesday, producer Dan Hoff and Motley Crue's Nikki Six take it up a notch. Music superstar Boy George shines a light on the next breakthrough artist. The Launch, Wednesdays, starting January 10 on CTV. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:14:46 Have you been working at Bell since you interned there? Tessa Malisani (Guest) 00:14:49 No, not always. So it was Chum CTV, and so when I interned there, then I got my first job in Halifax. So at the time it was 101.3 The Bounce, which is now Virgin Radio Halifax. So I was there for a couple of years and I got hired at Virgin Radio in Toronto and I was there for seven years. So we were up at a building, Yonge and St. Clair in Toronto. I was there for a couple of years, then we moved to 99 Queen Street down there, and that's when there was like that merge, because we were Astral. But at first I was at Chum CTV. When I got hired at Virgin, it was a completely different company. It was Astral at the time. And then they got bought by Bell. So essentially it's like, I have been at Bell the whole time, but not technically. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:15:38 Okay, so I'm not going to edit this part out. There are times I would edit around to try to make this a little smoother, but I think this is a good way to tell people about how the sausage is made for this podcast, and that's I will go and do research. And I looked at your LinkedIn and it said you had experience at 101.3 in Halifax at Bounce, and I thought maybe she was voice tracking. And that's what people do now, they'll add the station to their LinkedIn and I won't know if they move there physically to experience the city, or if they just voice track there. So I didn't know that. So you have to tell me all about your Halifax experience. Tessa Malisani (Guest) 00:16:10 Yeah, I moved to Halifax. I was interning at Chum and I applied and that was the one that I got. And two weeks later I moved. And like I said, I was there for two years. So I got hired. I was doing, I think, the night show, so at the time it was 10:00 p.m. till 02:00 A.m. And it was fun, I loved it. I had never been to Halifax before, I just moved, I was like, okay, let's go. And I fell in love with it. Actually, it took me a little while at first to adjust because I was used to bigger cities, obviously Toronto and living in New York, and I would fly to LA every once in a while because I have a lot of friends out there. So I was like, big cities, I'm like, where are all the tall buildings? But eventually, once I decided to embrace the city and the culture and everything, I made a lot of friends. I was doing lots of things, working at events, and I just had a really good time and I loved it. And I love Halifax. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:17:06 Who doesn't love the busker festival down there in August? Tessa Malisani (Guest) 00:17:09 Right? Matt Cundill (Host) 00:17:10 And that's a great time slot too. I mean, between ten and two in the morning, a shift that doesn't readily exist in a lot of places anymore. How much fun can you have on the radio in a city like that? Tessa Malisani (Guest) 00:17:22 Yeah, and it's funny because I was still learning. It was like my first commercial radio on air gig, so it was great for me to just kind of test things out and kind of find my voice at the time. And then eventually I moved to the evenings at 07:00 P.m. until midnight, and that was my thing for the rest of the time. But yeah, it was fun. It's such a great place. I made so many friends. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:17:46 Yeah, there's some great broadcasters too in that city. I think you're in the same building, possibly, as Steve Murphy. Tessa Malisani (Guest) 00:17:52 Yes, he was my neighbor. I lived right next door to him. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:17:56 Really? Tessa Malisani (Guest) 00:17:57 Steve Murphy was my neighbor. Yes. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:17:59 I think he was working at Q104 at the time, but somebody like JC Douglas, who eventually did go to work at C100, and then a station like C100, which is like the de facto radio station of the city of Halifax since its inception in the 1600s. Tessa Malisani (Guest) 00:18:15 Yes, exactly. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:18:17 That's great. I'm glad you had a good experience there. But did you say you were going from Halifax to Los Angeles at times? Tessa Malisani (Guest) 00:18:24 Before that. Mostly when I was in Toronto, I was going back and forth and then I did a couple of times when I was there, but that's too far. It's like going to Europe, if you're in Halifax, it's a long foot. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:18:35 Oh, that's an all day trip. Tessa Malisani (Guest) 00:18:36 Yeah. But yeah, I would go. A lotta my friends back from acting school and whatnot. A lot of them moved out to LA. So that was one of the avenues I was thinking of doing, but I never did. So I would just go visit and spend a lot of time there. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:18:50 Did you look for auditions, voiceover work? What was it in LA? Tessa Malisani (Guest) 00:18:55 No, I didn't. I didn't do any of it. Actually, you know what, I did. When I graduated school, I went to the Clear Channel Building at the time and I brought my demo and my resumes and all of that. And I remember I ran into somebody in the elevator. I dropped off my stuff there. And I remember I ran into someone in the elevator. I don't know who he was, to be honest. And after a friend of mine told me, they were like, that was an elevator pitch. That was your elevator pitch. And I was like, what? And I was like I was like, I don't know what's happening. What do you mean? And they said, that was your chance to sell yourself. So apparently this guy was asking me what I was doing and I explained to him, I'm here to drop off my demo. And he said, well, what are you looking to do? And I think because I was so fresh out of school, I really didn't know what I wanted, I wanted anything. And his advice to me in this elevator, as we're going down however many flights. He said, what you need to do is find that one thing, find whatever you want to do. Do you want to be on air? Do you want to do production? Find that one thing and get really good at it. Come back here and do that and say that's what you want. And I was like, okay. You know, I was kind of a little naive about the business at that time. I just graduated school, so that was an interesting experience. So I left there feeling like, a little defeated, but also feeling like, okay, I see what's going on. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:20:20 I love how the roots of what you do all go back to performance. And, you know, when I asked about the difference between television and radio, there's performance, so I'll throw in the voiceover side of it as well, which also dovetails back to your acting. So tell me about your experience doing voiceover, maybe what commercials you've been in and where we can hear you now. Tessa Malisani (Guest) 00:20:39 That's so funny. Actually, I almost forgot that I was thinking about it today. My very first voiceover gig was when I was eleven years old. It was for the show Goosebumps. So at the time when I was younger, I also had an agent. So I was in shows like Rotate and stuff like that, just doing random things here and there. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:21:01 That's significant. Tessa Malisani (Guest) 00:21:02 Yeah, that is significant. I was only on the last episode, I didn't really have a talking part, but I was in the show. So I had an agent when I was eleven years old in Toronto, and one of the jobs I got was a voiceover job, so it was for the show Goosebumps, and I was literally in there for five minutes. I just had to dub over somebody- over a scene of me saying, oh, are you going to the party tonight? Sure, okay. Something like that. Very quick, very short. But still today, I'm still getting royalty checks for that till this day. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:21:36 Really? Tessa Malisani (Guest) 00:21:37 It's not very much, but I'm still getting royalty checks in the mail, which is hilarious. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:21:42 Some people get like checks, and the checks are so small, they're smaller than the price of the stamp to mail them, but it'll still show up? Tessa Malisani (Guest) 00:21:49 Yeah, maybe like $10. Every year I get something stupid like that, but I'm like, hey, whatever. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:21:56 I guess I shouldn't have really been looking at your LinkedIn. I probably should have been looking at your IMDb. What else am I going to find up there? Tessa Malisani (Guest) 00:22:04 Yeah, maybe I should make one of those. In terms of voiceover, I think that was the start at such a young age. But once I got into radio, that's when my whole career kind of blossomed with everything. Most of the things I did were in house, but through working in Radio and Virgin Radio in Toronto and being connected to CTV and Much Music, I was asked to be the voice of Much Music, which I did for about three years, I would say. So all the promos you would hear a lot on TV or viewer discretions, all that type of thing. Little ads here and there. I would voice those also. I think there was like a show called The Launch. CTV's The Launch. I did all the promos for that. A lot of things like that. A lot of stuff was inhouse. So once I left Virgin Radio and left all that, I kind of stopped doing that. I also used to voice the stuff for the CTV up fronts, the live shows and stuff, which I love. I love doing voice work. It's a lot of fun. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:23:05 How did you handle the pandemic? And when you look back at it, how did you approach it? Because if you're in voiceover, you were largely sent home to record. If you were in radio, you were largely sent home to record. You're in television. That's going to be a little bit difficult. How did all that roll out for you starting March 2020? Tessa Malisani (Guest) 00:23:24 Well, yeah, we are changed significantly. Actually. It changed significantly before that in the end of 2018 because I was part of cuts at Bell. So from there on, I started working on personal projects. I ended up getting like a partnership with Cuisinart, for instance. I just kind of like did a lot of stuff on social media. I was doing a lot of cooking videos, all kinds of stuff like that. Just really just keeping up with the times and staying relevant. And then I was teaching. Of course I was teaching, so that was always good. When March 2020 came, actually, it's interesting because I started getting the most work that I've gotten during the Pandemic, to be honest, which is so rare. And I kind of hate to say that because a lot of people did not have such a good time, but I did get a lot of work. So I ended up freelancing for Bell again once the Pandemic started. And I was doing all my radio shows from home. And I've been doing radio shows from home for two, almost three years now, and I still do some stuff from home. So I got hired for- which is now Move 105.7 in Niagara. What was it before? EZ Rock. So I was doing Saturday and Sunday show and it was all from home, my condo downtown and it was great. It worked well for me. Nobody was going anywhere. I was working. I was back on air. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:24:46 Yeah, it's weird how all that worked out. If you had a studio and you were set up to do anything at home, the work kind of came to you. I know I picked up a lot of voiceover work. I picked up a ton of podcasts. My company radically changed in that period. It's weird to say while everybody else was scrambling for CERB and trying to figure out what they were going to do. And I think people who sang and performed in bars- now I found myself hiring them to come on board and to market audio instead of marketing their own audio. It was such a weird time. And I know that so much of the things you do were affected positive and negative with the pandemic. That's why I asked that. Tessa Malisani (Guest) 00:25:20 Yeah, it's interesting. And I also started a podcast too, just before that. So it was interesting because I was doing all my interviews in person and then I had to switch to online and I'm like, well, I was so worried before. I'm like, about being in person. I'm like, okay, I've got to make sure I turn off- You don't want to hear the air conditioner or this and that, to being online, to where the quality is not as good as it would be if you were live in a studio. I mean, now things have changed. You can make it obviously a lot better. But at the time, switching, it was, oh, my gosh, should I keep going with this? I'm like, yeah, why not? Everybody's doing it now. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:25:57 When you went to Seneca, you had an eye on radio, but when people go to take the same course or the course that you're teaching now, do they have an eye on radio? Is radio the first thing they want to do? Or is the course really more multifaceted that includes television and voice and performance and a whole bunch of other things? Tessa Malisani (Guest) 00:26:13 Yeah, that's interesting you ask that because I've seen such a shift over the years with the students. There's actually quite a few of my students in the past couple of years. I haven't been teaching the past year now because I was on Mat leave and I had a baby and all that. So I plan to go back and do it because I do enjoy it. But when the last, I would say, couple of years of teaching. Some of my students, they were really interested in production to the point of, like, music production. So they were there in this radio program, but they were making music and producing music with different artists on their own time. So I found it really interesting that they were in this program, but there's a lot of skills they could learn from that program. But the radio program, I feel like, is definitely radio based. There's a TV television broadcasting program that you can go to, so they don't kind of mix it like they would do. I think there's other colleges that they kind of do both, and then you kind of choose which one you want to specialize in. I would say this one is just strictly radio, which I think is good if you know that's what you want to do. But I also think it's good to know both because this industry now, a lot of jobs like TV and radio go hand in hand these days. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:27:30 Aside from what you touched on about them wanting to get in and produce a little bit more music, how are the students of today different than when you were a student? Tessa Malisani (Guest) 00:27:40 Younger? I'm joking. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:27:42 Listen, you're too nice, and you don't want- and you're not the type of person who wants to staledate or date themselves in any fashion. But there's got to be something in your head that goes , heh. That wouldn't cut it in my day. Tessa Malisani (Guest) 00:27:53 Yeah, for sure. Definitely. The attitudes are definitely different. They're a lot more entitled in terms of, like there's a couple of times where some of the students would be challenging me and what I'm trying to tell them, as if they have more experience than me, but I kind of just, like, shoot that down right away, so I don't put up with it, really. I'm not, like, strict or anything. I just won't give you the time of day. Like, if that's how you're going to speak about things, I'm like, okay, I'm not going to focus on you because I'm not teaching high school. I'm here- If you want to be in this program, you're spending money. If you want to be successful, you should probably listen to the person who's teaching you, who works in the industry and has been in your position and knows what they're doing. So I just think that for me, I just wanted to absorb everything and learn from people who are actually working and doing what I want to be doing. And not all the students, obviously, most of the students were really, like, diligent in that way, where they were there to learn and just want to know everything that they can. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:28:54 What excites you about the future in this? Because there's so much and you're involved with so much, whether it's behind the microphone, in front of the camera, with the students, what is it that excites you about maybe the next five years, about what's coming and what do you see and what makes you go, man, that's going to be exciting. Tessa Malisani (Guest) 00:29:10 Yeah, I think- you know what, I love how we're all so connected more globally now than ever. And I think the pandemic has really brought that out in a lot of industries, because we're doing so much more online now, more than we would have been doing if there wasn't a pandemic, I would think. So I love that there's lots of possibilities for, I mean, all kinds of things, just connecting with other parts of the world and seeing where things like that could go. Because I don't think radio is going anywhere, even though people say that sometimes. I really don't. I think it's just going to expand into something different and I don't know, it's exciting. I don't even know what's going to happen. But I feel like you have to keep going with the times and keeping yourself relevant and keeping up with new trends and new things that are happening in the industry. Otherwise, you're just going to fall by the wayside. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:30:03 That's right. Tessa, thank you very much for joining us. Tessa Malisani (Guest) 00:30:07 Thank you. Thanks for having me. Tara Sands (VO) 00:30:07 The Sound Off podcast is written and hosted by Matt Cundill. Produced by Evan Surminski. Social Media by Courtney Krebsbach. Another great creation from the Soundoff Media Company. There's always more at soundoffpodcast.com.

This week has been pretty depressing. If you look at radio through the eyes of press releases and blogs, it's safe to say that the radio business you once worked in is is long gone and nearing dead and buried. But when you consider the new data from Edison Research about the spoken word news that F 150 trucks will no longer come equipped with Am radios and morning shows across North America are adding new markets and likely replacing your favorite. It's enough to make you feel that radio as you once knew it is likely dead. I think back to 2012 and 2013, when there was a noble push to have those FM chips on the phones activated. The technology was there. All that was needed to be done was activated. There was also that argument that in a time of emergency, people would need to have those chips activated to pick up important information. Then, sometime around 2017, those chips disappeared and that conversation was over. The disaster still happened, though, and whether it was Hurricane Sandy or Fiona or one of those many tornadoes and went through Ottawa, Ontario, or Ottawa, Kansas, radio was there. As long as the disaster happened on a weekday and when someone was in the studio. One undisputable trend is the migration of radio listeners away from radio. For every favorite personality terminated or radio station flipped to Caleb, there was no one and or nothing to replace entertainment for the disenfranchised. So they sought refuge on SiriusXM Streaming or wherever they get their podcasts. The Pandemic was not kind to radio either. In March 2020, there was no place for the community to gather any longer, and social distancing became the norm. Advertisers were forced to institute some social distancing with their ad dollars and the sales department forcing more social distancing among programmers, talent and their audiences. This brings me to what we're left with today a lot of radio stations playing too much music and piping in one and done content to fill airspace. To get to the next set of commercials, let's pretend that every radio market has 15 signals in it. Maybe two or three are putting out a quality product. The rest are holding on to what's left running out the clock. By the way - Beckler and Seanna at X92.9 recognize the difference between the good breaks and bad ones. Essentially, weekends and evenings have been surrendered, and some shows are well, they're trying. My favorite over the last half decade is the glut of radio shows that throw open the phones and ask, should raisins be in cookies after a shower? Do you dry off in the tub or on the bathroom floor? If you could only watch one Halloween movie for the rest of your life, what would it be? Have you ever fainted? This is just a sample of the innocuous questions that appeared in one market in one day. Of course, the questions are asked on the air to make the phones ring and to garner facebook comments at the same time, this gives everyone a large feeling of success inside. But I'm here to tell you the truth. These are the kind of questions that teenagers text to one another. They're vapid. I thought Radio was aiming for 25. 54. 25 to 54 year olds do not have conversations like this. This is low engagement. It's emotionally bankrupt material, and it's innocuous. I'll tell you right now that if you have a program director or some programming genius in your world telling you to do this on your radio show, they have zero faith in your capabilities to communicate and create meaningful audio. And you should create a pathway to quit your job and go find something else immediately. You shouldn't be working for someone who does not believe in you. When I left Radio in 2014, I spent six months looking for work. I'll always be appreciative for those who offered nice gigs, but from the conversations that I had, it was obvious that I didn't think Radio would be able to pull itself together. And after a few months, I started podcasting. And then I entered into a separation agreement with Radio. That's something that worked for me. Earlier this week, Edison Research released our spoken word research, and it turns out that spoken word consumption is up 214% for 13 to 24 year olds, compared to 2014. What this means is that your 55 minutes music hours are not working and not going to serve you well. This is no way to build a future. Meanwhile, the growth of podcast, an overall decline in spoken word on Am FM radio should make you think about how and where you're distributing your spoken word programming. Let's remember, if you're doing a morning show, that's spoken word programming, you're part of that ecosystem. Not necessarily for the research I mentioned, but that's the business you're in. And let's also remember, no longer will new F 150 trucks be accessible via AM radio and likely other vehicles that will be manufactured in the future. But maybe your words get into that truck if the listener brings a phone in the car. So is your content available on the phone, on a podcast, streaming on demand? Maybe it's time to think about creating subscription radio as I record this today. Scott Shannon, the man who is credited with creating the Morning Zoo format in New York City in 1983 and taking Z 100 from worst to first in one book, well, he retired today from WCBS in New York. When you think back, the Morning Zoo Format was built for radio and our North American culture. We were a people who needed entertainment. We were stuck in our cars, largely stuck in traffic. We wanted things fast and delivered on time. We wanted to laugh. We were looking for something when we were bored. So for all the discussion and numbers and research and facts and figures and other things I mentioned here on this podcast today. Understand that the great radio tomorrow won't necessarily come from a transmitter. It will need to be engaging and stimulate great adult conversation and fun and laughs. It's got to evoke emotion and bring a tear. It's got to inspire and have some imagination and hope. It should all be part of one big mix. Should make you smile and leave you feeling a part of something great. In fact, so much of that is happening right now, just not at the station you're at right now, and not from the radio stations we once knew. So do us all a favor. Stop asking infantile questions about pumpkin spice lattes. Create moments that matter. Promote it, play it often, and make sure it gets to the F 150 truck that has an Am FM radio, just an FM radio or no radio at all. Because radio is not dead. It's just playing dead. And let me ask you, are you playing the lead role in that Halloween horror? Transcript: Tara Sands (Voiceover) 00:00:01 The Sound Off podcast. The podcast about broadcast with Matt Cundill... Starts now. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:00:10 This week has been pretty depressing. If you look at radio through the eyes of press releases and blogs, it's safe to say that the radio business you once worked in is is long gone and nearing dead and buried. But when you consider the new data from Edison Research about the spoken word, news that F-150 trucks will no longer come equipped with AM radios, and morning shows across North America are adding new markets and likely replacing your favorite. It's enough to make you feel that radio as you once knew it is likely dead. I think back to 2012 and 2013, when there was a noble push to have those FM chips on the phones activated. The technology was there. All that was needed to be done was activate it. There was also that argument that in a time of emergency, people would need to have those chips activated to pick up important information. Then, sometime around 2017, those chips disappeared and that conversation was over. The disaster still happened, though, and whether it was Hurricane Sandy or Fiona, or one of those many tornadoes and went through Ottawa, Ontario, or Ottawa, Kansas, radio was there. As long as the disaster happened on a weekday and when someone was in the studio. One undisputable trend is the migration of radio listeners away from radio. For every favorite personality terminated or radio station flipped to K-Love, there was no one and or nothing to replace entertainment for the disenfranchised. So they sought refuge on SiriusXM, streaming, or wherever they get their podcasts. The pandemic was not kind to radio either. In March 2020, there was no place for the community to gather any longer, and social distancing became the norm. Advertisers were forced to institute some social distancing with their ad dollars and the sales department, forcing more social distancing among programmers, talent and their audiences. This brings me to what we're left with today: a lot of radio stations playing too much music, and piping in one-and-done content to fill airspace. To get to the next set of commercials. Let's pretend that every radio market has 15 signals in it. Maybe two or three are putting out a quality product. The rest are holding on to what's left- running out the clock, essentially. Weekends and evenings have been surrendered, and some shows are, well, they're trying. My favorite over the last half decade is the glut of radio shows that throw open the phones and ask, should raisins be in cookies? After a shower, do you dry off in the tub or on the bathroom floor? If you could only watch one Halloween movie for the rest of your life, what would it be? Have you ever fainted? This is just a sample of the innocuous questions that appeared in one market in one day. Of course, the questions are asked on the air to make the phones ring, and to garner facebook comments at the same time. This gives everyone a large feeling of success inside. But I'm here to tell you the truth. These are the kind of questions that teenagers text to one another. They're vapid. I thought radio was aiming for 25 to 54. 25 to 54 year olds do not have conversations like this. This is low engagement. It's emotionally bankrupt material, and it's innocuous. I'll tell you right now that if you have a program director or some programming genius in your world, telling you to do this on your radio show, they have zero faith in your capabilities to communicate and create meaningful audio. And you should create a pathway to quit your job and go find something else immediately. You shouldn't be working for someone who does not believe in you. When I left radio in 2014, I spent six months looking for work. I'll always be appreciative for those who offered nice gigs, but from the conversations that I had, it was obvious that I didn't think radio would be able to pull itself together. And after a few months, I started podcasting. And then I entered into a separation agreement with radio. That's something that worked for me. Earlier this week, Edison Research released their spoken word research, and it turns out that spoken word consumption is up 214% for 13 to 24 year olds, compared to 2014. Links to the research, by the way, in the show notes and on the episode page at soundoffpodcast.com. What this means is that your 55 minutes music hours are not working, and not going to serve you well. This is no way to build a future. Meanwhile, the growth of podcast, and overall decline in spoken word on AM/FM radio should make you think about how and where you're distributing your spoken word programming. Let's remember, if you're doing a morning show, that's spoken word programming, you're part of that ecosystem. Not necessarily for the research I mentioned, but that's the business you're in. And let's also remember, no longer will new F-150 trucks be accessible via AM radio, and likely other vehicles that will be manufactured in the future. But maybe your words get into that truck if the listener brings a phone in the car. So is your content available on the phone, on a podcast, streaming, on demand? Maybe it's time to think about creating subscription radio. As I record this today, Scott Shannon- the man who is credited with creating the Morning Zoo format in New York City in 1983, and taking Z100 from worst to first in one book- well, he retired today from WCBS in New York. When you think back, the Morning Zoo Format was built for radio and our North American culture. We were a people who needed entertainment. We were stuck in our cars, largely stuck in traffic. We wanted things fast and delivered on time. We wanted to laugh. We were looking for something when we were bored. So for all the discussion and numbers and research and facts and figures and other things I mentioned here on this podcast today. Understand that the great radio of tomorrow won't necessarily come from a transmitter. It will need to be engaging and stimulate great adult conversation and fun and laughs. It's got to evoke emotion and bring a tear. It's got to inspire, and have some imagination and hope. It should all be part of one big mix. Should make you smile, and leave you feeling a part of something great. In fact, so much of that is happening right now, just not at the station you're at right now, and not from the radio stations we once knew. So do us all a favor. Stop asking infantile questions about pumpkin spice lattes. Create moments that matter. Promote it, play it often, and make sure it gets to the F-150 truck that has an AM/FM radio, just an FM radio, or no radio at all. Because radio is not dead. It's just playing dead. And let me ask you, are you playing the lead role in that Halloween horror? Tara Sands (Voiceover) 00:06:55 The Sound Off Podcast with Matt Cundill. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:06:58 Thanks for listening to my little rant. I promise, I did not twist my ankle when I stepped off my soapbox. Every once in a while, when we have a guest for this show fall through, I will serve up a little radio perspective in lieu of having a conversation, and I hope you enjoyed it. If you do need a break from making great radio, my company is called the Sound Off Media Company. We have about 70 podcasts for you to choose from at Soundoff.network and also at Dean Blundell.com. Tell a friend about this podcast, please. Tara Sands (Voiceover) 00:07:27 The Sound Off podcast is written and hosted by Matt Cundill. Produced by Evan Surminski. Social media by Courtney Krebsbach. Another great creation from the Soundoff Media Company. There's always more at soundoffpodcast.com.

Bryan Barletta is back to tell us about the evolution of his company, Sounds Profitable. He started it two years ago, and since then it's evolved harmoniously alongside the podcast industry. You don't need even need to have podcast ads on your show to find value in its podcasts and newsletters, which we highly recommend you subscribe to. In this episode, we speak to Bryan about the first two years of Sounds Profitable. We discuss the podcasts he's on-boarded, like The Download, and the great podcast people he's worked with: Arielle Nissenblatt, Lauren Passell from Tink Media (check out their newsletter here), Tom Webster, Evo Terra, James Cridland, and more. We also discuss the value and difference between programmatic and dynamic ad insertion - and how (and if) you should be using it to monetize your show show. We also have some special segments and questions from Jon Gay of Jag In Detroit Podcasts, and Mary Anne Ivison, who does some awesome voicework and has a kick ass podcast we produce called "Let's Take This Outside." In particular, Bryan helps Mary Anne find the best way to handle which ads can run on her show. Be sure to check out the episodes we recorded with them too. Finally, Bryan shares the reasoning behind the incredible study he did with Sounds Profitable, called The Creators. He talks about how the data was gathered, what it means, and how everyone in the podcast space can benefit. If you'd like to view the study yourself, you can download it here. Transcript: Matt Cundill (Host) 00:00:01 Jon Gay from Jag in Detroit Podcasts. Should I have Bryan Barletta from Sounds Profitable on my podcast again? Jon Gay (Guest) 00:00:10 Bryan Barletta really knows a lot about a lot. My only issue is I have sometimes a hard time getting my head around all the material that he knows. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:00:20 This time I'm going to make it so everybody knows what's going on. Jon Gay (Guest) 00:00:23 I'm all ears. Tara Sands (VO) 00:00:23 The Sound Off Podcast. The podcast about broadcast with Matt Cundill... Starts now. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:00:35 This week we bring back Bryan Barletta from Sounds Profitable. A little under two years ago, we had Bryan on the show to talk about his brand new venture and he gave us an Adtech 101 lesson. Today, Bryan is back to give us another Adtech 101 lesson. But it's going to be radically different than the one from a few years ago because the business and the technology around adtech have changed. You know, Adtech is one of those things that makes me excited about podcast. Back in 2018, when we started using our podcast host Art 19, we got to run tailored ads from clients so a company like Promosuite could have different copy for each country and ads for US audiences would run only in the US. Meanwhile, ads for Canadian companies like Enlarge and the Hudson's Bay Company would only be heard by the people who would want to buy those products. And a few people have sent me notes from time to time, saying they hear different ads when they listen to the podcast on vacation. To which I say, you shouldn't be listening to this podcast while you're on vacation, but we certainly appreciate it. Bryan returns to answer all our ad tech questions once again. And he's coming fully loaded with resources like newsletters and podcasts you should listen to while you're on vacation. He joins me from San Antonio, Texas. Bryan, what it Sounds Profitable and is it the same answer as two years ago when I asked this question? Bryan Barletta (Guest) 00:01:56 Well, I don't think it is. I think two years ago Sounds Profitable was my attempt to, I guess, like single handedly educate and lift up as many people I could in the business side of podcasting. And I think it was heavily ad tech focused. I'd say that today, Sounds Profitable is more about the community and uplifting and empowering everybody to kind of do it themselves, to provide them the opportunity and the information, to teach their teams to selfeducate, to participate with their peers, to connect, to share research. And everything that we're doing is meant to be free and publicly available. I mean, I think the biggest difference there is that Tom Webster joined in June of this year. He had left 18 years at Edison Research, one of the leading voices and probably the leading voice in research and podcasting. And he came to join to expand that for us. He helped us start up live events. He helped us start up our own cutting edge research. And yeah, it's blossoming. I don't even know if I had my podcast last time I was on. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:02:59 No, you were in the process of just starting it. Bryan Barletta (Guest) 00:03:02 Yeah. And so now we have five podcasts a week, right? Because two of them are in Spanish. So we have the Narrated articles in English and Spanish, synthetic voice for the Spanish with Veritone, which is really fun, ad Tech Applied, which is with me and Ariel and interviewing a guest on Wednesdays. And on Thursdays we have honestly, my personal favorite, The Download. It's what is happening in the business of podcasting and why it matters to you in ten minutes or less. And we do that in English and native Spanish with Shreya Sharma of Inside Podcasting and Manuela Bedoya in the English version. And Manuela and Gabe Soto of Edison Research do the Spanish version. And we really, really enjoyed doing that. And we have the newsletter every week. We have the deep dives every month. So it's a video walkthrough of really cool products that you should probably know about in this space and how they work. And hopefully my excitement and interest translates over there. And then quarterly research that Tom's putting out, which is just a blast. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:03:53 So I get together with radio people every once in a while, and we have conversations and like, did you know that you could do your podcast in Spanish? And here's how the technology works. And I know that you've been using this with some of your podcasts, but tell people how you do a podcast in Spanish, because I don't think you speak Spanish. Bryan Barletta (Guest) 00:04:12 No, not even a little bit. I was so bad at Spanish, and my brother is a grade younger than me, and that in high school, we were in the same Spanish class because I was behind. Basically, Veritone uses my voice in my podcast. I send them the highest quality recordings that I have, and they're able to process that and make a synthetic version of my voice. Then they're able to have it speak any language with multiple dialects per language. So if we wanted to do French, it would be just as easy. I give them the newsletter, and honestly, in a few minutes, they turn it around from English to Spanish, which we post. We have a Spanish version of the newsletter, and then they take that and they use text to speech using my voice that they've synthesized. And I've given permission to have it speak Spanish. And it's really an interesting experience, the speed at which they're able to deliver it, the accuracy of the sound. I really am impressed by it. My wife is probably the only person who's convinced it doesn't sound anything like me, and so I guess that's the only sniff test that hasn't passed. But a lot of people are really impressed by it. And I think that the reason I dug into it was I wanted to show how any company of any size can do that. I mean, it's me and Tom. We have the people who write and edit and are participating in the download. And then Gavin Gaddis, who came on as my assistant, that's how small the crew is. And we've been able to do it in English and in Spanish for two of our three different unique podcasts pretty easily. The tools are there. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:05:32 So if you're a Canadian podcaster and you're looking to translate or you're looking to start a podcast in French, this is an excellent tool to do this. Bryan Barletta (Guest) 00:05:41 Oh, that would be such a great idea to do that. And I know that Veritone launched their voice network. I believe that that's something that they're exploring, is working with people who have a great following in one language and helping them build another language version of their podcast and even represent the ad sales for it. So that's something to keep in mind if you're interested in reaching out to them. Maybe you have a big enough following. And exactly like Matt said, French is something that would bring it even further. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:06:07 So I was going to ask you to recount all the little steps along the way and the evolution of Sounds Profitable, but we'll just bring it back to the one that you've already mentioned, and that's the acquisition of Tom Webster. I remember when I heard it, I thought, oh, that's surprising, yet not very surprising because it makes sense, but a lot of people were surprised by that. So was that a big pivot for your company? Bryan Barletta (Guest) 00:06:30 I think that I've been overwhelmed by the success that Sounds Profitable has had. saying that out loud, I feel like kind of a jerk, but things have been growing so fast. We had one partner we were working with in September 2021, title sponsor, that was Midroll at the time, and podsites. And before Tom even came on board. We've been working with I think it was close to 60 or 70 partners, so we'd grown massively. Like, this was a really great operation that was looking at what it could become more than that, and it was really Bryan Yells At Clouds for a little bit. I have these opinions about the space. I believe I can educate people. I think I'm making an impact here. I'm putting out a ton of content and hopefully it sticks. But the truth is that I saw that there was a lifeline for that. There is a set amount of time before something like that expires, and so it's really important to me to figure out what the next step is. Now, I'm confident that I could find a great job in podcasting or in ad tech and not worry about it. But it's really fun and unique for me to be able to bring everybody together and be a neutral player in the podcast space. So I thought about what other neutral things were out there and, you know, Tom was absolutely, you know, a long shot for me. We started talking about it, I think, at the beginning of the year. And my pitch to him was basically, Edison is the backbone and you helped establish that. And I think the team at Edison is indisputable and the abilities and education that they're providing to the podcasting space. I absolutely think that we should be looking at the data stronger than anyone else's data, but we need to be able to put more things in, more people's sales tax. The reason why we're not winning as many deals or we're fighting against other media channels or even infighting, like Spotify likes to go head-to-head and say they are streaming and the rest of us are downloads. We need more material to help those people, selling those campaigns, building those new shows, getting funding. And to me, the best way to do that is research. I did not believe that my offer to Tom would turn out, and I was just as surprised as a lot of you. I just had a little bit more notice. But it's been fantastic. It's really exceeded all my expectations. And watching Tom, who has done a lot of client work and has done a lot of structural work, get to say, no, this is what we need to do. This is a topic that we need to go over. This is something that we need to create research for and we need to do it right now for the people to succeed. Giving him that freedom and backing him as a partner has been amazing. I think it's really moved the industry forward. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:09:04 So another piece of talent acquisition that I really liked, and I could hear this in the evolution of where it was going, was you brought Ariel Nissenblatt in to cohost the podcast with you, and all of a sudden the podcast is like, oh, I get this dynamic. Here's Ariel, who is curious and inquisitive and wants to know more about ad tech and wants to ask questions, and here you are with a whole lot of answers. But now the show is no longer at a risk of becoming too inside baseball. Bryan Barletta (Guest) 00:09:31 Yeah, and it's funny you say that. My wife actually specifically listens to the parts that Ariel is on because it breaks down the interview. It sets it up, it talks about why this is important. It gets to the interview and then it just goes to, what are the key takeaways? How do you do something with this? Because I admit it, I get excited, I get carried away. This person is an expert. I'm trying to highlight them. So we just dive right into it and sometimes it's a little deep. That's absolutely something that I feel like I can do better at, and I really do want to do better at is figuring out better on-ramps. Quicker ones, right? I think I need to get quicker because I think there's a lot of great surface content out there in podcasting. There's a lot of people who can talk to creators and can talk to people who are like, how do I monetize when I start? I need to talk to the people that are building this into a business and all of that. So that to me, is why I dive into the deep end. But Ariel is that on-ramp, and Ariel is that list of things you can take away from it and why you should reach out to that person, or why you should take their advice and apply it. So it's been fantastic. Ariel has been a critical part about Sounds Profitable since shortly after we recorded, Ariel came on and did our social media and really blew that up. I love that the Sounds Profitable Twitter handle is about to exceed me in follows because then I can be a little bit more of a nerd and less just ad tech stuff. I can talk about my other nerd habits. It's really cool. I think she adds a lot of value and I think everybody in the space can benefit from listening to her. It doesn't matter how early you are in your career or late in your career, I think Ariel has the pulse of the space. I think she's exactly the type of person I wanted to work with, and I cannot wait to see how far she surpasses us at Sounds Profitable. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:11:11 She's on a fast track. I mean, somebody called me yesterday and said, how do I market my podcast? I'm like, just follow Ariel. That's all you need- on Twitter. Bryan Barletta (Guest) 00:11:19 Yes. And she's super accessible. I know- While she does work at Squad Cast and she also does earbuds and all- she does so many things. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:11:26 She's now on the board of the Podcast Academy. Bryan Barletta (Guest) 00:11:27 Which is amazing, which absolutely is well deserved. I think that the fact that she also works with Tink Media and you can get consulting or get your podcast triage there is killer. Her and Lauren are amazing. They are such a good duo and I think they add so much value even just in one phone call. So I highly recommend people reach out to her. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:11:49 Lauren is Lauren Pacel. We'll put the link to that newsletter, which is incredibly valuable as well, in the show notes of this episode. Tell me about the number of downloads. You made reference to it, I think, in a podcast, you said, oh, we only have about 300 downloads, or something like that. But I'm like, yeah, you also got a newsletter. And both the podcast and the newsletter tell the tale. So does it really matter? Bryan Barletta (Guest) 00:12:09 Yeah, that's the hard part. I mean, when you're building content- Here's the truth, people. I was a product manager who was in a back room. I was a sales engineer who was out there with salespeople. I didn't have, like, a brand. And creating content is anxiety inducing. It's how I started my career. I used to do app reviews. Like I literally would download six or more iPhone apps in one business day. I would play with them each for 15 minutes. I would write a review of it, I would take my DV camera pointed straight down and I would put my fingers on the screen and walk through it while also then taking that video and narrating my article over it. And I put on YouTube, I had massive anxiety. Six a day, right? If you take an hour each of them and then 2 hours of catching up from email and lunch, that's a lot of content to pump out. And so I had anxiety with that. So when I create content with Sounds Profitable, I want to make sure I enjoy it, that it's easy to get out there, and that we really buy into what works. I mean, just looking at it, yeah, you're right, it's a couple of hundred downloads for the podcast. But the truth is, the people that listen to the podcast find immense value out of it. They come up to me at conferences and they tell me that, and that is such a powerful and great experience because it enables me to know what works for them, that there is still an audience or that I am still reaching people and I'll still continue it. But the newsletter, we're almost at 7500 subscribers in two years who are a podcast newsletter that was originally about ad tech but is now more broadly about the business of podcasting. And it's a 55% unique open rate, like same day 55% unique open rate. Those numbers are phenomenal. I mean, we're getting in touch with the right people. We get responses from people. Like right now, today, the newsletter went out about 2 hours ago. I have five emails from people who have read it and have opinions on it or want to talk more about it. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:13:58 They said nice things, right? Bryan Barletta (Guest) 00:14:00 Some of them did. Some of them say a little bit of jokey stuff. It's great because I know a bunch of people in the space, so I can read through some of the messages, but definitely there are a few trolls, but a few people who push back in great ways. For the longest time, Todd Cochrane from Blubrry would reply back with counterpoints and I love that. I mean, I have the luxury of being neutral in this space, definitely not unbiased, and I get to work with everybody, but that doesn't mean I know everything. And there are absolutely times where I'll write something and I believe I know it. And the people I'm interacting with believe that that's the truth. And then someone like Todd can provide another perspective. I personally need that. If I don't receive that, I can't grow and I can't better serve everybody in this space. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:14:42 I love it. And I mean, you're somebody who wasn't even on social media when we first did this podcast a couple of years ago. Because I went to go tag you and I went, oh man, this guy has no social media. Bryan Barletta (Guest) 00:14:52 Yeah, I quit Facebook at the time, which I'm like, tentatively back on just to make friends in San Antonio since we moved here a year ago. I got on Twitter, but it was high five RPG because it was all about tabletop role playing and I was just trying to interact with that community. And yeah, I guess I was on just LinkedIn, but now Sounds Profitable has a Tiktok account. We are going to see if we can make that work. I have all the company accounts, we have all my personal accounts everywhere. And it's fun, but it's a lot of pressure when you make a really interesting point on social media and the end result is nobody likes it or shares it, you're just like, Ah. But then when you're just like- it's really offputting. When you get three ads and you start a new podcast and you don't know who the host is and that gets like a hundred, I'm just like, okay, well, I got to learn how social media works on top of learning how to tell these stories about the things I think the industry needs. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:15:42 So on your podcast, I've noticed that you're on OMNY, which is a great podcasting platform. I've been there before. How do you use dynamic audio within all the podcasts? Bryan Barletta (Guest) 00:15:52 We actually this year took a step back and we're just focusing on the analytics. We had tried some stuff out when we first moved to OMNY and it worked great. I really like how OMNY set up for that. I also like how for like, the dynamic creative options that they have, they work with frequency to allow you to do some really interesting things. But the first year of the podcast, we kind of push things to the limits. There were 13 pieces of dynamic ad insertion, and more often than not, by doing that many, one or two would mess up. And so if you did that many, especially conditional ones, we fielded a lot of emails from even smaller pool of people telling us about that. So my focus on Omni was the fact that I wanted to understand how to make sure I could flight fully on there. And I love their process for doing it. I love the visibility and everything. For example, when we schedule the podcast, I have to pull the download link out, send it to James Cridland at PodNews, who sends out our newsletter for us and hosts our website. And that's very easy. That's not something I've easily come across in other hosting platforms. And we did test out some of the dynamic ad insertion. We were going to test out some of the programmatic capabilities that OMNY and Triton offered, but we've decided to really limit the ad opportunities in Sounds Profitable because it's talking so heavily about advertising and it's talking so heavily about the business there. So we're trying to be succinct and clean on that. And you'll actually see at the beginning of next year, too, the newsletter is going to have no advertisements or sponsorships in it. We move to calling the people we work with partners and those will all continue to be listed at the bottom. But we feel, we're giving you three pages of content. We don't need to break it up with sold media, and we don't need to share the title headline when our newsletter comes out. There will be other ways that we work with people like that, but I think that we're best serving the community by equally working with everybody. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:17:38 So one of the things that I really love are the two studies that, at least I can recall, that you've done, since I think Tom Webster got there. One of them was the creators. And finding out who is making podcasts. Why was that study done? Why did we need to know that? And what was your biggest eye opening takeaway from it when you got the results back and went, oh. Bryan Barletta (Guest) 00:17:59 So this was a great example. Tom had joined in June and that report was released in June. He had his heart set on doing it. He knew where he could get the data. This is actually really cool. That data comes purely out of the Edison Podcast Metrics Tool, which is a tool that anybody can get access to. And I highly recommend that if you could use data, you reach out to the Edison team because this is the type of thing you could research yourself, you could provide it as a third party, you could run your own private study and compare it to the benchmarks. I think that that's really like a really strong way to go about it. Tom wanted to show who the people we're working with are. We believe it's going to turn into a franchise. We're likely going to do it next year as well, and maybe even expand it past the US. But that's Edison's core set of information. I think it provides a lot of value. I think you can apply that to a lot of other English primary speaking countries. There are plenty you can't. Our goal with that was just to shine that light on everybody so that companies can say, hey, we do exceed these benchmarks. Hey, we are falling a little bit short behind it. Hey, these are the people that we're targeting and it is working. But can we expand it to a more diverse audience? Hey, we're missing the mark. So maybe we do need to open up to some of the people that are clearly there, and get ideas on how big the industry is. We talk a lot about podcasting hit $2 billion. What we mean by that is ad spend, right? And in the US. What a research report like this, I think does. And this was really our goal, is it enables a company or a production house to say, we want to build the show, and here's why. Here's what the norm is, here's why we're different, and here's why it's better. It allows companies like that to also get funding, and it allows people to realize there are more things to sell and interact with in the podcast community than simply advertising. There are more. We have microphones. Me and you were gabbin' at the beginning of this. I got a New Earthworks Ethos microphone, $400 microphone, gorgeous microphone that they gifted to me. But these are the types of things that we're spending money on in the space. Evo Terra, podcast pontifications, he always talks about that. We're not talking about how big the spend is in podcasting. And by having metrics like this, we can explore all aspects of podcasting, not just advertising, but the creators too. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:20:10 And you had a study at Podcast Movement that you opened up for everybody after your day long event. And I loved it because it solved a problem and answered questions that get asked all the time. And in this case, it was really how effective are programmatic ads, versus host-read ads, versus- forgot the third one. Bryan Barletta (Guest) 00:20:28 It would show us host-read live-read endorsement, host-read scripted without endorsement, and announcer-read scripted. So let's dive into that for a second. You said the P word, right? So this is a problem that- it comes up a lot. Programmatic and dynamic ad insertion are different things, and technically all three of those executions could be baked in. So we're talking about the creative aspect, because a listener has no idea if an ad is baked in or if it's dynamically inserted. If it's dynamically inserted, they have no idea if you, Matt, served it, your hosting platform Megaphone served it, or if you or Megaphone kicked it out to a programmatic partner to make that available for anybody to bid on. Basically the listener or the information that it has about your show to determine if that's the right ad for it. Delivery is not incredibly confusing, but it's easy to combine the things. I think a lot of people want to be mad at programmatic. When they hear an ad, it's like ah, that ad sucked. I hate to tell you, a substantial amount of the ads that you think suck, are actually dynamically inserted by the people that you like, the hosts that you work with, the networks that represent them directly, a human specifically selected Matt's show or a bundle of Matt's shows and that ad and put them together, right? So this was to take a step back and say, all that matters is the creative and the content. So we took Jordan Harbinger with Matthew McConaughey as a two minute clip. In that clip, we had Jordan do the live read endorsement, Athletic Greens. We had Jordan do a scripted read for Athletic Greens, and we had Ashley Hammer-Pritchard do the scripted announcer read for Athletic Greens. The results were amazing. I mean, first off, out of almost 1100 people who participated in the study, 300 of them were familiar with Jordan Harbinger. Which makes this bulletproof, because if you don't have an association and affinity with the host, it's hard to say that the host-endorsed one actually made a difference, or the host read, when you've only listened to the host for two minutes total. Right? What we found was, it was like, single digit percentages difference between the effectiveness of a host endorsed live read and an announcer-read. If the content is good, if the ad is great, and the sound quality and all that meshes together, you really can hit a home run. Even if the host isn't saying, I like this product and you like what I do, so you'll like this product too. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:22:46 I want to say that the results were very close to negligible. Bryan Barletta (Guest) 00:22:50 I would say so, yeah. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:22:52 And encouraging as well. Bryan Barletta (Guest) 00:22:54 Yeah. But to me, what it does is this is exactly why we do reports like this. And we did a follow up of it this month, actually called We'll Be Right Back. And the intent was to dig into like, what people remembered from it. And what Tom highlighted is that promo codes weren't what they remembered. They remembered Jordan Harbinger, they remembered athletic greens, but the promo code didn't come up giving this information. The intent for this is we have partners that help fund it. We are fully funded for research, but there's value in them having their name on it. They get custom versions of the report. We brief them on it beforehand. They're part of our live event where we reveal all the research. But anybody can take this report and build their case around it. So think about it this way. Let's say that I have a marketplace like Gumball for example, where host-read is exactly what I sell. That 7 to 8 or 9% difference of effectiveness is enough for them to take that slide and that part of the argument and say it is more effective. It might not be massively more effective, but that difference makes an impact. And that's something you should lean into. Whereas you could also say for a company saying, hey, we really need to switch to dynamic ad insertion, it's a lot of work to do baked-in ads and keep track of everything. Here is a report saying that host-read scripted actually doesn't have a negative impact. It's only 2 or 3% different from the announcer-read and from the live read. So that's a case that they can make there. And finally someone can say programmatic, like you said, the access to someone else's inventory from another ad server, the announcer-read. If the content of the ad matches the content of the show, and the targeting is really succinct, it can still be a massive home run. So I think we showed, in my opinion, that there is a negligible difference, but we empowered multiple different companies to say, this is why we do what we do, why we're the best at it, and why you should give us a shot. And it really set kind of the post for them to hit, to say, this is what's important, right? These are the qualities that allow us to get that close to that value. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:24:56 In just a moment, we discuss rates. How much is that ad space worth on your podcast, anyway? And we take questions from the audience too. There's more, including all the connection points to Sounds Profitable podcasts like The Download, and some of the narrated articles if you don't like reading. And if you don't like hearing people talk, you can always get a transcript of this episode at soundoffpodcast.com. Sarah (VO) 00:25:21 Transcription for The Soundoff Podcast is powered by Poddin. Your podcast is an SEO goldmine. We help you to dig out. Start your free trial now at Poddin.io. Tara Sands (VO) 00:25:21 The Soundoff Podcast. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:25:34 So, you were talking earlier about creating content and social media content and getting some anxiety over it. And when I talk to some podcasters and I'm presenting them the option of using programmatic as a way to get a little bit of revenue, they get a little bit anxious because they're not really sure of the advertiser that's going to be going into their show, even if you can block it. So, a great example, I sent it to you yesterday and we'll play her clip here. So Mary Anne had a question for you and she wanted to ask. Mary Anne Ivison (Guest) 00:26:02 I have a podcast called let's Take This Outside. It's all about the outdoors. I heard a Programmatic ad for the dairy farmers of Ontario and I wasn't super comfortable with this ad as I can't eat dairy. However, when I went to remove the ad categories, it included nonalcoholic beverages, food and nutrition. I feel if I disqualify these categories, I'm saying no to legit ads as well. Am I overthinking this? Is programmatic right for me and my podcast? Bryan Barletta (Guest) 00:26:02 It's a great question. And yeah, thanks for sending over that clip for me to think about before this. I think the really important part to think about is, is the ad part of your show content? Or is it a targeted thing for the listener? Two ways to look at it. I don't think there's a wrong answer. I personally believe it is content, but if it can be that quickly changed for the listener, that's also important to kind of separate it a bit when you get to programmatic, when you get to dynamic inserted from third parties that are not yourself. In that example, if she does not want milk on there, then I think it's important to filter that out. Now, in the example you gave, she was given the option to filter it, but she'd have to filter entire categories. That's a business decision. Ad tech, as we expand in podcasting to get closer to the mainstream channels, should allow someone to enter the domain of the advertiser, the advertiser's name, and simply select that they're not interested in them. We're not quite there yet in podcasting, so by doing something like that, requesting a specific advertiser to be blocked, it puts a lot of work on those third parties that are serving ads for you. So that's why they give you the option to really just pick a category. When you pick a category to block, you should ask them for the last six to twelve months, like how much revenue did I generate from those categories so I know what I'm blocking. How often do you expect to run with a dairy company like this? I don't think throwing programmatic completely away is the right call, but I think that if this is an important thing, then that host should block the category that has the least impact and reassess. Reach out to that partner every couple of months. Say, hey, do you have any dairy campaigns on the horizon? What's my revenue potential from reopening this inventory? I think programmatic allows a lot of control for a publisher if you fine tune it. I think it's supposed to be in a lot of these situations- How it's set up- One of the last steps. I mean, Megaphone as an example, you have your direct sold first and you can even invite in partners to sell there. There's plenty of companies like you can list on Gumball, you can list with advertisecasts. You can work with anybody in that scenario to help you sell that inventory. Then from there you get into the Spotify ad network, which is the area where these ads come from, and then from there you can make true programmatic calls externally. I differentiate with Spotify because it's actually a human as like a super user of the Megaphone platform, targeting to multiple shows by different categories that have opted in. And I think that- don't throw the whole thing away. I think programmatic fills a really powerful need, and I think it gets you revenue and fills unsold inventory. And Matia from Spreaker always says, would you rather $50 CPM with 10% fill or $5 CPM with 100% fill? Get 100% fill, get as close to it as possible, then start raising your rates, show performance, show that you can grow, show that you're a desirable inventory and then grow from there. But it's a personal opinion. There's no wrong answer, but I would assume that the options are zero revenue or fine tuning programmatic for someone in the mid range. Because the next step from there is you have to represent yourself. You have to be big enough for someone else to represent you. It takes a lot more effort. And as a creator, you may not want to become a salesperson too. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:29:41 So I know you said lots of brilliant things at Podcast Movement. They're on record, people heard them. But you said something that was a little bit enlightening to me when you're on your way to the airport and heading home. We were talking about a five dollar CPM, and a lot of people will poo-poo it, and say, that's not really worth anything. But then you told me, yeah, it is worth something because you can spend a lot of your time selling and working towards a much larger CPM, but a five dollar one, you didn't really put in the work. I thought the math was great on that, and it really sort of made me light up and say, oh, this is worth it, because I don't have to write the copy and I don't have to do all the sales hustle, and I don't have to do all the back and forth and spending time and voiceover and host-read ads. Bryan Barletta (Guest) 00:30:22 Think about it this way, right? Like finance alone, I would be embarrassed to show you the pending invoices I have out there, the ones that I haven't filled out their form correctly to send the invoice to them to manage, right? That I have to send my W9, that I have to fill out their custom form, that I have to be cleared by their processing, that I have to sign a legal agreement. That's time that I need to take to collect on a payment. That payment for me is worth it, right? We're talking a sizable cheque for working with the partners that we work with in a consulting fashion, but it takes time out of my day, and I need to get on that. Sometimes for smaller ad campaigns- I mean, what's the smallest check you've ever received for an ad campaign? Let's say direct. Couple hundred? Thousand? Matt Cundill (Host) 00:31:05 Yeah, I did $325 last month. Bryan Barletta (Guest) 00:31:08 Yeah. And how much effort did that take? How many phone calls could it have taken to make sure the script is correct and all that? How many retakes for what you sent over, the billing aspect of it, the email support? Evo Terra wrote an article forever ago about that, really breaking down your costs. When we think about programmatic, all of the costs are baked into that. That $5 might suck, but it's no sales team, no account management, no reporting, no phone calls, no finance, no legal. You sign with the entity that is going to pay you and put the ads in there. That entity signs with all those advertisers, and you just get a check. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:31:44 Yeah, I tell the story every once in a while, just traveling in Spain and listening to my podcast and hearing a Spanish ad on it and thinking, I don't know what that was, but I got paid. And then I thought, I sure wish Bryan Barletta were here to tell me that he doesn't know Spanish. Bryan Barletta (Guest) 00:32:01 But that's really cool, right? When you're able to see the reach that these partners have, I mean, that's the next big thing. The US inventory is getting competitive, but many podcasts have some up to 30%, some even a little higher of non US inventory. And a lot of times these partners, the direct sales partners, don't want you to do a host read for even your Australian audience, like your podcast being listened to in England versus Australia, an announcer who speaks the local dialect, right? The accent unique to those areas, that makes such a difference. That ad performs better, the audience is more receptive to it. You reading it as host-read, that's fine, they're used to you, but announcer-read, dynamic insertion programmatic could allow you to say, for each country, give them a different ad, give them a different narrator, give them a different voice actor, really explore what makes that unique and really drive different performance. Give them a Spanish language ad because you are in Spain at the time of downloading and it's a high likelihood that you are a native Spanish speaker and not just a tourist. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:33:10 Is that something you're looking forward to with podcast 2.0? And that's some of the tags with languages and locations that would be able to sort of work within the programmatic space. Bryan Barletta (Guest) 00:33:18 I think there's a lot of cool things in podcasting 2.0, and I think a lot of those, like languages are things that are built into a hosting platform. And a hosting platform, whether they send it in the RSS feed or not, for the player to realize, can send that call out to their programmatic partners. Because remember, everything in podcasting is server side. So when you press play on a podcast, it calls your host and says, do you have an episode for me? I want this specific one. Do you have a file? It says, hold on 1 second, I have to build it. When it goes through its ad breaks right, to put them in there, or pods, I believe they're called, in radio, it makes calls internally, it says, do I have an ad to fill? No. Does anybody externally have an ad to fill? And it calls those partners, those partners and internally will say, well, what are the parameters that we know? We know IP, which can be used to figure out geo, we know user agent, which can be used to figure out operating system of the device and the specific player they'rein. We know the episode ID, so that can tell us things like the context of a specific show, right. You're able to transcribe and contextualize that show. You're able to know the IAB categories of it, all these different things. But if you put them all together and you pass them on, that's incredibly powerful, right? Adding on there with the host has that, yes, this is a Spanish language podcast to a third party is really powerful. You yourself might know that your podcast is in Spanish, but it's important that the programmatic partners know. It's important that they know what country it's in. It's important that we learn more about what the listeners listen to. So, yeah, I think that that's the wide open ocean, that's what we're going to attack next is understanding global. I think advertising is too narrowly focused on the US. And I think that that's a flaw. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:34:56 Great, because that was my next question. I was going to ask you a little bit about Canada, which sort of has to live next to this big entertainment elephant. And, you know, I think in Canada to be successful, you do have to be able to export your content to the United States in order to get the downloads and attention and the scale. But also, are there any other countries that excite you aside from North America? Bryan Barletta (Guest) 00:35:19 You know, the Middle East and Southeast Asia. I think those areas are really interesting. I think. I mean, and Africa, I met the team at Afropods, and there are so many cultures that are so deeply invested in spoken word still. I mean, radio is a big part of the US. You know, the UK and the EU overall, but there are so many cultures. Their spoken word didn't, like, wane with TV, right? It was still a major thing for them. As Internet access becomes stronger and stronger, these things matter a little bit less. But the on demand nature of it is really attractive. The ability for anybody with a cell phone to record a podcast and share their ideas, I think it's really exciting. I think that's where we're going to see the growth in youth adoption in these markets where it's easier for them to record audio into their phone than anything else. I get uncomfortable when somebody calls my phone. I'm the texting generation at this point, but the younger individuals that I work with will send me voice messages. And we're moving back towards voice being a dominant force. I think we took a step back from that with the Internet really growing and mobile technology really growing and the ability for text message. But those cultures, those geographical regions have a lot of hungry and excited individuals who build amazing content. But maybe it's harder for them to do video, maybe it's not as easy for them to do written word. It's easier for me to get on the microphone with you than it is for me to write two pages of anything. So, yeah, those areas, I think, have the highest potential to explore podcasting further. I think the Sound Off podcast there will only continue to skyrocket. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:36:55 One of the things I was really excited about when we were in Dallas for podcast movement was the in person events that you've got scheduled. You're going to be connecting the advertisers to the podcasters. So what do you have coming up? Bryan Barletta (Guest) 00:37:07 Yeah, we're trying to do one at the end of November and the beginning of December, and it's going to be interesting. We're magically an events company now too, so getting into all that, finding the right space has been interesting, but the goal is LA and New York, the end of November. Beginning of December. I don't want to give specific dates and lock myself in, but we're going to do it quarterly. We have research to share every quarter. We think it's a smart way to pull all of our partners together. Every partner gets free access to these events. We're going to start inviting brands in those areas to attend for free. Because the truth is, every one of our partners benefits by more brands being in that space. And as we do that, we have our heart set on exploring South By Southwest, Cannes, Adweek. I think Podcast Movement was the right call to kick this off, and we were the biggest business session of the biggest podcast event. But what I'd really like to explore next is how to be the biggest podcast part of a bigger advertising, or content, or media event, and be a major reason why these people at major podcast networks show up to South By, Cannes, Adweek and really have a presence there. I mean, Ad Week is going on right now as we're recording this, and I'm actually flying out there tomorrow for a few things, which is really exciting. They're having an audio track for the first time ever. That's a big deal. So we're seeing the rise of podcasting in these mainstream channels. Let's make sure all of the right people, all the leaders in these spaces are there and participating and motivated and armed with new knowledge. We still are going to be working with Podcast Movement and other podcast conferences. I think there's a lot of value there. I'm super pumped to see what happens in Vegas, especially with things like the Ambience. And maybe it's time for a podcast advertising awards. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:38:46 Well, as a voice actor, I'm now excited. Bryan Barletta (Guest) 00:38:49 Yeah. And we thought about it, right? We can apply to a bunch of things for Sounds Profitable and that's cool, but I don't want to steal the limelight from anybody. But it would be really cool for an account manager to receive a Sound Profitable award, right? Like a salesperson, not like the leader of a company, not the CEO, not the people who get the accolades anyways, but that voice actor who really crushed it, right? That programmatic partner that really landed the results that helped save those companies, that attribution vendor that really turned around a handful of campaigns and provided the killer service that everybody needed, that's who sounds comparable for the people that probably can't make it to every event, but definitely need to know all the information about those events. And so maybe it's time that we start rewarding them. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:39:30 Yeah, I think a lot of people don't really understand that podcasting has created another form of voice read, because you get the script and a lot of people think it's a radio ad, and we'll read it like a radio ad, and it doesn't work in podcasting. It has to be to the headphones. It's very warm, it's very personal. It is completely different. And I have to tell that to people who have radio experience when they see the copy. No, no. Headphones experience, super casual, super one on one and there's less copy. Do not worry about the 30 seconds. Or there's more copy, and we can go a little bit longer because it can be an announcer-read ad. And we don't have limitations like in radio. So podcasting, without even really knowing it, has changed the voiceover business and created a whole new category. Bryan Barletta (Guest) 00:40:10 And I'm excited for that. You know what's really interesting is- the synthetic voice. I can't wait for you to dig into that. The things that you're able to do instead of doing a pickup, but having your voice ready. You recording what you need, and then wanting to change one thing, instead of you burning an entire hour and going back and getting set up for all that. Just being able to change a word. Or someone who does really great impressions. Right? We don't have that celebrity endorsement yet in podcasting, but if a person gives the rights to their voice away- not a giveaway, they're clearly going to make money, but you know what I mean. It allows somebody to use that. Could be some really interesting things that you could do with that. Obviously not endorsement unless they wrote and approved the script, but just being able to separate that, I think voice acting is going to be a highly in-demand skill. And I also think that audio engineering is too, because those two together, someone who does great impressions can immediately do a version of your ad with an Australian accent, an English accent, an American accent. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:41:03 By the way, there's already precedent for that. It was in 2016. I had Shaquille O'Neil be my voice of Waze as I drove around Italy and tried to negotiate all those roundabouts. It already exists. Bryan Barletta (Guest) 00:41:14 That's awesome. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:41:16 Bryan, thanks a lot. Is there anything I missed? Bryan Barletta (Guest) 00:41:18 No, that's it. I really appreciate the opportunity to come back, and it's always great collaborating with you, and I'm excited to listen and hear how your podcast friend with the dairy farmer issue decides to move forward. I'd love to hear. I think that would be a great follow up, for everybody to hear what happens when they choose to block a category, how it impacts their revenue. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:41:37 Well, I said to her, so the Toronto Maple Leafs are wearing a dairy patch and I'm sure that there's some players who don't drink milk and have gotten pasta. Bryan Barletta (Guest) 00:41:45 As a vegan, I can appreciate not wanting a dairy ad in my podcast. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:41:49 Thanks a lot, Bryan. Bryan Barletta (Guest) 00:41:50 Yeah, thanks for having me. Tara Sands (VO) 00:41:50 The Soundoff Podcast is written and hosted by Matt Cundill. Produced by Evan Surminski. Social Media by Courtney Krebsbach. Another great creation from the Sound Off Media Company. There's always more at soundoffpodcast.com.

Clayon Kroeker came out of Don Scott's Western Academy of Broadcast back in 2010 with eyes on becoming a sports commentator. Don suggested that he try FM Music to start as there are more opportunities avaiable. He landed the very coveted overnight position at GX94 in Yorkton, Saskatchewan which still believes in the power of overnight radio. Clayton then went on to work at Golden West Broadcasting in oil rich Estevan before landing in Saskatoon with Harvard owned Cruz 96.3. In this episode, you will meet Clayton's dog Kipper and learn his back story. You will also hear about his search for the best chicken fingers. Much the same way Dave Portnoy at Barstool Sports rates Pizza, Clayton is a chicken finger aficionado. I did not ask him about his affinity for playing goalie, but we did discuss his relationship with the Saskatoon Blades where he is the intermission house announcer. He was actually re-acquired by the team. We spoke about Clayton's quest to find the best Chicken fingers. He is making the quest social. Here is the criteria: Shape Fries “The Picky Eater Test” Plum Sauce “The Kipper Test” “The Moe Test” And His "Tendee Tips" “The true Chicken Finger Aficionados know it’s all about the plum sauce.” “You know it’s going to be good if it’s all tendees on the top and you can’t see any fries.” “You know it’s good when the plum sauce is gone and you’re dipping the fries in there.” “If it’s in a strip mall, it’s probably good food.” “Don’t sleep on bowling alley or curling club food.” “Make sure you put your plate at the end of the table. Lets your server know you’re done.” “If a place has plastic cups, it’s going to be pretty good.” “Don’t cross-sauce plum sauce and honey dill.” “Do cross-sauce BBQ sauce and honey dill.” “Veteran move: cut open your tendees, safety first. Don’t burn your mouth.” “The fries, you know they’re going to be good when they have the potato skins on both ends still.” And we found out that he is also the youngest in his family which means that he had to ride the piano bench for many large family gatherings at Thanksgiving and Christmas. Transcription: Matt Cundill (Host) 00:00:01 Lochlin Cross. Should I have Clayton Kroeker on my podcast? Lochlin Cross (Participant) 00:00:01 Yes. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:00:01 Clayton 963 CRUZ in Saskatoon. He does the mornings. He gets up earlier than you to do mornings. He does his prep for the show. Who does that? That's insane. Like, I do everything before I go to bed. Lochlin Cross (Participant) 00:00:28 Like, I just finished my prep and.Just sent it to the boys. Yeah. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:00:32 Yeah, I'll investigate. That's weird. That's not weird. Eggs for dinner is weird. Tara Sands (Voiceover) 00:00:41 The the Sound Off podcast podcast about broadcast with Mad Kuno starts now. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:00:50 This week I reached out to Clayton Kroeker from 96.3 Cruz FM in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan. Saskatchewan is the province that was really created using a pencil and a ruler. Think I'm wrong? We'll just look at the map. Clayton, along with his co host Stacey Cooper, hosts the morning show, and they do a really good job. The attributes are all there local, social, and fun. I got a great idea about what's going on in Saskatoon, and I live a time zone away half the year, so I worked in a daylight savings time joke there. Clayton Croaker joins me from his home in Saskatoon. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:00:50 Tell me a little bit about the dog, because the dog has made some appearances on social media. Hashtag blind dog. Clayton Kroeker (Guest) 00:01:32 Oh, yeah. Super blind dog. We got her just from a farm, and my brother had a chocolate lab, and they're just the best dog. So we got one from a farm from a Kajiji ad. And when she was like one, we just noticed he was winking in her eyes. She was always scratching at him. Her tear ducts just stopped working, so we had to basically just put her in, like, 25 drops, 30 drops a day, which was just a nightmare. Like, some drops are just painful and meant to try to re trigger the tear ducts and stuff. But one eye went, and the other one kind of got better. Then it got worse and just took both out, and she's way better now. She was, like, depressed, and she was sad when she had eyes, and now she's just kind of thriving as a blind dog. So that's good. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:02:11 What's your name? Clayton Kroeker (Guest) 00:02:12 Kipper. We're big Flames fans, so named her after the most underrated Calgary flame of all time. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:02:17 What do I need to know about taking Kipper for a walk? Clayton Kroeker (Guest) 00:02:21 She has two leashes. She has her good girl leash. So, like, that one doesn't extend. It's just your typical leash you get at any store, and then she knows, okay, I can't really go too far. But then we have one of those, like, 20 foot extended leashes, so if you, like, put it in front of her nose, she'd be like, okay, this is my fun time leash. And she can run around the field. And we got a big park by our house. And there's. Like. Bunnies and squirrels. And we just run for. Like. An hour and an hour after the show. And then an hour before bed. We just sniff her bunnies and she never catches any. Which is kind of sad. But she loves it at the same time when we have her her fun time leash and her good girl. You should call it. But you don't want to go with her because she'll run you. You'll lose weight running her after a week. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:03:00 So labs are known to be retrievers. Did you have any sort of hunting ambitions when you paired up with Kipper? Clayton Kroeker (Guest) 00:03:06 None. No. Just cute. Cute dog. Not one of those little white yappy dogs. That's the dog we don't want. And she's perfect, even though she did lose her eyes. She's just a great dog. So my brother had a chocolate lab, and again, he got it for the same reason. They're pretty adorable. We're not really outdoorsmen, so no, we just got it for the cute factor. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:03:26 And if you pet them once and you're petting them at least for the next hour, right. Clayton Kroeker (Guest) 00:03:30 You give one cheeto, half your bag is gone. We had Thanksgiving yesterday and she just posts up, just does her rounds around the table, just nice little sit, shake the paw. She puked on the carpets. I think yesterday after, I think the second Thanksgiving, she puked on the shoes there. So that was nice. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:03:46 Tell me about the time before you went to WABC and really committed to broadcasting. Did you know you were going to get into broadcasting? Clayton Kroeker (Guest) 00:03:53 I kind of knew when I was ten. I do the play by play for my brothers, like mini sit games in the basement and for road hockey and stuff like that. I really wanted to get into sports at the start. I kind of wanted to be the next Darwinian. He was from Saskatchewan. I wanted to be like him. But then when I went to WABC and realized how much fun it was just kind of right now, I absolutely love that. So I kind of fell in love with the more typical radio station jock side of it and the sports side of it. I also saw that sports jobs are few and far between and it's rare to land a good sports gig. So I kind of played the odds and took the overnight gig in York, didn't I was going to go to WBC to pursue sports. At the end of the day, Don't Scott convinced me that it's a force to be on air as a DJ. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:04:32 That's interesting that that came up. I'm really thinking to myself here, I mean, Darren Petition had a career in Edmonton at ITV, and then it was a big deal when he went to TSN in Toronto and lo and behold, there is he's back again at it. Clayton Kroeker (Guest) 00:04:45 I know. I was pumped when he came out saying that he's battling cancer. I think everyone in the sports world knows Darren nutrition, right? Bang. I mean, how do you not know Dutchie? And then when he was back, it was like old times. Him and Jennifer hedger on the desk. They were so good together. Just the chemistry back and forth, the silliness with the professionalism. At the same time, I really like them on the desk together. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:05:04 And your love for sports obviously hasn't waned at all as you managed to work some sports into what you do. But when you finish WABC, where did. Clayton Kroeker (Guest) 00:05:11 You go first gig York did in Saskatchewan during the midnight to 06:00 a.m. Shift. I think it still exists. I think they're one of the few stations that still goes 24 hours. If not, they have an evening show host the Saturday night get together GX 94. Some legendary broadcasters have started there, just cranking out the poketoons for the farmers in that area is such a cool station. A lot of people have started there. Some of those old school stations with tons of stuff on the wall, a lot of history. Best place to start if you ever had a chance to start in New York. And the community loves that radio station. It's just cool to be a part of. Plus, I won the NFL pics one time, so I'm enshrined forever on the plaque up there, so that's a nice little feature. But it's a shame you don't really see those overnight gigs. There was no commercials. It was just me and the music and the 03:00 news egg report, which you could not get off time. You had to be within 15 seconds time and out there, or else the farmers would get mad. But great gig overnight gigs, man. You don't see them anymore, and it's a shame. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:06:07 Yeah, I can only think of two off the top of my head, but why is there an all night gig in Yorkton? Clayton Kroeker (Guest) 00:06:13 Well, it's such a big farming community, and there's so many farmers calving or harvesting overnight, and they need that crop report. They need the weather report, they need to be entertained. They need some people to talk about movember and their mustaches. They need some people to talk about the terriers versus the millionaire's SG h o rivalry. Right. They need someone there. Plus, there's a big mining community, too, with potash here in Saskatchewan, and there's a lot of people working those night shifts, working the shift work. Where the overnight announcer again? It's their friend. And there was no commercials at the time. When I was there, it was every two songs crack the mic and hope for the best kind of thing. This is a 20 year old redheaded kid just slinging tunes on the radio. Looking back, it was the best job I've ever had to this day. Yeah. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:06:55 Thinking back a couple of weeks ago, I was in green bay, Wisconsin, where they do have the all night shift on wixx 101 in the market. I think it's just fantastic that there are radio stations that say, you know what? The weather's important, and three in the morning is just as important as seven in the morning. Clayton Kroeker (Guest) 00:07:11 I mean, I get syndicated shows, right? They sound great. There's a reason they're syndicated, because they're talented people. But at the same time, I kind of miss a college intern out there struggling through the weather. Right? That's how you learn. That's how you figure it out. And those are the wacky radio bits that you kind of don't hear anymore from these young jocks. Just learning. And that's where you learn, is the overnight shift. And it just seems like now it's the cheaper option to outsource it and get it from somewhere else. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:07:36 Actually, I don't think it is. I would argue that it's better to make those mistakes in Yorkton at three in the morning than it is to make it in Calgary at three in the afternoon. But speaking of which, what mistakes did you make overnight? Clayton Kroeker (Guest) 00:07:47 It was the second week I brought a water into the studio, and again, this I'll never bring water near the board or anything. I spilt it on the phone lines and if it wasn't harvest season, it wouldn't be a big deal. But harvest season is supper in the field. So you call in the morning at 07:00, and if you get through or your call or whatever, you get this big huge supper taken out to your field. It's a really big deal. And the phone lines weren't working because I completely roasted them at three in the morning. So I had to call our tech engineer guy at three. He lived on a farm about 20 minutes outside the station. He had to come in and fix it, do all the soldering work. Again, I'm the new guy. I just started two weeks in and I almost ruined like the biggest promotion, supper in the field. That was a big mistake. And you don't mess with the farm stuff there. You can mess with anything else at an Am station in Saskatchewan, but once you start messing with the egg stuff and messing with the farmers, that's when you're going to get the nasty emails. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:08:40 As we record this, we're just coming off Thanksgiving weekend in Canada. It's October. I guess this would be the busiest time of the year for you then, at that station. Clayton Kroeker (Guest) 00:08:49 Oh, yeah. If you're a GX 94, you're working pretty hard during harvest season. There's probably one supper in the field every week for two months. And they go out there and it's a time and a half, like they put out a bunch of tables for you. They got a bunch of beers like GX 94. They have a station RV. That's how kind of cool it is. So all the staff members piling this RV and it's all decked out and everything, and they were all to one of these farms, and they got GX 94 flags. They can throw in their tractors and everything, and it really is a hoot. And then they got junior a hockey too. There's three teams that they broadcast shout out Betty Walchuck, he's like the busiest sports guy in the country. As play by play for three teams, they have this hockey season ramping up. You got all these egg promotions and live on locations. It was such a cool first radio station to work for because it just, it kind of reminds you of back in the day of how radio kind of ran the old school ways. There was just so much hustle and bustle. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:09:42 What was your next gig after Yorkshire? Clayton Kroeker (Guest) 00:09:44 Esteban, Saskatchewan. In the height of the oil boom, like 2011, 2012. I was making a grand a paycheck, but my rent was like twelve hundred dollars a month. It was the same. I had to be the cart boy at the golf course during ladies night just to make ends meet, like just to afford groceries and stuff like that. There's not a lot of going to the bar because you couldn't afford beers. Just pick up a case of Lucky and go to someone's house and play some shell. That was basically it. But it was also just focused on the radio, like, hey, let's kind of get out of here. Again. I loved Esteban. And I loved Lyle McGilvery. And I loved Barry Weiss, who just won that awesome award as WAB. And it was great, right? But Esteban is a tough town, and it was an expensive town, a transient town where people just want to get in and out. It was kind of like last Chance you the Netflix show about junior college football. It was kind of like, okay, you get in and you get your experience. You work for a great station, you get out. But I got to launch a radio station there, rock 106. I got to be the first voice there. And looking back on that, it was just tough work. You did all the logs, you did all the producing, you did everything for Golden West station. It just made me a way better broadcaster, but it was just tough living in the nest of ancient sketchwood and making pennies. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:10:55 I always ask this question to people who worked at a Golden West radio station and that's tell me about what you learned from the digital side of the business and that it's more than just the transmitter and the microphone. Clayton Kroeker (Guest) 00:11:07 You learn that they're pretty early on like, okay, you got to do a blog a day, you got to update this, you got to update that. And they really kind of incorporated it well. It's just also with that small town kind of vibe as well, right? They want it to be uber local, super local. And I think it might have been I might have been there right at the time that they were just starting to integrate all the digital stuff. I think I left around 2013 ish, but it's hard work, man. Working at a Golden West station. You do a lot of roles. You're doing some double duties and stuff like that. But the people are great. There's always just young, ambitious people working at Golden West stations. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:11:39 Why do prices for rent and food and labor get out of control in oil towns? It has to start somewhere. And I know this seems like it's kind of a silly question that I should know the answer to, but you obviously work with people who are getting a lower salary than people who are pulling oil out of the ground. So where does that start? Clayton Kroeker (Guest) 00:11:59 I don't know. That's above my pay grades. Math. I couldn't tell you that one. But when you make more money, when everyone in town is making a lot of money, it seems like you can charge more because everyone's making oil rigor money. Everyone's making six figures. And it's like, no, man. Like, a lot of people in town or who do you think is working at the AEW? Who do you think is working at this place? Right. Again, great, hardworking people. I've never seen generosity at a silent auction like I have an Estevan, Saskatchewan. These companies, then they throw around big dollars for great causes like the hospital they have there, and being a part of some of the Radio thorns and teletons there. They have big hearts and rules to sketch out in towns like that. They don't need a ton of money. It's tough to work radio there because radio, you're not making a bunch of money, and it costs a lot of money to work in towns like that. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:12:45 What came next for you? Clayton Kroeker (Guest) 00:12:46 Again, because of money, my visa was maxed out. It was winter, so my cart boy job was gone. I made great tips doing that job, by the way. That was a good gig. But I ran out of money, and I thought I didn't want to quit Radio. I just thought, like, man, I can't continue living here. I've been there for a year and a half. I had interviewed the Goat twice, and I just didn't get them, and it was devastating. I always wanted to work at the Goat so bad. So many people I looked up to work there, the launching station. Everyone kind of knows the Goat in western Canada. And I got rejected twice. And I was just like, Dang it, right? It just kind of came at the end. I was like, you know what? I'm going to take a break. I'm going to move home. My dad wasn't doing so well. He was kind of bedridden with some back problems. This timing was right to go home. And then it just kind of worked out that Andrew Beckler left his job in Saskatoon. I grew up two blocks away from Andrew Beckler. He works at X 92 in Calgary and sent me a message one day. He's like, man, you want my job? All gal put in a good word. So after that I've been in Saskatoon ever since. So I kind of owe everything to that guy. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:13:45 Tell me, what is it like getting up at three in the morning in Saskatoon in the winter? Clayton Kroeker (Guest) 00:13:50 Sucks. Sucks. I can't even lie. There was one day I couldn't even make it into work because it was like four foot snowdrifts. Like it was insane. This winter storm we got last year and it's definitely tough because you get there at three like 315 and the sun is not coming up till late and you are just you're in the dark in our building. It's like 100 year old building downtown Saskatoon and you hear the wind just coming through the cracks and there are some warnings you just don't want to do it. It is cold, your car won't start, whatever. It's brutal. But also though, it's like when 1030 rolls around, you're good to go and you can finish all your errands with no lines no nasty winter traffic. Like, that's the thing. You're driving in the middle of the day with no hectic city traffic in the winter. It's the roads that's the worst part. Like the icy roads, the collisions, the fender benders. It's not a fun town in the winter, but let me tell you, in the summer, let's place parties. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:14:42 I had a similar opportunity to do that in Edmonton and the lack of sunlight was a concern for me. Getting up at that hour of the day to go in to do a morning show. I was going to be in the dark a lot and I knew that wasn't good for me. So what do you do to keep your mental health fit? Clayton Kroeker (Guest) 00:14:58 Well, I'm a ginger, so the sun is basically poisoned to me anyway, so I'm a vampire in that way. So I don't care. I don't really care about the lack of sunshine. That's actually a perk for me. Believe it or not, it just gets a little sad sometimes you've got to treat yourself like that parts of that episode, right? Treat yourself whether it be just a fancy coffee in the morning or buying the namebrand granola bars instead of the cheap ones as a snack in the morning something like that. Because I find if you're just going to rid yourself of all the joys like there's no joy 350 in the morning -45 with the windshield you know your whole show is just going to be canceled bus reports and people calling in about wanting people to put their lights on like it's going to be a nightmare day. So just treat yourself with something nice so a beverage, a snack something because man sometimes it can get to you. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:15:46 In just a moment we're going to talk to Clayton about show prep those inhouse appearances with the Saskatoon Blades. And what's with the chicken fingers. Clayton loves them and he's kickstarted a campaign to find the very best. You can see more of that local and social content on our website now, as well as help yourself to a transcript of this episode@soundoffpodcast.com. Sarah Burke (VO) 00:16:08 Transcription. for the Sound Off Podcast is powered by Poddin. Your podcast is an SEO goldmine. We help you to dig out, start your free trial now at poddin. IO Tara Sands (Voiceover) 00:16:08 The Sound Off podcast Matt Cundill (Host) 00:16:08 for anybody. That you meet for the first time. Tell them about 96 three Cruise FM. Clayton Kroeker (Guest) 00:16:27 I'd say that we're an old school station and I hope that they appreciate that. We're just playing stuff from all over the place. Like we're playing we're playing a lot of 90 stuff lately, which is what I really, really like. We're mixing in a lot of like audio slave and we're mixing in Space Hog and E Six and just some sneaky banger kind of tunes at the same time, playing all the classic rock staples. But I like that. Like our afternoon guy Dave Music Morgan, legendary voice in town. He's been working here since like the so we got the landmark voice, the silly morning show. That's not going to be just your typical, like, oh, it's National Lefthanded Raccoon Day. Tell us about your favorite left handed raccoons. Like, no, we're going to be really, really local, but we're not going to be all here's, our views. We're just going to be silly. That's the thing. There's not a lot of just silly shows anymore. We're just going to be really silly. And we kind of embrace being the silly stepchild station in town. That's kind of our thing. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:17:19 It's been a bit of a Harvard broadcasting thing and that's to stay away from the cliche. Notice that in Edmonton as well at X 92 nine. And I think Christian Hall had a lot to do with creating smarter broadcasting rather than what's your favorite flavor of chips? And it's National Lefthanded Raccoon Day, and let's see what we can do to just make the phone swing. So walk me through a little bit of your show prep routine. Clayton Kroeker (Guest) 00:17:43 Well, I think the big thing is with Harvard, like, they trust all their own air staff. They're always just like, man, you got an idea, do it. You don't even run it by us, just do it. They trust all their own air announcers because they go into it hiring, knowing that they're talented people. We just hire solid quality people. And that's the thing across the board. You look at Harvard's line up the stations like the Play brand in Regina and Edmonton. I love their playlist. I love their own air staff. In Regina. It's the talk of the town. There ex in Red Deer. And Calgary obviously do great. And Cruz and Edmondson, man, their morning show is great. And I just like what Harvard does because they trust their own air staff to just be weird, be your wacky self. No one sound the same. Everyone sound different across the board. And that's what I loved about Christian Hall. He hated that fill in the blank kind of stuff. Just dig deep, get creative, get a little weird. You're going to miss every bit. Is not going to be a home run, but man, the odd one is going to be and those are the things that people remember. So that's what I really like about Harvard, is that they trust you just to come up with some wacky show prep. And I'll just I'll send an email to Stacy with eight or nine things. She'll send an email to me, eight or nine things. We cipher out the weird garbage stuff that might just be trash. And then we just come up with the show. And sometimes we call an audible at the line like, hey, and Matting. Sometimes we sometimes are struggling. Sometimes there's too much prep. It's just weird prep and radio show, man. Again. Some days you're just going to have the bus cancellation show, and then what can you do? But other days, you're just so excited to do a show because the prep is so good. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:19:09 Do you think the music on Cruise is a lot easier to program than it was maybe five or six years ago where there's less of a playbook and a little more creativity that is infused now? Clayton Kroeker (Guest) 00:19:19 Definitely. Because before, you're just kind of pigeonholed, right? You can talk to your blue in the face about Karen Cone rules and how it should be lowered or whatever, right? But I mean, there are some songs where it's a battle. You're like, people get it, man. You're working for the weekend. We get it. You've heard it over and over again. You're sunda struck. But now that we have the freedom to just be just open up the playbook a bit more. Just play those deep cuts like we always have, like these deep dive tracks where we just go to the B side or something and play it randomly. Those are the songs that people remember. People text us being like, I haven't heard this song on the radio since 82, right? And then no one texts in saying, oh, man, black Betty again. Awesome. I love hearing that, right? No one texts in saying that. People text in saying, oh, man, Spacehog. Haven't heard that in a long time. That's awesome. Made my day. So that's what we try to do, just more deep cuts, because I think people appreciate that. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:20:09 What's the trick to getting on with a co host like Stacey every morning? Because we mentioned 03:00 A.m., we mentioned the amount of show prep that goes in. But what's the key to getting on and making a successful show with a co host? Clayton Kroeker (Guest) 00:20:22 You just got to get lucky and have a gym. She's an absolute gym. She's an awesome mom. She's an awesome friend. She's a really good person. We balance each other out really well. Like, kind of back to our prep. My prep is weird. My prep is out there. I have what you call Inside Joker I have jot note prep, so that will be like no link from a website in there, just something from my brain, just something random and observation that that's just a jot note, right? And then she'll cover more of the topical day to day. Okay, this is a link. This is something interesting I found. Let's talk about this and the way that we kind of go back and forth through that in the show. It just complements each other really well, right? So it's kind of the typical morning show, right? I'm the typical kind of silly goofball that loves sports, but she's also got the goofball personality as well. It's a silly radio show where we can both kind of just chirp each other. Like, we just started to chirp each other a lot, but in a fun way. And think that's when you know you got a good co host, a good show going back and forth, when you could just start giving each other the gears about stuff, that's your best content. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:21:21 You haven't given up sports really all that much. You don't get to call the game, but you're the in house host for the Saskatoon Blades. That's a lot of games. That's a lot of time. That's a lot of evenings. I can see you getting home around 1011 o'clock at night, and then you've got to get up early. Clayton Kroeker (Guest) 00:21:36 And it's worth it, though. Go Blades, go. I'm from Saskatoon. I do radio in my hometown. So I was going to the Blades games when I was like six or seven years old, watching Darcy Horticuk just beat the crap out of people, watching devon said, a gucci, just light the lamp. It was awesome. And I get to work the games. I've been doing it for like six or seven years now. I really like it. Just chucking shirts in the crowd, like, don't want to brag or anything. I have the best arm in the dub. Any other incident announcers come at me, whatever, but it's really fun. I encourage any young broadcaster out there. If you have a junior A hockey team or junior B, whatever, get involved with them, because that's how you get those community relationships through the sports teams. Everyone in those small towns that have radio stations, they all love the sports team. They all love the local sports. The people who are in the know, in the community, they all love that hockey team. So somehow get on board with them because that could be a good stepping stone in your career. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:22:27 Tell me about compensation, though. Should they do it for free at first? Clayton Kroeker (Guest) 00:22:31 No, never. Oh, no. Even though well, you know what? I bet you have places like Flynn fan. I would do it for free at Flynn Faun. If I got to be the instant announcer at the zoo for a game, count me Ed Men. That's the bucket list place to watch a hockey game. But there's a time. And a place, I think, to do free stuff. Right. And the time and the place is very rare, both of them, but it's something that could be considered if it's going to be big for your career. But at the same time, doing a four hour hockey game for free? Absolutely not. Probably when you're working a wonky shift and you're overworked at the station as it is, don't be shelling out your talent for free, doing the instant stuff, that's a big game. You're adding a lot to the game, and you deserve to be compensated for it. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:23:12 Whenever you say Flintline, I can't get past. I think Reggie Leech. Clayton Kroeker (Guest) 00:23:15 I think Bobby Hall. I think I think moose legs on the ice, first of all. Well, that's what comes to mind first. That's what they do in the playoffs when they win, they chuck a moose leg on the ice. If you've never heard of the Whitney Forum, you got to look it up. It's the most legendary bar in Canada. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:23:29 Tell me about Steve Hogle. How's he doing? Clayton Kroeker (Guest) 00:23:31 He's a gem, man. I'm a big fan of him. We miss him at the Blades, at Emmett. Now I think he's with the River Hawks, the baseball team. They're doing just great work. Just a stand up guy, nice guy. You do a lot of community events, a lot of charity stuff with this job, and you see him at every single one. He'd always want to be a part of it. The Saskatoon Blades, they have some good characters, some good people in the community, and he was one of them. And, yeah, when he left, he was sad for everybody. He missed that guy. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:23:55 Steve Hogle used to work as the news director at CFRN in Edmonton, spent many years in Saskatoon working with the Blades, and has now gone back to Edmonton. So good to hear he's doing well and that you got to know him because he's a great guy. Clayton Kroeker (Guest) 00:24:07 I know he was always so nice to the radio guys, and I never understood why. And then I realized he was a past journalist, media guy. So it's like, okay. He used to love just chatting up about the gossip of what's going on in town with radio and stuff like that. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:24:20 So, yeah, he would walk across the hall and talk to Marty Forbes and Cub Carson and myself, and we had a great rapport with the people from CFRN Television back in the day. We were not owned by the same people, but we would often share the same cafeteria and lunch together. So became good friends. Clayton Kroeker (Guest) 00:24:36 Great set of hair, too. All naturally, he doesn't do that himself. That's just natural curls there. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:24:41 Tell me about your infatuation with chicken fingers. Clayton Kroeker (Guest) 00:24:44 I have dug myself into this whole mat like I'm a super picky eater. Groku is a very, very picky eater. So I just ate chicken fingers everywhere we went out to eat. And who doesn't love chicken fingers, right? Like chicken fingers, fries, they're all going to be good. It's like pizza. Even when it's bad, chicken fingers are still pretty good. So we were just thinking of promotions we could do myself, my cohost, Stacey, and our program director, assistant program director. We went out and we're just thinking of ideas. Well, these pizza reviews online always do well with this port and my guy. Why don't we just do something along that, like just review of food or something like that? We don't want to steal ideas. It's been done. But like, we'll put our own spin on it. I don't know. Let's just do it super serious with chicken fingers. Went to the strip mall pub, which, again, strip mall pubs are the best pubs. Never sleep on those. But the one that I just grew up across the street from, like, it's called Mr. Ribs. And it's just this dive bar I grew up across the street from went in there eight chicken fingers. Filmed myself doing it, gave them an eight six. And it has like 2600 views on TikTok now. And everyone was like, oh, go here next, go here next. Our sales team got a hold of it. They're sending out to restaurants, making appointments. Has like a million views now. And I'm just pigeonholed as the chicken finger guy. I've been working here in town for ten years. I got recognized like, twice. And that was being for like, oh, you Hendrick Sadine. Are you Daniel Sadine? No, never mind. And now in the past two weeks, I've been Chicken Finger Guy, like 25 times. I'm filling up with gas. You're that chicken finger guy, aren't you? That's my legacy. That's how I'm going to get a street named after me here. I'm going to just be Chicken Finger Guy because I've gone to 15 places now and I got like ten more lined up. It's insane. I have like 20 messages a day in my Instagram. People tell me where to go. It's awesome. I mean, I'm getting chicken fingers three, four times a week and I'm living the dream. But it's one of those things that just proves the silly, stupid ideas, they can go a long way if you just put a little effort into it. And it's turned into a monster. Man, people are critiquing me and ripping my reviews, saying I don't know what I'm talking about and saying I'm an idiot. And I'm like, man, it's just chicken fingers. Like, relax. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:26:46 Why is it that picky eaters always default to chicken fingers and pizza? Like, no picky eater ever says, man, I don't like chicken fingers and pizza. But every picky eater says, I just like chicken fingers and pizza because they're delicious. Clayton Kroeker (Guest) 00:26:59 First of all, I think the chicken fingers is because it's so safe, right? It's dry, it's not saucy. The food's not touching each other. You can separate it. It's a safe bet. You can dip it if you want. To and pizza's. Pizza, right. I mean, pizza food. Power ranking is the undisputed number one there forever. So after this, I might do a pepperoni pizza one, too because that's my second favorite food. So after I eat 40 more plates of chicken fingers, maybe we'll go back and do that. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:27:24 Is it okay to dip your chicken finger into a dill sauce? Clayton Kroeker (Guest) 00:27:29 I'm not a big dill guy. Like, I hate pickles. If I eat pickles, I'll throw up. I'm not a big pickle guy. The mystery brine juice that sits there, how long has it been sitting there? You don't know. So I'm not a big pickle guy. So, like here in Saskatchewan, honey dill, manitoba and Saskatchewan honey dill sauce is like the go to for chicken fingers. I'm a plum sauce guy. I love plum sauce, but Honeydale is growing on me. The thing is bad. Honey dill is real bad, but real good. Honey dill is real good. That in between stuff is just kind of like in between plum sauce still pretty good. Plum sauce in between honey dill sauce. No. This is the kind of stuff you learn after eating 15 plates of chicken fingers in 17 days, trying to think. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:28:10 About what the next most Canadian food could be in that part of the world where you live. And I'm not going to say watermelon because that's what Rough Rider fans put on their heads. But I'm thinking about the small town Chinese restaurant because you mentioned plum sauce. Clayton Kroeker (Guest) 00:28:25 I'd say pierogis are the next kind of more Canadian food here in this neck of the woods. I'd say a pierogi eating contest, something like that. You're seeing them all the time. My wife had them for lunch. Everyone here has a bag of frozen Perugis in their freezer. It's just kind of what you do. But, man, those small town Saskatchewan Chinese restaurants, every single small town Saskatchewan town has one. And you might think, wow, this is probably the worst food in the world. Nene it is the best food. You will have the ginger beef at any small town Saskatchewan Chinese restaurant. It's going to be amazing. The soups, everything. I'm telling you, amanda's egg rolls. Like, something about small town Chinese restaurants, man, they're just different. But you got to know what to order. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:29:06 You do a lot of TikTok. You do a lot of social media. You spend a lot of time contributing to that. But what still excites you about radio? Clayton Kroeker (Guest) 00:29:15 Every day I hate doing a cliche. Every day is a different answer. It truly is. Every day is just like one day you're talking about this random place you went for chicken fingers and how the tippy point of the triangle wasn't as crunchy as the other place. Right? You're just being silly. And the next day you might be talking about something that's actually affecting the city, like this new garbage pickup system they have in Saskatoon. They want you to pick a size a bin. Now, before was just one size a bin, and now they're introducing three. You can save money by getting a smaller one, but will you actually save money? And then you can talk about an actual grown up conversation that people are passionate about, that people are going to call in that people really care about. And you realize, like, man, I've gotten 30 texts about this topic. People actually care about what's being said on the radio. That's what kind of fires me up every day. There's always those people who are like, who listens to the radio. No one does that. Well, people do. And like, we have evidence from the text messages and people that like our show and like the topics that we talk about, whether they be something that relates to their everyday lives or whether it be just a stupid bit if we're ripping off a hinterland who's who or something like that. I love the fact you can be silly. You can kind of be serious. There are so many avenues to be creative in this industry, and there's so many avenues to do so many different things, like sports, on air news. There's just seems like so many possibilities. You can do so much in this kind of line of work that it's kind of exciting every day. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:30:35 Well, keep up the good work. You and Stacey do a great job every morning. And congratulations on keeping daylight savings away from Saskatchewan. Clayton Kroeker (Guest) 00:30:43 Hey, we do what we can here. Pawdash week to daylight savings start. And that's what Saskatchewan does. All right, man. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:30:48 That's awesome. Thanks a lot for doing this. Tara Sands (Voiceover) 00:30:50 The the sound off podcast written and hosted by Matt Cundill, produced by Evan Surminski. Social Media by Courtney Krebsbach Another great creation from the the soundoff media company. There's always more@soundoffpodcast.com

This week, we're joined by David Yas, founder and CEO of the Boston Podcast Network. David's name is attached to about 1000 episodes of various shows, which have altogether garnered over 367,000 downloads. David and I talk about that network of his quite a bit, including how he got into podcasting in the first place, and how he built it up into one of the most successful independent podcast networks in Boston. He's been producing shows for 7 years now, including a few of his own: The daily-running Boston Podcast, and Past Tens: A Top Ten Time Machine, a show that explores past lists of top ten hits. They go year-by-year through the 60's, 70's, 80's and 90's to remind you which songs you loved, hated, or just forgot existed. Check out their most recent episode on the sidebar. Like most of our guests, David's a good friend of mine. You might even say he's a Super Friend. A Podcast Super Friend. Get it? Because he's also on The Podcast Super Friends, a show I do every month with David, Jon "Jag" Gay, Johnny Podcasts, and Catherine O'Brien? Well, if you've never heard of it, it's a monthly roundtable discussion where we talk about everything to do with podcasting: Best practices for your show's website, streamlining your weekly workflow, marketing your podcast to the masses, and getting the most from your RSS feed. And best of all, it's livestreamed on the Sound Off Media YouTube channel, so you can follow along or chime in with questions. Listen to our latest episode below if you're curious: If you want to learn more about David, connect with him, hire him, or just listen to any of the other shows under his network, the best place to do all of that is his website, Pod617.com. It's the hub for everything to do with David and the Boston Podcast Network. Of course, you should also follow David on Twitter and LinkedIn. Transcript: Tara Sands (VO) 00:00:01 The Sound Off Podcast. The podcast about broadcast with Matt Cundill... Starts now. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:00:10 This week I speak with podcast super friend David Yas from the Boston Podcast Network. The podcast Super Friends is another podcast that I co host and produce with Jon Gay, Johnny Podcasts, Catherine O'Brien, and David. Now when you hear David in just a second, you're going to know that he is definitely from Boston and definitely makes podcasts. David also hosts a podcast called Top Ten Time Machine. That's where a top ten Billboard chart from a random week gets reviewed and analyzed. David Yas joins me from the studios of the Boston Podcast Network. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:00:44 David, how did you arrive in podcasting? David Yas (Guest) 00:00:48 Well, started up as a lot of people did, I think, at the time as a side hustle. I was intrigued by the fact that any idiot could get into podcasting. And it's both the beauty and the curse of podcasting is just the entry level. I've always been an audiophile, never really trained professionally. I was a DJ in college. I was always the guy making the mixtapes and have dabbled in radio over the years. But once podcasting started up, I started a couple of podcasts and then realized that I come from the professional world. Having been a lawyer and a financial adviser, there are a lot of people that wanted to get in and get some of the podcast pie, and they didn't know how to do it. So with a little bit of humble investment from some friends, I opened a studio and off I went. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:01:36 So I've never really known anybody who dabbles in radio. I've only met people who are like completely all in. So let's talk a little bit about the radio side of things. You're in Boston and Boston's got a lot of great radio stations. What did you grow up listening to over the years? David Yas (Guest) 00:01:50 My true love was the rock of Boston, WBCN Boston, and I had some common friends that knew some of the folks at the station there. But it was probably the first time as a young person that I really got that concept of your rock and roll personality. Heroes can feel like your family and a good morning radio show felt like you were kind of listening in on whatever was going on in that morning. So we had a charming, if somewhat cantankerous guy named Charles Lochwadera who was the morning host for BCN. And he had his cast of characters. And I liked it because they were humble. They were goodnatured, if it was snowing that day, they were complaining about the snow like the rest of us. They would complain about traffic like the rest of us. The music at the time, of course, was the classic rock radio and so, y'know, disco sucks. But got to know over the years some people in radio. I had an aunt who was in politics named Margie Claproot, who at one point had the number two talk radio show in Boston. And I at the time was working for a newspaper called Lawyers Weekly, and she would bring me in as the legal guy, and we did a segment called Lawyers, Guns, and Money. And then as the years went on, occasionally I would guest host for her and various radio jobs she had over the years, and I just always loved it. I would probably be accused of liking the sound of my own voice. We probably all have that, Matt. But the medium, which now has, in a way, transmogrified over to podcasting, is fun. It's intimate. And I remember one time when I was guest hosting, I was supposed to have someone come on and do a segment for me, and I realized she had canceled and left a voicemail on my machine. And there I am, like, behind the mic, and it's just me and the producer there staring down the barrel of 15 minutes of dead air. And I said, Chance, what the hell are we going to do? And he said, you and I will just bullshit a little bit. And I said about what? He goes, well, let's talk about why your stupid reporter just canceled and you've got no segment. Let's talk about her. And I said, okay. And he said, Dave, good talk radio is just like listening in on somebody else's conversation. So if we just have a good, natural conversation right now, we could do worse. And he was right. I don't know if you ever heard that credo. It's pretty simple, Matt. But the best radio shows and the best podcasts are just like- it's the reason why we care about what's going on in Howard Stern's office and whether he's about to fire an intern or something. Why should we care about such things? It's because it's a good, natural conversation and they let you into their family. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:04:11 What station was your aunt on? Because when I think of Boston Radio and Talk, I think of WBZ. David Yas (Guest) 00:04:16 That was it. BZ or RKO? I think it was BZ. I mean, BZ was always more of the morning radio show, but she was on a show called Claproot and Whitley, she was the Claproot of the group. And it was the first time I'd ever heard the yin yang of liberal and a conservative. My aunt's a bleeding heart liberal, and this guy, Pat Whitley, was an old school radio conservative, of which, of course, there were many. And for a while they were the number two show. And then eventually that radio marriage turned into a divorce, as will happen. They had a pretty good run, though. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:04:51 Oh, back when liberals and conservatives used to talk to each other, you mean? David Yas (Guest) 00:04:55 Yeah, because then and maybe now, too, you're a better person to ask, Matt. But for some reason, I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on this. Why do conservatives always win in radio? And liberals seem to use- I don't know if it's lose. I don't know if it's different in Canada. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:05:10 No, it's true. Was it Al Franken and Air America? At one point they launched that and it garnered no ratings. I think some of it is taken up in the public radio space, so I think some of the listening is already over there. But I guess I think conservative talk has now become such a brand that it just works on radio. And I think the type of talk that comes out from the left to center and off in the left, it doesn't have that same clash that wrestling does. I mean, I used to think radio is wrestling. I still think radio is wrestling just the same way that you had the liberal and conservative discussion in your family that was going on in WBZ or RKO. That makes a great radio, that clashing. But liberals don't like the clash. They want to try to convince you to come over to our side, as it were. David Yas (Guest) 00:05:56 Yeah, by the way, it was RKO. And in fact, I think WBZ maintained the number one spot during those years, but RKO is a close second. But I think you're right. I remember that Air America thing and I was optimistic about it. I think Mark Marin was involved as well, but very short lived. And when I used to be in the newspaper business, there was that old rule that the number of- well, it was an undeniable pattern, that the people that wrote in letters to the editor were generally pissed off about something. You just didn't get as many letters saying, hey, nice job. And I don't know if this is a strike against all my conservative friends out there, but it seems like conservatism lends itself more just to being angry. And liberals, they get angry too, of course, plenty of things they get angry for. But they're a little bit more about the love, and that conflict. It really fills every form of entertainment. So maybe that's just the way things are. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:06:46 You mentioned that you did some newspaper work. So what did you do at a newspaper? David Yas (Guest) 00:06:50 So I was a very strange and eclectic background. I've failed at many things, Matt. I was a lawyer for a short while, and then a job opened up for a reporter at the local legal newspaper, which is still around, Massachusetts Lawyers Weekly. And I sent a resume in and I said, Help me. I'm a writer trapped in the body of a lawyer. I always had a creative streak, but an analytical mind. And so the analytical mind was enough to prompt me to go to law school and thought, I'll figure out what I'm going to do after that. So I ended up at that newspaper for 15 years, and I ran the place for the last seven or eight years. And you'll appreciate as a person who has a creative outlet, it was something of a dream job. Now, meanwhile, I'm in the legal arena, so it's not all fun and games. And some of the stuff we were publishing was really dry. But we at one point were purchased by a company called Dolan Media, which, by the way, I always have to say is no relation to the New York Jim Dolan of the New York Knicks. Our Dolan Media is actually owned by a guy named Jim Dolan as well, different Jim Dolan, but he owned a lot of trade newspapers across the US. And he taught us that it's good to try new things and that he expects us to fail. And so we were able to try new magazines and new events. And I created an event called Battle of the Lawyers where I invited in a half dozen lawyers who had tried prominent cases and had them recreate their closing arguments for the entertainment of the fans and education, I suppose. And then even at the tail end of my run there, I started podcasting. That was probably around 2009, maybe into 2010. And that was when most people didn't know what a podcast was. And it was fun. I don't know if everybody got it at the time. I still think some people still don't get podcasting, but it was a good, fertile, creative ground for me. And so it was to me, it's kind of a natural, entrepreneur podcasting. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:08:38 Was that your first? David Yas (Guest) 00:08:39 Yeah, we started like the Lawyers Weekly Podcast, and I just brought two reporters into my office with one of those hard Yeti Blue microphones that is supposed to catch everything in the room nicely. And it didn't really, but at the time it was passable. And we just talked about the stories of the day and just had them shoot the breeze. And we did have a captive audience, so we might have had a few hundred people listening to that thing. But the thing about podcasting is, I don't know if you agree. I think in a way we're still in the wild, wild west. In other words, the rules seem to change from year to year. And if you don't like the rules, just make it up. If you want to do a 90 minutes podcast, do a 90 minutes podcast. If you think a 15 minutes podcast is more compelling, then do that. No rules. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:09:19 When you say rules, you sort of mean best practices, right? Like, what's the best way to get a podcast out there? So when you think back to 2009 and you've got the Lawyers Weekly podcast happening, and then you think about some of the things that you're doing today, what were some of the things that you did back then that you look back on and go, wow, can't believe you were doing that? Aside from the Blue Yeti microphone. David Yas (Guest) 00:09:38 I suppose my first reaction is that the more things change, the more they stay the same. The best shows I can remember back then were just really good conversations with interesting people coming in to tell their stories. So eventually I left Lawyers Weekly and stay in the podcast game, created a show called The Boston Podcast, which still exists, I still do it. And we started out just by finding interesting professionals. The moment I remember was we had Whitey Bulger's lawyer in, and a guy named Jay Carney, who I was friends with over the years, big time criminal defense attorney in Boston, of course. And he did like the sound of his own voice. He could be accused of being pompous or arrogance, but he was always very interesting. And he came in and started telling us about Whitey. And this was at a time when Whitey was imprisoned, but before he had left the Earth. And so the case was closed in a way. But lawyers are always a little tight lipped. Even the bombastic ones tend to not tell you too many details about the case. But he came in and started telling us about his first conversation with Whitey Bulger. And I'll never forget he said, Mr. Bulger, you're accused of killing these people, and he had a laundry list of why his alleged victims. And why do you say, well, let's go down the list. This is the lawyer telling us, right? You said this guy? No, never heard of that guy. That guy? Yeah, that was me. But you ask anybody in Southie, that guy was the biggest asshole in the world. He deserved it, right? And then you go down and be like, oh, I remember this one. We walked up to the guy and we said, Guess what? And he said what? And we said, you're dead. And Steve Fleming shot him in the face. And so right away, get this story about his first meeting with Whitey and for him to tell us all these details, we were shocked and we thought that was going to go viral. And we probably got about 500 downloads, which at the time maybe wasn't so bad. But it taught me that if you get the right person talking and just let them go and listen and ask good follow up questions, you're going to have a good show. And that part continues to be true, I think you'd agree. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:11:29 What's the moment when you're saying, I think I can make this a company and make podcasts for people? David Yas (Guest) 00:11:35 I'm not sure there was a single moment, but when I first started, I think I had two clients. There were times I always felt like Jerry Maguire with having Rod Tidwell as his only client and just barely keeping a phone. I thought if I could keep one or two clients, then I'm still going. And I had a show that I continue to produce called the CannaMom Show. This woman who was just very interested in the women in the cannabis industry and had a divorce lawyer named Evan Shine, and they both really took pride in their shows. And so when I realized I could find people that were as passionate about this as I was, and they just wanted me to kind of take them along their journey. That's what became exciting. And I think, Matt, you and I many times have talked about the sad phenomenon of pod fading, and it continues to be rampant in the industry. In other words, so many people come in with guns all ablaze, saying, I'm going to have the greatest show in the world, and they record for five or six weeks in a row. Then you don't hear from them for some reason, and life got in the way. But there are people who are genuinely their pride and joy, and it's just fun to talk about what can we do next season to shake it up? Can we create any new segments? Can we promote it differently? Can we create a new intro? Can we get different guests? And so that was probably the moment when I realized, as long as I find people who are passionate about their show, then I'll be in business. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:12:56 You have a great story involving, I believe, Evan Shine, who had a divorce case that involves parents, where one wanted to vaccinate the kids and the other one did not. And that actually went to court for discussion. And there was, I believe, a judgment that came out of it. And here you are sitting on a podcast and an opportunity to promote this podcast with a landmark case. David Yas (Guest) 00:13:16 It was, and that was a cool moment. And Evan Shine is, in fact, the same divorce attorney I referenced earlier as being one of my oldest clients. He's into his third season now, and he in fact, had a case where his client was in court saying, hey, my spouse- I don't remember which side he had, sorry about that- but my spouse refuses to get the kids vaccinated. My spouse refuses to abide by the rules of COVID that we're supposed to be abiding by. And I don't want to let my kids go to my ex's house if the kids are in danger of getting COVID. And it was the first case, and the judge ruled in Evan's favor and said, no, there are certain things you have to do if you want to continue to see your kids. So that was a cool moment, I'll admit. I don't think we capitalize on that big enough. We did talk about it on Evan's show. It might not be too late to go back and revisit that case, but it was cool to stumble into a new story like that. Anytime you get that, of course, the natural inclination is to think, well, now a bunch of people could be listening to your show that haven't been listening before. And it's a theory that I think, Matt, you'll agree sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. If you get a great guest or a great moment, the hope is that the listener will come for the guest, like, well, hey, you got Conan O'Brien on the show, you got whoever on the show. But then they'll come for the guests, but then they'll come back for the host because that guy does a good show. I'll listen the next time he gets on. It doesn't always work. I think you would admit, Matt, that you can get a spike for a single episode, but nevertheless, it's something that those moments where you're like, this is going to be a great show, I can't wait. And then the very least, you get some good feedback and you get some additional attention to the show. Yeah. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:14:56 Sometimes people just don't want to consume said popular guest in audio form. Maybe they just like the Instagram pages. Maybe they just like to connect on video or they already feel they know enough about the person that they're not going to get anything more out of this. So it is a bit of a mystery why that happens. And I think especially with the case with Evan, a lot of it's just timing and a lot of it might just think, you know what, it's Massachusetts. That law doesn't apply to us out here in California or in Texas or in Canada. So they might not gravitate to it then. It doesn't mean that the show doesn't have to get popular now. It could get popular later. David Yas (Guest) 00:15:30 Well, that's true. And that is the thing that I tell a lot of people I work with, is it is something that differentiates podcasts from radio and maybe any other medium is the way people discover it is. I don't know, but when I find a good podcast, I'm kind of excited. If there are like a year's worth of episodes that I haven't heard, I don't care that they're old if it's information I'm interested in. But what you said about maybe I know everything I need to know about that comedian or that personality or whatever that is. One of the simple byproducts of podcasting is I'm a little bit of a comedy nerd. And just for example, your Countryman Martin Short, I'll usually listen to anything he's on, but if I ever meet the guy, I hope he doesn't start to launch into the story about how he was on The Tonight Show sitting next to Betty Davis Cuz. I've heard him tell that story about a dozen times on various podcasts and it's kind of a plus in mind. You get to know you feel like you get to know some of these people, but eventually those long form interviews, it's going to go over the same ground. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:16:25 In just a moment, we're going to get into the podcasts that are too long. Is there such a thing? Specifically, we discussed David's podcast, Top Ten Time Machine, and if you've ever worked in Music radio, it's a podcast you might find interesting. And by the way, I posted a whole lot more about this episode on the episode page at soundoffpodcast.com, including a transcript of this episode. Sarah Burke (VO) 00:16:48 Transcription for the The Sound Off Podcast is powered by Poddin. Your podcast is an SEO gold mine. We help you to dig out. Start your free trial now at Poddin.io. Tara Sands (VO) 00:17:00 The Sound Off podcast. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:17:00 As we record this, you're, by the way, a diehard fan. You're wearing your Patriots shirt this morning on a day where I just got back from Green Bay and Green Bay won in overtime against the Patriots, who put up a good fight. But to that point, my wife's a big Aaron Rodgers fan and I don't know where she would find the time, other than an eleven hour drive between Green Bay and Winnipeg, to listen to two and a half hours of Aaron Rodgers talking with Bill Maher. David Yas (Guest) 00:17:27 Well, that sounds like something I would be interested to hear because we know Aaron Rodgers is on the eccentric side when it comes to certain things and Bill Maher is just the cynics to call him on all those things. Was it a good interview? Matt Cundill (Host) 00:17:39 Yeah, it actually is. The second time I listened to it, but it was the first time that she got to listen to it. But it speaks to the fact that even though you might be a diehard Green Bay Packers fan, you might not have two and a half hours of your life to go and spend to listen to the whole thing. This happens all the time. Oh, I'm going to listen to that later. And then people don't listen to it. David Yas (Guest) 00:17:56 True. Yeah. And it's the nature of on demand listening and yeah, of course it happens to all of us. A year'll ago by, you know, I meant to listen to that thing, and then you probably don't bother to go back and find it. But in the old days, prepodcasting, you just didn't have opportunities like this. And so maybe, I'm being Captain Obvious here is like, we know our celebrities and our prominent people in our community a lot better than we would have otherwise back in the old days. Because in the old days, like, my favorite baseball player growing up was Red Sox Collier Strumsky. And when I first got into baseball, he was already kind of a sturdy veteran and just seemed like such a cool, calm leader on the field and off the field. Come to learn later. Apparently. The guy was kind of a jerk and used to sit by himself and smoke cigarettes. I don't think he would have thrived in this world. I don't think he would have a lot to say on a podcast. But then again, when you get those great long form interviews, they're just golden. You're on the edge of your seat. This one hasn't aged well. But there was, I guess, kind of a legendary episode of Mark Maron's podcast where he interviewed Louis CK. And the two had had a feud in the past and over the course of 2 hours, they kind of hashed it out, and I would go to where I was driving and stop and sit in the car and listen to the rest of that thing because it was just so compelling. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:19:12 What's your infatuation with Top Ten charts? So much so that you have Past Tens, a Top Ten Time Machine. Did you always follow the charts when you're growing up and listening to the radio and buying cassettes and records? David Yas (Guest) 00:19:25 Oh, yeah, big time geek. Casey Casem fan, would be glued to the radio on Sunday mornings to come out, or Saturday mornings, whatever it was. And I had a friend in college, and we knew we were brothers in arms, and we knew we had similarly music-nerd proclivities when- I forget if he asked me or I asked him, but it's a trivia question. It was, what song in the US Billboard chart holds the record for the longest number of weeks in a row spent at number two? And he said, oh, that's waiting for- Foreigner song. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:19:25 Waiting for a Girl Like You by Foreigner? David Yas (Guest) 00:19:25 Yeah, that's right. Thank you. And we both looked at each other and we both said, Physical, because it was trapped behind Physical by Olivia Newton John, which was number one for so many weeks in a row. And so we thought, if we're the only two people on the planet that knew that and remember that, we need to stick together. And so in recent years, he came to me with the idea. He said, what if we did a music podcast where we, quote unquote, went back in time, just looked at the top ten on a given day, and then give some people some context, and it'll be a fun way to remember that stuff and what has held up and what hasn't. So we have a humble but very loyal audience. We're still continuing to grow that show, but I think it's a good example of if you're passionate about something, you can keep going. Matt, you and I were on a podcast that you have so definitely curated over the last several months, the Podcast Super Friends. And we talked about potential podcast marriages and divorces. And so immediately after we did that episode, I checked with Milt, my podcast partner, to make sure we weren't close to a divorce. And we both said, Well, I still enjoy it, don't you? And he said yes. And so to us, that has become a creative outlet, something we're proud of, and also just a great way to keep in touch with an old college friend. He's in New York, I'm in Boston. We don't get to see each other that often. And so we hope that I think the people that like the show enjoy the fact that repartee between us is genuine. It's not fabricated. It's not one of these like, Johnny in the Morning, we're best friends here, hopefully. It's not like that. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:21:23 I think one of the best things about it is it's unnecessarily long. David Yas (Guest) 00:21:29 Guilty as charged. Yes. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:21:31 But you guys don't have any rules between you, and if you start putting rules on one another about, hey, we got to shorten this up and lengthen this up, it doesn't become as much fun anymore. David Yas (Guest) 00:21:39 Yes. So the podcast consists of us going through those top ten songs, but Milt is a research freak, so he likes to give all facts, most of them very interesting about the origin of songs and where this came from. And I didn't know until he told me that that song 8675309 Jenny, which is by a band called Tommy Tutone, I didn't realize Tommy Tutone isn't an actual guy, it's a band. So that's just one example. Like, I was shocked when he told me that. But it is long. They do go as long as 2 hours. And Matt, we have taken great pains to figure out a way to cut it down. And I suppose in a way, to our credit, we might have been justified recently when we put out the survey that has dual goals. The one goal is to try to pull our listeners as to what the greatest songs of all time were. And it invites our listeners to go down a list of about 200 songs and we tell them, you don't have to rate everyone, but rate them as you see fit. But then it asked for feedback on the show and we had a multiple choice question. How long should the show be? Should it be about 30 minutes, about 60 minutes, or just as long as it takes? And so far, overwhelmingly they're saying just as long as it takes. So we don't make it long for the sake of making it long. We make it long because we're covering the stuff we need to. And as long as it's moving and still kind of a natural conversation, we still feel pretty good about it. Do you listen to any podcasts that are super long? Matt Cundill (Host) 00:22:55 I mean the New Media Show with Todd Cochrane and Rob Greenley. That's 90 minutes. I consider that to be long. David Yas (Guest) 00:23:03 That is long. We do an entertainment podcast and by definition that means you don't need it. You don't need it if we were doing some kind of business. And you do a lot about the industry or radio and podcasting, and for a lot of people that listen to your show, Matt, I think they do it for education. It's almost like they're taking their vitamins. They want to make sure they know what's going on in the industry and if that's the case, going to be in the car for about 30 minutes, that's about the length of the show. Great. Makes sense with ours. I mean, they say you generally listen to podcasts one or two reasons you need the information or you just want the information. And if it's both, then great. But I can't pretend anyone needs. To know too much about my Sharona by the Knack. They just might enjoy going back and listening to some songs with us and taking a trip with us so they can also, as many will do, pick and choose. If we're going back to 1966, that might not suit everyone. They might feel more comfortable with Cindy Lauper and Dexter's midnight Runners in 1984. And so listen to that episode. And if you don't want to listen to the whole thing, of course don't. But we take the unusual step of posting it on a Friday because we think people tend to listen to in their car driving around on the weekends when they have downtime or they're just sitting around. So that's the theory so far. But like I said, things change from year to year and we constantly try to rejigger the format. At one point we decided the best way to go for a weekly podcast was to do one of our mega Baton Death march shows of up to 2 hours, but then stagger them week to week with a shorter show of about an hour, where we do some kind of specialty show, like the best songs containing cowbells. Or we did our favorite Deep Cuts last week. We did the best mashups we've ever heard. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:24:36 Why does it take you 2 hours to talk about ten songs? David Yas (Guest) 00:24:39 Because we love our doodads, we love our jingles. We have way too much fun with them. We thought about cutting out certain things at the top of the show. If the time machine- there's this silly conceit where we play a sound effect and say, oh, now we're going back in time. Now we're back in 1985, and Milt will spend about three to five minutes talking about what was going on in 1985. And to me they're always interesting things like, oh, jeez, I remember that. I remember Bernie Gets, or I remember when so-and-so did that on the Grammy Award show or whatever. We do that, then we go into the song. With each song, he's got some research we evaluate and then we can't resist doing these things at the end. Like we rate the week, we pick a winner of the week. There's a part where I break in and say it's time for the playdate, where I'm going to quiz Milt on a certain category signs listeners can play along at home. We've gotten it down to like a minute 45, but that's not bad, right? I know it's long. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:25:35 What's the most unlikely number one song that you've come across? One that you said, I just can't figure out why this song got to number one. David Yas (Guest) 00:25:43 There was a song, I want to say it was called In The Year 2025, or maybe it was in the year 5055? Matt Cundill (Host) 00:25:43 2525, yep. David Yas (Guest) 00:25:43 2525, that's it. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:25:56 Sagar and Evans. David Yas (Guest) 00:25:57 Yes. Oh my God, Matt. Major points for that one. That was probably the most bizarre moment. So that song- and I was able to quickly check the interwebs here- Came out 1969 and hit number one. And it is this bizarro kind of meandering song, imagining a day in the future. And I think they go through the lyrics, they talk- the first verse is about what's going on in the year 2025. And the next one is about in the year 3535. That's one that was very bizarre. I'd say the most pleasant surprise was when we stumbled upon this song, which was a hit. All these songs were hits, so it's always a little weird when we've never heard of it. But sung by the Osmonds called Down by the Lazy River. And we think of the Osmonds as these, like a toothpaste commercial come to life. These Mormons just being happy. And so this song Down by the Lazy River, it rocks. We were both dancing to it. We couldn't believe it. So it's fun to unearth, like, fun surprises like that. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:26:52 What is the worst year of the 1980s? And why was it 1981? David Yas (Guest) 00:26:56 Yeah, I don't know. Who tortured you in 1981, Matt? Matt Cundill (Host) 00:27:01 It's a lot of ballads. David Yas (Guest) 00:27:02 Yeah. I mean, 1981 was probably before the 80s got really shiny. Is that the best word I can think of? I'm talking about Cindy Lauper and Kenny Loggins, Footloose and Huey Lewis. Those are all fun. A lot of them are silly songs and they're campy. But if you hit the right groove, I'll still listen to The Power of Love by Huey Lewis and the News and enjoy it very much. I remember the song. I remember Back to the Future. I can picture- he's another one of your boys, right? Isn't Michael J. Fox Canadian? Yes. See, we can't trust you people because you look like the rest of us and sometimes we can't tell. Yeah, I think you're right. In '81, those early '80s days, the decade had yet to sort of hit the fun portion of it. There was still some sort of crunch rock hanging around. I remember The Clash and bands of that ilk. The ballads are actually a sticking point between me and Milt because Milt will be more forgiving than I. But we've had so many Lionel Richie ballads that it's like, I Can't Help Myself, I get out the vomit sound effect. And a bad ballad is worse than anything because it feels like it never ends. Do you have one that most sticks in your craw? Matt Cundill (Host) 00:28:11 I mean, right in that transition point between 81 and 82, really doesn't kick into the spring of 82. And we call this I think it's the MTV effect where stuff starts to get better. And then the British were releasing some more keyboards and they hadn't killed disco the way America had. So Don't You Want Me, Baby? That's still a cool song. And it goes right alongside Eye of the Tiger. But you still got this residual stink of Charlene, I've never been To Me. David Yas (Guest) 00:28:41 We covered that one, yeah. We have a sound effect that says, what the f were we thinking? And that merited that badge. Of course, that song was famously featured in the movie, which is much better than the song of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, which was if you haven't seen it, folks, it's the best movie you'll find around about drag queens making their way to the Australian outback. Very strange movie, but lovable. But, yeah, we spent a little time dissecting what that actually means. I've never been to me, it doesn't exactly make sense. In addition to being just kind of a brutally sappy song. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:28:41 I mean, I respect her needs to go and find herself, but does she have to do it for three minutes on my favorite radio station? David Yas (Guest) 00:29:21 Yeah, and you know what? Now that you bring this up, it actually brings up what is kind of a fascinating concept to me, which I'm sure somebody has studied this, but by the definition, the top ten hits are pop. It's what people are enjoying. But it begs the question, who are these people? And during different eras and different years, there might have been different ages of people listening to the radio. So why does an Air Supply song make it alongside a song by, I don't know, ZZ Top or something? It's because your parents, they were listening to the radio, too. They needed something to listen to. And so it does blow my mind because it is direct. Much of it is direct. And so, yeah, I'm not going back listening to I've never been to Me too often these days. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:30:06 I don't mean to sort of look at all the podcasts that you work with and say there's a bit of a pattern, but you've got an awful lot of professionals up there from real estate. You got a couple from we got about three or four there from legal and a few businesses. Now I see you've even got one that involves cryptocurrency. So safe to say that you're heavily centered around professionals. David Yas (Guest) 00:30:22 That was the plan originally, just because I personally had come from the legal world and the financial world. And so my grain of a business model was that those people in the professional world are going to want to market their services through podcasting. So that has worked to some degree. But it goes to show you how it's almost like there should be different words, because a podcast that I do for a divorce lawyer or an accountant or a speech coach is going to be a lot different than Joe Rogan's podcast or Adam Carol's podcast or pick a podcast that is at the top of the charts. It's almost like they're just not the same animal. And I tell people, please don't think you're going to be the next Joe Rogan. That's the biggest mistake. But think about what you want to do. A lawyer, a business person, someone who's an expert in crypto, perhaps they are creating the podcast for the purpose of getting their name out there a little bit in the same way that you get your name out there by, what, going to cocktail parties or attending conferences or speaking at conferences. And these are places where you've got a so called audience of like 200, 300 people, and that's just fine, and you just kind of keep doing that, and you get your name around. So it's not the same as, like, an entertainment. It's almost the difference between Wayne and Garth in their parents'basement doing the cable access show versus, like, Monday Night Football. They're just not the same thing. But that doesn't mean they don't serve both great purposes. And as I said, the the the the the sound off podcast relatively low entry level, and if you want to be really good, you can with some creativity. And why not create the best show that you can? Evan Shine, the divorce lawyer you mentioned that I work with, he's doing it to elevate his name in his industry, but he also loves the idea of making a great show. So we mess around with different kinds of segments and intros and outros and other things that are going to jazz to show up. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:32:09 It's the Boston Podcast Network, but you also have some takers and some equally obnoxious fan bases, like Chicago and Philadelphia. David Yas (Guest) 00:32:17 That's right. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:32:18 I just want to make sure to hit all those fan bases at once. David Yas (Guest) 00:32:21 I know you've got them. Yes, each fan base is more rude than the next. Boston fans are known as masssells. New York fans are New York, and Philly fans, you'll know, Matt, of course, are famous for booing Santa Claus, and they would do it again. But when I started the company, to be Frank, like a lot of entrepreneurs, is the first company I've ever owned. You kind of throw a lot of spaghetti against the fridge and see what sticks. And so I named the company the Boston Podcast Network, in part because no one had that name. But being centered in Boston and having that as sort of ground zero of my podcast world made sense. But I get introduced to people all around the country who want podcasts, and, of course, this Internet thing allows you to do things seamlessly. So we proudly produce a podcast called Binge or Cringe, which is Philly based and a very passionate woman with a background in PR named Jamie Joffrey. But frankly, it's all about television, and the fans are a lot of people who were on message boards talking about how they love the show The Affair, and she just blossom that into an extremely well traveled Facebook page. And now a podcast. And proud to say that podcast just won Best of Philly from Philadelphia magazine. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:33:30 Congrats. David Yas (Guest) 00:33:31 Yeah. So we'll take that. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:33:33 David, thanks so much for being on the podcast and sharing your podcast experience, your radio experience, your music chart knowledge, and I guess we'll be listening to you in podcasts. David Yas (Guest) 00:33:43 I hope so. And may I say, keep up the great work. What you do is you have just such a unique, cool corner of the radio and entertainment world to do this podcast, which is I know about the industry and so many other things. But listeners will not know that I secretly follow Matt and try to copy what he does because he knows what he's doing. So I hope you don't mind me being your occasional mentee on this ride, Matt. I don't mind saying. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:34:08 Oh, listen, likewise. Thank you. Thanks for being a podcast super friend. David Yas (Guest) 00:34:12 I will see you at the hall of justice. Don't forget the secret password. Tara Sands (VO) 00:34:16 That's Sound Off podcast is written and hosted by Matt Cundill. Produced by Evan Surminski. Social Media by Courtney Krebsbach. Another great creation from the Soundoff Media Company. There's always more at soundoffpodcast.com.

Shawn Smith is the owner of Broadcast Dialogue, and its parent company Momentum Media Marketing. Broadcast Dialogue has been around since 1992, and is well-established as Canada's premiere broadcast industry trade publication. If you've been following The Sound Off Podcast since the beginning, you might remember that Shawn originally appeared on this podcast in its infancy. In this episode, we discuss the acquisition of the legendary Canadian broadcast magazine 6 years later, along with all the changes it's undergone over the years. We also discuss the Canadian Radio Awards and the call for nominations. The time has come once again! And there's great news: it costs absolutely nothing to enter. If you'd like to apply to the Canadian Radio Awards, submit your radio audio here. Transcript: Tara Sands (VO) 00:00:01 The Sound Off Podcast. The podcast about broadcast with Matt Cundill... Starts now. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:00:10 Okay, so not a big, long intro for this podcast episode. It is Shawn Smith, who is the owner of Broadcast Dialogue. We had him back on episode six of the Sound Off podcast, and we thought we'd bring them back. The Canadian Radio Awards are also online once again, and once again, we need your nominations and entries. So joining me from Vancouver is Shawn Smith from Broadcast Dialogue. Shawn, can you remind us all once again, why did you buy Broadcast Dialogue? Shawn Smith (Guest) 00:00:42 When Howard and Ingrid decided that they were going to retire, the industry was apoplectic. At least that's how it was described by Jeff Polton. And that's exactly how I was feeling. So I put the word out to Howard that I thought that there's no way that the industry could do without Broadcast Dialogue, and that nobody would honor his legacy more than I would. And he responded to that. But true to form, Howard took three months to grind me on every aspect of the sale. But then we concluded it probably a week before we were due to publish. And they were so gracious and really served as helicopter parents for three years until finally Ingrid made Howard finally retire and stopped responding to emails. So that's the story. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:01:33 I think back, though, am I right in thinking they weren't even going to sell it? They were just going to let it go. Shawn Smith (Guest) 00:01:37 They were going to shutter it. Because what better way to go out on top, and just put a period on the sentence. And the industry just wasn't having it. And I wasn't the only one at the table, but I think I'm the only one that truly understood over 30 years what Broadcast Dialogue really means to the business. And I think Howard only then felt comfortable with the idea of it going forward. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:02:02 Well, you know what it means, and I know what it means. Shawn Smith (Guest) 00:02:05 It's true. Although six years ago, we launched, or I'd say relaunched the platform at least as a digital only publication, which then made it far more accessible to folks who are digital first. And on top of that, over the last number of years, we've begun publishing daily updates and news stories over all the interwebs, so social media and all of that. So I think we've managed to reach a much younger industry participant, and we see it in the subscriber numbers. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:02:38 When was the last physical copy? When did that come out? Shawn Smith (Guest) 00:02:41 Good question. I think maybe eight or nine years ago. And at that point, Howard was delivering a PDF that was emailed every week as the weekly briefing. And he was doing, I believe, a monthly print publication. But like all things print, it went the way of the dinosaur. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:02:58 So I had the luxury of starting a company and building it from the ground up because I can make all my mistakes. They would remain rather private. There was really no legacy to follow. But you have this giant legacy in Broadcast Dialogue. How has it evolved over the six years that you've had it, and has it gone the way you thought it would? Shawn Smith (Guest) 00:03:16 I think it's exceeded my expectation, because when you're in discussions with Howard Christensen, Howard is very pointed about asking you what you think the strengths are and what you're going to do in different situations. And so he prepared me for any potential pitfalls, and then he was around to make sure and make his voice known if he thought we were off track. Now, the secret, it turns out, is hire the very best people, which I have done, and they saved me along the way, and I think are a large part, if not all part of why the publication is doing so well and seems to be prospering in a whole different way than it was prior to the sale. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:03:59 Do you still get feedback on what they think about it? Shawn Smith (Guest) 00:04:02 Oh, yeah. In fact, I think it was last year. We did a survey, and lo and behold, the things that people love best, the revolving door and the sign offs. It seems to be the secret sauce, the thing that people really feel that broadcast delivers where others don't. And that is the premier piece right there. And then, of course, right behind that comes the properly reported, journalistic, high-integrity news piece that we do. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:04:29 So I'm really surprised by the sign offs, but then again, I don't think I should be, because I know a lot of people who reach for the obituaries in the newspaper back when they were a little more common. Shawn Smith (Guest) 00:04:40 Yeah, I think it's one of the most important pieces that we do because it recognizes all of the people that have come before us. And let's just say a sizable number of our subscriber base, far more than I think anyone would realize, are people who still keep their finger on the pulse of the industry but are retired. And sometimes I get notes that say things like, jeez, I don't recognize any names in the revolving door this week, but these are the people on whose backs we stand in this country and in this industry. And so the least we can do is honor them as they pass on. And I take it very seriously, and we do a lot of hard work on that. And Connie has to get a lot of credit because sometimes people who've been retired for 10, 20, 30, 40 years aren't the most easily accessible, especially in their final moment. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:05:36 Tell me a little bit about the database that you have on everyone. I feel like you've got the Central Database on broadcasting practically in North America. Like, who works where, who has worked where, where they're going. I think a lot of people probably read Revolving Door to find out where they're actually going next. Shawn Smith (Guest) 00:05:53 It started out with Ingrid Christensen. And Howard will say it's due to her German proficiency, but she had a knack of staying on top of everyone. And the joke really is, or was, that Ingrid knew where you were going before you were. And in fact, she would, at the first hint that someone was going to change a job, she'd call reception and say, has Matt left yet? Then she called a new place and say, has Matt arrived yet? And this is how she manually kept that database so incredible over the years, and now we're able to keep up with it digitally and so on. But I don't think that it's nearly as complete as the days when she was on top of it. But yeah, it's a list from bottom to top of the industry. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:06:39 How do you know when to run with a rumor? Because we've heard rumors before, and a lot of people who may be your clients as well aren't really going to be rushing to confirm a stories. How do you draw that line and figure out when to go with it? Shawn Smith (Guest) 00:06:53 Well, number one, Broadcast Dialogue always has and always will conform to very strict journalistic standards. And so a rumor is only a starting place for us. We'll begin to dig, and oftentimes it's Connie leading the charge, who's our editor of Broadcast Dialogue, and she will double confirm everything before it even reaches Broadcast Dialogue. So I'm proud to say that I don't think we've ever been accused of printing a rumor. We've often been accused of running with something before. People would wish that it would hit the press. But I think everybody understands that we're a newspaper first, and that's how we stay on top of it and we get it right. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:07:34 You see right there, that's my favorite story. Those are the ones I like the best. Shawn Smith (Guest) 00:07:39 Yeah, it's wonderful to be ahead of the curve, and we do it better than anybody. And we don't even look or consider some purported trade publications that just print rumors or are a glorified bulletin board. We just don't place ourselves on the same playing field whatsoever. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:07:58 Do you think if you bought Broadcast Dialogue 15 years ago, you might have run with a bulletin board? Shawn Smith (Guest) 00:08:03 Well, there is the word Dialogue in Broadcast Dialogue, so it's possible, but I think it would have had to have been pretty heavily moderated. What's interesting now is we have social media feeds, and I don't like social media feeds on news organizations because it's usually loaded up with vitriol and very one sided sort of thinking. But on our feeds, I struggle to think of a time when we've had to moderate because people tend to be industry pros who know who we are. They govern themselves. It's the most awesome thing. So in our case, social media has been really good for us. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:08:43 Yeah, I was going to mention discussion boards, but you don't need them because you have a Facebook page but your Facebook page is not a dumpster fire the way some other Facebook radio groups are, perhaps. Shawn Smith (Guest) 00:08:55 Yeah, I can't comment about any others, but I'm continually pleased with the high level of discussion that happens and I'm proud to have a dialogue there and I'm proud that folks who tend to come there are industry pros as well. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:09:10 You've had a podcast now for a couple of years. Congratulations on it. What's the podcast experience been like so far? Shawn Smith (Guest) 00:09:17 Thank you. Well, it was one of the first things that we wanted to do, and we wanted to leverage the fact that everybody that works with broadcast dialogue and in our company, they're all media pros, a lot of radio people, people who can handle a microphone. And I thought, what better place if the moniker the Podcast about Broadcast wasn't already taken? I mean, I would have taken that because that's the perfect moniker for Broadcast Dialogue. It's great. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:09:43 I could license it to you. Shawn Smith (Guest) 00:09:44 Yeah, usually that works the other way, but thanks for that. Dervla Trainor (VO) 00:09:48 Transcription for the Sound Off Podcast is powered by Poddin. Your podcast is an SEO gold mine. We help you to dig out. Start your free trial now at Poddin.io. Tara Sands (VO) 00:09:48 The Sound Off podcast. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:10:01 By the way, you just had your biggest quarter. Q2 for you this year, you had your biggest amount of downloads. Have you seen any trends, by the way, when it comes to which episodes do better than others? Shawn Smith (Guest) 00:10:11 You know, it would probably surprise most people that it's actually, at least in one case, a vendor podcast that actually went sort of worldwide. And that was Bob Orban of Orban fame, a guy that can stack him a hundred deep at a trade show with engineers who just want to shake the hand. That was one of our greatest. And people really want to hear from some luminaries in the industry to talk about broadcast, and so those tend to be really good for us too. But then there are also others as well with industry luminaries from within broadcast that do great as well. And I'm sure you've got the numbers on that. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:10:55 Zach Sang did very well, and Brother Jake, of course, did very well when you had them on. But we also have Fred Jacobs on my podcast just last week. And one of the things we talked about was the yearning of people in radio to learn more about technology and find out what the future is really going to be like. So I'm not surprised to hear that some of your sponsored material involving technology is doing so well. Shawn Smith (Guest) 00:11:18 First of all, Brother Jake can do no wrong. Everybody wants to hear what Brother Jake is going to say next. And Zach Sang is just one of those guys that he has a worldwide following anyway. And so when he drops into a Twitter feed that he's going to be on a podcast, we get 6000 listens from Korea immediately because for whatever reason, south Koreans love Zach Sang and they love BTS, and they'll gobble up everything they can. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:11:43 Looking back on the Pandemic, it represents just about half the time that you've been involved with Broadcast Dialogue. How did it change the Broadcast Dialogue side of the business? Shawn Smith (Guest) 00:11:52 Broadcast Dialogue in 2021 had its best year of the last six, and that's from a revenue perspective. I'll talk about subscribers in a minute, but what happened is that the vendors to the industry, which are really the people that pay for Broadcast Dialogue as it is a free subscription, it all depends on the vendors. And they weren't able to travel, they weren't able to take engineers to dinner, they weren't able to go to trade shows. And so they recognized the opportunity to get up close and personal with all of our readers in Canada by using Broadcast Dialogue. And so that was just tremendous. And it's delivering for us in 2022 as well. But also, we're a bit of a lifeline for people in the industry who found themselves working from home in isolation. So they really started to consume any information that we could put out there, social media, whatever, the weekly briefing, and they really appreciated that. It really helped with our subscriptions as well. And just the general consumption of what we were putting out just went way up. And I think it was really important. In fact, we had one CEO tell us when we launched the Canadian Radio Awards, I said, it's going to be the Feelgood event of 2020. And this person said, oh, I don't think our employees are looking at that as the Feelgood event. And I think what they meant to hint there was there's so much pain happening internally at companies that it was hard to see anything positive. And so if we brought a little bit of positivity to the game at that point, that was a big win for us. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:13:30 You mentioned the Canadian Radio Awards. Is that something that came out of the pandemic? Shawn Smith (Guest) 00:13:36 Absolutely. We were looking at an uncertain future. There were no live events. CAB had not been doing a live event, and those awards were gone. The CMW Awards were kind of on hiatus, and so I wasn't really looking forward any further than a few months. I just didn't really know what was going to happen. But I knew that we had an opportunity to pull off these awards, and we were just totally swamped with so many nominations. And on the day that we announced the winners, our website that we created for that purpose was swamped with, I don't know, it was tens of thousands of instant calls and just crashed the website. So that was just an indication of how important this was. And I came to find out that the vendor support has been there from day one. And so it's something we're just going to continue with on into the future. Every year. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:14:33 There's somebody listening to this podcast who is thinking that the Canadian Radio Awards are not for them. Tell them why they're wrong. Shawn Smith (Guest) 00:14:41 Well, that's just silly talk, and I'll tell you why. It's because there's great radio happening from the smallest community stations on up to Toronto and the big dogs. And you don't have to be part of a 100 station conglomerate to do great radio and put it out there for our judges to have a look at. In fact, some of the most compelling nominations that we've received have been small market stations. That first Small Market Station of the Year award went to what was formerly Friendly 58 CJFX in Antigonish. And that, my friends, is one of the last remaining true small town radio stations that's almost a full variety format. Everything from local newscasts and bingo to Scottish strings. And that nomination, I think, has been unrivaled yet in the first two years. So I can't even wait to see what all stations are going to do. But it's for everyone. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:15:47 Have you ever thought about having a national convention like the RnR convention in the United States? That's actually gone away. But I look at the Worldwide Radio Summit, which has now become the Worldwide Audio Summit, and they've done it online for the last few years. Have you ever thought about something along the lines of a radio style convention? Shawn Smith (Guest) 00:16:03 My whole life in radio has been about growing brands and experiential events and all of this kind of stuff. So I never say never. It's a little tougher in Canada because we have the population just slightly larger than California. So we have to be realistic about the scope of what we can do. And we also have to recognize that there are some great industry associations like the OAB, the BCAB, the WAB. These are folks that are in the event business and are still doing great events. Could we step in at some point and create a learning environment that could work coast to coast? I'm all in on that idea, but I think we've got some road to go. But definitely I view it as an extension of what Broadcast Dialogue and Cartt.ca can do. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:16:55 Speaking of Cartt.ca. You bought that. What is that? I don't know what that is because I was always too cheap to pay for it. It was like a subscription thing. Shawn Smith (Guest) 00:17:03 Well, you do remember that Broadcast Dialogue for many years was subscription. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:17:09 No, that was different. I could just pick up the magazine at the station and read it in the lounge. Shawn Smith (Guest) 00:17:13 Oh, yeah, one of those what do they call that? Phantom circulation. That's what they used to call that. Look, Cartt.ca has been around for 18 years. It was created by just a fantastic journalist named Greg O'Brien. And if Broadcast Dialogue is very firmly rooted on the radio television side of the business, with a little bit of telecom thrown in, there some cable, podcast, film. Then if you look on the other side of the business, you see Cartt, which is 45% of the subscribers are people who work directly in telecom. So in this case the other side of Rogers, of Shaw, of even companies like Telus and so on. So they're really good sort of bookends of the business and together they cross over just a little bit. But for the most part they fit together like a right and a left handed glove. And where Broadcast Dialogue really tracks the people and their moves, honors them when they pass away, and keeps on top of the relevant news for the industry. We look over to Cartt, and Cartt is doing heavy hitting journalism, heavy reporting. There's a whole host of contributors and writers who bring all sorts of thoughts and positions on things like Bill C Eleven and so on, that you just don't get without that subscription. And that subscription, it's about $149 a year. That gives you two emails every week, chock full of heavy-duty learning on the telecom and broadcast industries. So they're two different animals, but they're in the same sandbox. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:18:56 We're recording this on a Wednesday, tomorrow being Thursday. That's going to be the day that I get my email and it's how I'm going to start my day, by reading everything that's going on in the industry. How many people, by the way, are receiving that email, if I may ask? Shawn Smith (Guest) 00:19:09 More than 6400, which in a business that has been contracting, arguably, is actually growing considerably. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:19:19 It's funny, we think of the business as contracting, but I think people are always going to be interested in the business even if you're not necessarily working in it. Shawn Smith (Guest) 00:19:26 It's true, absolutely. The vendors love to read about the business and it's not just the fact that they sell to the industry, it's that they love to keep tabs on what's happening in Canada. And we're talking about multinational corporations, predominantly in the US. But also now more increasingly in Europe and Asia, and they see it as a window into Canada. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:19:47 Now this question is a little bit nosy, but how many of those subscribers are from the United States who are interested in just what we're doing in Canada? Shawn Smith (Guest) 00:19:56 You know, I couldn't give you a number, but it's in the hundreds and hundreds. For sure. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:20:02 Because I'm always interested, in podcasting, like, how many people are coming to our podcasts and consuming them from the US to find out what we're doing in Canada? Because I think we are doing things a little bit differently, and I think much the same way we look to the US for things, they look to us too. Shawn Smith (Guest) 00:20:16 Yeah, there's no question about it. We get a lot, a lot of our social media activity is coming out of the US. But by and large, it's Canada first. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:20:24 Shawn, congratulations so much on the Canadian Radio Awards. Looking forward to hopefully getting lots of entries and lots of submissions for you to go through. And I think it's just great that you do this. And I'm counting now, I think this is the third edition that you've done. So congrats. Shawn Smith (Guest) 00:20:40 I really appreciate that, Matt. And we appreciate our partnership in terms of our podcasts, and the work we do together on the respective podcasts, and all that you're doing and the support you give to the Canadian Radio awards. We appreciate it. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:20:54 I love you, brother. Shawn Smith (Guest) 00:20:55 Love you too, man. Tara Sands (VO) 00:20:56 The Sound Off podcast is written and hosted by Matt Cundill. Produced by Evan Surminski. Social media by Courtney Krebsbach. Another great creation from the Soundoff Media Company. There's always more at soundoffpodcast.com.

It has been 515 days since we had Fred Jacobs has been on the show. Back then we were unpacking a lot of the surprising results from a Covid induced Tech Survey. This time we have the benefit of catching up on three pieces of research that I felt needed discussing: The two Tech Survey's for Public Radio and Commercial radio, and the AQ4 Survey which targets air talent. The fourth instalment of AQ was released at Morning Show Boot Camp in Chicago in August and it is an eye opening piece of research that is riveting for air talent as it allows them to feel a little more connected in the daily battle of content creation in 2022. You can link to the results here. Fred feels that the research is important enough to share with your radio group. If you over see a number of radio stations and need your owner, VP or local decision maker to see the results, Fred has made himself available and you can reach him at +1 248-353-9030. It takes about 45 minutes. Matt's Hot Take: If the report were about what your clients thought of you, you'd have a copy on the corner of your desk. Below is the slide I found the most alarming. The number of talent who don't feel they have enough tech skills, social media skills and a solid understanding of new technology and trends. I experienced the disparity first hand when James Cridland gave his presentation at Canadian Music Week. When describing the effectiveness of the audio editing program Descript, there were a lot of ooooh's and ahhhh's in the audience of radio programmers and executives. I then went to check my notes and it turns out that I had alerted James Cridland from Podnews, Rob Walch and Elsie Escobar from Libsyn's The Feed, and Todd Cochrane and Rob Greenlee from The New Media Show back in September of 2019. James Cridland used the tool for his podnews episode the very next day. That seems like an awful long time for that many radio people to be in the dark about a program that more and more podcasters have been using. A suggestion for radio companies big and small: You need to have someone in charge of Audio Learning and Innovation. Someone in the company needs to be teaching and working with staff on the latest technologies. The industry moves too fast to remain stagnant and your staff is largely out of touch within six months. The same person should also be looking for innovative ways to have audio delivered to your audience. Fred and I talked about his discussion at Canadian Music Week with Tobias Nielsen from Bauer Media who has a subscription radio service. Fred blogged about that discussion here. Fred and I also talked about their return to the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas. Click here to join them. TRANSCRIPTION Tara Sands (Voiceover) 00:00:01 The Sound Off Podcast. The podcast about broadcast with Matt Cundill.... starts now. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:00:10 It's been nearly 17 months since our last chat with Fred Jacobs from Jacobs Media. In that last episode, we talked a lot about what the Jacobs Media Tech Survey data said about radio during the Pandemic. With the pandemic more in the rearview mirror than the windshield, it's time to bring Fred back to share what he knows from some of the biggest studies completed this year - Of note: Tech Survey, which kind of slid by me because I was in Spain, and the public radio version of Tech Survey that was recently released. But I'm really fascinated by AQ4 which was revealed at Don Anthony's Morning Show Boot Camp that's a coming together of a lot of prominent radio talent. So here we go. Fred Jacobs joins me from the offices of Jacobs Media in Bingham Farms, Michigan. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:00:56 What am I missing by not going to Morning Show Boot camp? Fred Jacobs (Guest) 00:00:59 That's a really good question. I think you're missing a lot, actually. I think what you're missing is a really unique spirit and vibe that you just can't get at any other conference. The fact that it's all talent oriented for the most part, makes it unique. And it's a view of air talent that I think most management teams don't get to see. They kind of see talent sort of uni-dimensionally. There they are in the air studio, they are at an event, that kind of thing. And when you see a few hundred of them together being collegial and sharing with each other and being excited about the industry, it's really cool. I didn't used to love it as much as I do now, but now I find it to be really essential. And then, of course, you know, the research all shows pretty much the same thing, and that's between your music and your talent. One of them is critically important and the other is table stakes. And I think you need to be in touch with the critically important piece. I'd love to see more corporate management people there, if nothing else, just observing just how exciting and how excited talent really is to be a part of this industry. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:02:23 It feels like it's a more important event now. And to your point, when you started to see that talent was a little more important than music in some of the tech surveys, and when we saw that, then we saw talent come together and more reason to really sort of rally around talent and find the right talent for radio stations. Is there a correlation between the two? Fred Jacobs (Guest) 00:02:44 Yeah, I think there is. And clearly that study that we do for Boot Camp, the AQ studies, which have been for them, now show a really disturbing trend and that's the talent with each passing year and COVID might have actually accelerated this. A bit hard to know, but talent with each passing year is even more negative. About their stations and the companies that own them than they were four years ago. And I thought those numbers were putrid, and I didn't realize, you know what, Fred, they can go down and they have every year. So there's a serious disconnect between management and talent that is not getting addressed. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:03:36 And the AQ4 survey, which you have been doing, where you're polling talent, getting a lot of feedback from talent, and then you unveil it at morning show boot camp, and you have a much different audience where everybody's more attentive, nobody is looking at the phones, there's a lot of people nodding along. There's a lot of reaction in the room to people going, yeah and no, and some, oh wows. So tell me how this survey is just so unique in the context of all the other surveys that you do. Fred Jacobs (Guest) 00:04:06 I'm shocked at all of those things that you just talked about. I mean, not anymore, but the first year that I presented it and to Don Anthony's credit, having this be the very first thing that occurs at boot camp turned out to be a really smart decision on his part. I mean, the study was his idea too. So credit where credit is due, but the fact that the AQ study now leads off (Morning Show) Boot Camp, it's a tone setter. It really, I think, helps talent sort of see the bigger picture. And this is the most engaged audience I get for a research study. And you just wouldn't think on the surface it would be talent, but I think they realize they're invested here, and this is a survey about them and they better damn well pay attention. And they do. They're looking at every slide. They're kind of taking it in. They're thinking, yeah, that's me, or wow, that's amazing, or whatever. And I think it's very helpful to them just in gaining a better perspective. But also that very much their branding, their future, all of that stuff is up to them to a great degree. I think they're all, by and large, very committed to doing a great job for their stations and the companies that own them. But I think ultimately they've come to realize, and maybe the data helps to crystallize this a little bit, that if they don't take care of themselves and their brands and all that kind of thing, they're really short changing their efforts here. And so I think that message is. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:05:48 Coming across and the questions are deeply personal. I thought, do you have a home studio? Is a very personal question, but it gets deeper. You ask questions about mental health. Fred Jacobs (Guest) 00:06:00 Yes. The first year we've actually asked people to assess themselves, and I was a little concerned that there would be some pushback, and there was really none. I mean, a couple of people commented like, oh, I can see where this surveys going. This is kind of depressing. It's like, well, it's not meant to be depressing. It's meant to find out what's going on with you guys and are your stations offering mental health services? And if so, are you taking advantage of them? So hopefully there is some value there. I mean, we did have a number of people after taking the survey who thanked us for including those questions and also suggesting, hey, if you're not feeling really good right now, for whatever the reasons, don't eat it. You know, do something about it. So hopefully we're making a difference there. I mean, that's kind of part of it. But yeah, there's a lot of personal stuff in there. You're exactly right. And yet these are people who wear their emotions on their sleeves for a living. I mean, these are people talking about their pregnancies and their cancers and their boyfriends and all that stuff. And so for them to answer a few questions that are going to be held completely confidential, they seem to have absolutely no problem. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:07:26 So I'm going to make an attempt here to do a share screen. In The middle of a podcast, which will be exciting. But this is one of your slides, so I think you'll probably recognize it. Fred Jacobs (Guest) 00:07:36 Oh, that one? Matt Cundill (Host) 00:07:37 Yeah, this one. Fred Jacobs (Guest) 00:07:39 Yeah. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:07:40 So this is the slide that really jumps out to me because there was a point where James Cridland was talking at Canadian Music Week and he was talking about the Descript app. And very simply, there was a lot of head turning in the room and a lot of radio people were unfamiliar that you could do audio editing, just cutting out words and using this app. And here's something that's three years old, but then it seems to be reinforced by this slide that you have that really shows that there's talent sitting in studios who are feeling undereducated by the technology around them. Fred Jacobs (Guest) 00:08:16 And kind of piling on a little bit, not really getting a whole lot of help from their stations or their companies. I mean, they want to learn. They understand that tech skills and social media skills and keeping up with new technology is critically important to their success. And I think they very objectively assess their own skills as being somewhere in the neighborhood of poor to mediocre. And I think they really want to get better. They don't want to be left behind. They don't want the digital parts of their company to just go well beyond them. And I think there's a fear there, Matt, on a lot of people's parts that I'm in the old dinosaur wing of the building here in radio and meanwhile the company's off doing streaming and podcasts and video and all this stuff. Am I being left behind by the technology and by my own company? And God, I sure love training. So, again, you're bringing up some, I think, really important points and part of what I promised this year, both leading into the survey and then at boot camp. So when you say this in front of a few hundred people, you better make good on it. But ultimately the survey, even though it's all made up of their personalities, it's not for them, it's for management. It's for management to have a better understanding of who's in the air studio and who's driving audience and who is responsible for loyalty and all that stuff. And management needs to see it. So my commitment was I'm going to do whatever I can to present this study to the CEOs and CFOs. And up to this point, what day is it today? Can we say the date? Matt Cundill (Host) 00:10:15 Absolutely. Fred Jacobs (Guest) 00:10:16 Okay, so it's September 23. Up to this point, I would say I have not been successful at getting this thing presented. So I'm really looking at it like I've got Q four, I'm not going to be traveling as much, that kind of thing. But I really want to present this to as many corporate heads as we'll put up with it. And I'll do it privately, so nobody has to know that so and so saw it. But I just think it's important to get this data out there and then what companies do with it is their own business, literally. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:10:52 And if anyone is listening to this, fred's contact numbers are in the show notes of this episode. So you can scroll down, hit the button, and your phone will connect to Fred Spatline. It's a red telephone, right? Fred Jacobs (Guest) 00:11:03 It is a red telephone. And I'll make the time. I mean, it will require 45 minutes to kind of go through the deck and answer any questions and that kind of thing. And I'd be happy to show it as many times as I need to show it to hit goal here. So, yeah, I want to make sure Matthew, when I go back to pitch AQ five is something that people really ought to do, that I can at least go back and go, hey, we kind of hit goal with last year's study. A lot of corporate people saw it, and maybe things are going to change because data that just lays there and doesn't do anything and doesn't really have an impact or an effect. I've been doing this too long to know that that's oftentimes what happens with all kinds of data. It's interesting. And then people go right back to their ways the next day or the next week. And to me, none of this really matters unless there's a profound impact. And right now, given where our industry kind of is, we really need to do a better job here. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:12:11 And inversely, over in the audio innovation side of things, I mentioned Canadian Music Week. And then it dawned on me that I saw a panel at Canadian Music Week involving someone from Bauer Media talking about subscription radio. And then I thought, oh, wait, Fred, that was you who brought that to us. Yeah, and so I thought subscription radio was really fascinating that you brought it to the forefront, but we don't talk about that here in North America. Fred Jacobs (Guest) 00:12:40 Well, I had three North American CEOs with the guy from Bower, tobias Nielsen, who's a really interesting dude. He's fascinating. He is like the digital guru for Bower, and he's the one that has really put this project on his back. And again, I think the jury is a bit out in terms of whether it will ultimately be a success. But I think he's got a pretty long runway here with power to get the subscription piece up and running. And I mean, for your listeners who don't know about it, it's really basic. I mean, they've picked off some of the stations in Europe that are very popular and get great ratings, and they stripped them of their commercials. These are music stations, by and large, in fact, maybe exclusively. And I think they've built in. Hope I'm right about this six skips an hour, potentially, so you can kind of listen to your favorite radio station sans commercials and with the ability to go, oh, I hate that Lizzo Song skip. And you've got a number of these skips an hour to be able to use, and it's not very expensive. I think it averages about $3 per subscription. And so, as I said, we had three CEOs from Canada in the US. And I think they were all really intrigued and they had questions for him. But I think at the end of the day, as they would say, they don't feel that as companies, they have enough scale, enough cube, enough coverage, enough reach to make it worthwhile. And they may be right. Yeah, they calculate success differently than we might. But all that said, I think broadcast radio, among other things, has to reassess its basic business model because it's not working. The demand for advertising is probably at an all time low from buyers and clients, and the listening experience sucks. I mean, there's no other way to frame that when you're running nine to ten minutes of commercials an hour. And in order to satisfy the meter gods, you've got to run them in two ridiculously long stop sets. Yeah, the experience for the listener is just far from optimal. If I were sitting in those corner offices, I'd be looking at Bower Media and any other alternatives that might be floating around out there and at least start innovating with some different stuff. So we'll see. I think subscription radio is going to happen. I think people are going to try it. Whether it succeeds or not in the commercial realm, who knows? But we're not going to know until we try it. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:15:48 But two big takeaways from Tobias talk was the free research you get by. Fred Jacobs (Guest) 00:15:53 Using the Skips music research, right? Yeah. I mean, that's better than call out or M scores, right? Matt Cundill (Host) 00:16:01 I think the other one was how there was no demographic that really stood out to who was getting the subscription it could have been teens, but it also could have been 65 plus. Fred Jacobs (Guest) 00:16:10 Well, there's that, and there's a third piece to it, and that's that. We, from a terrestrial standpoint, have no direct data on our users. Right? I mean, we see the numerous or Nielsen data, but that's just all big box car reach and frequency and cumin. TSL. I mean, what Tobias has in all of these European markets now is data for all of the company's subscribers. So, yes, in addition to seeing what songs they're skipping, he can learn who these people are and he can more effectively program to them. He can more effectively market them in other realms back to advertisers and sponsors, whether throwing events or other things. I mean, revenue is made in lots of different ways besides commercials. Yeah. I think the data from these subscriptions gives him a tremendous advantage over his competitors. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:17:18 What blog piece has garnered the most attention this year? Fred Jacobs (Guest) 00:17:23 Oh, God, I have to confess. Maybe it's my age or that I'm writing too many of them. Although I'm not writing any more than I ever did. People are reading it more, which is flattering, but I'm not writing anymore. But crazily, I don't remember them generally, a week after they've published, they go away. Occasionally, somebody will go, hey, you know, that post you wrote last month about Nielsen was just unbelievable. And they're going on and on about it, and I'm sitting there listening to them going, what are they talking about? So I kind of lose focus sometimes a little bit on the specifics. Clearly, though, when I'm writing about talent, that always is a thing. There's no question about that. More and more sales and marketing are becoming bigger issues too, in terms of why can't we move the needle, why can't we more effectively market our assets? That kind of thing. And those kinds of blog posts didn't used to do very well before. Paul used to joke, if it's a blog post about sales, it will absolutely stiff. And that was kind of true. But it's not true anymore, so that's kind of interesting. I think people have gotten to know me better. I am, for better or for worse, writing more about personal stuff in there in terms of what I do and how things affect me and how I got to this place and all of that. And I think people enjoy that in much the same way you like to know what your favorite dish jockey is about when they're not on the radio, that kind of thing. I think the personal piece has really been an important part for me. I know when I want people to pay attention to what I'm writing, if I can find a way to weave in some personal information and I don't get too personal. I mean, I'm not the kind of guy who posts pictures of my children on social media. I barely talk about them in the blog. It's always in passing, but the more personal I am, the better accepted the posts tend to be in just a. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:19:54 Second more with Fred as we dive into brand safety. How do you protect the shield when something goes wrong? And what about the future? Well, that gets unveiled this January at CES. And what's the difference between the tech survey for public radio versus commercial radio? We'll ask that very random and broad question. And there's more, including connection points to all of the Jacob's Media research we've spoken about. And that picture of the slide I put up on the screen to Fred earlier. And if you're going to the NAB in New York, you'll see Fred and his brother Paul received the 2022 National Radio Award, which is going to be passed out of the Marconi on October 19. It's going to mark the first time the award has been given out to two people. Details on that and everything else, including a free transcript. It's at soundoffpodcast.com. Sarah Burke (Voiceover) 00:20:46 Transcription for the Sound Off podcast is powered by Poddin. Your podcast is an SEO goldmine. We help you to dig out, start your free trial now at poddin.io Tara Sands (Voiceover) 00:20:46 The Sound Off podcast With Matt Cundill Matt Cundill (Host) 00:21:00 Earlier this week I caught the tech survey for Public Radio. And then I remembered I did not dig too deeply into this year's tech survey for commercial radio because I happened to be in Europe at the time. So I guess the question is between the two of them, how are they notably different? Fred Jacobs (Guest) 00:21:20 Wow, that's another whole podcast. The commercial radio people tend to be more meat and potatoes, and that's no knock on the audience or its education. But the public radio people are in it for a different purpose, right? They by and large tend to support these stations financially. They recommend them more. I think in some ways they are literally more invested in them. So you see that come across when you're a being the two studies. All that said, though, I mean, personality is clearly more important in the commercial realm than in the public realm, which by and large is not a personality driven ecosystem. Maybe it should be. I think it would help them, actually. In fact, I did write a blog the other day about the importance of public radio stations here in the US. Not just being about nationally syndicated programming, but digging more into their local region. And you're seeing public radio stations doing this, I think with personality on the one hand, but also, believe it or not, physical structures. They are creating buildings that are meant to be visited by the audience. A couple of great examples. KMFA in Austin, Texas is a classical station that has a building that is well on the way to becoming not just where the radio people work and broadcast from, but really a center for music and cultural gatherings, activities, education, that kind of thing. And the audience gets it. And then WFAE in Charlotte, which is a great NPR news station, just announced plans to build this whole kind of community center structure. And I think a lot of that is based on the fact that many of the other media in the market are just not what they used to be, whether it's the newspaper or the commercial television stations. And you're seeing public radio leaning more into being the local news, not authority as a commercial radio word, but voice source, right, that type of thing. So, I mean, the studies are similar, but they're different. And I just came back from the Public Radio Program Directors Conference, and they throw me on stage at that thing. And when I'm doing more with the data this year and I think one of the reasons why in both studies the data is getting more traction is that I am spending less time doing these data dumps of, hey, there's a lot of really great information here. Isn't this cool? And I'm reserving more time at the end to get more tactical and strategic about, here's what we can do with this. There are no one size fits all solutions. I am a consultant, after all, and I really believe that. But there are ways to put the data to work that maybe stations don't always think about. And I think part of it is my responsibility as a researcher to kind of point to them and say, you know, you could be thinking about this. This is one way to interpret the data. You might want to think about this. I'll give you a great example. You hear the question all the time in public radio. We have only so many avails to promote and market our station. You know, what's the best use of our promo time? Should we be talking about how you can listen on Alexa? Or should we be talking about how you can listen on a mobile app? Or should we talk about our podcasts? And the data makes it really clear. Those god awful ugly pyramids that we put together and talk about are actually a tremendous hierarchy of what people do. And when you look at the percentage of people who own a smart speaker versus listen to podcasts versus own a smartphone and download apps, it's not even close. I mean, it's all about mobile. If mobile isn't coursing through every content piece at the radio station, you're missing an opportunity to meet the audience where they are. So to me, that's kind of part of my responsibility as the research person here is to point those things out, kind of pois, if you will. And again, it's ultimately up to them to figure out how they want to interpret that into a tangible action step. But it is my job to point it out that there are great potentials here if we lean into the data and make it work for us. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:26:33 Yeah, I can't remember what you pointed out, but you brought to everybody's attention. And I don't know if it was a website or an app, but people could connect to the donate button for the monthly donations to public radio. So you may not want to give up whether it was an app or a website, I can't remember. But yeah, there's a connection. Fred Jacobs (Guest) 00:26:55 It was actually both because there are a lot of people that do use the app for donation, but you rarely hear stations talk about that and it really is a great opportunity to take advantage of the mobile app experience. Some of the stuff is basic dot connecting, but as you know, research dollars have shrunk in both commercial and public. A lot of stations don't have the resources to know these things. And these tech surveys have actually turned out to be pretty useful, not just in their kind of long term track ability, but also kind of as a tie breaker, as a way to, okay, let's have this conversation about smart speakers. But instead of going back and forth and not coming to any resolution, let's use the data as a way to kind of better understand the environment and then make intelligent decisions in terms of the tactics that we can apply to actually put this stuff to use. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:28:02 One of the things that you do point out in both the surveys and you're really one of the only ones who highlights this because spend a lot of time talking about podcasting and how it's growing, and now 40, it's 50, it's 60% of people who might know it, but you have some data largely from people who listen to the radio who are the podcasting nevers. I love the podcasting never stories and you'll circle it and there's a lot of people just not interested in committing to a podcast. Fred Jacobs (Guest) 00:28:35 Yeah, I think there's two podcast findings that make people in podcasting uncomfortable, and that's one of them. It's the people who just don't get there and may never get there. Some of it, I think, is an aversion to just wanting to listen to spoken word programming, which is what most of the podcasts are. But the other issue, and we haven't asked the question in the past couple of years, it's time consuming and I don't think it's going to change very much. But we did spend some questionnaire real estate asking the podcast numbers, what's the problem? Why don't you do this? And to a great degree, the reasons revolved around, I don't get it, I don't know where to find them. I don't know the technology here. I mean, basic meat and potatoes kinds of things, but clearly repellents to actual listening. And when you think about on demand video like Netflix versus on demand audio like podcasts, the degree of difficulty of accessing programming on one platform versus the other is rather fast. Netflix may have too much stuff and you have to scroll through too much of it, but it is pretty discoverable and it's really pretty simple. And it's the first thing that you see when you log on. So there's that piece and then the other piece that nobody wants to talk about is the reality that when you are a podcasting user, you are very likely going to be using less Am FM radio as a result. And it's a zero sum game. Maybe the audio pie has expanded since podcasting has become popular, but there's only so much audio people can listen to in a day. And if you're a core podcast listener, chances are you're listening to less realtime radio. I mean, that is a fact and for some reason nobody wants to look that one in the eye. But I think that's just one of those realities that you can't be in two places at the same time. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:30:52 So when I hear that in a tech survey, and I think I did hear it the other day when you were talking about the public radio one, and that's when you go to podcast, you're not necessarily going to come back to the radio. It's not a complimentary platform between the. Fred Jacobs (Guest) 00:31:07 Two of them, not even close. And so I think it really becomes a dilemma for individual stations. I mean, maybe big companies like Iheart or Odyssey or whatever have just made their decision, we're going to lean into podcasting, damn it, we don't care. We need to be in the space. This is where the money is. And if it has a negative impact on broadcasting, oh, well, we can't do anything about it. I think individual public radio organizations, though, are in a different space and time. I mean, they're all basically individual fiefdoms, often owned by universities. They can go in a variety of different directions, they can produce podcasts or not, and because NPR is, they're sort of still in that space. But the cool thing about public radio tech survey is that it did offer up a couple of solutions. I mean, it opened the door to the idea of a daily podcast like the Daily, but that is locally or regionally produced. And there's already a few public radio stations doing this. At the PRPD conference there was KCUR in Kansas City and Ku Ow in Seattle, both on stage talking about how they have deployed existing staff to create a 15 minutes podcast every day. That is daily focused. And by the way, Matt, 15 minutes is the max length on those things. Gone are the days of 45 minutes 1 hour podcast in public radio world. They get it. They've got to be shorter if they really expect people to hang in. So the daily local podcast is clearly an outlet here. That's the other issue with public radio is that I think everybody's trying to make cereal, not Rice Krispies, but the podcast cereal. And the problem with that is there's only one cereal. And even if you want to lean into a complex. True crime or whatever it may be, kind of podcast. It's expensive, it's time consuming, and you may not get your money back. I mean, there's been a lot of situations in public radio where they've produced award winning podcasts that have been canceled because there is no ROI. They can't make back the money that it takes to produce and market these podcasts. So I think sometimes we like to think of podcasting being in a mature phase, but between the podcast numbers on the one hand and the fact that this ROI piece is not exactly perfect and then, oh, by the way, Discoverability leaves a lot to be desired. There's a lot here that is not optimal for the average public radio station to be able to operate effectively. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:34:13 You were not at podcast movement, so you missed all the fun. Fred Jacobs (Guest) 00:34:16 Yeah, I did. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:34:18 But you didn't miss the fun online, I bet. And that was the Ben Shapiro appearance. When he showed up, he shook a few hands. Fred Jacobs (Guest) 00:34:24 Yeah. Did you see any of this? Matt Cundill (Host) 00:34:27 I did not. But I did stop by the Daily Wire for the free popcorn they were offering. Fred Jacobs (Guest) 00:34:32 And it was good. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:34:33 Yeah, it was pretty good. Fred Jacobs (Guest) 00:34:35 Okay. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:34:37 I wasn't really paying attention to the popcorn I was eating or where it came from, and I really didn't care too much. But I think a lot of this comes to around brand safety. And so when you look at what happened, what can you speak to about brand safety and what lessons can we draw from it? The two I pull away, are you going to pay attention to how you react? You got to pay attention to where you react and your timing. Fred Jacobs (Guest) 00:35:03 So I wasn't there, which kind of gives me an excuse to kind of duck the question a little bit, because I read what I read, and what I read was mostly on Twitter, so there's that and then some of the articles that were written about the Shapiro incident and who was offended and who is not and all of that. I think it's a really sad commentary, honestly. I understand that everything has become political at this point, and clearly there's a lot of politics on the broadcast radio side. We just don't talk about them anymore. Sean Hannity can show up at The NAB, and who cares? He's just another personality among many and a successful one. I mean, no doubt about that. But as far as what his politics mean or whatever, if you don't particularly prefer what Sean is talking about, then you just ignore him and go the other way. I mean, in terms of the other people who might be in attendance as a result of Sean being there, I mean, to me, that's really on the event. Sponsors themselves to anticipate this, and obviously they didn't. And look, it's a really weird thing to say because I like Dan and Jared a lot. I think they're really good people. And I think their intentions are great, but they're not program directors. And what program directors know whenever you kind of dip into the controversial thing or you're doing something that has a tendency or a possibility of going wrong, great program directors sit there and think, okay, we're going to do this. These other things could happen. We can control some of them, we can't control all of them. But what are we going to do? How are we going to be prepped? Are we going to have security if this happens? What are we going to do if that happens? What are we going to do? I mean, programmers prepare for the worst, hope for the best, but they prep. And I think in this case, somehow they didn't anticipate that something like Ben Shapiro showing up could happen and could really throw things off. So to me it's more a matter of kind of understanding that when you're in this game, you got to prepare and you got to make sure that you're buttoned up security wise and that everybody understands what the deal is. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:37:49 Fred, what do you have going for the rest of 2022 and what can we look forward to? Fred Jacobs (Guest) 00:37:56 So I've got one more tech survey to present for the Christian Music broadcasters. I've really learned a lot about that space. It's fascinating. So that's coming up soon. They're really great people to work with. I think a lot of people outside of the Christian music community don't really understand what's happening there and why it's very effective and why it's a really valid form of radio that, by the way, has the highest net promoter scores in terms of recommendation, word of mouth of any platform in all of radio that I've ever seen. They leave the league every year and it's not even close. Public radio is actually slipping a little bit, which was kind of a thing this year in the public radio tech survey. But I can tell you in the Christian Music Radio survey, it's actually ticking up, which is just remarkable because it's at a ridiculous high going in. So we've got that going on. God, can I talk about the NAB thing without just sounding like an egomaniac? Paul and I are about to receive an honor in New York in October. The NAB has this National Radio Award, which is like their highest level prize or award, and they're giving it to me and Paul, which is really remarkable. I thank them so much and give them so much credit for realizing that the company is not just me. I mean, I may have started it and for a long time I was the face of it, but Paul is every bit the company that I am during certain months of the year more. And so the fact that we're both going to be up there on stage accepting it is really a tremendous honor. It's very humbling. And the other part of it is they don't give it to people like us. If you actually look back at the past year's recipients, I mean, it tends to be broadcasting execs owners or people like Howard Cosell. Believe it or not, Howard got the very first one of these. So when I look at past recipients and I just go, wow, how did we end up in that August group? It's really cool, and I think it kind of validates what we're trying to do, which is to make a difference in this industry, to leave it in a better place than we found it, to help it get better, to help it survive and thrive. That's really what we're doing here. When you think about all the different projects that we've got our fingers in, that is one of the common threads. The last piece is we're getting ready for CES 2023. We're going to do multiple tours out there. I think the event will be back maybe not to the degree that it was in 20 18, 20 19. Believe it or not, people forget there was a CES in 2020. That happened right before the pandemic. There was a very normal CES. There were 180,000 people at that thing. So I don't think they're going to have that many this year. But I think it's going to be quite a bit more populated than what we saw last year. And we're really excited to be back on the tour bus, as it were, because I think that's fun and I think the innovation thing is really catchy catching, and I think it's an important part that Radio needs to lean into here. We can't just mail in the same performance every year. We've got to think innovation if we're going to keep this industry vital and alive. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:42:01 Well, it's always fun to see who out Google's Amazon and who out Amazon's google. I love seeing those marketing reports, but I will point out that your tour does book early and fill up. Fred Jacobs (Guest) 00:42:14 Yeah, and I think that's going to be the case this year as well. We're getting great initial interest. We haven't even really put it out there yet. I think there's a press release going out in a few short days, so it's all been kind of word of mouth and past participants. Those are the people that we contact first. If you've done one of these with us before, you ought to have the first right of refusal if you were. So yeah, I think it's going to be big fun. And we're hearing from the CES people that there's going to be a whole metaverse thing there, which obviously will have all kinds of reactions. And people from, Are you kidding me? It's all bullshit, to, oh, I really want to learn about the metaphor. I don't know what's going to be under that tent, but I'm excited to know. I think it's our obligation to lean into these new technologies. It doesn't mean that they're all going to end up being the internet or iPhones or whatever, but I think we've learned enough along the way over the years to know that sometimes our first impressions of a new technology are inaccurate or maybe even undercut the eventual impact that they may ultimately end up having. So that's the beauty of CES. It's a great tone center at the beginning of the year. As much as I abhor going out to Las Vegas on January 3, I mean, the timing is just abysmal after the holidays. The flip side of that is it's a great way to start a new year. I mean, all that innovation, you can just feel it kind of circulating through the event. So I'm psyched. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:44:05 Wasn't there a toilet that did something funny a few years ago? Fred Jacobs (Guest) 00:44:09 Actually, toilet technology is far ahead of some other devices, but oh, yeah, there are toilets that will clearly track your results and let you know if the outcomes are changing for whatever the main reason. And these are expensive toilets, I might add. I mean, many of them are in the $8,000 range. And high tech toilets, who knew? Matt Cundill (Host) 00:44:39 Well, I know you weren't big on the Google Glasses turning to what you thought they were, but I did see some Amazon glasses at Podcast Movement in the Art 19 booth. Fred Jacobs (Guest) 00:44:51 It's coming. It really is. Yes, I was a glass hole, as I love to say in every possible way. I went out and bought a pair of Google Glass, if you will. I think I paid about $1,500 and it's sitting up here somewhere or it's in my sock drawer at home, one of the two. Hopefully I'll be able to unload it on ebay one of these days. But no, the tech glasses are a thing. And believe it or not, Matt, some people are predicting that smartphones in another ten years will be gone and that we will use our glasses to be able to do all the things that the smartphones have been doing up to this point. And for those people who have a smartwatch, I think you already begin to start understanding the impact that wearables have, and something that you're actually wearing on your eyes, by your ears can be very, very powerful. So, yeah, I think you're right. I think there's another whole revolution coming and I know it will be at CES. Matt Cundill (Host) 00:46:00 Fred, thanks so much for being on this show yet again. Love having you on. Fred Jacobs (Guest) 00:46:04 It's such a pleasure to be here. You asked great questions and you really caused me to dig in, make sure that I'm giving you the best possible responses. So thank you for having me again. I hope this won't crash your downloads for whatever week you put this out there. But now, seriously, it's always fun. It's always fun talking to you. When am I going to see you next? What conference are you going to be at? Matt Cundill (Host) 00:46:28 I don't know, I have nothing planned. Fred Jacobs (Guest) 00:46:31 Well, come on out, maybe do Joel Denver's thing. Although I don't know whether Joel's doing that in person this year or whether it will be virtual again. I guess we're going to have to find out, right? Tara Sands (Voiceover) 00:46:43 The the Sound Off podcast written and hosted by Matt Cundill. Produced by Evan Surminski. Social Media by Courtney Krebsbach Another great creation from the the Soundoff Media company. There's always more at soundoffpodcast.com.