Eric Samuels hired me to do evenings at 100.3 the Bear in Edmonton in 1994. Although Eric would move on to Vancouver a few years later, the two years I worked under him set the tone for how I would broadcast and program radio for years to follow. The best way I could describe his approach is that it is okay to broadcast outside the lines of the unwritten rules of radio. (And by that, I don't mean vulgarity or profanity - those are the written rules of radio) A few months ago, Eric reached out to me and asked about doing a series about life after radio. That theme comes up often on this podcast with Todd Hancock, John "Milkman" Milke, Humble & Fred and others. (All of who are actually doing radio; just not for radio stations) The Sound Off Podcast is an audio record of radio stories told by the people who were there. In last week's episode, TJ Connors spoke of his dad Scruff and his return to 97.7 HTZ-FM in St. Catherines, Ontario; those two elements return again and serve as a continuation of sorts. Eric was program director from the station's inception through to 1992, then he and Scruff and a cast of characters went to Edmonton and started 100.3 The Bear. In the years that ensued, we spoke about being at the forefront of ratings success at Z95 in Vancouver and becoming the head of programming for Standard Radio nationally - and knowing when it was time to step away. His next act is what will truly amaze you. Eric appeared on Penn and Teller's Fool Us. It went well. This episode acts as a companion episode to our previous one with TJ Connors as there are even more Scruff Connors stories to listen to hear. Access that here. Other people mentioned in this episode. Access their episode but clicking on them. Jeff Woods - 2 Marty Forbes - 16 Terry Evans - 22 J.J. Johnston - 39 My thanks to Jeff Woods for reading a passage from his book, Radio Records & Rockstars which you can buy just by clicking on the book image. George McCord who is the current Afternoon Drive host at the Bear, found an old picture from 1995, posted it on Facebook and wondered what exactly was going on. A few of us responded but Eric has the full story on the Bear Butt. (Lifted without permission from a Facebook post from 100.3 The Bear): For the record, here's the full and accurate history on The Bear Butt. I led the team that launched The Bear in the early 90s. I was the Program Director (and original Afternoon Drive host). Shortly after launch,, I was attending a Radio & Records (industry publication) conference in Los Angeles where one of the big parties was at Santa Monica Beach. It was there that I saw a huge inflatable butt, floating, about 50 meters offshore, as a promotion for Sir-Mix-A-Lot ("Baby's Got Back" had just been released). I laughed my ass off (figuratively,. not literally). When I got back to Edmonton, it took about 20 phone calls before I was finally able to reach the guy who made the inflatable. He did this for a living and most of his products were mass produced - but he was certain that this would be a one-off. So he was quite surprised when I asked if he would make another one. We made a deal and the 50-foot high inflatable butt was shipped to Edmonton. The "Nothing Butt Rock" busback ad campaign followed. Needless to say, both the Bear Butt and the bus campaign received a lot of attention. First, the bus company tried to pull the campaign because of complaints. We won that round. Next, we were playing "The Longest Day of Ball" (an annual Food Bank fundraiser where we played softball from dawn to dusk on the first day of Summer). I forget what the ballpark was called, back then (it's the one just outside of downtown by the river). The Bear Butt was inflated in centerfield for several hours when the police arrived telling me that they had received a complaint from a woman who lived in one of the adjacent a buildings. It apparently "offended her." Perhaps because it wasn't to scale? They insisted that we take t down. We delayed until the press arrived and the resulting photograph made the front page of the next morning's paper. The Bear Butt was used occasionally after that, but we had made our point by the time (and had exhausted most of the bear butt jokes). So, it was retired from active service and sent out to a retirement community to rest on it's .... end of story. #Bear #Edmonton #HTZ #Samuels #jeffwoods

Sam East is the afternoon host on 99.9 Virgin Radio, and host of weeknights on Virgin Radio across Canada. That means you can hear her on selected stations in places like Winnipeg, Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton. Sam has also recently launched the podcast Lessons to My Younger Self, where she chats with notables like Jully Black, The Social’s Jess Allen, sexologist Dr. Jess O’Reilly, and more. In this episode you will hear how she got her radio start in Chatham, Ontario, moved to Kitchener and then landed in Toronto at Virgin radio. We also talked about growing up as a Filipino-Canadian, the value of mindfulness, and how how she readies her day for radio. One of my favourite parts of this episode was when Sam was given some honest feedback about her performance and she made a positive change to her career. There are not nearly enough people who offer constructive feedback in the broadcast business. It's actually impossible to get to the top without it. So seek it. I also had to ask about her encounter with Oprah. A few years ago shoe got to interview her and here is how it went. : Lessons To My Younger Self: Sam East talks to great storytellers, artists, hosts, thought-leaders, and experts as they reflect on the BIG lessons they’ve learned in life, and what they wish their younger self understood. Every week a different guest unpacks a new life lesson that’ll inspire you to reflect, and tap into your own introspection. Check out Sam's podcast here. Sam and I also talked a little bit about the Philippine phenomenon of Jollibee! I also mentioned in the show how much I loved her Tik Toks. Here is one of her most popular which got the attention of some news organizations around the world.

iHeart Media's Tony Coles was not immediately drawn to radio. It came later after he was let go from a radio job and competing program director, the late Dave Robbins showed compassion and reached out. Tony will tell the story in the show better than I can write it, but it was clear that Tony could relate to Dave's compassion, recognition and empathy for "those moments" in radio. I have had the chance to meet Tony on a few occasions and if you want to get better as a programmer, or air talent, follow him. In this episode, you will hear about a few of his early stops in radio, the decision to pivot to programming, working with talent, finding new talent for radio in 2020, and the assembly of the Black Information Network which launched earlier this year. The network was built in the pandemic for 2020 consumption. You can stream it from the website, or the iHeart Media app. (And good news Canada, yes you can listen to it too) Finally, we wrapped the episode up with a few thoughts about Thanksgiving. Tony loves Thanksgiving and I wanted to have him on in between both Canadian and U.S. Thanksgiving to talk about what he loves about it. (Full disclosure, I have been celebrating both for years) Variety rans a piece on the launch of B.I.N. which you can find here. Also Tony referenced the Black Effect podcast Network which also was heavily covered by Variety, but we first read about it on Podnews.net who linked us here. You can connect to Black Information Network a number of ways. I've installed an embed link and didn't need a VPN to listen. Tony also spoke about some of the personalities that B.I.N. hired. Remember that Tony talked about having a significant footprint? Well Roland has one. And here he talks about the format flip(s) to B.I.N. Finally! Tony talked about why he loves Thanksgiving so much and the gravy that he makes in advance of the festivities. He documents some of it on his instagram page, discussing the stock but check out the end result!!

Danny Kingsbury is the National format director of Rock Radio for Rogers, and the first question is all about Rock Radio. In this episode we discussed his 30 plus years in radio, especially about his years at Q107 which were the last ones before the era of online streaming and the birth of digital. During the chat I was reminded about the success of Y95 in Hamilton which happened concurrently with his stint at Q, and that time the Leafs moved to FM and aired their games on Q107. As format lead for the rock stations, he led the initiative to rebrand all the rock stations to Gord-FM after the passing of the Tragically Hip's Good Downie. We also found time to talk about life, including his trip to Korea to the Olympics and how he has grown an appreciation for blogging. Check out his blog here. I couldn't help but mention that he's had the opportunity to work with Andy Frost in two different cities, and hire two generations of morning personalities in Scruff Connors and his son TJ. Also in this episode, we discussed Gord Downie's passing and how the Rock stations across the Rogers family handled it. Danny spearheaded the rebranding of all the radio stations to "Gord-FM". There was an extensive article written about this in FYI Music News that you can read here. #ottawa #rockradio #radio #broadcasting #Q107

Long before I even knew that Skye was friends with my super close cousin Kingman, I wanted to have her on the show. She was a guest with Sound Off Alum Jim Harold shortly after we all convened on Orlando for Podcast Movement int the before times of 2019. Somehow, I failed to meet Skye. I later received an intro through Kingman to connect and that was more than enough of a sign to do this episode. In this episode, you will hear about Skye's podcast journey which goes all the way back to Bay area radio in 1982 when the music scene exploded and stations like KQAK FM 99 would emit eclectic sounds in an MTV era. Skye as reminisces about listening to the radio in the car and hearing the production value that went into NPR programming. It wasn't until 2015 when she connected to audio through podcast; shows like Serial and Gimlet productions had her, and many Americans... hooked. You'll hear about her time in college, through Silicon Valley, her time as a publicist, and her podcast experiences on all sides of the microphone. Additional Show Notes and Links Skye has a Newsletter called the Squeeze. A must for anyone in the podcast business. Skye mentioned an interview she conducted with Leo Laporte for Inside Podcasting. Skye currently writes a newsletter for Hot Pod which you can subscribe to here. Skye also mentioned that she really enjoys podcasts from Eric Mennel whose work can be found here. You can also connect with her Inside Podcasting show: Skye appeared on an episode of the award winning podcast Heavyweight. You can listen to it below. Here are some of the podcasts that we spoke about on the show. It's a long list of trailers and podcast geekery but there is no shortage of quality shows in here.

Last summer when we had Vinny Barucco on the show, I mentioned that we would be having his co-host on in due time. Time is due. Shannon King's radio journey is different in that she didn't grow up idolizes radio personalities from the past. It was just kind of suggested to her. She cut her teeth by cutting hair and learned she was a people person. In this episode, you will hear how Shannon interned with all the major players before she worked for them. Her radio journey had her developing as a top personality in markets like Timmins and Sudbury, before successfully avoiding Edmonton and going to Virgin Radio in Montreal where she currently works alongside Vinny and Adam. We also talked about the energy her former PD Blair Bartrem brings to the show, adapting to Montreal culture, and manoeuvring through the pandemic and lockdowns and curfews... for a second time. Also during the show, Shannon made mention of her mental health and that it had deteriorated. Here is the moment when she revealed to her audience what was going on.

If you want to get pointed in the right direction to break into voice acting listen to this episode. Matt Fogarty is a name you may not be familiar with, but if you listen to the radio in western Canada you have probably heard his voice Fogarty is currently the creative director for Island Radio a group of 6 stations located on Vancouver Island. Fogarty says he loves going to work and the creative interaction that happens at his day job in radio. Beyond radio Fogarty says he spends what feels like every other waking moment doing voice over work. Matt Fogarty made the jump from radio voice work a few years ago. In this episode of Sound Off he discusses what it takes to make it in the voiceover industry. Shares a list of tips for those aspiring to break into voice acting and talks about the importance of developing a close network. “It starts with an idea, then you’ve gotta execute on that idea by having an awesome script, Then you’ve gotta have the talent interpret and understand that script, deliver and perform that script. And then you need an amazing producer to put it all together,” says Fogarty. Fogarty markets heavily to radio stations and much of his work comes from imaging where he works closely with Hoss Management. ( https://hossmgmt.com/) “He’s a brilliant marketer himself,” says Fogarty. He also shows love for Eric Romanowski for demos, and some of his favorite voice coaches Nancy Wolfson, Mary Lynn Wisner and Dave Walsh. Fogarty has worked for big name national brands including Subway and Kleenex. In this episode he also explains that clients are looking for talent that comes off as “real” and “natural”. “You’re an actor there’s no doubt about it. You’re not a radio DJ coming down to voice a mattress blowout sales spot black Friday in between breaks. You are conveying a brand message and that brand has probably spent a whole lot of money figuring out their targeting and their demographics and they want to make sure when they hire somebody they’re gonna be able to deliver on all those brand pillars.” He says this can be as simple as adlibbing once in a while or altering the pace of your speech to avoid sounding sing-songy. At this point in the episode Matt Cundill tries to sell Fogarty a mattress. Fogarty’s 10 tips for making it in the voice acting industry: 1. Good voice acting starts with good writing. 2. Be a salesperson as well as a writer. 3. In the beginning take lots of work for the practice. 4. Surround yourself with the right people. 5. If you can, delegate things like web design. 6. Use a CRM -Customer relationship management software Fogarty uses Close. (side note from Cundill: Have a look at Brad Newman’s Upper Level CRM. http://www.upperlevelcrm.com) 7. Fogarty’s microphone of choice: Sennheiser 416. (The backup is a Neumann TLM 103) 8. Find your niche. Content is king and there is enough work out there for everyone. 9. Get a good voice coach (Do your research). 10. The first 6 seconds of your demo better be fire!

Troy McCallum had it all figured out. He listened to the episode with Gruff Gushnowski and knew that doing the podcast in the car would be a fitting place to talk radio. After all, he spends up to 3 hours a day in the car listening to the radio on the way to work as program director at Boom 97.3 in Toronto. Troy and I spent about half of his commute home talking about his early days in radio, his affinity for the Classic Hits format, programming said format, and discussing two trips he took last year. One to Philadelphia where he had his first breath of podcast air at Podcast Movement 18, and a trip to New York where he got to meet the legendary Broadway Bill Lee at WCBS-FM. There's so much to learn about Troy and the roots of his creativity which stem from performance, to acting and then directing, to the collaborations of some Boom 97.3 mainstays like 97.3 Seconds and Behind the Vinyl. He also writes a lot of imaging, and has a good relationship with station voice Joe Cipriano, a must for any successful radio station. We touched on the "Behind the Vinyl Series and I thought I would share my favourite. D.M.C from Run DMC on the collaboration with Aerosmith that revitalized their career and changed the way music would sound on the radio forever forward. #toronto #radio #boom

Steve Reynolds is a talent coach and works with some of the biggest radio talents in North America. He will help you establish what your show all about and get the show's characters connecting. And it is all done with the long term in mind. This is a show that is 18 months in the making as I missed Steve's session at the Conclave in 2017 because mine was scheduled adjacently, but I managed to connect with him last year and write furious notes. Here was the big takeaway from Steve regarding morning shows; he spoke about the acronym FAIR. Morning shows are Fun, Authentic, Innovative, Relatable. I'll note that James Berry was taking better notes than me he posted this on his blog regarding Steve's talk: You can read the full post here. Fun - Every successful morning show has fun characters, callers, features, and funny situations they get into. With all the negativity in the world, people are drawn to fun. Authentic - The audience's "BS Meter" is high. They're looking for real people to discuss real things in a real way. The old school, over the top fake voice and canned features are not genuine and do not register with an audience. Innovative - Every talent needs to try new things, create new content, and reach people with a bit of innovation. Relatable - Really know your core audience and the kind of things they care about. These things interest them. For example, if your target is a female in her 30s relatable topics may include family, food, fun, pop culture, health, beauty, etc. (courtesy James Berry, Townsquare Media) There are also these great tips from 2016 that Steve shared with Jacobs Media that serve as a great refresher when you feel your show isn't clicking. If you are interested in working with Steve, shoot him an email here, or check out the company website.

The last few weeks, I've been doing a lot of podcast housekeeping- pitching sponsors, and reviewing the stats, and thinking about what's next for the Sound Off Podcast. As it turns out, it's going to be more of the same, which is a good thing. One of the biggest questions I get asked is: "Why is my show doing better?" Here are some of the conclusions that often come up. Number 10: No Video Strategy Have a video strategy that includes Youtube. That's it. That's number 10. Number 9: You Are Impatient Did you know that it takes three years to build an audience? It’s true, because Dave Jackson, who has been podcasting since 2004, told me so. Even if you have a big audience now with your podcast, because you are named Kim Kardashian – it is still going to take you three years to find that podcast audience. I see this all the time with actors, Youtubers and Instagrammers: They get a big audience out of the gate, and then the audience drops off because those initial people prefer to interact with the star on Youtube or Instagram or TV. But if they stick to it, over the course of three years, a true podcast audience will develop. So if you want to start a podcast, give yourself a lot of runway. Like three years worth. Number 8: You Thought It Would Be Easy Wanna know what’s easy? Doing the midday show on a music station. You talk for a few minutes an hour, and all the elements are handed to you. Produced commercials, traffic and weather together, the music and promos… You have about 56 minutes of the hour taken care of. That’s why you hear the same midday person across many markets now. In podcasting – you don’t have any of that. You have to build most of it from scratch. You will need to produce all the necessary elements including the commercials (if you have any), the intro, the extro, and the music beds. You need to do some show research, show prep, writing, you need to produce the audio and make it sound listenable, and then after you launch it… you’ll need to market the show. Number 7: Your Show Is Not Everywhere I can’t tell you the number of podcasts I review who are missing from iHeart or Stitcher. And with countries like India offering a gateway to 1.4 billion people, it might be a good idea to be on Gaana or JioSaavn. Think of India as the same size as the United States… with an additional billion people. Yeah you want in on that. And don’t forget to submit your show to Tune In… it works well with the smart speakers. Don’t be like a radio company that takes its stations off Tune In to be on an app only available in the US. That’s stupid. And finally don’t let your podcast host provider submit the show to Apple or Spotify for you. Do it yourself. It takes five minutes, and it’s a pain in the ass to rescue the show later should you have to move. You always want to keep your stats with you, not with someone else. Number 6: You Don't Release Episodes Consistently Ironic, I know, because I didn’t release an episode on time last week. But you need to be consistent with your releases. Those in radio know this better than any other, and it’s why radio people get famous. They are reliable and always there on time. What radio and TV people are doing is creating the consistency that allows for listeners to get in the habit of consuming their media. So, if you think you are going to release episodes whenever you want, and expect people to download it when you want them to? Not happening. Mondays and Tuesdays are great days to get episodes out. Early in the week, people believe they have more time to plan their life out. By Thursday they are swamped. You can still release your episode on a Thursday or Friday – but you’ll have to market through a weekend when attention spans are on neutral. Best of luck with that. And for those of you who do the “seasons” thing- unless there is someone honestly pacing the floor waiting for the new season of your podcast- don’t. Taking a random break is tantamount to pulling the plug on a bath and letting the water run out. We shifted to consistent releases after I had a conversation with Aaron Mahnke, who has a number of hit podcasts, including Lore. He gave a really compelling argument to releasing your show on time, and in the end it's about respect for the listener and their time. When we shifted to consistent releases, we saw a 20% jump in our audience numbers. If you show the listener respect they will show it back to you. Number 5: Your Podcast Looks Like Shit In The App For the life of me, I don’t know why people put episode numbers in the title field of their podcast. I think they do it because Joe Rogan does it. There are ways to put to the episode number in there without using the title field. People are not searching for a show called Episode. I also see some people put the show title of the podcast where the episode title is supposed to go, and they think they are gaming the SEO gods, and they aren’t. They're making a mess of the podcast. I wanted to listen to a podcast the other day in the car, and every episode title had the word "episode" in it. I couldn’t choose the episode I wanted, because the word episode was causing the guest's name not to appear on Apple Car play. So I moved on. Also, get some episode artwork. Spotify, Amazon and even some Apple apps are now using it. If you have a podcast that's about people – put the people in the show artwork. Get yourself a Canva account for free and take the 5 minutes to do some episode artwork. Number 4: Your Audio Quality Sucks I've actually run into people who have argued with me about this. They say, "It’s about the content, not the quality of the audio." Uh, the audio is your content- and it sucks. There are 2.7 million podcasts out there, and if yours is serving up some sort of echo-y, staticky stupidity, the listener will go elsewhere. You need to create a listening experience that people will enjoy on their headphones, or in their car, or on an airplane. If you are producing your own show, learn about compression, LUFs, normalization, and mixing. I want to give a shoutout to The Insurance Podcast with Pete Tessier and Curt Wyatt, who are insurance guys but took the time to learn about compression and audio production. They have one of the leading podcasts in their field because they respect their listener and care about their show. The other thing you could do is what I do: Hire people who know way more than me to produce the parts I don’t know. This podcast was making huge errors when we started out. Our first four episodes were poorly produced by me. Later they were over-compressed and too loud. We made the corrections after some friendly advice from one of the best in the business, Jeff Schultz, who worked at KFOG in San Francisco doing the imaging (and is now at Wondery making great podcasts). He said, "Hey. It’s a little loud. Pull it back." Number 3: You Don't Have A Website If you're in it to win it, you need a website. One of the best things radio taught me was that making your website your marketing hub is a good thing. You need to be found on Google, and having a podcast website will go a long way to getting discovered. If you think your Buzzsprout or Anchor website is home base – it is not. James Cridland spoke on this show about the value of Google and SEO. Take notes. Make sure each episode has its own page, so when you have Matt Cundill on as a guest, Google understands that Matt Cundill was a guest on your show. Remember, every time you market your show on social media, send people to the website where there is an Apple badge for the iPhone users, a Google Podcasts badge for the Android and Samsung people, and Spotify because lots of people are into that. Anything beyond 4 is overkill. If you are just sending people to Apple Podcasts when they don’t have an iPhone – then it won't really work for them. By the way, there is one exception to this, and if you follow the Sound Off Podcast on Instagram, you’ll see it. Instagram stories are a great way to get listeners one click away from the show on Spotify. When you do social media, the less clicks to get them to the content, the better. And if you find websites a pain in the ass, there are a few solutions out there for podcasters. Our Network uses Podpage and it looks nice - see for yourself. Number 2: You Don't Market Your Show Very Well... Or At All Do you know who your audience is? Or where they are? Do you just put out a few social media posts for every episode and then you're done? Well, that might be the problem. Think of your podcast episodes as items in your fridge. Is it something that is stale after 24 hours? 72 hours? A week, a month, a year? Two years? Okay, well I don’t know anything in my fridge that makes it that long, but I know many of the episodes I record from two and three years ago are still getting regular downloads because people are discovering them through search. I can market them with the same vigor as if they came out last week. I have the stats, and new people are discovering the show all the time. It’s not the same people who listen to the show every week. We churn listeners like any other media outlet does. Many people say they're discovering us for the first time, and see a wonderful back catalogue of episodes. Our biggest episode is the one with Tom Leykis, and his audience continues to grow as well. The episode I did with Tara Sands is excellent advice for anyone who aspires to become a character voice in anime. Both episodes with Sheri Lynch contain valuable information on becoming your own radio startup. Steve Reynolds' talent coaching isn’t going to change drastically over the course of a few years... I could go on, but you see what I mean. The same way a radio statio music director is going to program Led Zeppelin on the radio station, I am going to do the same with many of the episodes. The back catalogue is strong. In fact, I read in Podnews that 47% of all podcast downloads were older episodes- So tell people about them. That means tweets, and IG stories, and Facebook and LinkedIn and a newsletter. It also matters how you market. Maybe it’s audiograms and social media posts- and it doesn’t have to be a lot- but it should be consistent. And you want to hear something crazy? I am certain that some people just know and follow the show through their social media feeds, but haven’t listened to a single episode. I never watched Roseanne but I knew the characters and what the show is about. Marketing isn’t really about doing the homework. It’s really about being involved. Number 1: Your Show Is Boring Anything that you record, you can make better. Over the years, I'm certain that my live media game has deteriorated. I am only live on my Youtube channel every once in a while, but being able to produce and especially edit has been invaluable. And for those of you who do Youtube Live podcasts- Have you ever considered editing and producing around all that live audio to make a better audio experience? I know, time is money, but every click and every download counts. I did that a few weeks ago on another podcast, and you can view it here if you want to see the difference. It's about respecting your listener, but not being boring. It's about respecting your listener, and not wasting their time. You really only have one competitor in podcasting, and that is your listeners time. So respect it.