Sometimes it's all about the people you have around you. In 2014, Lisa Keys found herself working with people who were passionate about radio imaging and who knew what a great radio imaging voice can do for a radio station. People like Rob Vavrek, Program Director of 100.3 the Bear who was it's production and imaging guru since the station's inception in 1992, and later became PD in 2009. People like Gary McClenaghan who was producing there at the time - and is now the voice on great stations like Q100 in Atlanta, Indie 88 in Toronto and i92.9 WLMI in Milwaukee. And the voice they were working with? Jamie Watson who was featured on this podcast a little while back. When your career grows up around people like this - it becomes infectious. Lisa spoke to us about her success in voiceover to date, including being named to the Benztown 50 last year, how she has had success attending radio conferences, and what's in store for her at the VO North Conference she is attending this fall. You can hear Lisa on great radio stations around the world like: Voice of IMGR AC Production Service 96.5 KOIT San Francisco 92-5 XTU Philadelphia The Rogers Country Network across Canada 100.3 The Bear Edmonton Hot 100.5 Winnipeg Voice of IMGR AC Production Service To have Lisa on your radio station - contact her through here website Lisa will be attending VO North in Toronto September 21 and 22 in Toronto. I will be moderating two panels at the conference and if you are serious about your voiceover career or looking to simply get started - I know Dervla Trainor who puts this on would love to see you there, as would I. ~Matt

There's a reason why Christian Hall thinks differently. He has to. He is the National Program Director for Harvard Broadcasting which is a radio company first. He oversees multiple alternative stations; a format which doesn't even exist a number of top ten markets in Canada, and he believes that talent development is about air checks, and feedback. (We went into large detail in our first episode with him which you can find here). That might be a reason there is very little turn over with the on-air staff. I took care of the messy question about the Corus v. Harvard legal case that ended with a rebrand to Play 107 in Edmonton a few weeks ago. (Personally, I think Corus did them a favour - now it feels and sounds like Power, only an updated version) This time around we spoke about the rise of alternative radio in both Edmonton and Calgary, and we discussed the new continuous measurement system for diary markets, and what is on the line if the CRTC moves ahead on a review of the radio regs. We also talked about X929's new marketing campaign, which I found out has been adopted across the company. It's clear that the radio is not the only way to enjoy the station. Christian recalls James Cridland's presentation at Canadian Music Week last year, that spurned more than one good idea he took home to Calgary. By the way - our discussion with James Cridland is right here and it's a good one.

Josie Dye is the morning host at Indie 88 in Toronto. The longtime 102.1 The Edge personality who also did hosting duties for Cosmo TV, and W Network took a chance on jumping to Indie 88. It has paid off as well. You can hear it in Josie's voice. She is having more fun than ever at a station that has all the sounds and feels of any successful alternative radio station. In this episode, we spoke about her early days studying at Ryerson while working at Mix 99.9 which was at its peak with an 8 share. Rather than head out to a smaller market, Josie found her way to the Edge where she eventually found her way to middays; working for great programmers like Ross Winters and Dave Farough. We reminisce about those old knock 'em down and drag 'em out music meetings over adding a song to the playlist. We also spoke at great length about life at home which is certainly interesting with the amount of audio being listened to and created in their lives. There's also her eldest child Cole who was born with Sotos Syndrome. I had never heard of it until Josie told me about it and I can't even provide an appropriate link because the Google pages are endless; Josie discovered that she could spend hours asking Dr. Google questions. Here are some other amazing things you will learn on this podcast: Josie's favourite interview was with Gord Downie whom she became friends with. So much so that Gord wrote a song about her; which Gord admitted in a later interview with Alan Cross. Josie and I talked about her ill-fated attempt at the national anthem before a Toronto Rock game and she forgot the words. How she handled it in the days after it is worth some note taking. (You can Google the anthem on your own... ) Because there was so much we didn't know: Josie's co-host Matt Hart started the Russian Futurists and has been at it for close to two decades now. The band's work has been reviewed by some of my favourite music writers including Sandra Sperounes of the Edmonton Journal and T'Cha Levy of the Montreal Gazette.

David Phillips from NLogic is an admitted nerd when it comes to data. He really loves it. Something he is very good at is deciphering how data should be applied to your brand, your radio stations, your strategies, and your ad sales. However, one thing you should definitely not have is a data strategy. He speaks about numbers having blind spots and becoming too attached to the data we love and not challenging it enough. A couple of times a year, I'll get together with David and we will catch up on anything and everything as it relates to the numbers broadcasters come into contact with. Here is our YouTube discussion from last year. And by the way, please subscribe to the channel when you are there. NLogic has been a supporter of the show since 2016 and many Canadian listeners to the show will know NLogic as the distributor of their radio sales software. Even if you are listening to this from outside of Canada, David will give you a perspective on how too much data could be overload for what you are trying to accomplish as a brand. The accent by the way is English - and David appeared on the podcast back in 2017 where we talked about... wait for it. Data.

Dave Jackson is the Owner/Headmaster at the School of Podcasting and also a support specialist at Libsyn. He was there back in the early days of podcast and has helped thousands launch their podcasts with his talks, online tips and podcasts. Dave is a Hall of Famer and a regular contributor to Podcast Business Journal. In this episode we discussed some of the many stages of podcasting's evolution including its early days, the advent of iTunes, Serial, radio's entry into the podcast space, the gradual rise of listenership and the recent announcement on the creation of the Podcast Academy and the feathers that were ruffled in the process. We also dug into monetization and the value of video to podcasters. A few of the other things that came up during our conversation include Edison Research's Infinite Dial Study which will release its 2020 findings on March 19th at 1pm Eastern. This thing has become a bit of an event for the podcast and audio streaming communities. We are not sure if Tom Webster from Edison research is going to be in Tux again this year but the data release will be done in front of an invite-only audience in New York and streamed around the planet. If you want to watch, you can register here. Below is the slide showing the podcast growth for people who listen to podcast WEEKLY. I'll be honest - the number of people who listen monthly or "have listened to a podcast" don't impress me. Weekly means they are committed. You know - like "Must See TV" and NFL Football. Weekly to me means mainstream. My thanks to Tom Webster and everyone for this slide from last year's study. Finally, some links to some of the podcast's mentioned on the show: Dave Jackson's School of Podcasting Dave Jackson and Jim Collison Ask the Podcast Coach The Podcast Rodeo Show. (Radio people should think of this is a public aircheck) John Lee Dumas Entrepreneurs On Fire. Finally, we mentioned that the Anchor Sucks podcast was pulled - but Dave outline's his reasons for not using Anchor.

Radio is a lot like the mob: "Just when you thought I was out, they pull me back in." Okay, that's an exaggeration but for Carlos Benevides, leaving 91.5 The Beat in Kitchener and transitioning to Conestaga College to teach radio just made sense. So does his new lunchtime show for the Jack radio stations "Jack Up the 80's". which can be heard in Halifax, Calgary, Smith Falls, London and Victoria. As we recorded this episode, Carlos had been a dad for one week and was settling in to life post morning radio. In this episode we riffed on working the overnight shifts in large markets, making the jump away from Toronto to Kitchener, and eventually pivoting from radio to teaching. Carlos made some stellar recommendations for podcast listening. Here are links to the shows we talked about. Bill Simmons Podcast CBC At Issue Panel A few NPR Podcasts.... World Cafe (With Raina Douris who was featured in an earlier episode) Tiny Desk Concerts New Music Friday (All Things Considered)

Zenga McCurdy called me back in May of 2018 and asked for some feedback on his morning radio show. Since then I have made a point of listening to the show every once and a while to hear the progress. I meant to grab a beer with him in Toronto last year but we only had enough time for a "Hi, How are you?" and then we were off to whatever we were off to. I am very pleased that I got to have this conversation with him about his Kitchener/Waterloo upbringing where he confesses he wasn't always on the right side of an issue. He explains why he chose radio and how in his first job in rural B.C., he faced down racist slurs and marched onward with the support of his parents who have always been there for him. Today, Zenga is the morning host on Kiss 100.5 along with Casey. Sault St. Marie may be one of those Great Lakes towns where the hockey players will always be a little more famous than the media personalities. I totally blanked that Wayne Gretzky played his junior hockey there for one season before he went to the Indianapolis Racers and then the Oilers. Today, Zenga is the morning host on Kiss 100.5 along with Casey. Sault St. Marie may be one of those Great Lakes towns where the hockey players will always be a little more famous than the media personalities. I totally blanked that Wayne Gretzky played his junior hockey there for one season before he went to the Indianapolis Racers and then the Oilers. One of the joys of this podcast is the honest stories that get told. I thank Zenga for sharing his. I can't imagine the difficulty of having racist words hurled at you when you are trying to make your dreams come true miles from home. In that moment there must be feelings of isolation, loneliness and defeat that must fill the mind. Every year I go to radio conferences and there are questions about why there aren't more women or visible minorities in positions in programming departments. There are many reasons but I do believe that a big one is because we tell new grads that moving across the country to remote places is a pre-requisite to getting key experience. If you're a white heterosexual male, this is often going to come without all the added pressures that a female or person of colour has to endure miles from home. Yes a lot of this bullshit exists in medium and large markets as well, but there's strength in numbers and when Zenga tells me that only 4 members of his graduating class took offers to leave to work in radio, the industry isn't doing itself any favours by letting their grads take local jobs where they won't have to deal with that nonsense 2 time zones away.

Monday 7:40 am: My plane arrives. The station owner picks nme up and briefs me about the city's attractions and topography. I punch up the radio and immediately start to flip through the station's competition. I listen for signal strength, clarity and sound. You can tell a station's potential by the sound of the signal. Yes, it's a big deal. 9:00 am: Coaching session with the afternoon drive personality who is also the country music director. We spend 45 minutes air checking his show. He's a great performer and I left behind three things for him to work on; including stressing the importance of listening back to his show and developing a willingness to self-critique. 9:45am: An extensive audit of the music system with the music director and program director. The time was filled with adding titles, resting titles, revisions, discussing what other stations do right and wrong, log editing rules, review of music system rules, sound codes, scheduling rules, and finally a discussion on the importance of clocks. 11:30am: I took the country and Top 40 PD out for lunch. It was a chance to hear the challenges they face on a day to day basis. Like many program directors, they are overloaded and manage to pull off small miracles to keep their stations sounding strong. Both do morning shows and have young children at home, but have mastered the ability to stay connected after hours. (Yes I had the Panang Curry bowl for Lunch) 2:00pm: Coaching session with the midday host. She's been in the position for close to 7 years and has picked up a few bad habits. What used to be "show prep" is now "content creation". Yes, I know - that's a cute catchy term coined by some radio consultant in Tuscaloosa, or Des Moines or Winnipeg. But the word "show prep" echoes homework; and there's a point where homework is done. Content creation is never done and is fluid right up until the moment it is presented on air, where it can be shaped again in a live broadcast. With that idea presented, we reviewed a show and I demonstrated how her material could be used beyond one solitary break. 3:00pm: Coaching session with the Top 40 PM drive host. Here's a performer who's show is all over the map. Really strong presentation but everyday there appears to be one truly hokey moment. We spent the hour discussing his work and by the end of the hour, he admitted a weakness: He has trouble shelving bits or walking away from breaks that are not ready for air. My favourite session so far because he was honest. 4:00pm: Meeting with the General Manager to summarize the day. 6:00pm: Dinner with General Manager, Sales managers and program directors. 9:00pm: Catch up on e-mails. Review the station's social media pages for the next day. Tuesday 8:30am: (The Daily sales meeting) The sales team is motivated and is very excited about their prospects in the market. While other stations are seeing less revenue, theirs is increasing. This radio company invests in their people by bringing in sales professionals, radio consultants and talent coaches. (I am one of 5 people they are using this fiscal year) They have new websites lauching in 50 days. Most of the sales concerns center around clients shifting their money to social media streams like Facebook and Google. I asked them if they were interested in a digital media selling strategy that allowed their clients to be on the radio as well as the top media websites in town. When asked which sites those were, I said, "Yours." I then presented them with an integrated sales kit. 10:00 am: (Daily News meeting) Another interesting meeting involving social media. Most of the staff have been in the newsroom since the days of reel-to-reel and screaming BN Newswire printers. I only had 45 minutes to sell them on the benefits of branding their news with social media. After some initial pushback on social media, the meeting wound up going 90 minutes and we achieved 100% buy in on a social media strategy. It's amazing how much excitement is generated when you show them how to use insights and analytics. On air talent love the feeling of control and love to see results. 11:30am: Discussion with the promotions team and program directors about and external marketing campaign for the upcoming ratings book. 12:30 pm: Lunch meeting with the creative team and program directors. We set up a year long plan for imaging along with how to write imaging as a group. Like any great brainstorming meeting, it always starts by eliminating the word no from the meeting. 2:00pm: Coaching session with the weekend jocks. Revealing Saturday morning numbers in radio, especially in a medium market is always an eye opening experience. The stations have a higher cume in some quarter hours than the morning show. 3:30pm: Meet with management for future planning. We review budget targets and programming goals. 6:15pm: Staff dinner and overall radio discussion and group discussion about radio. How each station must focus on its product design, delivering what it promises, knowing the target audience, and how important each person is in the station’s big picture. We shared social media and on air success stories. Thursday 9:00 am - 11:00am: Morning show coaching sessions for the Country and Top 40 stations. Each one hour session featured role definition, conflict resolution, along with a review of showprep habits. 12 Noon: Leave for airport. Summarize trip in a report on the plane.

Christian Hall is the National Program Manager and Program Director for X92.9 in Calgary. He never stayed in one job for more than 3 years until he went to launch Harvard Broadcasting's X92.9 in 2006. The station celebrates its tenth birthday this year and we thought that was worthy of significant recognition. I do a fair amount of travelling consulting radio station's, and carrying my boys' squash and badminton bags across the country. There are a few stations that feel special when you listen to them. It could be a crisp signal, compelling personalities or great music. Christian summarized it as "no bullshit". Georgia Beasley also touched on this when she spoke candidly about Millennial needs and wants. It is a great exercise to perform when you listen to any media outlet: "How much Bullshit is involved?" Do you have to be the 10th caller to qualify to qualify to win a hat? Are you being bombarded with sponsorship tags that last longer than the feature being sponsored? Christian reiterated that Millennials are very guarded and know when they are being delivered an advertising message. So make it count. We also spent a few moments talking about the brand lessons of Power 97 in Winnipeg. The station abandoned its moniker and music position in the market for 20 months, only to rightfully change back. But not before its staff flew in from across Canada to hoist a few and tell tall tales; a night that I blogged about here. Both Christian and I programmed the station during different periods between 2002 and 2014. (Pictured: Christian Hall, Lochlin Cross, Matt Cundill, Steve Parsons) (photo credit: Dan Harper) #power97 #x929 #calgary #millennials

We invited Seth Resler back to the podcast after he penned a blog called, "Is There Life After Radio?" Many of the episodes in this series feature a moment when someone was fired and tell the story of their radio afterlife. The podcast itself was born out of my firing in 2014, the subsequent quest for work in 2015, before landing on podcast in early 2016 and never looking back. Today I have a voiceover business and a podcast company that helps people, businesses and brands build through podcast. The path to it resembles a lot about what Seth wrote about in his blog, including many attempts to swing for the fences, having a resume chalk full of call letters, undervaluing myself and playing "on tilt" as Seth describes it. In this episode, Seth and I share a few of the things we learned about being in between jobs as radio program directors. For the last few weeks, Seth has been putting together a directory that displaced radio people can use to reconnect to the industry. You can enter your listing here for free. On a personal note, my career pathway featured a lot of mistakes and a number of successes. After six months of trying to find work that wasn't half the salary or in at a company that was making the same mistakes as my previous employer, I decided it would be best to start buying audio equipment and start a business; at the very least to keep my voiceover cheques rolling in. This involved buying a microphone and mixer and building a studio. Thanks to a few calls with Jamie Watson and a lunch with Alix Michaels, I got a little inspiration to create Matt Cundill Voiceovers. I wrote about making that jump in this blog from 2016. Other notable episodes featuring talent that have made the transition from radio to something new. (In no particular order other than that's what came to mind) Tom Leykis : Podcaster, Business Owner of Blow Me Up Tom Jim Harold - Podcast Host at The Paranormal Podcast Lianne Laing: Podcaster, You-tuber and premiere Interviewer at Lianne Laing.com Jason Barrett - Premier Sports Radio Consultant, Owner Barrett Sports Media. John Mielke - Host of Blast the Radio Dean Blundell - Blogger, podcaster and all around content creator at Dean Blundell.com Jenna Mosher: Podcast Host along with Jesse Reynolds at Jesse and Jenna's Messy Podcast. Honourable mention to Corey Dylan who spoke to us about staying positive during her two year time away from radio, and found her way back on air at New Country 101.5 in Atlanta. Last Week's Guest, Lori Lewis has some tips on staying social will looking for work.