Donna Halper is an associate professor of media at Lesley University. She is also in the process of leading an incredible life in radio as a music director, later as a consultant, and now as a professor of media. She is largely credited for breaking new bands including Rush when she was the music director of WMMS in Cleveland. We spent our time reconnecting as I had e-mailed her back in the 90’s to discuss radio. Our conversation dove-tailed to religion and ironically, I had no idea about the vital role she played in propelling the career of my favourite band, Rush. It wasn’t until 1999 when I finally made the connection. This week, I decided that it was time to meet her for the first time and talk about some of the subjects that have been at the center of my life… religion, radio and Rush. Yes, I know that this episode runs longer than others but this is podcast and the only criteria for length is how compelling it is. Just like Working Man which unapologetically runs twice the length of the average song, this episode will too. So what happened when Donna played "Working Man"? Here's an excerpt from the Cleveland Plain Dealer from April 15, 2011: "As soon as I dropped the needle on 'Working Man,' I knew this was a perfect record for Cleveland," she said."It was a working-class town. . . . I remember a city where Republic Steel would literally light the sky on fire at night with pollution." Pictured: Rush poses with WMMS FM/100.7 staffers in 1974. From left are "Matt the Cat" Lapczynski of WMMS; Rush members Neil Peart, Geddy Lee and Alex Lifeson; Donna Halper of WMMS, John Gorman of WMMS and Mercury Records representative Don George. (Photo Credit: Donna Halper) Donna also blogs and wrote a very nice tribute to Neil Peart in the weeks after his death. You can connect to it here. As promised - here is the video from Rush's induction into the Hollywood Walk of Fame. #rush #halper

Raina Douris has spent her entire career working in Toronto, and it has served her well. Let's face it, when you love music, Toronto is a great place to live, work and breathe your passion. From her radio beginnings at 102.1 the Edge, to upstart Indie 88 and now working mornings at CBC Radio 2 nationally, Raina shares her music and radio experiences with us on the podcast. In this week's episode, we talk about Raina's love of Twitter, her favourite albums and what needs to change in the music business. There are few Sound Off firsts on this episode. First, this interview marks our first discussion about Cancon and second, Raina is our first CBC personality on the show (but not the last!). The biggest takeaways are going to have to be a) if she could interview any broadcaster of all time, it would be Bookie on Indie 88, and b) never talk about how Raina manages to wakeup at 4 am every day, because in truth, it never gets easy. Still a young broadcaster (Allan Waters Young broadcaster of the year nomination pending), Raina already has an impressive amount of industry experience under her belt and the accolades to prove it. She was chosen as the Best Radio Personality in Toronto by Now Magazine readers, after all. And while she might admit that she once had aspirations for a life in theatre, taking the back-yard performances of Joseph and the Technocolour Dreamcoat of her childhood to the main stage, she remains steadfast in her passion for radio. In the episode, she tells us about one of her earliest gigs working at CBC3 alongside some familiar broadcast names today -- like CBC personality and host of Q, Tom Power (and potential future guest of the Sound Off Podcast). She even tells us about that time she developed a YouTube series called "Rain's World" where she would -- with nothing but a small sponsorship of "free beer" -- interview musicians while pounding back SteamWhistle beer and play board games, bake cookies, or play in the park. We found an episode where she interviews the band Topanga, which is only appropriate since she references them on the podcast. ​She also tells us about her time at Ryerson University, enrolled in their four-year program in the Media Production and she explains why it's one of the best programs in the country. From its passionate teachers to a state-of-art facility (that literally didn't exist when she attended there), she tells us the training she received in digital media provided her with the well-rounded training she needed to make it happen when she was done. We also talk about the great transition from commercial independent radio to the CBC, which for those listeners who aren't familiar, is the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, our national state-sponsored broadcaster. She tells us about what it means to work for Canada's largest broadcast network and what it's like to serve the entire country of listeners, rather than regional markets. When asked what she misses, she tells us that she might occasionally miss the real-time talk of live radio, which just doesn't happen on her current program. When it comes to Raina's time on-air, her only connection to the outside world is social media, so be sure to Tweet at her to feed her Twitter addiction. One of my favourite parts about this episode is opening that can of worms that is Cancon. We cover how the grant system doesn't really work for emerging artists. She even entertains my (patent pending) idea of creating a rating system that rewards broadcasters for playing emerging Canadian talent. She uses Drake as an example of an artist that wasn't supported as well as he should've been, which explains why he is more or less reluctant to work with Canadian broadcasters now. She urges Canadian see our musicians as legitimate while they're working here. Update! Raina has since moved on from the CBC and is now in Philadelphia at WXPN hosting World Cafe.

Lori Lewis is back on our show for the third time? Why so often? Because the world of social media moves that quickly. The last time we had Lori on the show, Instagram Stories was just starting to become a thing and Tik Tok wasn't even a thing. In fact - you might have still been involved with your SnapChat account and over-posting by today's standards on Facebook. Lori is now out on her own working with radio groups and teaching them all about the ways to engage their listeners on social media, and get the sales team selling their digital assets. Lori Lewis Media launched recently, but that doesn't mean she will stop doing some of the other things you might know her for, including being the Chair of the Conclave Summer Radio Learning Conference (which you should go to), and her column in AllAccess.com, Merge. Lori will also be appearing at Canadian Music Week talking about... what else? Social Media. In this episode, Lori and I talked about how many in radio are Introverted Extroverts, and cited an article from 2018; I believe this is it. We also talked about the importance of keeping your passport up-to-date and about how this Internet minute Graphic became so popular. Please use social media to SHARE this episode far and wide. Lori would be proud.

It's been 2 years since we have caught up with Perry Michael Simon from AllAccess.com on this podcast. He has a pretty good idea of what is going on in the radio and podcast business given that he writes about it weekly, provides talk topics on a twitter account, and attends a dozen radio and radio-related conferences annually. If you get a chance, follow his twitter account just for the joy in hearing about all the goings on at these conferences. He is also the host on the Evening Bulletin podcast; a two minute pieces of news and subject commentary - named after the long departed Philadelphia newspaper. (RIP 1847-1982) In this episode, we talk about how little has changed about radio, while everything around radio has changed. We also wonder what the next breakout hit is going to be for both radio and podcast. After all, it has been 18 years since classic hits appeared on the scene, and 4 since Serial become a podcast phenomenon. What's next? We aren't sure - but Perry has some ideas of what needs to happen. A few weeks ago we had Matt Fogarty on the podcast to talk a bit about his voiceover career to date and where he takes it next. Matt's voiceover business, Matt Fogerty VO, is now a supporter of the podcast and we will acknowledge that for the next little while before the show starts. Thanks Matt for helping us out! Needless to say, if your station is looking for an up and coming imaging voice. Click Here.

This is the 4th instalment of Matt and Terry's Christmas chat. It has all the feel of "Live Free or Die" style podcasting. Grab a bottle of wine and a box of chocolates and settle in for a long-awaited winter’s podcast. Our annual holiday estravaganza with Terry Dimonte is out. We throw off the normal conventions followed on our podcast about broadcast and instead today you can hear two friends cavorting about 2019 the year that was. Covered this year: Terry's interview with Malcolm Gladwell which you can listen to here. Montreal: What's its problem? Terry thinks that it might be all the corruption, and the CBC did a wonderful documentary about it a few years ago and you can watch here. Do you like the train? Terry doesn't. We blame Blair Bartrem for that. Matt hates those delivery services like Uber Eats and Skip the Dishes. In fact, Matt believes that it is the reason why only 1 Winnipeg restaurant appears on a recent list of Canada's top 100. (Innovation be damned) While those fun more inexpensive places are disappearing. We also talked about Dario Cecchini, the Butcher of Panzano. His story is amazing: He was lined up to be a veterinarian but wound up being one of the world's most famous butchers. You can get a really good feel for who he is in an episode of Chef's Table that came out earlier this year. I asked Terry about his upcoming interview with Justin Trudeau which is now in the past. It was also picked up by a number of iHeart Radio Stations and you can enjoy it here. From there we got into some discussion on politics including the state of 24 Sussex, the prime minister’s private jet, the need for renovation and replacement of these things and how no one can get this done because it would cost too much political capital. Terry made mention people for being idiots for saying the prime minister should fly commercial. Terry also spoke about his move to Griffintown which was a big mistake. There's a fair amount of political talk on the show this year where we spoke about Brian Mulroney's legacy and we were finally joined by my son Andrew who is attending Mount Allison University. Andrew umpires baseball in the summer and might pursue it as a career after university.

I'm reminded every time I travel through Tampa on my way to Sarasota, how busy the radio market is. Equally busy is the number of sports teams that compete for media attention. By my count there are the NFL Buccaneers, NHL Lightning, Major League Baseball Rays, and plenty of college football needing attention from the Gators, Seminoles and University of South Florida Bulls. That's a lot to program and keep track of. John Mamola is the program director of Sports Radio 95.7 WDAE in the Tampa-St. Petersburg area, and shared his thoughts on the audience and how he can best disperse the overload of sports in the area. Add to that, many in the audience and in the stands are displaced northerners, (like himself) who come with pre-determined team allegiances that aren't local. In this episode, you'll find out why the NHL Lightning do so much better than that other team in Florida, the Panthers, what his thoughts are on the futures of Jameis Winston and the Tampa Bay Rays. We also chatted about working within the confines of carrying National radio shows like The Herd with Colin Cowherd and The Dan Patrick Radio Show. John is a great Twitter Follow ... so follow him.

I started this podcast back in 2016 just to see what would happen. I used Soundcloud as my podcast host and bought a one year unlimited plan which included stats so I (thought I) was set. I registered the podcast with Podtrac.com which would provide some additional breakdowns. In October 2016, I had Mark Ramsey on my show and after we were done recording we got onto the subject of Soundcloud and he mentioned that it was loaded with "bots". (Flag #1) As 2017 rolled on, there were rumours of a Soundcloud bankruptcy, and the smart speaker craze was on the horizon. By then, Amazon was requesting a secure feed which Soundcloud didn't offer. Podtrac soon issued a memo saying they wouldn't be counting Soundcloud hits anymore because, you know, bots. In December of 2017, I went in search of a new podcast host and Art19 has been our home ever since. I did a fair amount of reading and discussions with people in the industry about IAB Certification. Basically, this would result in a standardized methodology for compiling podcast stats. I had some questions about "filtering" and "filtering windows" which could be set to 5 minutes, 60 minutes or 24 hours on my host. (Stick with me on this this) It's all about what constitutes multiple listens. With a 5 minute filter window: Say you listen to the first half of my podcast, go make a sandwich and pour a beverage, then come back to listen to the rest of the show. That's two listens. With a 60 minute filter window: Say you listen to part of my podcast, go cut the lawn (and that always takes longer than an hour) and then come back and finish the show. That's two listens. But making a sandwich is still one listen. With a 24 hour filter window: Say you listen to part of my podcast, binge listen Aaron Mahnke's Lore, then resume my podcast a day later. That's two podcast listens. But cutting the grass and making a sandwich are still one listen. I knew starting 2018, the podcast stats were going to change based on ditching Soundcloud and moving to the more reliable Art19. I opted for the 5 minute window. I heard that 24 was going to become standard down the road and would switch at the right moment. Meanwhile I was still on Podtrac which had shifted towards being compliant with the IAB standards which included a 24 hour filter window, and limiting counts from similar IP addresses - among other things. So what follows are the Top 10 Downloads for the Sound Off Podcast for 2018. There are two lists - one with a 5 minute Filter Window from my host and another with a 24 hour filter window supplied by Podtrac. As we go through this, you can see why the industry is moving towards the latter in 2019. From the Host (5 minute Window) 1. Whatever Happened to Matt & Jake 2. Julie Adam 3. Steve Jones 4. Art Vuolo 5. Gruff Gushnowski 6. Randi Chase 7. Raina Douris 8. Sharon Taylor 9. Gerry Forbes 10. Karen Steele From Podtrac (24 Hour Filter Window) 1. Whatever Happened to Matt & Jake 2. Julie Adam 3. Steve Jones 4. Jax 5. Art Vuolo 6. Larry Gifford 7. (tie) Raina Douris 7. (tie) Randi Chase 9. Gerry Forbes 10. Gruff Gushnowski It's clear the top 4 podcast episodes are Matt & Jake, Julie Adam, Steve Jones and Art Vuolo. The rest depending upon how the data is being assembled. And this is why the podcast industry is moving to uniform measurement. If you were to ask me how many downloads the podcast has, the answer varies depending on what stats we were looking at. I was quite confident in quoting the 90 day downloads from Podtrac at 6,000 a year ago, but that included the bots and other listens that can't be accounted for properly. This year, I can confidently say the number is 4,974. That doesn't mean we have less listeners; we are just learning to count it all properly. This brings me to the lesson in all this: When someone supplies you with their podcast stats, ask for the source and if they numbers how they are compiled. If they are using Soundcloud, you know immediately that number is inflated because, you know, bots. Some may also claim their numbers IAB 2.0 compliant, but only the IAB via the host seem to be able to certify that at this juncture. (And I'm not here to question Toronto Mike's number of 3 million downloads in 2018, just the way he arrived at the number. For the record our number is 18,887 on Podtrac and 23,823 via the Host) As of today, we have switched the host metrics to the 24 hour filtering window which means if the same number of people listen to the show next year, we will be reporting a number that is 20 percent lower. And we are fine with that. Embrace the truth, embrace the data. After all, Just because someone paused the podcast to make a sandwich or cut their lawn should not translate to an additional listener for us. A few other fascinating stats to pass along: The episode I recorded with Dave Wheeler in November 2017, was the 11th most downloaded in year, largely due to a spike in July when he was fired from his job for incendiary remarks about transgenders, re-emerging the following week with a podcast. I credit spike to people looking for the podcast with the remarks, or the new podcast which originated on Soundcloud and took some time to get to Apple Podcasts. Apple offers up consumption stats: So if you are using iOS 11 or greater and listening to podcasts on the Apple Podcasts app, then your consumption is being sent back to Apple. Our episodes with Mandy James and Jenna Mosher received consumption rates over 100%. Meaning some people listened more than once and a lot of people listened to the whole show. We checked our Spotify Numbers too. I won't get into how all that compiled outside of you need to listen to at least 60 of the show for it to count, but our episode with musicologist Alan Cross from 2 years ago has 10 times more listens than the next leading episode. So it's clear that people are searching Alan's Playlists and hitting on our show and listening to it. Which is cool. Finally, if your podcast is on Soundcloud, get off it. There are plenty of reputable podcast hosts out there who will give you legitimate metrics. Soundcloud is not a podcast first company, they do not offer a secure feed and in time, Apple said they would require their podcasts to have one. We can recommend you go to Libsyn, Spreaker, or Blubrry, because we have used them before. On a recent podcast episode, Rob Walch from Libsyn provided some truly excellent reasons for not using Anchor, Squarespace or Soundcloud. We work with a few podcasters now and if you would like to build audience with us, e-mail me: #podcast #stats

They say three times makes it a tradition. Terry Dimonte loves Christmas and radio, so every year we have him on the show to talk about those two things... and more. We talked about our love of one of North America's most renowned restaurants Joe Beef, and his annual visit from the Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau. Terry mentions that his photographer Adam Scotti is a good Twitter follow. We also touch on he enjoys CBS Sunday morning, and still getting a hard copy of the newspaper. Terry also talked about the changes in his life with his new girlfriend Jessica, and we look forward to CHOM's 50th birthday this fall. I also served up one of the questions from this FYI Music News article I was featured in and we spent our remaining minutes talking about the lack of talent on the air these days. We believe it has hit some form of critical mass and believe radio companies are changing their approach. You'll hear the voice of Jacob Stoller at the tail end of this show; his podcast is called "Leafs on Deck" and it focuses on the Toronto Marlies. Merry Christmas to all! #dimonte #chom #montreal #christmas

Ted Bird has been a Montreal radio mainstay since 1984. I'd say longer but I don't remember his fist tour in 1979 and he didn't have fond memories of that era which was complicated given the politics at the time. From his times working with Terry Dimonte at CHOM, Mix 96 and CJAD, to working off the island in the Mohawk community and now Jewel 106.7 in Hudson. I worked with Ted a couple of times, including from 2002 to 2006 at CHOM where his passion for reporting, writing and broadcasting taught me to stand your ground while having all your i's dotted and t's crossed. Yes this will be as biographical as it is two radio people catching up as we touched on subjects like his support of the military troops, the legalization of cannabis, the Habs, Expos, NY Giants, and concussions in football. During our chat, Ted made mention of a comedy piece from Robert Hawkins. It is seen below and as funny as Ted recounted. This week's episode is powered by nLogic. #quebec #broadcast #radio

Dave Reynolds is someone I have crossed paths with twice. In the early 90's I met him when I was doing overnights at CHOM. The AM station down the hall was 990 Oldies. We were working for CHUM Ltd. at the time. Fast forward ten years and we found ourselves together at CHOM in Montreal, now owned by Standard Radio. We last saw one another around 2005 and through the wonders of Facebook, never bothered to call one another because - well are Facebook friends so that should be good enough, right? We spoke about his journey through the major markets, and the joy he found in Saint John, Campbell River and now Wingham. Radio is different in those markets when it comes to handling social media, and Dave has learned a lot and shared a lot. Radio is about community. Buzz is giving back this holiday season with the CKNX Food Truck. He will be living inside the truck until it is full. We made mention about how these types of public awareness campaigns are rarely done anymore in an era where there is a lack of willingness or support or both. Good luck on this year's event! This episode is brought to you by nLogic Earlier this year I did the Sound Off Show with David Phillips from nLogic and we talked about the future of radio, buyers and sellers. #wingham #radio