Sharon Taylor's radio career has criss-crossed the country from Moose Jaw, to Winnipeg, to London, to Ottawa and Toronto. From her early days riding the bus with hookers and writing obituaries to her first radio course at Fanshawe College, to the ol' days of smoking in the booth; we cover it all in this week's podcast. Sharon shares her colourful memories of working with Gary Slaight, Chuck McCoy, Kevin Nelson at CKSL, Sandy Davis, and Ingrid Schumacher. She takes us from rumours, to reflections, to radio's role in the #metoo movement. We spent some time talking about her trip through radio, women in the workplace, and some of the great morning personalities she has worked with like Ace Burpee (who we literally gush about for almost sixty seconds). Her steadfast passion for radio programming and her candour has made her one of my favourite calls to make when I need a second opinion or a helping hand. Even when we worked at competing stations between 2006-2014 in Winnipeg. Between our stations, we had the top 4 morning shows in the city at one point. Last July, I had a chance to connect with her again and I regretted not having my podcast recorder with me in that moment -- so here we are to rectify and record all the goods! Sharon is now a freelance writer at David Farrell's FYIMusic.ca amongst other new ventures to come. One subject she touched on in the podcast that she has written about is the usage of NDA's, workplace behaviour and the #MeToo movement. Sharon has gone into even greater detail in written form. This week's episode is sponsored by NLogic. Audiences are not what they used to be. There is more choice, more fragmentation and pretty much more of everything than ever before. Traditional ways of thinking are being challenged. New platforms and technologies are emerging and merging, and buckets of data are being produced. How do you go beyond the data to something you can actually use? How do you make sense of it all? How do you get out of the weeds to focus on the big picture? Well, NLOGIC, the sponsors of this podcast, can help. They offer strategic insights, customizable modern products, market perspectives and their personal commitment to help you make sense of your Canadian radio and television audiences. ultimately, they can help you grow your business. Talk to NLogic today and be better positioned for tomorrow. #winnipeg

In this episode, join us as we sit down with Bruce Barker to catch up with what's in store now that he's back in the game and geared up to play. We chat about his journey across the Canadian prairies from Ontario to Alberta and back to Ontario again; catching up on his long career in the industry and his two great loves: radio and sports. Naturally, Matt and Bruce -- two huge Buffalo Bills fans -- also spend some time acknowledging their first trip to the playoffs since 2000. After spending over thirty years in the voiceover and broadcast industry, Bruce suffered a stroke in late 2016, forcing him to step down from his role as the Voice of the Toronto Rock (National Lacrosse League). Now, after devoting the time to his recovery and restoration, he's ready to get back to business and is kicking it off with the release of a new e-book, sharing 23 tips to help play by play announcers be great calling the games on the radio. The full e-book is available FREE via Kowchmedia.com. Click here to check out Bruce Barker's Secret's to Sports Radio Play by Play Book Bruce's path from CJAY 92 in Calgary, to Toronto's Mix 99.9, CFRB, and later MOJO Radio, has coincided with relationships with local sports teams. Whether that's working as the in-house announcer for the Toronto Rock of the National Lacrosse League, doing play-by-play for the Camrose Kodiaks of the AJHL, or hosting the "Bills in Toronto" series at the stadium formerly known as Skydome, Bruce has always brought his A-Game to the rink and the radio. Folks can contact Bruce Barker for a free one-on-one coaching session for play-by-play callers at brucebarksbarker@outlook.com. You’ll be surprised how affordable his air check sessions are. This episode is powered by Promosuite. The Sound Off Podcast is brought to you by the Cloud-based paperless studio system, PromoSuite Next. For over 25 years you've known PromoSuite as radio's original promotions management system. Helping promotions teams and programmers manage their contest winners, liners, sales, requests, remotes, prize fulfilment, and much more. Today over 2,500 radio stations across the United States and Canada use PromoSuite Next to control the chaos, reduce paper, and reclaim the time you really want to spend creating great campaign concepts. #CFRB #TORONTO #mix999

Karen Steele is the new Program Director at 99.9 Virgin Radio in Toronto. She has worked in radio for over two decades and in this episode, she walks us through her impressive career, from small markets to big ones, from radio to film and back to radio again. She even throws out a couple dollops of advice along the way, so stay tuned, this one's a keeper! Over two decades of hard work, running compelling campaigns all the way along, Karen climbed the ladder from intern, to assistant program director, to director of promotions. She worked with all the biggies, from Corus Entertainment, to Standard Broadcasting, to Astral Media, to Rogers, and now to Bell. She tells us about staying, moving, and the experience of being let go, rehired, and rolling on and bouncing back. Speaking to the loss of social currency that comes with a career shift, to soul searching, and hustling for the next opportunity, Karen provides some seriously candid gems about her experience in the industry. She even tells us about what led her to return to radio following her work as the National Director of Publicity & Promotions at Warner Brothers Pictures Canada. This episode also includes some nostalgic reflections about her start as an intern working in a little station in St. Catherine's called 97.7 HTZ-FM, the legendary White House of Rock. She describes the irreverent "balls to the walls" boundary-pushing comedy and talent, where fun was the DNA of the station. She now spends more time contemplating synergies that support thinking beyond one, two, or three stations to an entire brand (i.e. Virgin Radio). As a Programming Director, she thinks about how to pivot and adapt to ensure her stations are providing the content the listeners consumer that makes it accessible to the listener. Mentioned in this episode are talented radio professionals: JJ Johnston, Blair Bartrem, Eric Samuels, Bob Harris, and on-air talent, like Roz & Mocha, Tucker & Maura, Andrea Collins, Cash & Rae. About Karen Steele: Karen graduated with honours from Niagara College. She was awarded three Applied Arts Faculty Awards, and has received two Awards for Broadcast Journalism and the CCBA Award for Creative. She has worked in promotions, marketing and programming in St. Catherines, Toronto, Kitchener, and is now back in Toronto. Connect with her on LinkedIn. Audiences are not what they used to be. There is more choice, more fragmentation and pretty much more of everything than ever before. Traditional ways of thinking are being challenged. New platforms and technologies are emerging and merging, and buckets of data are being produced. How do you go beyond the data to something you can actually use? How do you make sense of it all? How do you get out of the weeds to focus on the big picture? Well, NLOGIC, the sponsors of this podcast, can help. They offer strategic insights, customizable modern products, market perspectives and their personal commitment to help you make sense of your Canadian radio and television audiences. ultimately, they can help you grow your business. Talk to NLogic today and be better positioned for tomorrow.

There is something refreshing about starting a brand new year with a brand new episode. Radio and podcast should be excited for 2018; not since the advent of iPhones and iPods have so many game-changing radio tech been exchanged over the holiday season. The good news is that the most popular Christmas gift this year was a speaker that plays radio. Enjoy our very first episode of 2018, where we spend a full episode looking back at the year in N/T Radio and the state of Sports Radio and Podcast. We, of course, also look ahead into 2018, which is certain to be determined by what we can and will do with our smart speakers. Perry is already ahead of the rest of us with his Evening Bulletin Podcast which is masterfully easy to access if you got a smart speaker for Christmas. Perry Michael Simon is Vice President and Editor/News-Talk-Sports for AllAccess.com and the former Program Director and Operations Manager at stations like KLSX and KLYY (Y107)/Los Angeles and WKXW (New Jersey 101.5)/Trenton. He has been either on-air or writing for broadcast for longer than he can remember. He spends most of his time thinking and writing about media, pop culture, humour, and sports. He's the Program Director for Legendary Pictures' Nerdist Industries division, home of the Nerdist Podcast Network. Reach Perry at pmsimon.com or on any of his social media handles: facebook, instagram or twitter. This podcast episode is brought to you by Promosuite. #Radio #smartspeakers #perrymichaelsimon

Terry DiMonte is back for another Christmas episode. The CHOM 97.7 Morning man has a love for Christmas and radio, which is why he's joining us again for another exciting podcast! Over the last three decades, Terry DiMonte has endured as the most popular radio voice in Montreal, Canada. He launched his career in Churchill, Manitoba with the CBC, later moving on the CITI FM in Winnipeg, and then over the CHOM FM in Montreal, where, over the course of 25 years, he became one of the highest rating radio personalities in Québec. He is the host of the Terry Dimonte Show. Last year, we spent our time talking about his relationship with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. This year, we spoke about his love of Canada, his morning routine, and the loss of his dear friend Kenny Shields of the rock band Streetheart. Terry and I have known each other since 1987 and we spent Christmas of our 30th year of friendship by doing a podcast. Check out this video from CBC Ottawa's Switchback's "A Day in the Life of Terry DiMonte": Merry Christmas! This episode is sponsored by NLogic and Lens for Radio. Audiences are not what they used to be. There is more choice, more fragmentation and pretty much more of everything than ever before. Traditional ways of thinking are being challenged. New platforms and technologies are emerging and merging, and buckets of data are being produced. How do you go beyond the data to something you can actually use? How do you make sense of it all? How do you get out of the weeds to focus on the big picture? Well, NLOGIC, the sponsors of this podcast, can help. They offer strategic insights, customizable modern products, market perspectives and their personal commitment to help you make sense of your Canadian radio and television audiences. ultimately, they can help you grow your business. Talk to NLogic today and be better positioned for tomorrow. #chom #montreal

With the arrival of Amazon Smart Speaker products in Canada, I sought the expertise of Steve Goldstein from Amplifi Media to break down what these new toys -- Google Home and Amazon Dot, among others -- will mean for radio. I reached him at his office in Westport Connecticut. For the moment, the race is on to secure names like Z100, Mix 96, and for podcasters like me: The Sound Off Podcast, but what else should we be preparing for? In this episode, Steve gives us the ins and outs of these new devices and explains everything we need to be thinking about: like the estimation that one in five households are expected to buy smart speakers this holiday season -- and one in six already do. In other words, the future is here and are you ready? The big takeaway here is realizing that now that these are in the home, rather than just imagining a local station vs. station scenario, there are in fact, 400,000 podcasts, endless streaming options, and Amazon's default choices. While this may mean an even playing field, it also means that we need to move away from imaging radio as something that comes from a transmitter, to an "audio everywhere" wild west where whatever you're delivering, it'll need to be available wherever the customer finds himself, no matter the device. And that's a game-changer for broadcasters. In the glass-half-full point of view, radio is making its way back into the home, enabled by shiny new (and affordable) tech. I wanted to know what all this means for broadcasters and was curious about the opportunities on the horizons and that's what you'll learn about in this episode. If you like this episode, you should also check out our episodes featuring: In this episode, we chat about the ways radio stations are adapting to new tech to increase their digital revenue. Fred Jacobs of Jacobs Media uses tech surveys to offer insights into broadcast. This episode explore the intersections between broadcast and podcast. In this episode, Jeff Vidler discusses his research with his company, Audience Insights, exploring the complex listening habits across platforms. Steve Goldstein is one of the top brains in audio programming, marketing and management, with experience ranging from major radio formats to top American broadcasting companies. He has a reputation for developing brands and nurturing talent for broadcast companies, Steve was also founding partner at Saga Communications. Connect here: iTunes Stitcher Google Play TuneIn #podcast #alexa

If you want to learn all the ins and outs of using email to your every advantage, you'll love this week's podcast, where we interview productivity specialist and host of the podcast Productivity Straight Talk, Amber de le Garza. Amber is a sought after Speaker, Trainer, and Business Efficiency Consultant whose clients include small business owners to multinational corporations. Amber works with business owners and entrepreneurs to give them her tried and true productivity training and consulting. After spending some fifteen years in the realty business, Amber has turned her expertise to consulting, while hosting her podcast and blog. In this episode, Amber walks us through the tricks of the trade to process emails even faster and more efficiently. First, she recommends turning off those notifications during the work-day, and blocking out an uninterrupted time to process emails, maybe once in the morning and once in the afternoon. When we finally get a chance to sit and skim those emails, she recommends embracing the opportunity to take action, by enacting one of 5 Simple Email Decisions, meaning you: Delete Forward Reply Schedule File It's beautifully simple and I can't wait to put her advice to work. If the stats are true -- that business email users received and sent an average of 44,000 emails per year -- I would be curious if broadcasters receive even more! Between press releases, media lists, interviews, and all those incoming scheduling revisions, I know my inbox is a total mess. I was around when e-mail arrived on the scene, back when it was less about spam and e-mail marketing and more about literally corresponding with co-workers. Slowly, people in the office stopped walking around to actually converse with each other. They began to just e-mail and CC one another; and in instances of the truest passive aggressive behavior, you might even blind CC the CEO. Far from saving paper, I swear, since the advent of e-mail, offices now use over three times the paper – that is, unless your station uses Promosuite! #podcast #productivity

This week's episode features Blair Bartrem, the program director at Toronto’s Q107. Over his 30+ years in radio, Blair has worked in promotions, and as program director at legendary brands like CHOM-FM, Q107, Mix 96 & Mix 99.9 in Montreal and Toronto. The questions we tackle in this episode range from what goes into a making a great station brand, to the formula for being married to the head of a competing station (a.k.a. Virgin Radio's Karen Steele), to how to drive a Zamboni from Montreal to Toronto. For photographic evidence of zamboni adventures, see the picture below: When it comes to making a great station brand, Blair boils it down: 1. to hiring great people 2. writing fun and catchy promos 3. having a passion for what you do 4. remaining nimble in a competitive industry Blair shares parts of his personal side including how he fell in love with Montreal, the magical small town of sky-scrapers, and growing up in a household with creative siblings. Worth mentioning is Blair’s brother Richard Bartrem, mentioned in the episode. Richard is the brainchild behind Westjet’s viral campaigns like this or this. This episode is brought to you by Nlogic. Audiences are not what they used to be. There is more choice, more fragmentation and pretty much more of everything than ever before. Traditional ways of thinking are being challenged. New platforms and technologies are emerging and merging, and buckets of data are being produced. How do you go beyond the data to something you can actually use? How do you make sense of it all? How do you get out of the weeds to focus on the big picture? Well, NLOGIC, the sponsors of this podcast, can help. They offer strategic insights, customizable modern products, market perspectives and their personal commitment to help you make sense of your Canadian radio and television audiences. ultimately, they can help you grow your business. Talk to NLogic today and be better positioned for tomorrow. #Q107 #Toronto

In this week's episode, we visit with Dave Bannerman, one of the richest sources of intel on Canadian radio in the twentieth century. We talk about where he's been, some of the talent he's taught, and where he's headed now. He retired earlier this year from his role as radio-TV-journalism instructor at Nova Scotia Community College. Dave Bannerman was the Program Manager of the station I worked at in 1989. I know, it's hard to imagine: a time when stations paid a Program Manager AND a Program Director. Bannerman was a great teacher of radio who allowed me to experiment and take risks. Take for example the very first overnight radio show I ever hosted on a little station called Magic 97 in Kentville, Nova Scotia. Spoiler alert for the podcast: it was called "The Whine Line": it was a local call-in show that began with the classic Trammps tune "Disco Inferno". It was ah-mazing and according to Dave, continues to inspire regional radio talent. Given how much fun we were having with our adventures in late night radio, you can imagine my surprise when he made the transition to teaching radio at Nova Scotia Community College in 1995. But, as you'll learn from the episode, he's been teaching all along. Over the course of his career, he's turned out exceptional broadcasters by: 1. Stressing a focus on the listener 2. Never getting hung up on the digital technicalities 3. Doing what radio does best: Content Creation. The amount of talent that has passed through Dave Bannerman's classroom is astounding, it's like a Pro-Bowl roster of Canadian radio: Fearless Fred - 102.1 The Edge (Toronto) Gillian Foote - 100.3 The Bear (Edmonton) Ruby Carr - Z95.3 (Vancouver) (Undated picture Pictured to the right at NSCC) Jax - Kiss 92.5 (Toronto) R.S. Smooth (Ryan Sommers) CKDU 97.5 (Halifax) Christina Fitzgerald and Morgan Sheppard most recently of Indie 88 (Toronto) (Did I forget someone from this list? Email me so I can add you to this list) Dave announced he is moving on from the school after 22 years of service. He will continue doing radio in the form of building radio studios for LPFM's, and growing his company, MediaVoice. Exhibit A: a picture of me from my NSCC days. In the episode, as we stroll down memory lane, please refer to exhibit A. This was the young talent (cough, me) who appeared in a white t-shirt, flowing (and receding) hair, with jeans and a habit of bolting down the hallways to operate "The Whine Line" back in 1988. This picture (pre-digital) was taken 6 months before I met Dave at the studios fo CKIC Radio Acadia (Acadia University). The day this episode was released, Charles Chandler passed away. Noteworthy for this episode because Dave Bannerman cited Charles as a radio influence during this podcast when he was on air at CJCH in Halifax. Mark Summers has posted this wonderful retrospective on his YouTube Page. This episode is brought to you by PromoSuite Next. For over 25 years you've known PromoSuite as radio's original promotions management system. Helping promotions teams and programmers manage their contest winners, liners, sales, requests, remotes, prize fulfilment, and much more. Today over 2,500 radio stations across the United States and Canada use PromoSuite Next. #nscc

Dave Wheeler has been a mainstay on radio in Winnipeg since 2003 when he teamed up with Hal Anderson to form Wheeler & Hal on Power 97. The show was a successor to the well established BJ & Hal show and it was big shoes to fill. (BJ being BJ Burke who went on to continued success in Halifax at Q104) I had the opportunity to work with Dave from 2006 to 2012 at Power 97 and really loved how he would create radio without a safety net: I'' define that as "Not stopping the creative process to water down or negate an idea." Great ideas are refined and shared with the end game of making the listener laugh. I was invited out to Dave's newly built Safety Net Studios to catch up on life and talk about his accomplishments to date. We didn't hold back discussing the parts of his career that wound up making news. Notably his departure from Power 97, his former co-host Phil Aubrey's recent departure back to Power 97, and the online video incident from April 2016 - which led to the creation of Safety Net Studios. Yes this is a long podcast but there was a lot of catching up to do. Audiences are not what they used to be. There is more choice, more fragmentation and pretty much more of everything than ever before. Traditional ways of thinking are being challenged. New platforms and technologies are emerging and merging, and buckets of data are being produced. How do you go beyond the data to something you can actually use? How do you make sense of it all? How do you get out of the weeds to focus on the big picture? Well, NLOGIC, the sponsors of this podcast, can help. They offer strategic insights, customizable modern products, market perspectives and their personal commitment to help you make sense of your Canadian radio and television audiences. ultimately, they can help you grow your business. Talk to NLogic today and be better positioned for tomorrow. That moment when Dave Wheeler met his future wife, Candace Rae, was captured on video in 2009. I was always curious about exploring the social media side of radio and loved using my Flip Mino to record after the show parts with guests. Who knew this would be the moment that would lead to marriage? Special thanks to Drew Dalby for permission on sharing the clip of how Rena Jae came to Winnipeg. That podcast is called the "Off Mic Podcast" and is now in the capable hands of the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology who use it for teaching purposes. #winnipeg #wheeler #power97 #92citi