Sammy Kohn is the drummer for Canada's the Watchmen. He will contend that he is a realtor in the Greater Toronto Area, but so long as the Watchmen keep getting played on the radio and the band continues playing a few shows a year, he will be known first as the drummer of the Watchmen. Formed in Winnipeg in the late 80's, the band wrote, recorded, and released their first CD in 1992 called "McLaren Furnace Room", which was followed with a subsequent major label release two years later "In the Trees" and a decades worth of touring, writing, recording and working hard. That includes those early morning radio station appearances, often after finishing a show earlier that morning. In this episode, Sammy and I spoke about residing at opposite ends of the radio and records promotion wheel that was responsible for one of the most lucrative eras for Canadian Rock music. We covered some of the most 90's of things, (HMV, CD's) and Canadian pillars of the music industry like MuchMusic and the of Cancon regs which helped the band grow. I also come clean about not adding one of their most popular songs at the station I was at. This episode was recorded two weeks before the death of Deane Cameron, who had a large role in the band making a transition from Universal to EMI. When you hear Sam answer my question about that move - think of Deane. Sammy's podcast he co-hosts with Cam Gordon is the Completely Ignored Podcast. The Watchmen are on tour this summer and dates are here. Even more important, if you are in Toronto, June 19th there is a fundraiser at the Horseshoe Tavern in support of bassist Ken Tizzard's wife who is preparing for stem cell bone marrow treatment. The Event will be hosted by Dean Blundell who appeared on our podcast a few weeks ago. More Sammy: We enjoyed this episode of Toronto Mike with Sammy Kohn. It goes into greater detail about the band's rise where they are today.

JJ "Jim" Johnston did something rather extraordinary last year. He committed to writing a blog everyday saluting someone in the radio or music industry. In an era where the social media stratosphere is predominantly negative, JJ embarked January 1, 2018 with Bruce Barker, wound his way through Victoria Day weekend with a tribute to yours truly, and then concluded on December 31 with David Marsden. (I've reposted the salute JJ made to me at the bottom of this post. JJ did 365 of these!) These posts were shared across all social media platforms including Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. When you think about it, these posts can live on next year too when shared and re-shared by everyone going forward. JJ continues to work building his company JJ-IMS, which has now reached its way into radio in Australia, and extended beyond radio into management groups and talent in other media. This episode should have you considering your blog strategy for 2019. I marvel at people like Fred Jacobs who commit to writing 5 days a week; people like Engle Jones who 1001 12 minute conversations, and JJ who wrote everyday for a year. It's amazing what happens when you commit and stick to it. #blogging #facebook #consulting #radio #media #talent

Big Rick Daniels grew up in #Indiana. If you had to name famous people from the state, there's the obvious like John Mellencamp, the Jackson's and the sitting Vice President of the United States. Perhaps you are fan enough to mention David Letterman or David Lee Roth. But in broadcast circles, the state has a long a wonderful broadcast history that started with WOWO and set a standard emulated for decades to come. Rick was fortunate enough to work with a number of those people starting with Dave Kunkel at WRAY 1250AM in Princeton, Indiana. Also you'll hear all about WLBC in Muncie, Indiana and the brilliance of Steve Lindell. Steve had a way of training the listeners to refer to the region as "WLBC-land"; branding at its best. In this episode, you'll learn that market size really doesn't mean as much in this day and age. There is often better #radio being done in competitive market #93 like Boise than in ... take your pick from the Top 50. You'll hear the 5 reasons why Rick made the move from Boise to Bowling Green, #Kentucky, and how the old school values apply more than ever today. Rick is also very active on social media but admits that being first into the space isn't always best. First, please subscribe to his brand new You Tube channel which has some quick hits from people you know including former Denver Bronco Terrell Davis, and Joey Fatone. Also, if it is one thing that people like Rick and Kelly Alexander do well is have a website that acts as a centre point for all their online activities. Check out Rick's site and copy it if you have to. Rick has a podcast featuring people you know here. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.

Yes it happened way back when. Nat & Drew were fired and then were hired as their own replacements. I've been dying to hear the story since the day it happened back in 2008. But there's so much more to the story in the conversation we had recorded from the QM 103.5 studios one Friday after their show. There's the story of how they first met and what Drew really thought of Nat. There's also the evolution of the show going from just them to being flanked by talent like Erin Davis (The West Coast Erin Davis) and producer Joey Arsenault who rigged up an iphone to bring the podcast into the studio. (Very McGyver) And how they survived countless station sales, swaps and mergers. They are still here - and better than ever. This episode marks the first time we have interviewed more than one person at a time. Strange that it took so long to do that. But here we are. By the way, some of the best moments of the podcast includes Nat talking about how she couldn't get her sandwich from the station refrigerator because she had to be fired first, and that Swiss Chalet Chicken + Bridget Jones' Diary is the best comfort outing after being fired. We also took a moment to talk about their recommended podcasts: Nat has been listening to: Thunder Bay, This American Life, 99% Invisible. Drew: Something to Wrestle With, the episode with Ted Dibiase There's also this gem from their show last week:

Kelly Alexander is a team player, and great interviewer and knows her audience. It doesn't matter what radio station she is on, or what platform she is immersed with - she understands her audience and is the conduit between what is happening in the studio, and what is going on in her listeners lives. Not everyone is born with the super power of #empathy, but it also didn't hurt that she was a producer and call screener for some top rated radio shows at CJAD in Montreal and CFRB in Toronto. You can also hear how grateful she is as she has weathered the changes that come with new PD's wanting to take the station into a new direction, and the acknowledgement of some of the great people who helped her out along the way like Mike Bendixen, program director of CFRB, and Toby Goodfellow who was the technical operations manager at Standard Radio. (Click on Toby's name to see his cool gig he has now!) Kelly is also a huge Janet Jackson fan, and we asked her what it was like to meet her! She was also the subject of a piece by Mike Cohen of the Suburban newspaper in Montreal. If we had remembered, we would have asked Kelly about her passion for Yoseikan Karate. The graduate of Ryerson's RTA program, has always had an innovative streak. In 2005, she came into my office with a 30 minute sample of her new podcast. It was easy to dismiss back then but today she has turned that prototype into a 389 episodes of music interviews and information. Click on the logo to listen. Kelly also does another podcast with Sharon Hyland from CHOM 97.7 called 90's Now which had 185 episodes. A show all about the music, movies, television, pop culture, fashion and technology of the 1990's! Click on the logo to listen.

This year at Canadian Music Week, I moderated a panel called "Broadcasting in the Age of Podcasting", a session designed to help broadcasters find their footing in the podcasting space. Here is a small recap from the session for those who missed it, and some observations about other podcast related matters from the conference. I had a few opening remarks recapping the past year in Podcast news including: A leader in podcast content creation, Panoply, pivoted from content creation to focus on their Megaphone dynamic ad insertion platform. Spotify emerging as the #2 podcast destination in the world. Google made their move into podcast with the creation of an app iHeartMedia purchased How Stuff Works, Spotify purchased Gimlet Media and the free podcast platform Anchor for what is thought to be over $200 million dollars… Then there’s Luminary, the latest attempt to become the “Netflix of Podcasting”. They raised $100 million in venture capital, and have proceeded to purchase popular podcast content from Trevor Noah, and Michael Rappaport, Lena Dunham and Russell Brand. And they believe people are willing to pay $8.95 a month for this and add another subscription to their lives. And finally, Rogers' recent purchase of one of the great Canadian podcast success stories … Pacific Content… You couldn't ask for three sharper podcast minds to get together and talk about one of my favourite subjects. For the last 5 years I have been trying to locate the intersection of where podcast and broadcast meet. A week before our panel got together, it was announced that Rogers would be purchasing Pacific Content. That seemed like an obvious place for us to start given that Jordan's employer had just bought Steve's company. Rogers has been quite proactive in podcasting over the last year. Julie Adam and her team have taken the macro view that their product isn't radio but audio. Leslie Merklinger from the CBC (director of audio innovation) brought up the importance of storytelling and Canada's opportunity to be exporting our stories to the world. CBC is Canada's number 1 podcast creator and Canadian radio should be taking notes about how their podcasts are marketed and stories get told. Now, understand that I attended Eric Samuels' Communicate Like a Mind Reader the day before, and could hear the words from radio programmers' in the room: "Must be nice with a big budget designed to the create those stories." If you thought that, I'll share that in my 5 years enveloped in podcasting, some of the most successful podcasts do not run on a big budget, don't cost a lot of money to make, and are quite profitable. It's no surprise that the CBC in Canada and NPR in the States are top podcast creators. They have been the best storytellers since they erected a radio transmitter, and those stories reside comfortably in podcast form. I know commercial radio hires talent coaches like Valerie Geller who has been saying for years that there are no boring stories, only boring storytellers. So tell better stories. Steve Pratt from Pacific Content has been creating branded content podcasts for big brands. Commercial radio's idea of branded content is an informercial; which works for TV & Radio when people are button pushing in the car or couch surfing with a remote control. For podcast, it needs to be very very compelling. One of the best examples is Choiceology, which is a podcast created for Charles Schwab. If you have never heard of Pacific Content, that's probably by design. They want you to hear about their clients and their podcasts. Their podcasts have stories and information and things people find useful; not peddling or selling or promoting. (Well, only subtly) Of note, Steve is quite famous in podcasting circles for the podcasting advice he and partner Dan Misner publish. Give both these people a follow because the wisdom the dispense is quite useful. It was also good to see Jordan Heath-Rawlings again. I last saw him at the Podcast Movement in Philadelphia when Rogers was in the throes of launching Frequency Network. His daily podcast, The Big Story is a hit and one of a number of reasons why podcasting has grown in Canada. Also during our discussion, I drew from Steve's blog about podcast consumption to draw parallels between radio's "Cume vs. Time Spent Listening", and podcast's "Downloads vs. Consumption." The day before, Tom Webster from Edison Research presented data from the Infinite Dial Canada. The number I always look at for podcast growth is weekly podcast listening. The reason is simple: Once you have someone listening weekly, you own a significant piece of their habitual media time. That stat jumped a lot from 19 to 23%. But I'll cut right to the sexy slide that made me say, "Ohhhhhhhh". The 35-54 demo showed huge growth in podcast listening in Canada. I can think of two reasons for this, and both are because of radio. With Rogers, Corus and CBC proactively creating Canadian podcasts and promoting them, it has created a surge in listening for the Gen X demo who are looking for Canadian stories. We already know that once people get involved with one podcast, more follow and deep listening habits form. This appears to be the year when the rubber has hit the road in Canada. Secondly,I'm willing to bet that many of these people are disaffected radio listeners who find the on air product very boring after 10am and have supplanted some of their radio listening with podcast. Weekly Canadian radio listening is at 85% while America is 91-93%. There's a price to pay for replaying all those old Cancon hits over and over again, and managing the product quarterly through the bottom line. It might be time to acknowledge James Cridland's keynote address and make some changes. I know not everyone could make it out to this session with Dave Grohl speaking in the next room, flights to catch on a Friday and beer o'clock on the horizon. I want to thank Leslie, Jordan, and Steve for being candid about podcasting and sharing their success stories. Also my thanks to Ross Davies, Neill and Danya Dixon, the always supportive (and dear friend) Greg Simpson, and everyone at Canadian Music Week for inviting me out to moderate again this year. See you all next year!

Brad Karp is the winner of the 2019 Alan Waters Young Broadcaster of the year award in memory of Steve Young. Born and raised on Montreal's West Island, Brad grew up with a steady dose of Terry Dimonte and Ted Bird on #CHOM. After Algonquin College, Brad found himself working in Thompson, Manitoba and later Fort McMurray, Alberta where he does the morning show at Country 93.3. Here is the release from JJ Johnston & Bob Saint. If you would like to know more about Steve Young - check out this Facebook page. #CMW Brad was doing us all a favour by calling into the 100 Huntley Street Prayer line and asking for the Leafs' to lose Game 7 in Boston. His prayer was answered:

I don't often do the solo show thing unless I have something to share. There are times when going to conferences is hard. It's hard to listen to radio talk about the 93 percent reach it has when we know people are listening less and less every day. (In Canada that number is 85 percent, but no one dare say that that might be because of archaic Cancon rules that radio's competitors don't have to carry) There was also the time in 2013 when four radio leaders are talking about the need for the FM Chip to become active in cell phones so people can listen on their cell phone. As the debate is going on, I am wondering why no one is pointing out that two of the four companies on the stage are employed by phone carriers. An hour went by on this discussion and it surmounted to a waste of time. In 2016, four radio leaders in the U.S. could not name one innovative initiative their company had taken for radio in the last 6 months. In 2017, there was the executive who wondered where the future radio execs were going to come from. Perhaps it was lost on him that middle management's role had been significantly reduced over the previous decade. There is a word for all this behaviour. Denial. I have no problem pointing it out. Some might call it cynical, I believe its the truth. I don't mind being called the village idiot so long as the truth is recognized. So it was refreshing this week to hear James Cridland take the stage at Canadian Music Week's Radio Active summit and offer some words of reason of advice for Canadian radio to get together, collaborate and come up with solutions to update itself. No one really knows if this about ownership, Cancon, or its relationship with the CRTC, but James suggested that Canadian radio could start with a lobby group and go from there. In this episode, I speak about how complacency has become the norm where I live and also in Canadian radio, and I am only betting on the latter to make changes. If you would like to read the highlights from James Cridland's keynote, Sharon Taylor assembled a nice summary. Her Notes from Day 1 of the Radio Active Summit. Her Notes from Day 2 of the Radio Active Summit. Finally, if Matt saw you at Canadian Music Week and invited you on the show, you can book yourself in here. I made mention in the show about a piece from Perry Michael Simon from All Access discussing regulatory changes in the USA regarding ownership. I believe the same applies to Canada. You can read it here.

Ian Howarth taught in Montreal for many years, and one of his passions was radio. He knew one day he would want to write a book about all those wonderful moments and sounds that emanated from great radio stations like 1490 CFOX, 980 CKGM, and later CHOM 97.7 once AOR became a thing in the early 70's. In this episode you'll hear names like Dave Boxer, Charles P. Rodney Chandler. (Chuck Chandler) Marc "Mais Oui" Denis, Ralph Lockwood and many more. Buy the book here. Special Thanks to Marc "Mais Oui" Denis for keeping great Montreal radio memories alive. His fantastic page is here. We used a small clip in our podcast but there are many more to be enjoyed. We discussed things like the Beatles first appearance in Montreal which Ian later added: "The band had received threats based on the assumption that Ringo Starr was Jewish. There were also alleged bomb threats phoned in to a local radio station. Unfortunately, the Starr threats were the result of an anti-Semitic sentiment that still runs deep in this province (McGill faculty of medicine had Jewish applicant quotas, for example) and the boys were there for the beginning of what was called the Quiet Revolution, which evolved into a not-so-quiet revolution when the FLQ got up and running. The anger towards the Beatles would have been a part of the Amit-English sentiment going around at the time; the Queen, the language and in the case of the Beatles was all part of decades old anger to anything British, the colonizer, a word making a come back these days. #montreal #ckgm

This episode is titled after Buzz's podcast called Healthy Paranoia. (Check it out) We spoke about his past in radio working at legendary stations like doing weekends at WNEW and programming legendary WZLX. From there we dove into radio's future, podcast strategy, why Beasley Media Group got involved with e-Sports, and defining innovation overall. His role at Beasley began evolving back in 2016 when Greater Media was sold to Beasley. If you are wondering where radio is going - this is a good listen. Also take the time to subscribe to his podcast which features conversations about leadership, innovation and change in fields that are associated with radio. There's also a 5 part interview with historian Doris Kerns Goodwin that I thoroughly enjoyed, and was played out in the type of room I imagined; surrounded by cozy chairs and a lot of books. Buzz touched on a few podcast initiatives at the company including Twisted Philly and Wrestling Inside the Ropes. You can connect to both shows by clicking on the links. I also brought up Checkpoint Radio is a part of the e-Sports initiative I referenced. We've relocated for a good portion of the month to Arizona on a combination of radio and podcast adventure. On our trip down here, I listened to a few of the podcasts offered up at Beasley Media Group. Below are a few we binged on: #beasley #podcast #broadcast #Boston