The Sound Off Podcast

Chantal Desjardins is a television and radio personality, stand-up comedian, voiceover actor and event host. Those are actually the words used in her bio and it's all accurate. What's not in the story is how she got there. Credit her marriage and ensuing divorce for the getting her to where she is today, one of Canada's top up and coming comedians. She is often recognized locally as a radio person...

Jean-Marie Heimrath became interested in podcast sometime in November 2016. He has always been fascinated by the business side of the entertainment industry he has worked in. Whether it be the record industry when he worked for Island Records, the business of radio syndication when he worked for the Sound Source Radio Network., or being at the forefront of streaming with Iceberg Radio. His knowled...

Art Vuolo was radio's best friend long before Scott Shannon knighted him with that legendary slogan. Throughout the decades, Art has been a mainstay at conventions andin the hallways of radio stations with the latest video technology ready to capture incredible radio moments. From the early days of Vuolo Video Airchecks for the radio programmers and performers, to the Radio Guide for travelling ra...

Sharon Taylor's radio career has criss-crossed the country from Moose Jaw, Winnipeg, London, Ottawa and Toronto. Her love and passion for radio programming has made her one of my calls I make when I need an opinion. This includes the time we worked at competing stations in the same market. Between our stations, we had the top 4 morning shows in the city and loved to have to odd conversation about...

Actually, he never went away, but it's great to catch up with Bruce! After a 2017 that featured a health setback, Bruce joins me to talk about his path from Ontario to Alberta and back again twice. We catch up on his career and talk about his 2 loves, radio and sports. And yes, these two Buffalo Bills fans used the occasion to acknowledge their first trip to the playoffs since 2000. Bruce's path f...

Drake Donovan's path to becoming the voice of great radio stations across North America went from the on air studio, to the production studio, and then to his home studio where he manages Drake Donovan Creative Services. The thing with Drake is that it is not just the voice; it's also the writing, creative concepts and the swag. Yes, the swag. Drake is making the radio Tee great again. (We have po...

Chris Scheetz spent his first 18 years in Edmonton radio as a dedicated listener. He spent his hours on his family farm in Thorsby, Alberta listening to CISN country 103.9 while driving tractor. He was hooked. In 1989, he started working overnights at CISN country 103.9. He has never forgotten about what makes the station tick. The listeners, the sense of community and lending a helping hand when...

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 h...

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 iPhone and iPod has so much technological been exchanged at the holiday season. The good news is that it is a speaker and it plays radio. Perry Michael Simon is the News/Talk and Podcast contributor for AllAccess.com. We spent time looking back at the...

Terry Dimonte is back for another Christmas episode. The CHOM 97.7 Morning man has a love for Christmas and radio. 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 sinc...

With the arrival Amazon Smart Speaker products in Canada, I thought it would be a good time to speak with Steve Goldstein from Amplifi Media about what it means for radio stations. Indeed there is a race to secure names like Z100 and Mix 96, the same way we raced for URL's back in the 90's. The radio is back in the house, but so are a whole bunch of new audio competitors, including newspaper and p...

Amber De La Garza is a productivity specialist and the host of the Productivity Straight Talk Podcast. She helps businesses and entrepreneurs get their act together and not waste time. We are big fans of her work and spoke with her briefly in our episode when we were live at the Podcast Movement. We see this when we visit radio stations: People spending too much time on e-mail, and not enough on t...

Blair Bartrem is the program director at Toronto’s Q107. Over his 30 plus year’s 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. His promotions have ranged for award-winning to haven’t always rubbed everyone the right way. What goes into a making a great station brand? Hiring great people and no...

In this week's episode, we visit with Dave Bannerman, one of the richest sources of intel on Canadian radio in the twentieth century. He retired earlier this year from his role as radio-TV-journalism instructor at Nova Scotia Community College. We even take a walk down memory lane of an overnight radio show I hosted called "The Whine Line", and talk about the talent that has passed through his cla...

Dave Wheeler is the morning host at 92 CITI-FM in Winnipeg. Along with Rena Jae and recent addition Dave Turnbull, they continue to be one of Winnipeg's top morning shows. I had the opportunity to work with Dave from 2006 to 2012 and really loved how he would create without a safety net: Not stopping the creative process to water down or negate an idea. Great ideas are refined and shared with the...

Jeff Vidler’s company Audience Insights teamed up with Jeff Ulster and conducted a deep dive n podcasting. The study was commissioned by the Globe & Mail. The study’s goal is to help podcasters develop content strategy, increase opportunities for monetization and create a road map for growing a young and diverse new audience. There were questions about the types of podcasts consumed, where they li...

Seth Resler has just released a new podcast called the D-Brief. He has experimented with everything from backstage podcasts at conferences, to travel podcasts, and finally realized that he really hated audio post-production, and that having your hard drives full of audio created creative clutter. The D-Brief is a Detroit-centric podcast that has little post production, and co-hosts with strong rol...

The Sound Off Studios are being renovated this week, so I took unloading some house keeping. Namely, I answer questions that I get asked a lot about podcasting. Can I make money podcasting? Should I do a podcast? How long should a podcast be? Also, I play two never before heard stories from two of our most popular episodes. Charles Adler recounts the story of how he almost became Terry Dimonte’s c...

Sheri Lynch bought her own show. Yes, I know that sounds really weird considering that her name is in the Marquee, but she essentially got tired of trying to manoeuvre her branding through radio station filters, that she take ownership of the whole thing. In this episode, Sheri will share the reasons why you might want to start down a similar road; or at the very least understand just what digital...

When the NFL announced they had a partnership with a British company to carry what was NFL Sunday Ticket via streaming, major alarm bells sounded in my head. Not one to rebuff change, I welcomed our UK overlords and their streaming television idea because frankly - what choice did I have. After 5 weeks of Canadians paying for a service that often doesn't work, I reach out to Sean Meade, owner of t...

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 t...

Lauren Hunter from Sonic 102.9 in Edmonton is in the hot seat this week. Apart from a brief stint in Kelowna, she has been in Edmonton her whole life and knows the city well. We talk about everything from how to tackle the social media beast, to what makes a post go viral, and, of course, Connor McDavid and the Connor McPortrait. This episode is brought to you by Promosuite, who has been proudly s...

This week Jason Barrett from Barrett Sports Media joins us after a tumultuous summer that saw Sports and Politics further collide. There were also a number of sports personalities making the news for all the wrong reasons, and ESPN found itself at the center of most national headlines for layoffs or damage control. With the new NFL season upon us, there is no better time to reach out to Jason Barr...

Sometime around 2007, it became about websites and monetizing them. The company I was working for started to remove the digital parts our station was using. The preverbal shit hit the fan and I knew that the people in charge didn’t have a clue on how to use digital to monetize the future. Sadly, the problem persists to this day where there are people in charge who don’t have a digital strategy. Th...

Jamie Watson is more than a station voice. He works with imaging producers, program directors, and morning shows. He started writing and voicing commercials, and parlayed those talents into becoming a leading voice for radio imaging, commercials and cartoons. In this episode, Jamie tells us about the writing and voicing process, and the importance of creating a promo that isn't going to waste the...