The Sound Off Podcast

Every year since 2013, I have loaded up the car for a football trip to see the Green Bay Packers. The team has a special relationship with the town that is unlike any other in sports. That extends to its local radio partner which clearly doesn’t behave like other radio stations in a medium or small market. WIXX 101.1 is staffed 24/7 with live personalities. The program director is Corey Carter who...

Todd Cochrane can speak to it because he was there in the early days. In 2004, he jumped into podcasting; long before Apple became involved. As time went on he began to find ways to make money at it, including an early sponsorship deal with GoDaddy, and creating the podcast hosting company that we know as Blubrry. We try to address two very large questions in this episode: Where is podcasting head...

Don Kollins is kind of an ideal guest for this podcast. He is a Canadian living in California. He has worked in radio on both sides of the border. And he is innovative enough to use his experience to see a path to the future for radio. When he was the program director of Toronto's pre-eminent sports radio leader, the Fan 590, he found himself having to juggle a radio show on TV - which later becam...

Jim Harold began podcasting on the paranormal in 2005 and is among a handful of pioneers of podcasting. His programs have stood the test of time and  The Paranormal Podcast  and  Campfire  remain among the most popular in the genre. He also developed a premium tier and much to his surprise... worked! He started out in radio sales after originally considering television. Wh...

Sean Ross really knows music and radio. He's had a front row seat to how music has been consumed by radio listeners over the years. It's easy to see how Sean became so knowledgeable on the subjects of radio formats and music genres; his speaks of his affinity for CKLW, and also of a cross country bus ride which took him to Toronto in the summer of 1981. It's one thing to know formats in one countr...

V.O. North is a voiceover conference that has taken place in Toronto for the last two years. I have been fortunate to attend both. The first was held in May 2018 and was a one day event. The following was a two day gathering at the Gladstone Hotel in Toronto, featuring some of the top voiceover talent from around the world. In short, you missed out. Dervla Trainor along with Tanya Buchanan from Ta...

Charles Adler joins me from his home in Vancouver for an hour to talk radio and political therapy. The Canadian election is on the way and it is all to be Trump Trump Trump on CNN and Fox News. So what's a media guy to do? We catch up with the wily Corus Radio News Talk host and discuss the early moments of the Federal Election. Yes we geek out a bit over it, but it not like any of the conversatio...

Back in 2015 when I was mulling doing a podcast, I came across Drew Dalby's Off Mic podcast which featured other radio personalities talking about their careers. The show was in the process of starting it's permanent hiatus once I decided to get the ball rolling on this. Drew Dalby is an excellent interviewer, drive host, football prognosticator and dad. He's also a good Twitter follow. Drew spoke...

Jason Barrett and I started our post-program director adventures around the same time. He had a strong resume as a Sports radio programmer, having worked at mainstays like the Fanatic in Philly, 590 the Fan in St. Louis and 95.7 The Game in San Francisco. He decided to enter the crowded radio consulting field with a specialization on sports radio, a decision he made after scanning the media landsc...

Andrew Beckler is the morning host at X92.9 in Calgary. The station is pretty special in that it started nearly 13 years ago, has only had 1 program director in its time, and has been building it's audience since 2007 starting with a Hot Hot Heat concert to ring in the New Year. The station has also had very low staff turnover and developed a culture unlike any other in Canada; comparable only to...

Ryan Wrecker sent me a message earlier this week asking about my take aways from Podcast Movement which took place earlier this month in Orlando. In this episode we talk about where the podcast industry is headed and how radio is finding its way into it. We talk honestly and openly about where its all going and how radio is coping with it all. I also included a link to Ryan's interview with John O...

A few thoughts as I muddle my way through Podcast Movement 2019. Special Thanks to Justin Dove from Core Image Studios for being a continued supporter of the podcast! Thanks also to the people who make this show possible every week including: Promosuite Matt Fogarty Voiceovers Justin Dove at Core Image Studios Megatrax NLogic See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy N...

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 l...

Matty Staudt is someone I have been trying to get on the podcast for about a year. His busy work schedule at iHeart made scheduling difficult. However, a change in direction for Matty created the necessary time to have him on. Matty is starting a new venture called Jam Street Media. He had straddled both podcast and broadcast successfully for over a decade. From working as a producer for G. Gordon...

In Wrestling, a shoot is when two wrestlers go unscripted into the ring and have it out. Yukon Jack from 100.3 The Bear and I don't wrestle one another any more - but we did this podcast along the same lines as a shoot. Not your usual questions and not your usual answers. The longtime Edmonton morning man talked about some of his former program directors and co-workers and has learned lots from al...

It's been nearly three years since we spoke to John Mielke, aka The Milkman. You might remember we had him on the show for episode 9 . But that was a long time ago and so much has changed since then. He still has his websites including Blast The Radio and Milkman Unlimited . He's also added podcast producing to the mix as well. John tells us a little bit about the Jesse and Jenna podcast he produc...

Genevieve Borne is really talented. I met her in 1992 after a concert and was enamoured with her immediately. She is a bridge to the province I love, and a broadcaster I respect and emulate where applicable. In short, I love this woman's tenacity and ability to say, "I'm going for it." In this episode you'll hear why Quebec is special, has the star system Canada has failed to replicate, and how he...

Terry O'Reilly is a radio guy. He will tell you on the show that he is an ad guy - and that might be partially true. However, it is apparent that when you listen to his take on the world of media, advertising, marketing and radio, that he is grounded in radio. His show, Under the Influence, which grew from its previous incarnation of The Age of Persuasion (2006-2011) and O'Reilly on Advertising (2...

It sounds easy. Produce a compelling 15 to 20 minute piece of audio every day about a Canadian news story. And then you find out it isn't easy. For the last year, Jordan Heath-Rawlings has been doing just that with Frequency Network's flagship podcast, The Big Story. Mildly modelled after the NY Times' podcast, The Daily, the Big Story has shone the spotlight on Canadian stories ranging from the r...

Bob Harris has had an incredible radio journey that has spanned Peterborough, Calgary, Toronto, Montreal and Hamilton. Along the way it has been about the people. He'll be the first to admit that he made mistakes along the way and learned on the job through the mentorship of General managers like Rob Braide, the late Gary Russell, Tom Peacock and Pat Holiday. Bob also worked with Canada's two bigg...

This week, I want to give everyone something to think about. And that's the power of radio and what it might mean to podcasting. When Tom Webster released the Infinite Dial Canada 2019 study at Canadian Music Week, one slide caught my eye. Actually a number of slides did including weekly podcasting listening rising to 23% and monthly to 36%, but it was when he broke out the monthly podcast listeni...

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...

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 produc...

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...

This week, Matt talks about his time at Canadian Music Week and after years of everyone staying mum on regulatory issues, there is a consensus that it's time to install the latest Radio update. Left unanswered is the who, how and when, but the why answers are transparent. Declining revenue, changing audio consumption habits and new players and platforms have left radio in a weakened position. The...