The Sound Off Podcast

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...

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 f...

Steve Anthony retired from active broadcasting about a year ago, moved to Prince Edward County, and took his business ventures with him for the ride. He and a wife Tanya who has been riding shotgun with Steve since 1997, have enough stories for a book he says he will never write. I spoke to Steve about his early days at John Abbott College on Montreal's West Island, to his time at 980 CKGM and the...

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) Ma...

Alyssa Page grew up in Connecticut, found her way on to the radio by doing everything. Then worked her ass off to get to Atlanta and then a dream position on the legendary 107.7 The End in Seattle. This podcast marks the third member of the radio station to appear on the podcast, and with good reason. The station is oft quoted as one other station's could look to for innovative and brilliant ideas...

In this episode we spend time discussing the challenges involved with selling at a radio station in this digital revolution. His solution is rather simple: Stop Selling Radio. We discuss best practices for implementing new sales strategies, focus on some radio stations doing this right, and get slightly controversial (or innovative?) when it comes to selling podcasts. Radio may be going about it a...

I missed my first chance to meet Irish Dave. I wasn't going to miss my second. In the days after a Saint Patrick's Day that fell on a Sunday, I caught up with the U93 morning show host and learned a lot about the show host I have listened to on and off over the last 6 months. Now I knew that he was marrying his co-host Christine, but learned more about how they met. Originally, I connected with Da...

She answered the very first question I asked her correctly. She was supposed to get it wrong. How Very Meredith Geddes of her. Meredith Geddes arrived in Vancouver at the World Famous CFOX and pretty much everything changed. She'd never been out west before and was about to take a big step in her radio career. From evenings, the shifts began to fall her way; whether it was voice tracking a daypart...

Corey Dylan understands resilience. The longtime Tampa Bay radio personality was let go from Cox owned WFLA in the summer of 2016. In that time since, she continued working her voiceover clients, hosted a few television shows, and tried her hand at podcasting. She also never gave up in her quest to get back into radio. That meant networking at conferences at a moment when funds were at a premium,...

Tom Leykis understands how radio works. He understands people and how they engage with radio. The Long Island kid who spent his first radio show playing Glen Pitney (and loathing it), became one of America's most renowned talk show hosts. He would go to war against other talk show hosts. He spoke in this podcast of the time that he challenged Neil Rodgers to a fight on the streets of Miami, and st...

Dean Blundell was the host of the morning show on 102.1 the Edge in Toronto starting in 2001. As the internet age progressed, and social media took hold, the very things that elevated the Dean Blundell show to great heights became a part of its downfall. Add in some self-admitted flaws and it all came to an end in 2014. In the ensuing years, Dean worked mornings at 590 The Fan, but didn't appear t...

Kolter Bouchard was on the list to be on this podcast last summer. He had an interesting tale to tell about going from Dawson Creek to Dubai, and his program director Blair Bartrem was excited to get this talent on the air a Q107. Fast forward a few months and Corus renovates their airwaves and Kolter is now co-hosting the afternoon drive show on Edge 102 with Meredith Geddes. The story of how tha...

Drex became Canadian famous just before Christmas in 2012 when he asked then Premier Christy Clark on behalf of a listener if she was more MILF or Cougar. And with that started radio's era of internet outrage. That was not the first time Drex had been fired. He has a cool back story from his days on air in Australia, and hopscotched the British Columbia coast and interior before making his way to...

This episode is titled after Buzz's podcast called Healthy Paranoia. 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 Medi...

Sean Dilworth is half the man he used to be. Figuratively only. In whole, he is stronger, smarter and more confident than ever. He made a life decision to get physically stronger, which led to a number of other changes in his life. Then he came out and told his audience about it last September. In this moment, I knew I wanted to have him tell the longer version of this story on the podcast. ...

Troy McCallum had it all figured out. He listened to the episode with Gruff Gushnowski and knew that doing the podcast in the car would be a fitting place to talk radio. After all, he spends up to 3 hours a day in the car listening to the radio on the way to work as program director at Boom 97.3 in Toronto. Troy and I spent about half of his commute home talking about his early days in radio, his...

Lianne Laing knew there was a moment when she would have to make the jump. After many years battling a 3:40am wake call to fulfill a role in television secondary to her original passion sports, change was inevitable. In November 2017, she left on her own accord and launched her website Lianne Laing - complete with a weekly podcast and You Tube Channel . Her guests are all leaders in the field of m...

My New Year's resolution is to call more people and speak to them, rather than pretend I know what's going on in their lives because I follow them on Facebook or Instagram. Natasha was my first victim. After 12 years, I spoke with her about her ascension to morning radio in Montreal, her stint working for Entertainment Tonight Canada, her experiences as a mom, and coping with life's unexpected cha...

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, The project started on January 1 with Bruce Barker, wound its way through Victoria Day weekend with a tribute to yours truly , and then concluded on December 31 with David Ma...

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 t...

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, Quebec. I worked with Ted a couple of...

Danny Kingsbury is the National format director of Rock Radio for Rogers, and the first question is all about Rock Radio. In this episode we discussed his 30 plus years in radio, especially about his years at Q107 which were the last ones before the era of online streaming and the birth of digital. During the chat I was reminded about the success of Y95 in Hamilton which happened concurrently with...

Steve Reynolds is a talent coach and works with some of the biggest radio talents in North America. He will help you establish what your show all about and get the show's characters connecting. And it is all done with the long term in mind. This is a show that is 18 months in the making as I missed Steve's session at the Conclave in 2017 because mine was scheduled adjacently, but I managed to conn...

Dave (Buzz) 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, neve...

Rob Walch is the Vice President of Podcaster Relations at Libsyn . The 2016 Podcasting Hall of Fam inductee is also the host of a few podcasts including podcast411 , Today In iOS , and The Feed which he co-hosts with fellow HoF inductee Elsie Escobar. Rob has built a reputation on trust in the industry by being honest: You're not going to make money right way, it is going to take time to grow your...