The Sound Off Podcast

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...

Mandy James is the morning show host with Pat PT Thomas and Mike Dubs on Entercom's Buz'n @ 102.9 in Minneapolis. I've gotten to know Mandy over the last few years at the Conclave Summer Learning Conference. I watched as she bravely networked her way through the room in 2017, eventually giving me a gift bag complete with a Conclave survival kit which include a small bottle of something flavourful...

Amanda Logan headed west in 2008 to Regina, Saskatchewan where she did evenings at 104.9 The Wolf. Amazingly, we still have audio from that era and it makes an appearance in this podcast. A few weeks ago, The evening personality at Toronto's Z103.5, got married and in lieu of a wedding present, I figured a podcast appearance would suffice. We talked about her journey west and then back east to the...

Nat Lauzon has been a mainstay on Montreal radio for almost 20 years. Her career path has moved in somewhat tidy cycles, spending her teen years working on air in her hometown of Timmins, Ontario while in high school. Then she worked at Toronto's Mix 99.9 while she was finishing her degree at Ryerson Polytechnic. In 1999, she jumped at the opportunity to move to Montreal to with Blair Bartrem at M...

About 90 percent of this podcasts downloads come from two North American countries, Canada & the USA. But a look across the ocean shows the UK in a solid third with Australia and Nigeria tied for 4th, scoring higher than Ireland and New Zealand. I felt compelled to find out more about radio in Nigeria. EDK is Osato Edokpayi from Abuja, Nigeria. He does the breakfast show at SoundCity in Nigeri...

In late August, Jesse and Jenna from Jump 106.9 in Ottawa were restructured out of their jobs. That's probably not news as it is a regular occurrence in radio. However, their replacements were a syndicated U.S. show out of Seattle. The ensuing online and media outrage was heavier than in other cities where layoffs happen. Jenna Mosher was kind enough to spend some time talking about her career whi...

I really love Thanksgiving. In Canada we celebrate it as a tribute to the bountiful harvest. There are a lot of people who enjoy it more than Christmas which gets lost in a sea of wrapping paper and Amazon deliveries. So in my turkey comatose, I offer up a word of thanks to those who support the show every week; and that ranges to anyone from a listener, to a sponsor, to simply sharing or followin...

Graham Mosimann does evenings at Calgary's alternative X92.9. I hired Graham back in 2014 to work at Power 97 in Winnipeg and decided to call him up and see how he was doing. It has been neat listening to his progress as a performer, and equally amazing watching his personal journey as he drops weight and makes life changes as he goes. As Graham tells me, he was a mess, became a bigger mess after...

Fred Jacobs was a guest on Episode 53 in a preview to the Broadcasters Meet Podcasters sessions at Podcast Movement in 2017. I have always wanted to do an episode where we looked back at the evolution of his company and a tweet on the 35th anniversary of the company's creation reminded me that it's a good time to have that chat. We cover the creation of classic rock, his transition from the WRIF i...

Larry Gifford has Parkinson's. On his Radio Stuff Podcast last April, Larry announced that he had Parkison's Disease. If you get the chance, please give that episode a listen . Larry is known to many through his time at ESPN in Bristol, 710 ESPN in LA, KIRO in Seattle, or from his most recent home at CKNW in Vancouver. We spent our time talking about Corus' foray into the podcast space and how rad...

Jason Barrett celebrated the third anniversary of Barrett Sports Media last week, and we have an annual podcast chat to talk about the state of Sports Radio. After three years of doing anything, you have entrenched yourself into the landscape well enough to speak reflectively, so I asked him about the trials and tribulations of shifting from programming radio to partnering with radio. He blogs, po...

Matt Sutton comes from Australia. There was a time when having people with funny accents was novelty. Then it became common place. With the advent of Youtube, Facebook and people consuming their media globally, it's not a thing anymore. In 2012, I had the delight of bringing Matt to Canada as we launched Fresh-FM in Winnipeg. The best part was bringing him over from Brisbane's B105 and introducing...

James Cridland is a radio futurologist. He will tell you he got that name because he printed it on his business cards, but he does possess a keen eye to where radio is headed. He is the man behind Podnews, a daily e-news letter and companion 2 minute podcast delivered daily. He also heads up the Next Radio Conference which will be taking place in London on September 17. In this episode, James and...