Zenga McCurdy called me back in May of 2018 and asked for some feedback on his morning radio show. Since then I have made a point of listening to the show every once and a while to hear the progress. I meant to grab a beer with him in Toronto last year but we only had enough time for a "Hi, How are you?" and then we were off to whatever we were off to. I am very pleased that I got to have this conversation with him about his Kitchener/Waterloo upbringing where he confesses he wasn't always on the right side of an issue. He explains why he chose radio and how in his first job in rural B.C., he faced down racist slurs and marched onward with the support of his parents who have always been there for him.Today, Zenga is the morning host on Kiss 100.5 along with Casey. Sault St. Marie may be one of those Great Lakes towns where the hockey players will always be a little more famous than the media personalities. I totally blanked that Wayne Gretzky played his junior hockey there for one season before he went to the Indianapolis Racers and then the Oilers.There's more about this episode on our show page!Thanks also to the people who make this show possible every week including:PromosuiteMatt Fogarty VoiceoversJustin Dove at Core Image StudiosMegatraxNLogicSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Jon Gay has a radio story that is probably not unlike yours if you have worked on the programming side of radio. It involves a little bit of the WKRP theme song, "Town to Town. Up and Down the dial...". Jon's radio career started with an internship at Kiss 108 in his hometown Boston. His stint at Syracuse University got him even closer to his dream on being a top radio personality. His tenure in Vermont, Detroit, and New Orleans all ended with radio cutbacks - which later became known as "restructuring and what is now affectionately known today as "dislocation".In this episode, we talked about those struggles and how Jon rebounded by starting Jag In Detroit Podcasting which creates branded podcasts for companies. Admittedly, we spent a fair amount of time on Vermont radio because I am very familiar with that radio market and travel through the area often. (I first heard Jon on WXXX (95 Triple X) all those years ago.I promised you a few links in the show notes including:Jon's attempt at a phone detox while on a cruise. Jon's powerful social media piece he circulates annually about losing his best friend Bill Leaf to a drunk driver. There's more about this episode on our show page!Thanks also to the people who make this show possible every week including:PromosuiteMatt Fogarty VoiceoversJustin Dove at Core Image StudiosMegatraxNLogicSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

David Phillips from NLogic is an admitted nerd when it comes to data. He really loves it. Something he is very good at is deciphering how data should be applied to your brand, your radio stations, your strategies, and your ad sales. However, one thing you should definitely not have is a data strategy. He speaks about numbers having blind spots and becoming too attached to the data we love and not challenging it enough. A couple of times a year, I'll get together with David and we will catch up on anything and everything as it relates to the numbers broadcasters come into contact with.Here is our YouTube discussion from last year. And by the way, please subscribe to the channel when you are there.NLogic has been a supporter of the show since 2016 and many Canadian listeners to the show will know NLogic as the distributor of their radio sales software. Even if you are listening to this from outside of Canada, David will give you a perspective on how too much data could be overload for what you are trying to accomplish as a brand. The accent by the way is English - and David appeared on the podcast back in 2017 where we talked about... wait for it. Data. There's more about this episode on our show page!Thanks also to the people who make this show possible every week including:PromosuiteMatt Fogarty VoiceoversJustin Dove at Core Image StudiosMegatraxNLogicSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We invited Seth Resler back to the podcast after he penned a blog called, "Is There Life After Radio?" Many of the episodes in this series feature a moment when someone was fired and tell the story of their radio afterlife. The podcast itself was born out of my firing in 2014, the subsequent quest for work in 2015, before landing on podcast in early 2016 and never looking back. Today I have a voiceover business and a podcast company that helps people, businesses and brands build through podcast. The path to it resembles a lot about what Seth wrote about in his blog, including many attempts to swing for the fences, having a resume chalk full of call letters, undervaluing myself and playing "on tilt" as Seth describes it.In this episode, Seth and I share a few of the things we learned about being in between jobs as radio program directors. For the last few weeks, Seth has been putting together a directory that displaced radio people can use to reconnect to the industry. You can enter your listing here for free.We also have more episodes you might enjoy about this topic, listed on our episode page.There's more about this episode on our show page!Thanks also to the people who make this show possible every week including:PromosuiteMatt Fogarty VoiceoversJustin Dove at Core Image StudiosMegatraxNLogicSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Lori Lewis is back on our show for the third time? Why so often? Because the world of social media moves that quickly. The last time we had Lori on the show, Instagram Stories was just starting to become a thing and Tik Tok wasn't even a thing. In fact - you might have still been involved with your SnapChat account and over-posting by today's standards on Facebook. Lori is now out on her own working with radio groups and teaching them all about the ways to engage their listeners on social media, and get the sales team selling their digital assets. Lori Lewis Media launched recently, but that doesn't mean she will stop doing some of the other things you might know her for, including being the Chair of the Conclave Summer Radio Learning Conference (which you should go to), and her column in AllAccess.com, Merge.In this episode, Lori and I talked about how many in radio are Introverted Extroverts, and cited an article from 2018; I believe this is it. We also talked about the importance of keeping your passport up-to-date and about how the Internet minute Graphic became so popular. You can see a copy of that graphic on our blog page.Please use social media to SHARE this episode far and wide.There's more about this episode on our show page!Thanks also to the people who make this show possible every week including:PromosuiteMatt Fogarty VoiceoversJustin Dove at Core Image StudiosMegatraxNLogicSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

There's a reason why Christian Hall thinks differently. He has to. He is the National Program Director for Harvard Broadcasting which is a radio company first. He oversees multiple alternative stations; a format which doesn't even exist a number of top ten markets in Canada, and he believes that talent development is about airchecks, and feedback. (We went into large detail in our first episode with him which you can find here) This time around we spoke about the rise of alternative radio in both Edmonton and Calgary, he also summarized the legal case involving Corus v. Harvard revolving around the use of the name Power 107. (The station has since relaunched as Play 107 in Edmonton) We also discussed the new continuous measurement system for diary markets, and what is on the line if the CRTC moves ahead on a review of the radio regs.We also talked about X929's new marketing campaign, which I found out has been adopted across the company. Have a look at the video and see it for yourself. It's clear that the radio is not the only way to enjoy the station. Christian recalls James Cridland's presentation at Canadian Music Week last year, that spurned more than one good idea he took home to Calgary.By the way - our discussion with James Cridland is right here and it's a good one. There's more about this episode on our show page!Thanks also to the people who make this show possible every week including:PromosuiteMatt Fogarty VoiceoversJustin Dove at Core Image StudiosMegatraxNLogicSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

It's been 2 years since we have caught up with Perry Michael Simon from AllAccess.com on this podcast. He has a pretty good idea of what is going on in the radio and podcast business given that he writes about it weekly, provides talk topics on a twitter account, and attends a dozen radio and radio-related conferences annually. If you get a chance, follow his twitter account just for the joy in hearing about all the goings on at these conferences.He is also the host on the Evening Bulletin podcast; a two minute pieces of news and subject commentary - named after the long departed Philadelphia newspaper. (RIP 1847-1982)In this episode, we talk about how little has changed about radio, while everything around radio has changed. We also wonder what the next breakout hit is going to be for both radio and podcast. After all, it has been 18 years since classic hits appeared on the scene, and 4 since Serial become a podcast phenomenon. What's next? We aren't sure - but Perry has some ideas of what needs to happen.There's more about this episode on our show page!Thanks also to the people who make this show possible every week including:PromosuiteMatt Fogarty VoiceoversJustin Dove at Core Image StudiosMegatraxNLogicSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Happy New Year from Matt at the Soundoff Podcast.If you want to have a chat with Matt - just click here and set up a time.Top 5 Podcast Episodes this year:Tom LeykisTerry O'ReillyCorey DylanDean BlundellLisa KeysBring on 2020!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Terry Dimonte loves Christmas, and I love doing a podcast with him to discuss... whatever. Sometimes we talk about radio, and other times it's just life. This year it was a lot of the latter. So many of the things we spoke about can be found on the blog page which is located at Sound Off Podcast dot com.We talked about Terry's move to Griffintown in Montreal which was a big mistake. This led to conversations about the poor designs of all cities including Montreal and Winnipeg. And we shifted our attention to politics and talked about the recent Canadian election and then it all devolved into how i believe people are troubled. Special thanks to my son Andrew who came on the show for a few minutes. We used the audio without his permission but this will ensure that his college fund stays afloat.At this point, I would like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas, including our producer Evan Surminski who puts these thing together every week. Also to Rick Clement who has been interning on the show for the last 5 weeks.There's more about this episode on our show page!Thanks also to the people who make this show possible every week including:PromosuiteMatt Fogarty VoiceoversJustin Dove at Core Image StudiosMegatraxNLogicSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

I'm reminded every time I travel through Tampa on my way to Sarasota, how busy the radio market is. Equally busy is the number of sports teams that compete for media attention. By my count there are the NFL Buccaneers, NHL Lightning, Major League Baseball Rays, and plenty of college football needing attention from the Gators, Seminoles and University of South Florida Bulls. That's a lot to program and keep track of. John Mamola is the program director of Sports Radio 95.7 WDAE in the Tampa-St. Petersburg area, and shared his thoughts on the audience and how he can best disperse the overload of sports in the area.Add to that, many in the audience and in the stands are displaced northerners, (like himself) who come with pre-determined team allegiances that aren't local. In this episode, you'll find out why the NHL Lightning do so much better than that other team in Florida, the Panthers, what his thoughts are on the futures of Jameis Winston and the Tampa Bay Rays. We also chatted about working within the confines of carrying National radio shows like The Herd with Colin Cowherd and The Dan Patrick Radio Show,John is a great Twitter Follow ... so follow him. There's more about this episode on our show page!Thanks also to the people who make this show possible every week including:PromosuiteMatt Fogarty VoiceoversJustin Dove at Core Image StudiosMegatraxNLogicSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.