The Sound Off Podcast

If you want to get pointed in the right direction to break into voice acting listen to this episode. Matt Fogarty is a name you may not be familiar with, but if you listen to the radio in western Canada you have probably heard his voiceFogarty is currently the creative director for Island Radio a group of 6 stations located on Vancouver Island. Fogarty says he loves going to work and the creative interaction that happens at his day job in radio.Beyond radio Fogarty says he spends what feels like every other waking moment doing voice over work. Matt Fogarty made the jump from radio voice work a few years ago. In this episode of Sound Off he discusses what it takes to make it in the voiceover industry. Shares a list of tips for those aspiring to break into voice acting and talks about the importance of developing a close network.“It starts with an idea, then you’ve gotta execute on that idea by having an awesome script, Then you’ve gotta have the talent interpret and understand that script, deliver and perform that script. And then you need an amazing producer to put it all together,” says FogartyFogarty markets heavily to radio stations and much of his work comes from imaging where he works closely with Hoss Management. ( https://hossmgmt.com/) “He’s a brilliant marketer himself,” says Fogarty. He also shows love for Eric Romanowski for demos, and some of his favorite voice coaches Nancy Wolfson, Mary Lynn Wisner and Dave Walsh.Fogarty has worked for big name national brands including Subway and Kleenex. In this episode he also explains that clients are looking for talent that comes off as “real” and “natural”.“You’re an actor there’s no doubt about it. You’re not a radio DJ coming down to voice a mattress blowout sales spot black Friday in between breaks. You are conveying a brand message and that brand has probably spent a whole lot of money figuring out their targeting and their demographics and they want to make sure when they hire somebody they’re gonna be able to deliver on all those brand pillars.” He says this can be as simple as adlibbing once in a while or altering the pace of your speech to avoid sounding sing-songy.At this point in the episode Matt Cundill tries to sell Fogarty a mattress.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.

Shannon Burns is a familiar voice across Canadian radio. Her show iHeartRadio Nights with Shannon Burns airs nationally on 14 iHeartRadio stations, and she does evenings on the legendary radio station she grew up listening to, CHUM 104.5FM.On the podcast she talks about her career arc, how to plan a nationally syndicated show and suggests a name for the former Power 107 in Edmonton (Unicorn 107?).Shannon grew up in Burlington Ontario. She says that she has always been mildly obsessed with pop culture and so when it came time to apply for college, radio was the natural choice.A career in media was a choice her mother supported and helped her to achieve. “She is a firm believer in not chasing the dollar and going after what you’re interested in,” says Burns.After her time in college Shannon went out west to hone her radio skills. In 2014 she landed a job in Medicine Hat on Rock 105.3 (Rogers) where she worked as a morning show host and news anchor. In 2015, Shannonn moved to Virgin 104.9 in Edmonton where she worked her way up the ladder from 2015-2018 eventually becoming a midday announcer and assistant music director.Shannon loved her time out west, but she says the goal was always to work her way back to the Toronto market. Today she gets to interview some of the biggest names in music from Shawn Mendes to Katy Perry. “My goal is to make them my friends,” says Burns with a laugh.On the future of radio Shannon is very upbeat. She came into radio at a time when it was fusing with social media, and that the medium of radio allowed producers to become early adopters of social media and digital marketing strategies. The story is ongoing with the content produced in radio being about so much more than what goes out over the airwaves.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.

Darrin Harvey and I met in late 1989 when he was going to fill in on some Christmas shifts on Magic 97 in Kentville, Nova Scotia. From the get go, I knew we would be friends. And while we never lived in the same time zone after I left in 1992, I never lost touch with Darrin. He ascended to mornings, was later fired in the early 2000's, only to return the when region got a new FM in 89.3 K-Rock. Once again, he ascended to mornings and he is the quintessential morning man for the region. Darrin has the playbook for connecting with listeners and yes it involves being involved. In this day and age when the practices are "Move all the small stuff to Facebook and promote it there so we can get another record in", Darrin not only puts it to air but then hosts the event outright.Sometimes the best marketing is just getting really involved.What is success in radio? After speaking to Darrin in this episode, I realized that it's about the number of people you touch, and the number of smiles you leave behind.Darrin made mention of my blog post from a few years ago called "The History of the Death of Radio" which you can feel free to read.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 met Ross Davies briefly on two occasions. Once in Montreal in the 90's and a second time in the 2000's again in Montreal. It was little more than a "Hi! How Are You?' but there was work to be done and the radio stories were going to have to come later. Fast forward to 2018 and we finally got to have that chat. Ross spent a good chunk of his career working for CHUM in the programming, operations and senior management positions. We went back to the beginning where he started his career with Moffatt Communications. He moved to Toronto in 1979 has worked with Standard Radio, Canadian Satellite Radio, Astral Media Radio and (as mentioned) CHUM Ltd. More recently, Ross served as Director of Member Engagement/Radio for Numeris, the leading provider ratings to broadcasters and advertisers. Ross was also part of the executive team at XM Satellite radio that launched Canada’s first satellite radio service in 2005. (The merger with Sirius came much later) We also dug into him co-creating the original Jack/Bob variety hits format with the launch of Bob-FM in Winnipeg in the spring of 2002.Ross is putting together some of the radio panels at Canadian Music Week this year and provided some intel into what we can expect May 20-22 when it all takes place. He also welcomes your feedback so shoot him an e-mail - but only after you listen to what he has shared. (It's towards the end of the podcast by the way)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.

Justin Dove is really good at radio imaging. (He also admits he is an audio nerd) He started in his home province of Newfoundland and worked his way across Canada for companies both big and small. Then he started his own company, Core Image Studios. We may have used the term "radio imaging" to describe his work, but it goes a lot further than that; as Justin calls it Sound design. In this episode I asked him to define it and share some of his secrets in imaging that have landed him some top notch imaging contracts at radio stations like WEEI in Boston and Sirius XM. (We may have provided some examples too)Core Image Studios has been a supporter of the show for the last few years and we had the chance to meet for the first time at Canadian Music Week last May. Justin will be making a few appearances over the next few months including at the Ontario Association of Broadcasters this month, and the Barrett Sports Media summit in New York in February.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.

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 also pulls the 1-3pm shift on air. He spoke to me about his employer, Midwest Communications, the relationships developed with team members, the team, and the formula that has kept the station at number one since 1977.in this episode, we spoke about the difficulty in getting a decent hotel on game days. We solved that problem this year by staying with Kirsten and Gary. 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.

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 headed, and what will radio's role in it be? We tackle a number of the podcast news stories, asking if the RSS Feed is in jeopardy, what radio can do to best invest in podcast, and is iHeart really number one in podcasting? (Depends how you want to count) We also ask to explain the importance of IAB Certification and if Soundcloud is a legitimate podcast host. (Again, it depends how you want to count)Todd is the host of the New Media Show with Rob Greenlee (who appeared on our podcast back in August of 2017), it airs live roughly every Saturday at Noon Eastern - but feel free to catch the podcast version or the video version on your own time.If you are looking for a podcast host with IAB certified metrics and web integration (and Todd explains why that's important in this episode) contact him here.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.

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 became a TV show on radio, in the Bob McCown show. He sees an opportunity for every radio personality to have a digital relationship with Twitch. Once solely a gamers medium, radio personalities like Bubba the Love Sponge, Humble & Fred and The Milkman John Mielke have embraced the platform and build out their brands using Twitch.During the show, mention was made about the blog Fred Jacobs wrote about President Donald Trump using Twitch. You can read that here.We spoke to Don about his early days at Rawlco and Rogers, his move to Sports Radio and later to The Game 95.7 in San Francisco. I got to ask all about sports radio from the program director who succeeded Jason Barrett at that station. (Yes we will be having on a few more Sports Radio PD's over the next few months as the format is at the forefront of digital integration with radio)If you would like to get in touch with Don and know more about using Twitch for your radio station, please contact him here via LinkedIN. 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.

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. When he was let go from CBS, he pushed all-in on Podcasting and he is now the host of a number of podcasts beyond the two aforementioned ones.As a result, he has also become a published author with his Campfire series. The first book was originally published by traditional publisher New Page Books, and since then Jim has taken the books independent. All five books are available in eBook and paperback at JimHaroldBooks.com and via Amazon.com.Jim lives in Ohio with his fantastic wife and two daughters and I had the pleasure of meeting him at Podcast Movement last August.We did the show using Squadcast instead of Skype. If you liked the sound quality, let me know. I might actually open my pockets and spring for it.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.

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 country - but Sean understands the Canadian intricacies of music radio, and continues to schedule music in a few markets.In this episode, you'll hear about Top 40's highs and lows through the decades, the early days of Alternative when it was going mainstream, Rock radio's fragmentation and Sean also provides some tips on some of the planet's great radio stations you can listen to right now!(I've put a full list of all the stations on the episode show page which you can connect to here.And definitely sign up for Sean's Newsletter "Ross on Radio". 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.