Table of Contents

• Latest News

• My three big take Radiodays take aways: 

  • Stop Doing This!

  • Best Thing I Heard This Week

  • But Wait, There's More!

• Media & Marketing Maven for Hire!

Lastest News: Radiodays North America Redux

A few days in Toronto seeing old friends is never a bad thing. Canadian Music Week has always been about music first, radio second and now podcast third. This was year one of the Podcast Power Up, a one day event the day before the official kick off to Radiodays North America and the official Canadian Music Week festivities. Jeff Vidler did an amazing job getting podcast pioneers like Eric Nuzum and Laura Mayer to share their podcast wizardry. It was great catching up with James Cridland from Podnews. (pictured) If you are into podcasting, sign up for his free newsletter, or be overly enthusiastic and add or ask for it on your smart speaker.

My three big take Radiodays take aways: 

(1) (Assuming you are in it to make $$) Podcasts in Canada needs to be monetized using as many toys in the box and more. Direct Ads, Vast Ads, Programmatic Ads, Patreon, Buy Me A Coffee, Affiliate Marketing… whatever it takes. The number of podcasters in the room that had more than 2500 downloads per episode after thirty days was 3. So Canada – most of the monetization solutions built for you – do not apply. I suggest you create your own in house strategy and go from there.

(2) Canadian Radio Regulation remains a mess. Why is it that Josie Dye does a content driven show on CHUM and it counts zero, yet she crosses the hall to appear on television to dispel the same content and it counts as a Cancon credit? Cancon on radio has not been updated since Napster changed everything. (That was 1999 for those scoring at home)

(3) Radio remains in good hands with the talent on the air, despite the financial issues we hear from inside radio stations. Next time you get a chance, give the Radioplayer Canada or iHeartRadio App a listen and check out a radio show from across North America. I’ll share some of my favourites in a future Sounding Off.

While I am here, thank you Josie Fenech for giving the Sound Off Podcast a shoutout in her session with Craig Bruce. It is very much appreciated.

STOP DOING THIS!

This one from my buddy Jag in Detroit. He is continuously irritated from podcasters who ask for a rating and a review BEFORE THE SHOW EVEN STARTS. Perhaps you should be focused on creating a show people will enjoy to the end BEFORE you ask for a review. Also to all y’all who say that “Ratings and Reviews help people discover the show.” That’s not true. Thought you should know.

Best Thing I Heard This Week…

1994: It was the year I left for Edmonton to work at 100.3 the Bear. I would be doing the Rock Report at 6pm with Jeff Woods. This week on Jeff’s podcast - he went back to 1994 and it conjured up a lot of musical memories that we experienced together. Often we would listen to these songs in music meetings or with record industry folk. A fun listen no matter how you experienced 1994 musically.

Later today, The Podcast Superfriends share their AI

I mentioned Jag in Detroit (Jon Gay up above. Later today join us along with Johnny Podcasts, Catherine O’Brien and David Yas as we get together to talk about some of the great AI short cuts we have discovered over the last year. We will be live on our YouTube Channel and Facebook Channels at 5pm Eastern. Fix your own drink and feel free to chime in on the comments.

Media & Marketing Maven for Hire!

Yes we keep posting about this gal, but her work supersedes it all! See for yourself here on her portfolio site & her company site here!