Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Jeff Vidler: Toronto Mike'd Podcast Episode 1871

Episode Date: March 30, 2026

In this 1871st episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with Jeff Vidler about his career in radio and his transition into an insight-driven market researcher focused on both radio and podcasting. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, Nick Ainis, and RecycleMyElectronics.ca. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail].

Hi, Jeff Fiddler. I'm a retired guy who used to work a lot in radio and podcasting and research for radio and podcasting and excited to be part of the Toronto Mike show. You keep going. No, Jeff, listen, I thought you were done. I got a sense you were winding down there, but I don't want to interrupt your cold open. I could have taken off the whole show. Keep going. And then when you touch your nose, I'm going to hit that theme. Keep going. No, I'm good. You're done. Yeah, I'm good. Okay. We'll get into it. I had a hair trigger there. I'm like, oh, about to hit that theme.

Welcome to episode 1,871 of Toronto-Miked. An award-winning podcast, proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery. Order online at greatlakesbear.com for free local home delivery in the GTA. Palma Pasta. Enjoy the taste of fresh, homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. Visit palmapasta.com for more. Fusion Corpso Nick Aienis. He's the host of Building Toronto Skyline and Mike and Nick, two podcasts that you ought to listen to.

Recycle My Electronics.ca. Committing to our planet's future means properly recycling. cycling or electronics of the past. And Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of the community since 1921. Joining me today, making his Toronto mic debut. It is indeed, Jeff Vidler. Glad to be here.

Nice to meet you, Jeff. Thanks for having me. Everyone says that on a podcast. Thanks for having me. I never know exactly that means. Thanks for the invitation, though. I'm honored and flattered and all of that. Well, thanks for having you.

because I'm having you to a point where I literally got some fresh craft beer delivered to my home so that I could give it to you, Jeff, for making the trek. Wonderful. So I hope you enjoy fresh craft beer. And I just want to let the listenership know right off the top that the Sunnyside Session IPA is now available. This is a seasonal beverage, my summer drink of choice. So it's exciting that Sunnyside Day is now in the rearview mirror, which means you can pick up your Sunnyside session IPA, Jeff.

Looking forward to doing by-bang. Thank you very much. And because I'm giving you the gifts off the top, which I never do, Jeff. I think I'm trying to do everything differently just to hear how you'll critique my work here. But I also had delivered a large frozen lasagna from palma pasta. So you're going home with some lasagna as well. Wonderful. Wonderful.

And I love the way you say pasta. How do you say it? Well, a lot of, my wife keeps getting, she's American. And she's from California. So she says pasta. But I say pasta. I'm from Winnipeg. And Flatlanders kind of talk that way a bit, right?

I think the Canadian preference is pasta. I have told the story before, but I used to watch these commercials on TV for Mother's Pizzeria. Do you remember Mothers? Don't remember Mothers, no. So Mothers, there was ownership for a while. Some Toronto Blue Jays had an ownership stake in Mothers, actually. But it was my favorite restaurant to go to,

Mother's Pizza. and Dennis Weaver would do ads for them, and he would say this line, pizza pasta made perfect. So for whatever reason, I decided I was going to say pasta, not pasta, and here we are. Very good. Very good. In fact, one thing I noticed is Mazda in the States is Mazda in Canada. And you actually hear the ads. And the ads reflect that. If you hear a radio ad in the U.S. for Mazda, it's Mazda.

If it's in Canada, it's Mazda. So. And I drove a Mazda protege for 21 years, Jeff. There you go. So you would know. And I never said Mazda once. It was always mad. It's interesting.

Yeah, I say pasta, but not Mazda. Oh my goodness. And how do the Americans, how would your wife say the word foyer? Foyer? Yeah. Yeah, foyer. That one always amuses me.

She's been in Canada for 40 years, so she kind of gets how we speak up here. We like foyer. Okay, so I want to drop a couple of names on you and then talk. about what I watched yesterday and then we're going to get to know you and talk about. I know you said you're retired now, but can you really retire, Jeff? We're going to find out.

But John Paul, this gentleman is an FOTM. That means friend of Toronto Mike. You're now an FOTM, Jeff, it. Oh, thank you very much. Now, John Paul is the guy who he said, Mike, you should know Jeff and you guys should have a conversation. And I, you know, I have such respect and admiration for John Paul. I said, and John gets this show.

He listens to Toronto mic, and I said, if John thinks Jeff should be in the basement, I'm going to extend that invitation and see if Jeff will do me the honor and the privilege. And here you are. So thank you to John Paul for introducing us. Well, thank you, John. Great to connect us all.

So how do you know John? I know John from the, I mean, from the radio industry. He's been really an innovator in the industry. He has 28, I think, radio stations in Ontario, small market radio stations. where radio still really is super relevant because it is the local media. I mean, there isn't a lot of competition there, and if you do it right, if you've got boots on the street, you can make it happen.

But also, John is one of the members of the advisory council at Hummer College for their radio and audio program, and I'm on the same committee as he is, and we're in the process of trying to get them to resuscitate, revitalize the radio audio program, which, you know, has been suspended for the moment because of funding issues, but we have some ideas of how they could make that program revive it. I mean, it was and has been, I mean, the amount of broadcasters have gone through that program

who are in Toronto Radio or across Canada is unbelievable. And when I first started working on that council, I mean, committee, I've been on it for the better part of the last 30 years. They used to get like 800 applicants a year and then whittle it down to maybe 80 who would be accepted. Wow. Last few years, it had gone down to 35 applicants and they had to pretty much take them all. And then you had the issue in fewer international students, funding issues as well. So they had to make the call to suspend the program. And we're hoping that we can get it back again by shifting the focus from a radio program to an audio program, which includes radio and podcasts.

And, you know, and a whole bunch of other things. Well, yeah. You could expand the focus. So you can, you know, continue. That program could continue to talk about traditional radio production, but you could throw in podcasting and digital content and really modernize it. And it's all blurry now, right? All those lines are, you know, video is on podcast. and, you know, and, you know, creators, really, you're a creator.

You're doing a blog. I'm creating something, Jeff. That's for sure. And then you did podcasts, and now that was podcasts. You've got video on them as well. I mean, you know, and that's just the nature of the industry. And there is a large group of potential students who would love to be Toronto Mike. And, you know, want to figure out.

Is that true, Jeff? Don't bury that lead there. Who are these people? Who are these people? I need to talk to them. I will say, I hope all of those people. people who want to be Toronto Mike, I hope they all buy a ticket or two to see me at the Elma combo on May 21st, Jeff.

I want every one of them to know if they go to Toronto Mike.com right now and click Elmo gig at the top. They can buy a ticket right there online and I won't be performing in front of an empty room at the Elmo. We'll have a bunch of people who want to be me. Sounds exciting. It's exciting that these people exist. I've been listening and you've been talking about this for all and you're going to be there

and you've never done stand-up. Oh, never, no. But what are you doing for the hour that you're there? You've got, you know. Well, it's going to be more than an hour. And I am crafting, it's kind of a one-man show. Like, because I'm coming at it with no template, like no rules, no template. Like, I was literally told, okay, your headline in the Elmo, you can make this whatever

you want. But I feel this freedom to craft it kind of very uniquely me, but it's not the podcast, but it is me. And it's going to be very authentic. and it's going to be some of it will be funny, some of it will be serious, and there will be some musical elements to it, and it's going to be,

I think it's going to end up being about 90 minutes. Audience participation as well. You get people involved. Without a doubt, there will be improv based on whose face I see in the crowd. Like, without a doubt, I'm going to have a, there's going to be a part of that. So, I mean, we're all going to find out together, but I don't plan to ever do this again, Jeff.

Sounds great. So. be there. I'm excited if there's people who want to be me, but back to Humber Radio, and then we're going to get back to John Poole. So they basically, you're telling me, and I got a heads up on this, but they suspended the Humber radio program, and I'll tell you, Jeff, that I've had so

many radio people on this program, radio professionals who talk about, you know, going to Humber College and going through that program. Like you mentioned, there's so many. But even in this basement here, how many stories have I heard from people talking about the Humber radio program? Like, so it's wild to

me it's been suspended. So how long has it been suspended for? When did this happen? There's still, I think this is the final year of the program as it exists. They're not taking any, no new joiners, not taking any applications at this point for next year. But it's not dead. It's suspended. The idea is can we find a way to bring it back? So as the committee, as a group, we got together and said, well, we need to show how much interest there is in the program and how successful it's been, a bit about its legacy. And, and also, the, the support that's there for it. So we got, you know, in fact, Mike, you were one of the, those who offered your support for our plans. And again, just roughed out plans. Obviously,

it's up to the college to figure it out. But we sent that to the VP of academics and copied the dean. And, you know, we got a nice letter back. And, you know, there's nothing that we can do right now, but they will want to talk to us as time goes on. And I think you're on the right track, you know, right you can call it what you want, but it should be like audio production. Like, the fact is, there's, there's many ways to make a living producing audio that may not end up on our terrestrial radio waves. And, and Humber has other media there so that, you know, if you want to be a creator and you want to understand how the video works as well as the audio and journalism as well as part of,

like all of that can be cross-pollinated into that one program that has that focus of being audio. I have memories of riding my bike to the North Casino, the South Campus, which is not where the radio program was, but the South Campus is a very short walk from here. So that's where you can go there. And I have spoke there as well. But I remember I have distinct memories of riding my bike to the, I guess it's near Woodbine Racetrack,

the Humber College campus, and presenting on podcasting to students. Like this is memories I have in my bank here. So I have, you know, presented podcasting stuff to this audience in the past. Just a memory that returned to me there. Yeah, and I actually taught one semester radio programming there. This would be 2017, 2018.

And also talked a lot about podcasting there as well, but as well as giving them the insight on how radio is programmed and have helped them develop some critical thinking around what they hear in the radio and understand why things are programmed the way they are programmed. So before we leave Humber Radio program, and I wish you in the committee well with this, but you did tell me via email. I'll just read what you wrote me via email. Just two weeks ago, now this is not two weeks ago anymore because you wrote this weeks ago,

but just two weeks ago, the Ontario government opened the door by increasing funds for post-secondary education. The industry needs the program, so do students looking to launch a career in the evolving media landscape. So there may be, it's possible that this funding from our provincial government may help to keep this program alive. Hoping that might be an opportunity, a little window of opportunity there for sure. Okay, back to John Paul for a moment. And then there's another name I'm going to drop on you, an old friend from your past, I think, who I had the pleasure of hanging with just last week in Kensington Market. So John Paul has bought up all these small market radio stations.

So my question to you is because I think, that's really important, especially for smaller markets. But to me, the differentiator is, Jeff, is that like it's live and local content. Like you have somebody in the community speaking live on those airwaves. So my worry is that you, you know, how many small markets in this country right now wake up to Raz and Moka? It's a great point. It does happen in a few markets. I don't know about Raza Moka specifically.

I know that they were on the air. them because I just saw this movie, which I'll tell you about in a minute, but Ross and Mokar are in this movie, and it might be the greatest Toronto movie I've ever seen. Former Hummer Grads, as a matter of fact. There you go. And they have a laneway named after Rawes in Acton, Ontario. There you go. So I didn't know that.

These are FOSMs. Keep going. I mean, there's kind of a weird thing going on with Canadian radio. And it really comes down to economics of the situation. You know, two of the biggest broadcasters, radio broadcasters in Canada, are Bell Media and Rogers. And Bell Media and Rogers are businesses and they're run like businesses, but they have a lot of other interests. A lot of places where they can invest their money and get a good return. And, you know, putting fiber optic into some new town or some new block instead of hiring that morning show in Sudbury, Ontario.

It's for them, making business decisions, it's tough for them, to make small market radio work. They can make it work in Toronto where there's a big enough audience that it generates revenue and they can justify spending good money on talent and putting boots on the ground in these markets. But it's very tough in those small markets

for Bell and Rogers just because they're run by accountants. I mean, and you've got to give them credit. That's what they do. They figure out where they're doing this money. They're counting beans, you're telling me. They're counting beans and they're counting as many beans as they can. And they like lots of beans.

And they like lots of beans. Even though they have a lot of beans. Even though they have a lot of beans and they could easily afford a live morning show in Sudbury, they just like to see the pile of beans pile up. Because they have to look at the cost-benefit analysis, right? And it just doesn't happen in those markets. So that's one of the opportunities that small market broadcasters have, like a John Pohl, is that, well, no, I'm okay making this much money in this market,

and I can do it in this market as well. And I just have to have a couple of people there selling the radio station and putting the radio station on the air and making it happen. Right, now you did pick on, and I think that was appropriate to pick on Bell and Rogers there, but it is worth noting you could throw chorus in that pile easily because what's the big, okay, edge 102, which I understand is actually 102.1 the edge, but I guess for a week or two when I was listening to the station, a hundred years ago, they called themselves Edge 102 and it imprinted in my brain. And I can never remember they actually go by 102.1 the edge.

But regardless, the afternoon drive on this show, they just let a young woman go. Her name is M.K. Bauer. They let her go and replaced her with somebody who's on multiple stations out of Vancouver. Like that's afternoon drive on a big chorus radio station in the biggest market in the country. Of course, has their own budgeting issues.

They're not a telco. It's not quite like Bell Rogers. No, they're not selling you cable. That's right. And they aren't making that kind of decision. Okay, let's spend money here instead of spending. money there. They just don't have money. They just don't have the money. That's right. When Shaw sold chorus, they took all the good stuff, which was the stuff that was the teleco stuff that

they ended up selling to Rogers and made a fortune on it, but they kind of hibed off chorus and knowing that it was broadcasting on its own and it would have to make its own way on its own two legs. And it was tough. And it's been tough. It's tough market. It's funny talking to you is that I'm going to be Mr. Tangent here because everything you say makes me think of something else. I want to talk about, but I will take a mental note to always come back to where it was. But maybe I won't. And then later you guys can all write me a note to say, hey, Mike, you never did come back to that thing. But chorus, since you mentioned chorus and their financial difficulties, are they simply right now just trying to find a buyer? Like, is that, does that work? I mean, I'm

wondering your thoughts on this as a guy who watches this industry pretty closely. Like, is that their goal right now is to find a buyer? Yeah, I mean, I really don't have insight into exactly what their future plans are, but I would think that there's really not much else they can do, sell it off to small broadcasters or people who are going to be able to make it work on a market-by-market basis. But it's going to be a challenge.

Like, is there a few, I mean, you don't have a crystal ball, so I'm asking you for your, like, your guess here, speculation, I suppose. Lauren Honickman says we need to say this is peer speculation. So, Lauren, I'll do that, okay? Stop bothering me, please. Thank you. But is there a future where Chorus continues to own all these radio stations and becomes profitable again?

Like is that a future for Chorus possibly? I can't answer that because I don't, I'm not close enough to Chorus on what they're doing and what their opportunities are. But it looks, from outside, it looks challenging. Yeah, wow. Okay. So John Pohl, back to John Pohl here. So when he, he buys up all these stations, these local stations,

I think the big differentiators, like he's as long as, because I just remember a story, Humble and Fred's podcast. And they keep telling me a story about how they were going to be on a station or something for John Paul's station. But instead, I can't remember the details exactly, except John Paul decided to bring in like Bubba the Love Sponge or some kind of syndicated show from the States or something because it was cheaper or whatever. And Fred's still going off on this. And I just want to make sure John Paul, who I know is listening, knows that live and local is what we need for local radio. Yeah, but it is hard in the small market to have every hour being live and local.

Well, maybe we'll just daytime hours. How about that? We'll find a compromise there. Okay. I threaten to drop another name on you who is very excited. You're here, Jeff. And this is a man. Again, I bumped into him at the book launch for Cam Gordon's track changes.

I had a five-minute speech. I was warming up for my Elma combo gig, and I did five minutes there. Gilles LeBlanc. Do you know the name? And I'm making it as French as I can here, but do you know the name, Gilles LeBlanc? I do know Jéle Blanc. How do you know Jé LeBlanc?

Jeanne worked at Toronto Star, and he worked in the research department, and that's, you know, and my career in radio and audio has been mostly on research, certainly in the last 30 years. And so he was a client. And a cool guy. A big, big music fan shared a lot of interest in. Big white stripes guy. Yeah, well, big into a lot of bands and things, yeah.

I think he's been pitching me on a white stripes deep dive. like forever, but my, I'm not interested. Not that I love the white stripes passionately, but to me, get me Jack White and then we'll do it. Or I'll take Meg White, of course. I'll take either white. But they're not a, there's no, I need a Canadian connection. Like, I'll do a guess who deep dive, even if I don't have one of the founders.

But I just don't want to do an American band. Like to me, there needs to be that Toronto or at least a Canadian connection before I'll do that. That makes sense. You are Mr. Toronto. That's just how I feel. And that's what this podcast is. It's about Toronto music and media, right? And all the people who worked in it and for all the people who worked in it are interested in it.

But I will say, Jill LeBlanc pitched me on a Queens of the Stone Age deep dive, another one of his favorite bands. And I said to Jill, I said the straight up, I said, okay, but I want Josh Hamee on that episode. And I believe Jill went off to try to get Josh Homi. So there's a greater than zero percent chance that there will be a Queens of the Stone Age episode with Josh Homi with Jill and I kind of co-hosting together. I think that would be rad. Yeah, you have to have Jill on. I mean, Jill would be fun on his own. I mean, you know, regardless of who he's been on.

Yeah, oh, he has. Multiple times. Multiple times. And Jill, I guess I don't want to make you look over your shoulder, but there's a, on the wall, he's getting on the wall. So there was a cover story in the Toronto Star, a couple of pages. I remember that. And I believe the author of that wonderful article in the Toronto Star for my 1,000th episode,

Hey, Jill, are we going to do something for the 2000th episode? Let me know. But I do believe that. that it was Gilles Blanc. Full marks for networking, like. That's wonderful. Even the guy who had to approve it, whose name is Broad, B-R-O-D,

Doug Broad. I've even had him over, so I'm greasing all the right wheels here so that we can do a big 2000th episode splash. Did they get beer as well? Well, good, good. Well, listen, if you put me in the front page of the star, you know what?

We'll get you some great legs beer. That's how it works. But I got to read the Gilles-L-Blanc email, and then we're going to get into it. But I don't, don't know if I can tune in live, but please say hi to my old research friend, Jeff Bidler. At least I hope he remembers me. You did remember him.

Of course. Of course. Yeah. If you can, tell him Jim retired and I took over for him at the Star. I knew that. Yeah. Who's Jim? Jim Fehey was been the head of the research at Toronto Star for the last, I'm going to say 20 years, 25 years maybe even.

but he's another guy who's, you know, time to hang it up. And he did that. He and I had lunch, actually, just before Christmas. It was his retirement lunch that he and I had, so he had a chance to catch up. But he let me know that Jill was the man in the chair now. Wow. Look at this. Maybe Jill will be able to approve that 2000th episode spread all on his own.

Who knows what's going on here. Okay. So before we get back to radio podcasting, Jeff, and find out, what you were up to before you retired. Did you watch any of the Juno Awards yesterday? No, I didn't. Okay, so then this will be a little more me, unless you, but I just want to say a couple of things.

One thing I want to say is that, as I've been saying on this program since January, I've been telling listeners of this program, Rush is playing the Juno's. And it wasn't publicized anywhere, and I was kind of surprised because I kept saying it. But anyway, it happens. So Rush opened the show yesterday, and I'm taking credit for calling that shot. I didn't know that at all. I heard about Nelly for Tats. I heard about Johnny Mitchell.

And it really seemed like they were kind of bringing the stars out. And Rush certainly would qualify as being a star. No, I mean, I don't know how big a Rush fan you are, Jeff. Are you a Rush fan? I'm not a huge Rush fan, no. No, see, I would call myself a casual Rush fan in that, I know all the big jams that you hear on Q107 or whatever. Like, I know all the big songs, and I like most of them.

And I root for the band, and I kind of cover them here because Bob Roper, Do you know the name Bob Rober? Yeah, of course. He's only, apparently he's only ever done one podcast in his life. And that's Toronto Mike? And that's Toronto Mike. Very good.

But we got, Bob Roper is the A&R guy who sent to a woman named Donna Halper, who's also an FOTM, who is working in Cleveland at a big station, rock station in Cleveland. So Bob Roper sends Donna the very first Rush album, which doesn't even have Neil Peer in the band yet. Like, it's a different drummer.

And Donna listened. and here's a song she thinks that the Cleveland audience will enjoy. It's called Working Man, and Donna starts playing Working Man, and all this documented to the heck on Toronto Mike. But this breaks rush in the USA because they become a big deal in Cleveland, thanks to Donna Halper getting Working Man on the playlist in Cleveland. So all of this, what surprised me, long way to say it, what surprised me was the song selection,

which kind of makes sense, I suppose, and Rush heads will tell me why. But all the songs I know by Rush, the one they played at the Juniors yesterday is not one of them. I actually did not know the song, because apparently it's from that first album, but it's not working, man. And it maybe makes sense in some regard

because Neil Peart did not play on that song, because it was the album before he joined. And Neil Peart, of course, is no longer with us, and there's a new drummer. But I was just surprised that we didn't get one of those Rush songs that everybody knows. It's a mild surprise by yours truly, which song they played.

I have incredible admiration and respect for Rush. I'm not a fan myself of the music, but I love what they've done in terms of what they've achieved and also their heart. I mean, Gettys, a big, speaking of Toronto, big Toronto Blue Jays fans, where is that loud and proud? Right.

And I think you're right. I think that they, out of respect for Neil. They said, you know, we're not going to go and try, and out of respect for the drummers replace them. And we're not going to... Although they're going on tour and they'll be playing all those hits on tour. But they didn't want to do it for the Juno's, right?

Right, right. So in that sense, you're right. It makes sense in that regard. They're absolutely right. But I will say, so I watched this Juno's and I enjoyed that I was right because Rush opens up the show. Then there was what I thought was a pretty damn amazing, like vibe coming out of this guy, Daniel Caesar. And it was tremendous. And then you get to see great bands. I like the beaches.

And then you mentioned the tribute to Nelly Fertado. And there was this pretty cool speech by Dr. but he added in this just this like a slice of bitterness because he's doing this lovely tribute it was really lovely tribute to Nelly Fertato and this is Drake, you know, big deal but he does point out the fact that he

has been kind of boycotting the Juno's since he hosted and lost all the awards to FOTM Shad so I just thought it was amusing for me to hear Drake kind of nail it but make sure he's A little slice of that speech was going to be like a little bitter snark that he's going to throw that way. And then later, you know, we closed with this Joni Mitchell tribute and our prime minister introduced her. And then like a great performance, great tribute at the end.

And she, you know, kind of closed the show by singing some of a big yellow taxi. But I got to say, I thought it was like, it was really felt very good vibes up there, great show. and I've got to say I'm a big fan of the June awards. That's all. Yeah. Yeah, and I thought it was actually great to have Joni there. And, you know, because there's always been that little bit of a divide. And actually, maybe this is where a bit of the Drake stuff comes from,

those Canadian artists who have made it big in the U.S. is kind of not somehow not welcome the same way into the Canadian music community as those homegrown Canadian artists who stayed in Canada and performed in Canada and built their base in Canada. And it shouldn't be that way. Yeah, no, good points. And it is worth mention that the, guys from Rush, the two surviving members, are both, they both still live here, which I find

pretty cool. Nellie Furtado made sure to tell us that she still lives here. But it is cool that we still have some, you know, Canadian musicians, great Canadian musicians who live in Canada. And yeah, and, and, but, and some of those, Johnny mentioned Neil Young, Leonard Cohen, another one who, I mean, their music still was very much about Canada. They, you know, they reference Canada, even though they went to make their money somewhere else. It wasn't that, they sort of remove themselves from Canadian culture. Last current event piece, and we're going to get into it, Jeff, I promise. Long way to, long intro here.

But on the weekend, I watched the movie, Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie. And I absolutely loved it. It is the, you know, I've seen some pretty Canadian, sort of pretty Toronto movies. There's a lot of movies that are very Toronto, like going down the road from Donald Shabib. And, yeah, it was a very Toronto movie. movie. Also, who's the Michael Cira movie? Why am I blanking on it?

This is quite the name here. Hold on here because brain is not functioning here. We're going to get this. It's been in a couple. Yeah, this is Scott Pilgrim versus the world. And I couldn't come up with the name Scott Pilgrim right now, even though I've seen that movie probably 20 times. But Scott Pilgrim versus the world is a great

movie that's very Toronto. And I love it. love that film so much. But this movie, Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie, oh my God,

I was telling my wife about it. I'm like, we got to watch this thing because it is so Toronto and it is so funny, and it is so indie and so charming,

and I could not recommend this movie enough. So you've got to see Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie. I will see it.

Marching orders for you. Thank you. Okay. So I thought we, you know, as we build you up here, you did work at actual radio station.

you know, before you transition to joint communications. Like, can you share with us a little bit about your 1980s radio background, Jeff? Well, I started radio in the 70s, actually. Hey, let's go to the 70s, buddy. I love the 70s. I mean, I'm going to try to keep this short, but, you know, for context, you know, I talk about people who have born with privilege. I was born with a great deal of privileged outside of being a white male growing up in Winnipeg,

which is a good, hard scrabble place. with cold weather that, you know, you know. But guess who are from there? That's right. And, you know, there's a lot of great people from Winnipeg. Love growing up in Winnipeg. I love the fact that I don't have to live there now and go through those winters. But, you know, it was a wonderful place to be from.

But, and a great family. And part of that family was I have two older brothers who were in the radio business before I even got started. So when some people talk about privilege that they were born on third base, I was born with my foot just off of home place. plate in the radio industry. My first job in radio was I just walked into the radio station and said who my brother was.

Both them were well established in their careers by the time I got into radio and I got that job as a copywriter right away. They never asked if I could type or not, but they hired me to be a doctorate. The doors flew open for Jeff. That's right. So I started writing radio copy in Victoria and then in Calgary. And then I realized it was a terrible copyrighter. I really could only get so far.

So I went to the general manager and I said, you know, I can't do this. Maybe get me a job in retail or something. And they said, no, come, think about it, come back tomorrow. They made me music director the next day. And then I... What station is this that you made me? This is CHFM in Calgary, which is still an adult contemporary radio station. It was an out of contemporary radio station back then in 1970,

it would be 1979, I guess. And so... I did work there and worked there for a year and a half. And then just like, again, fluke. And again, you know, my brothers are no doubt part of this, their reputation. I ended up being the station manager of a radio station in Squamish, BC. Swamish and Wist would be the first ever local radio service there. I did a couple of hours on the air because everybody had to.

There was 11 of us, a 24-hour operation. And that was my radio career until I, first got into joint communications back in 82. And then I went to Montreal. I was a program director of Mix 96, FM 96. We changed it to Mix 96 while I was there for a period of six years. Humble, I worked with this there. Okay, is this the Jeff Lumby, Humble Howard team?

This is the Jeff Lumby, Humble Howard team. Let's spend a moment on this for a moment here. Okay, so did you hire Humble at CJFM? Yes, on Jeff's recommendation. We were looking for a partner, and he said, I know this guy. I worked with him in Moose Jaw Radio, but he's trying to make it as a stand-up comic in L.A.,

and it's having a hard time with it once, get back into radio, and we could do a great morning show. I said, that sounds great. And on his recommendation, I hired, I didn't let him call himself Humble on the... This is an adult contemporary radio station as well, and I thought, humble, you know, I know why you were called Humble.

It just probably isn't that warm and fuzzy kind of thing that people would be looking for on this radio station. So he had to be Howard Glassman. He had to be Howard Glassman. And Montreal is a very large Jewish population, you know, on behalf of the Anglophone population in Montreal is Jewish. So there was no problem with him using the name Glassman, which, you know, might have been an issue at that time in other markets.

Which is a terrible thought to consider, but you're correct, I bet. That's, yeah, terrible time to you have to hide your religion. That's right. Jeez. But Howard Glassman could be proudly Howard Glassman. So many thoughts here. I did an episode of Danny Kingsbury. Do you know Danny?

Absolutely, yeah. Danny's the guy who, I believe Danny's the guy who put Jeff and Howard together at West. In Muscha. In Muscha. Right, that was Danny Kingsbury. And even that that trio was pretty damn tight. Yeah, and I imagine they still are. You know, Danny's now retired as well, but had a chance to work with him when he was a general manager and program director and when I was doing research.

Well, this is a fascinating moment here. because I mentioned I produce Humble and Fred today, so I'll work of all these chaps very closely. But so were you aware that Howard was being recruited by Danny Kingsbury to be on us, the aforementioned, 102.1 CFNY here in Toronto? I, at that point, I'm trying to think of what, yeah, I was aware, but I mean, I knew it was going to happen. It was, you know, I mean, sometimes morning shows are hard to hold together.

like, you know, marriages, you know, shotgun marriages, and sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. And I think, you know, and I don't think it was a matter of it, not working in terms of as far as we were concerned, but there just wasn't the chemistry there at that time and moment. And then Howard wanted to, I mean, hey, what the hell? Coming from Montreal to Toronto to do morning show on the edge, that was big deal.

Yeah, biggest market in the country. Exactly. So I believe I've done extensive research on this, talking to people like, you know, talking to, to Jeff and talking to Howard and everything. I believe the initial plan was for Jeff Lumby and Howard Glassman to come over to be the morning show on 102.1 The Edge. You see, I didn't know that.

That's entirely possible. But Jeff didn't want to leave. Well, Jeff left shortly thereafter. Yeah. Jeff left shortly thereafter. But it's funny because that's Howard's memory of it. And then Jeff remembers it differently, but then you kind of have to talk to all these cats and try to figure out what

actually happened there. but there was already a guy on the morning show in Toronto who was on the Pete and Geat show as the news guy and then he, after Pete and Gates left, CF&Y, he continued with people like Steve Anthony, for example, so Steve Anthony. And that's Fred Patterson. So Fred was like your holdover

from the previous big morning show, which was Pete and Gates. And he would be the co-host for Humble Howard. And that's August 1989 that they formed. But it is fascinating that, you're the guy who hired Humble Howard at what would become Mixed 96. Brought him back to Canada. Yeah.

So, yeah, because he wanted to be a stand-up guy. You wanted to get on the Tonight Show. That was his goal. So, yeah, fascinating here. So when, so you mentioned joint communications. Can you tell us all what exactly is? Like, what do you mean you transitioned to joint communications? What does that mean?

Is that like a consultancy? What is that? Joint Communications was a consultancy back in the 80s. They did consulting and research. So that was my opportunity to kind of get into the research side of things. I realized, one thing I, you know, as bad a copyrighter as I was, one thing I realized when the ratings came out and I knew how important they were, but I also realized that nobody really knew how to read them properly.

And, you know, radio is a right brain industry. You've got salespeople, you know, who, you know, build their career on relationships. You have performers who build their careers on being performers, but they don't necessarily know how to read a ratings book. So I can help tell them what exactly is going on here. And that might be my opportunity. My actual unique selling proposition in this industry is that I'm the left-brain guy in a right-brain industry

and, again, finding an easy path. I'd already got into the industry on an easy path. I found an easy path to sort of find out where my, my future really should be. So just, I'm not that familiar with this station in Montreal. So you mentioned that you rebranded it to mix 96. Like, do you remember basically what was the plan there? Like, what did you change?

Because you did have some success there, improving ratings at that station in Montreal. Like, do you remember what you did? Yeah, I mean, you know, it was FM 96. It had been, you know, a pretty successful station in the market, fighting sort of tooth and nail with Shome, which was the rock station. And it had, you know, but when I was hired there, it had been a bit of a trough. So, my one, I guess, achievement over that, you know, six years that I was there is, I think,

we had 23 ratings books, all, each one of them higher than any of the three before I got there. Wow. That didn't mean that there weren't some, you know, hills and valleys and the roller coaster was writing. And FM 96, just as a brand, seemed to be, you know, a little, tired and creaky and needed a bit of a fresh overhaul. And standard broadcasting at the time was in the process of, and in fact maybe had just changed CKFM in Montreal, in Toronto,

pardon me, in Toronto to mix 99. So it made sense for Montreal as well to make that same. Okay, but now I need that. So does it rebrand to Mix 96 after Howard leaves? It's a good question. Well, here's why I think it must be. I think it was. I think it was.

Because here's the fun fact, which we learned on Toronto Mike. The very first on-air broadcaster to say the words Mix-99.9. Is Humble Howard. I didn't know that. Because Humble leaves. So Humble's recruited to be on the CF and Y morning show, and that's August, 1989. And a couple of years into that gig, he got an offer from Standard to be the morning show on Mix, well, it was CKFM, like you said. And they rebranded while Howard got, he was.

the first on-air jog, because he was the morning show host, to say, Mick's 99.9. I didn't know that. You know, I think that the sequence of events maybe, there seems to be something a little off on what you, when you talked about a humble leaving Montreal, my memory is getting a little fuzzy. Oh, here, I'm here to help you.

This is all fascinating to me. Danny Kingsbury, I think, was in Hamilton at the time. Well, but Danny, Danny is the guy who brings Howard to, Danny must be at CF and Y in 1989 because he brings Howard to 102.1 because of his previous relationship with Howard. It might well be. I've forgotten. No, Jeff, this is the fun part. I'm old.

I'm retired. You're retired now. We should mention that. I have a bunch of excuses, yeah. But the timelines in again, I only know this by talking to these cats. And sometimes you can talk to three guys who are there and they have three different stories. That kind of happened with Lumbie and Glassman. But in August, 1989, the Humble and Fred show debut.

use on CFOY and it was Danny Kingsbury who recruited Howard to CFNY. So Danny Kingsbury must be the PD, I believe, of CFNY in 1989. That's what I think. And then Humble got an offer to leave. He wanted to leave. I think he didn't think CF&Y was a very professional organization. It was a bit like a college station, I think, to Humble Howard. I think, so he goes over to CKFM and he is there for the rebrand, Mix 99.9.9.

But after 18 months at this station, he gets an offer to come back with Fred and reform the Humble and Fred show on CFOI. And he does exactly that. And he's there until they move to Mojo Radio in the early 2000s. And then they get another offer. They couldn't refuse from Standard to go back to Mix 99.9.9. This is early 2000s. And that's where it all falls apart for Humble and Fred on Terrestrial Radio. Because first Fred gets fired, like very quickly into that five-year deal.

and then Howard's on the air for another year and then Howard gets fired and that's where I entered their lives because in 2006 I technically produced the first ever Humble and Fred podcast December 2006. Amazing. You're writing this down, Jeff?

Yeah. We're talking 20 years. Yeah. We're talking 20 years. You're 100% right. So we'll have to do a little party at the 20 year mark. And I was actually, I was really excited to hear Humble and Fred

get into podcasting. And that was the very early days of podcasts. That was taking kind of a big chance to do something different. But their show was the kind of, sometimes a show like that, the music actually, the radio station, the format gets in the way of what you do. Well, that's what they thought when they moved to Mojo. It gave you the chance. I mean, Mojo was its own, you know, had its own challenges, right?

Talk radio for guys. Yeah, yeah. It was an interesting. The biggest challenge, as I review it all. Well, one big challenge was 9-11 happened. And it's a tough format when you've got to be serious. I mean, it was kind of the Manosphere radio station in 2000. It was way ahead of its time, but it just didn't work out from an advertiser point of view as well in particular.

Also, they were a partner of MLSE and broadcasting Leaves Games, and it was shortly after the Maple Leaf Gardens' child sex scandal. And Ken Dryden was a president of MLSE. And he didn't want the brand tied to anything sexual. And Mojo had a lot of, you know, consensual adult sexual content. Right. So it was a perfect storm to, let's get off this mojo. It's, yeah, it's, and, and, you know, they called it Maxim magazine, so it was definitely.

But Chorus has this men's radio trifecta in this, in this market. And that's kind of always been the way. But quick aside here. going to get back to, because I want to ask you about audience insights and then signal Hill insights. But I've noticed the couple of things I've noticed with two of the stations I used to listen to back when I listened to a lot of radio were the aforementioned CF and Y, which I listen to a lot. And Q107, right? And Q107 still plays classic rock and the edge, 102.1, the edge, plays, I've noticed it's a lot of like retro alt rock, a lot of 90s stuff,

but they do play new music as well. But I've noticed the two, the playlist for these stations getting more similar and more similar every month I look at it because Q's kind of skewing a bit younger. So they're adding in a lot of like smashing pumpkins and, uh, you name all like a lot of 90s alt rock, Our Lady Peace, whatever. And CFNY is going a little bit back too because I guess they're looking for a, so what's interesting to me is how similar now the Q107 and the CFNY playlists have become. Yeah, I think that's true. I mean, you know, part of it is rock isn't what it used to be as a, you know, as a music genre.

Right. It doesn't have the same appeal that it had, you know, back in the 90s when those two stations were riding high, you know, and had different sort of. Very different to the 90s. They had very different constituencies back then. There was the cue was for classic rock and edge was for alternative. But now you look back, you know, 30 years ago and kind of it all blew. ones together. It's all kind of rock, right? And if you're, you know, and so, you know, I think it's, it's, it's hard for them to sort of carve out separate identities for each station, but,

uh, um, maybe there's ways they could have done it, but they, you know, I understand exactly. Yeah, it's just interesting how they've been converging, basically. And, and I do plan to do it, like an in-depth, like I'm going to take a random, I don't know, a random 12-hour period and just take a look at the playlist of each, because there are still songs where, like Tom Petty, for example, right? Like Tom Petty is a core Q and 07 artist. You will never hear Tom Petty on CF and Y. So there are still the artists that are pure, peer Q, if you will, but there are so many artists now that are both, like be it Green Day or Pearl Jam or of course, always the tragically hip, or I mentioned, you know, even like Weezer. Like there's so many now alt rock bands, core alt rock bands from the 90s that are big Q107 bands now. And to be fair, I mean, music's not as tribal as it was back in the

90s either. I mean, in the 90s, you were into hip hop or alternative or rock, you know, or dance. And the Twain never met. I mean, one thing that happened when music got into the internet is suddenly all those things started shifting and the boundaries started falling. Great point, because I can tell you as a guy you would listen to a lot of cue and a lot of same point. If it had like a synthesizer in there, cue wouldn't touch it with a 10 foot pole. Like forget about it. But I think what happened, and you was the radio guy, and we're going to, we're still. building your bona fides here. But Boom 97.3 kind of, I think, started eating Q107's lunch. And I think it forced Q1 to say, hey, maybe we can play Duran Duran.

Like, there was a time not that long ago where Q107 would never play Duran Duran. Yeah. I mean, now they do. That's the magic of Boom is the fact that they recognize the fact that all of those silos were all broken down in terms of music standpoint and they put those songs together. Great songs. People just wanted to hear great songs and they put them all into one

radio station. But it's hard for Q107 with its history to be able to walk that line to play some of that stuff without as you say, you know, confusing the audience. Fascinating times here. Okay. So and it is also another add of thing is the imaging voice

of Q107 is Alan Cross. Right? Right. Is there a figure more aligned with, you know, CFNY post David Marsden than Alan Cross? Or is there a voice more aligned with rock music in Toronto? Yeah, but not for a Tom Petty piece, right? It's got to be like an alt rock piece or, yeah, he's got that lane covered.

But, okay, so we spoke about joint communications and I want to know what is audience insights and then later Signal Hill insights. Like, what are these places? So when I left radio and went into research, media research, it was just after being in Montreal, I'd proven to the industry I could practice as well as preach. So that allowed me to kind of put my shingle out as a researcher. And I, you know, had the opportunity to be exposed to a lot of research when I was at joint communications and did research for Mix when I was there as well. Mix 96.

For Mix 96. That's right. And FM96 before that. that. But, um, um, so, um, you know, where I say, I'm old. I lost my, no, okay. So you're in Montreal and yeah, you're at mixed 96 and then what's next? Oh yeah. Okay. Next was coming to Toronto, working for Angus Reed, the Angus Reed group. He hired, he wanted to get a, have a broadcast researcher. Um, and, um, and again, he was connected to people I knew in the industry. They said, oh, I know this guy who does a lot of research. So they hired me as initially managed

of radio research, and I was vice president media research in the six so years that I was there. And then I left, joined with Conjigate in a company called Solutions Research Group. We had this really nice little boutique media

research company for about eight years. We worked together. And then Angus, who had sold Angus Reed Group to Ipsos, came back looking for the people who who'd worked with him back in the 90s. The non-competes were over. So he promised me a little bit of equity

to go and join him at Vision Critical. And I was there for a period of about six or seven years as well from I guess 99, no, actually four or five years, 99 to 2013. And then, but then Angus left. It really became a technology. 99 to 2013 is more than a few years. That's 14 years.

That's a 2009 to 2013. Okay, 2000. I'm having trouble with some of these dates and things. I'm here to hold your hand. We're going to do this. Thank you so much. But what happened there was it really became more about the technology of the survey software that they were using and not about actually doing research. Angus left and then I left and started my own company.

At that point I realized that people really didn't care where I worked. It was just a matter of doing research with me because I built those relationships good or bad. over those years. And so I just, you know, put my own shingle out as Audience Insights, Inc. And had the opportunity to work with Chorus for a period of time there. Also, Rogers for five years was, you know, with Pat Bonn, who, someone I worked with in industry for a long time. And we worked with Rogers for a period of about five years as well doing that. And then in 2020, you know, I'd been watching podcasting, the growth of podcasting and seeing the opportunity for the need for research to understand exactly what is this podcasting thing

all about. And at the same time, I could see that the dollars for radio research were kind of on the decline. So I pivoted and opened Signal Hill Insights, which really doubled down on podcasting. Still did some radio research, but it was really, you know, something that I developed my last five years before I retired to see if I could build something that could live, beyond me and help me with a bit of retirement income as well. So that's kind of, you know, that's my...

You've got my whole life story now, Mike, from beginning to end. I can, now I could duplicate this, the CV on LinkedIn, and I could just pretend to be Jeff. There you go. There you go. There you go. Okay, so I'm going to ask you about a couple of studies I was reading about. Before I ask you about these two studies,

I do want to give you a piece of advice. So you're the guy who gives the advice, but I'm going to give you a piece of advice, which is that if you have old... electronics, like old laptops, maybe you have a blackberry in a drawer somewhere, or cables that haven't worked or fit into a device in 10, 15 years. Jeff, if you have all that old, you know, electrical tech junk, don't throw it in the garbage because those chemicals end up in our landfill.

Go to Recyclemyelectronics.ca. Stick in your postal code and find out where you can drop it all off to be properly recycled. You got it, Jeff. Got it. Okay. And you know you're the podcast man here, although apparently you're retired now, but we're going to get into that. But I do want to let the listenership know that Ridley Funeral Home has a great podcast called Life's Undertaking. We recorded a fresh episode last Wednesday. And I do have for you a measuring tape, Jeff.

This is courtesy of Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of this community since 1921. Very good. Thank you very much. And there was a point in your life where you lived in this community, right? I lived on the next street. Okay, so good thing you didn't die while you live there because you might have ended up at Ridley funeral home because they'd take care of this community. There you go.

Enjoy the measuring tape. Thank you, sir. Thank you, Ridley. Don't die. And last but not least, Nick Aienis has stepped up to help fuel the real talk. He proudly sponsors this very program you're listening to right now. And Nick would like me to tell the listenership

that he is hosting, a fundraiser for mayoral candidate Brad Bradford, and this fundraiser is April 2nd, and that is mere days from now. And you can learn more from Nick and Fusion Corp about attending this fundraiser for Brad Bradford. So thank you, Nick Iienes. Let me ask you, Jeff.

One of these studies I was looking at is called Radio on the Move. What is Radio on the Move? Now, Radio and the Move is a study that started working on back in 2010, 2011, I guess. At 2010, when people first started saying, oh, the connected car, that's going to be it for radio. Nobody's going to listen to radio once you've got the connected car because you don't need to have radio. That's right. It was all going to be all over in a matter of, so we decided, well, you know, we need to kind of track this and see what's happening. And initially it was all focused on radio in the car.

and interestingly enough, radio still is very much alive in the car. Yeah. There's muscle memory there that, you know, people when they get in the car, even if they have the opportunity to play podcasts or music streaming on their Bluetooth, it's just kind of the easy thing to do and it's just a very, it's like comfort for the trip. You know, and even, you know, we talk to younger demographics. I mean, Gen Z like to get in the car. They'd say, I don't listen to radio because they don't have a car,

but if they have a car, they go in and they still turn it on the rail because it reminds me of being in the car with my mom and my dad. Right. You know, there's a 23-year-old woman that I worked with on the marketing side who said, yeah, I listen to Q107 because I get in the car and that's what my dad listened to. And I turn on that and I hear those same songs. It just makes me feel good. You get a Rush song. There's another artist you won't hear on CFOWI, but you'll hear on Q107 quite a bit, Rush. Rush was probably one of those artists that made me feel that way.

Although Rush has got a great song about the spirit of radio, as you know. But radio as companionship in the car still works. It still holds a lot of its audience share in the car. The challenge is, you know, at home. Listening at home is just not what it used to be. Okay, so this introduces a, I'm naturally curious. I have a 24-year-old and a 20, almost 22-year-old. Got to get these ages right here.

And I talk to them all the time because they listen to a lot of, they're both music fans, although very, different music. Neither touches the radio. There's never. There's zero, like zero. And I mean,

I'm from a different era. So when I'm, I was in the car driving my third born to a soccer match in Woodbridge yesterday. And I've got my six presets and I toggle listening for songs I like and then I'll be, you know,

singing along. So I'm still in the car. It's car, I listen to CBC Radio 1 when I'm in the shower and sometimes when I'm in the kitchen. but really it's car time when I'm radio listening. But again, my two oldest kids don't touch the radio. So what of that generation in radio,

many of that generation does not own a car, as you mentioned? Yeah. I mean, in fact, they don't. I mean, that's one of the challenges that the industry faces is that, you know, that everybody had a car. When they were 16, they were driving a car, right? When I was growing, probably when you were growing up as well, right? But that just isn't the case anymore.

They certainly can't afford a car. you know, these days. You know, you save up your money at 18 to buy your first car. Right. Right. So, so basically how does radio reimagine itself so that it can capture more ears outside of the car? Like, it's basically they pray for traffic jams.

Like this is the, you know, because now I'm thinking, before you retired, we had the pandemic. And then there was this period of time where nobody was in a car. Like, what happened to radio during? that period when when no one had to commute to work anymore. Yeah. Well, it did affect tuning. It definitely had an impact on listening.

You still had some morning show listening, but even that tuning was down from where it had been before. But what does radio do? I mean, it's a great question. And I know you're retired now. The billion dollar question if you had the answer for it, because everybody's got all these licenses and have to figure out, so where does radio fit in the sort of new world?

I think, and actually you meet, I was listening to a podcast with Annette. that you were being interviewed on. Annette Manguard was over here last week to interview me. And you were talking about real time. And I think you're right. Exactly right. It's about real time and shared experience.

So, you know, and that may have to be redefined in terms of what that is from, you know, what's been. Now, the only other issue with that is, again, all of these barriers are falling down. I mean, a lot of podcasting is now moving to live streams. So really, at what point does the. transmitter in the broadcast just not matter anymore. Unregulated audio streaming. I mean, there's the, there is the issue around music rights.

100%. But for the rest of it, I mean, you know, so radio may not longer become from a broadcast tower, but maybe radio, if we talk about that live, shared experience may end up being something that actually is streamed. And again, may be connected to a podcast that also does live streaming and, you know,

and we're seeing that already. Yeah, I think with Annette, I brought up this hopeful never happens moment where there's a natural disaster or something maybe even just as bad or worse, where the fact that you don't require internet to pull in a radio signal, like I think in this disaster scenario,

we need information in real time and we don't have internet access. Right, right. Like I can see it. I don't want to. I hope it doesn't happen, but I can see it in my mind's eye. Certainly hope it doesn't happen. It doesn't happen very often.

I remember the ice storm. If you remember the ice storm, that was definitely a time that people listened to the radio because they often didn't have power. You know, so that the only way that you could really find out what was going on was a lot of people going to their car and turning on their car to listen to the radio to what, you know, what was 680 news saying about when the power was going to come back on. 100%.

And I think that's a very, like that's a time when radio is, we're going to be glad radio. exists. But, you know, you mentioned the whole music right situation here, right? So to me, I think the big legal differentiator is streaming content versus recorded and on-demand content. Like, I think

this is a key differentiator. Like, if a radio, they do, I know there's a SOCAN license for radio stations and they can play music like Sloan. I'm just checking that it was on my board here. But the fact is that it's not available on demand. Like, the Sloan song in the

radio show, you can't just go download it as a podcast and listen to it when you want. Like it's a sort of a it streams in real time and then if you miss it, you miss it. And that seems to be a key differentiator when it comes to licensing music. But you know, there will be a time

that the music rights agencies are looking at ways that they can license music on podcasts and on those kind of live streams that you know, radio broadcasters might be doing without the transmitter. But here's my question for you, Mr. Vittler. Is that the geo aspect of that,

which is like, okay, so let's say so can, we'll sell you a podcast license to play music. But that's only applicable for the country of Canada. Like the whole nature of a podcast is, there's an expat in Japan right now listening to Toronto mic. There's many Americans expat, Canadians that are living in America

that are listening to Toronto mic right now. Like there's no border to a podcast. It's going to be very difficult. I mean, they'll have to figure out some way to identify audiences and how much of the audiences in what country and how do they share those rights accordingly. I mean, it's going to be very complicated.

But we'll have AI to sort it all out for us. Oh, God. Oh, boy. I mean, we're going to need another hour here, Jeff. Okay, I do want to ask you about another study here. It's called the Canadian podcast listener. Yes. So tell me again about this study.

So it's now in its 10th year. Started in 2017. And when we really saw that podcasting was becoming a thing. and also seeing that the Canadian industry was smaller than the U.S. It was really starting to happen in the U.S. Cereal exploded in 2014. It was a big moment for podcasts. It was a huge moment in the U.S.

And certainly people listened to cereal from. Yeah, I don't even think cereal had a border. Like I think that was as popular here as it was down south. But it started the business in the U.S. And the advertising dollars started to float into podcasting. And we wanted to provide something for the podcasters. for the advertising agencies, for those selling advertising a podcast

to provide some information in terms of what podcasting's all about. So people knew what by the opportunity to light if you're an advertiser, for example, right? Okay, so this is a, is it annual? Like, how often does the Canadian podcast listener's study get published? Once a year.

Once a year. The next one will be in, you know, in the field in early September. So now's a good time for me to find out because you've mentioned you're retired now. When did you retire, Jeff? I retired. My sort of full retirement was September of this past year. Okay, not too long.

You haven't been away that long. But why, Jeff, you look young and fit here. I think you have a passion for this. Who are you to retire? I got to retire. Is that the goal? I spent 45 years of working 60, 70 hours a week just to sort of, you know, figure out how to sort of, you know, make a decent living and, you know,

and try to contribute something back to the industry. And it's just time to be able to sit back a little bit. But at the same time, I'm not bad. I mean, have you withdrawn? Like, are you, I mean, you're not going to follow it the same as when you were, you know, working and writing these studies, etc. But are you still keeping your ear to the ground? Absolutely.

And I'm still working with Signal Hill. Just as, I mean, you know, there's a thing called when you sell a company, a thing called an earn out, where they're buying the company from. you from the future profits from the company. And so I have a very clear vested interest in making sure that Signal Hill is still successful. So still helping them out. But my official title is Strategic Advisor slash founder. So I'm not fully retired in that sense.

And again, also working at Humber College, helping, you know, seeing if we can help them get that program back up as it should be. Yeah, resurrect that program. Is this the program where? Evelyn Maco was a teacher. Yeah. Yeah. A lot of people have been teachers, yeah, but yeah.

Yeah, yeah. I believe Evelyn Maco was the reason I spoke on podcasting at that college. I'm a big fan of Wackle Maco here. Yeah, yeah, brilliant journalist, right? And that great boys, like to me. It just, yeah, a personality that just sort of jumped out of the radio at you. And I mean, I was a big fan of top 40 radio on CFTR when I was a kid, so I would always listen to 680 CFTR and, you know, Dick Smyth and Evelyn Maco.

Like, I still remember when they would put 680 CFTR news and commentary on CFMT. Remember this? No, I don't remember. Okay, so yeah. So you would be watching, I'm going to use the, see if I remember the jingle as it was at the time. You're watching 47 cable fun. Like, so they had a whole like basically syndicated content, like reruns and stuff, married of children.

Oh yeah. Married with children. Those Bundy Clowns designing women and Murphy Brown. Like they had a whole thing going on there. And you would get these inters, like these breaks between commercials. And it would be like Evelyn Mackle giving you like a 68 second news update or something like that. 68 second news updates. There you go.

That's a good memory. Yeah, well, this is it. I mean, that's why I fell in love of radio. I mean, it wasn't just the fact I love WKRP. Like, I love the. local and live nature of radio. Like, I just loved it. And it was 680, and then you would kind of discover,

as your musical tastes mature, some say mine haven't, but at some point you discover the FM band, and then you're like, oh, look what's going on here. And then I'll tell you right now, Jeff, uh, grunge hits in 1991. And I was basically like, for the whole decade, I was stuck on 102.1 listening to new alt rock. Nirvana.

Nirvana. Nirvana, the band, have I mentioned, oh, that's, by the way, that was a movie that features Roz and Moka, Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie. Raws and Moka are all over this thing. How are they all over it?

The guy goes on Raws and Moka's show for an interview, the musician in Nirvana the band. And it's, like I mentioned, it being a Toronto, I've never seen a movie this Toronto. Like, I won't spoil anything, but, you know,

key roles played by Skydome and CN Tower and the Rival, they're on Roz and Moka. CP 24 is broadcasting news events, you know, the TTC. It is so Toronto. It's just like refreshing that, A, it's so Toronto,

but B, it's so clever and funny. Yeah. Have I endorsed this movie enough? I think so. I'm definitely checking it out. Okay, get a report back because I posted on my blog, TorontoMike.com,

my review, and I think I said some grandiose statement, like greatest Toronto movie of all time. and a couple of people were like, they didn't quite get it like I did. So I'm now wondering, like, you know, what does the zeitgeist think of this film? Am I out to lunch?

Because I couldn't believe how much I liked it. So I need to hear back from people. You'll have to get back to me, Jeff. But you're Mr. Toronto, and you were clearly, you know, influenced by Nirvana. No, and I said that. I think I put on Blue Sky, which is where us Twitter refugees have gone.

I went to Blue Sky and I just said something. I don't know how this movie plays outside of Toronto, and quite frankly, I don't care. Like, I don't care. It's for me, and that's okay. You know, thank you for the film guys. Okay. So a couple of quick hits here tied to the Canadian podcast listener,

and I know your ears still to the ground, but not as much as it was maybe six months ago. But what I'm always interested in is Canadian content in podcasting. Like, I personally like it when I can tune in a podcast, and it's unabashedly Canadian. like Canadian-centric, and I'm kind of concerned that so many Canadians seem to be consuming big American shows. So I guess I'm wondering, are Canadians listening to Canadian podcasts? Great question.

And I can answer the question from data from the Canadian podcast listeners. That's why you're here, buddy. So when we started back in 2017, we asked, and again, just asking podcast listeners, of all the podcasts you listen to, what percentage are from the U.S.? what percentage are from Canada, from the UK, from France, or from elsewhere. And when we started that in 2017, so almost 10 years ago, it was about 55% U.S. and about 35% Canadian. Now, in the last two or three years, almost equal between the U.S. and Canada.

We're making a comeback. So there has been a comeback. And not only that, but the amount of listening to podcasting has grown is almost doubled in that same 10-year period. So there's a bigger pie there and a bigger piece of it for Canadian podcasters. Okay, now I'm going to ask you about the CBC. Ever heard of it? Yeah, I have.

Yeah, apparently. So CBC, I believe CBC does a very good job producing podcasts. Tremendous job. I mean, so much of podcasting came out of public media. I mean, some of the best, I mean, serial was done by people who worked at NPR. he are in the States. And public, podcasting solved a problem for public media listeners,

is that you didn't have to set your clock for 1030 Saturday morning to listen to Terry O'Reilly's podcast, or his show on CBC, you could download his podcast. And, you know, this American life in the U.S. also big part of that development. So, and again, full credit to CBC and other public. media broadcasters is that they do a terrific job with spoken word content. And, you know, given that podcast, as we were talking about earlier, are really spoken word, not, don't play music.

You know, they do have some, some great stuff. And I have been very successful, not only, a lot of the CBC podcasts, not only in Canada, but also in the U.S. And helping to generate a little bit of revenue back for the CBC to, you know, develop its programming in Canada. It's a good thing. Yeah, by the way, under the influence is the name of the Terry O'Reilly show. And what irks me as a listener of that podcast is the, what I think is a cruel and unusual number of ads in that show.

Like, you time it before you get to the intro, it is at least 3.5 minutes of pre-recorded ads off the top. Like to me, to me, and again, I'm no consultant. Maybe I'll start. Maybe is there a job opening at the Canadian podcast listener? Just kidding. But I do think that is a cruel and unusual amount of time you want your listeners to listen to pre-recorded ads before the show begins. And again, I mean, good setup. We do track Canadian podcast listener whether people seem to feel they hear too many ads on podcasts.

And it has grown, but actually not that much over time. Still say that fewer ads on podcasts than on TV and radio. the comparison points. No, and I listen to many, many shows, and I do seek Canadian content. And one of the big pluses for, well, it's a well-produced show, but under the influence makes my list,

because I only have so many listening hours, and mostly it's on a bicycle, by the way. But it makes my list because, A, it's good, but B, it's Canadian. So I do like hearing Canadian content like that. But it's not just the 3.5 minutes off the top. I don't mean to go off on Terry O'Reilly. I've invited him on the program,

but getting him in the basement seems to be difficult. But I just want to say there's also two mid-rolls. So twice, so the post-rolls, I guess that's the term, right? The post-rolls. Yeah, the post-rolls, I don't know any human who listens to post-rolls. Okay, I don't know any human who's actually, we finished the closing theme. Now there's going to be some pre-recorded ads.

Please listen. I don't know any human who does that or why they would. But the pre-rolls people will listen to, and that's 3.5 minutes. And then two mid-rolls where they break. down, it's excessive. I know it's a podcast about ads and marketing, but that doesn't mean you need to, what I think is, ruin, like, it's a tradeoff. Like, I don't know if it's worth, there's good 22 minutes in here, but I don't know if it's worth the fact that I have to endure,

like, eight minutes of pre-recorded ads. I'm finished my rant now, Jeff. Yeah, fair enough. Were you going to say something there when I was, uh, ran in a way? Okay, okay, so, but Terry, if you're listening, I still want to get you on Toronto Mike, because I do want to talk to you. He'd be a great guest. Yeah, we had a discourse, and I think he would have Zoomed it. I actually decided I didn't want Terry O'Reilly via Zoom. I will wait, even if it takes 10 years, I would wait until Terry O'Reilly visits the basement.

I like coming to the basement. It's better than Zooming. It really is. I'm glad we did this, because we talked about how are we going to do this, and you said, you know, I have to come down to where your basement is, and that was halfway across town, and I thought, well, okay, we had a snowstorm. the first day we had scheduled, so that didn't work out. But, you know, lovely weather today.

I mean, it's... Today's perfect. We earn this. We earn this. But that just, just quick, since I having the basement real quick here, as I have had many thoughts, mainly I converse with myself, I sound like a crazy person. I want to buy and go ahead and talk to myself. But I have long, forever, I've been doing this thing since 2012.

Okay, we're almost at 2,000 episodes. I have always strongly preferred in-person guests. And I have said no to very interesting people who didn't want to visit the base. basement but would have done a Zoom. But lately, I feel like I'm fighting an uphill battle because I've noticed a lot, not you mother nature as your excuse, but there's been a lot of like cancellations and postponements. And I know it's because I want them in the basement. Like, this is why it's happening.

And I wonder, like, am I the last podcaster, independent podcaster who won't let their guests do a remote? Like, I wonder, is this working? Do I just give up or do I stay stubborn and true to what I, believe makes for a far better audio presentation. Okay, I will give you some advice. Yeah. My turn. I would keep doing what you're doing.

I mean, the one thing about podcasts, there's so many podcasts out there. And your podcast is unique. You can, your podcast is really simple. It's a podcast about Toronto and media and music industry in Toronto, fundamentally. And if you have any interest in that at all, And you want to know about the people who are working in the, you want to get to know them. And there's a certain intimacy that you get from being in the basement.

And you're talking to people in Toronto. It's not like you have, you're talking to people in Saudi Arabia or in Japan. You're talking to people who live in Toronto and work in Toronto and know about Toronto. So they should be able to come in. And I think you're right, actually, you know. Okay. Stay unique. Stay doing what you're doing.

It's an advantage to it. have that others don't, you really get, you get an unpolished view or listen to, you know, all these people, right? Well, now, since that's good advice, and I love that you said that, but one of my other stickler things I've been doing since 2012, and it has been important to me is that if someone's going to sit down for 60 to 90 minutes, because that's typically what the combos go for, it's important to me, for whatever reason that listenership is a fly on the wall, and they hear everything as it happened, even if I can't remember some, I couldn't remember the name,

oh, Scott Pilgrim versus the world. Like that, I'm literally searching my brain for the name Scott Pilgrim versus the world and I have to Google it, okay? But I refuse to edit that out. So I know it makes me look stupid, but I do believe these shows should be unedited. Am I out to lunch on that one too? Everybody's spending so much time getting rid of ums. And I hear I heard you on a podcast, which was, it just seemed very edited to me and produced. And I wonder, am I out to lunch on this one as well, Jeff? Yeah. You know, again, I think you're doing the right thing.

I mean, I think, I think, yeah, I mean, you know, it is all those things you've said, but it's also humid, right? And that, again, is part of what you're doing with the show is you're exposing people who work in the media industry who have stories to tell. and you want people to kind of get to know them. And I listen to one of your podcasts and the people that you interview, and I feel like I walked away knowing them in a way that I probably wouldn't in a tightly edited.

And again, what makes your show unique? That's one of those things that makes your show unique. Well, listen, I'm glad I invited you over just so you could reaffirm some of these rule sets I've created for myself. But I brought up the CBC shows for a reason here, and then I got into my rant against under the influence. Which I've been listening to, I used to listen to Age of Persuasion, so this is, I'm a long-time listener, but much better on the radio than it is in podcast form. Okay.

So, CBC show is very popular, very well produced. They got a whole army over there doing a great job. But a lot of the CBC podcasts are actually just CBC shows that air on CBC Radio 1. So there are, you know, you'll listen to, oh, you know, I listen. The CBC show that would air on the radio and then you can hear it in podcast form, okay? So you talked about how your research is showing that more Canadians are listening to Canadian podcasts. And I'm just wondering what that looks like if you remove CBC. Like I wonder if, oh, well, CBC is accounting for like, I'm making this up,

half of those Canadian podcasts that are being consumed by Canadians. Like it is such a bohemoth. If you remove CBC, is there still an appetite for Canadian podcasts? It's a great point. If you took those Canadian, those CBC podcasts out of the Canadian content, there's no question it would have an impact. I mean, if we look at sort of the top 30 podcasts in Canada, because we ask

people what podcasts they've listened to in the past month, about half of those that are Canadian and that are in that top 30 tend to be CBC. I bet. Now, that doesn't mean, though, those are the top 10 podcasts, and a lot of them are things like front burner or current or Q, which are shows that...

Quarks and Quarks maybe? Quarks and Quarks is... Love that show. It's like one of the original podcast, Quarks and Forks. Right. But, but those are big audience shows. I think if you go out in the long tail, and you're out on the long tail, Mike, you know, that there's more Canadian.

The longest tail. There's not many CBC podcasts out there, right? So I'm not sure it would be half of the total volume of Canadian podcasts, but certainly take a big dent out of it if they, if CBC stopped producing podcasts or stop actually, actually baking their programs available as a podcast. And now I know I probably said to you at some point in our, correspondence that we would take it,

like this would be an hour. And I'm just letting know, I'm hoping it's okay. I'm actually going to do 90 minutes. Is that okay? Because we're already at an hour, 20 minutes. Oh my. I know it goes so fast.

When you're having fun. When you're ranting about under the influence, you need more time. I haven't even ranted about Indy 88. Because Indy 88 was a station I quite like. It's still on my presets. And one of my dear friends, the beloved FOTM Bob Willett,

is on that station quite a bit. But Indy 88 made a decision with the new ownership that they were going to get more ears, which meant being less alt-rocky and less indie, and play, you know, basically what I consider to be like mainstream pop songs, you know, Ed Sheeran type, mainstream pop. And indie, it's got to a point now where, and I hope Bob's not listening to this, but I'm going to probably remove Indy 88 from my six presets in the car,

because when I am on that station now, more likely than not, I'm going to hear something that I might have heard on Mixed 99.9.9, should it be alive today? Right. Well, I mean, again, things have changed. I mean, Indies have... They're laughing all the way to the bank. Their ratings have gone up a little bit since then.

Oh, I know. I know. They're laughing all the way to the bank. They're going to lose me, but they're going to be lining a bed full of money. So, good for them. I mean, the challenge, it's part of the challenge of the broadcasting these days, is that it is really music for the masses. You really don't have,

because you have so many other ways of indulging your passions now with podcasts and YouTube. I mean, you can spend years following your music passions on YouTube without, you know, and still run out of content, right? So it's, it's, you know, it's too easy to please yourself, indulge your own personal passions now to those, radio stations that are trying to target a,

you know, a very tight market. Just don't have enough audience to make. No, no. And again, I should, I should have prefaced it by saying, business-wise, it makes all the sense in the world,

and it will result in higher ratings. And it is. We're seeing the evidence. Mike doesn't like it. Okay, so one guy here in South of the Hibaba, but I always wonder of radio, like there's music and then there's talk, right?

Like, they talk between songs or whatever, and they do their little thing. I noticed in the car, like, lately when I'm driving, because the talk is, to me, and again, Bob Willett aside, the talk to me is garbage. Like, it feels like it's some scripted, annoying bit. So I find myself toggling listening for the music, and I'm gone when they start talking. But back in the day, I remember as a listener, as a listener, I feel like that I, I like the talk because the talk was typically about the music. It was like educating me and giving some context to the song. and I just wonder where's that balance?

Like, what is it that retains a listener in radio? Is it the talking or the music? Or is it a combo? Like, I always wonder, like, what's more important? The songs you're playing or the rap between the songs? That's a great question. And, you know, I do think that radio personality is something that is, you know, a work in progress and isn't what it used to be.

And I think, and having to understand that and how to make that work is going to be a real challenge for the industry. You know, because I'll... When you have, we don't have much money, you don't, you know, you can't spend the big dollars on the, on the big talent, because they're all doing podcasts. You're right. They're laughing all the way to the bank. That's exactly right. Okay, a couple of quick hits here, and then we'll do the final mop up here. But, um, independent podcasting.

So you've got, we talked quite a bit about CBC, the not an independent podcasting company. but are Canadians listening to independent Canadian podcasts? Or is that just part of the long tail that you mentioned earlier? They are. I mean, you know, and there's a wide variety. You know, I mean, you have a successful podcast, you know, doing what you're doing here in Toronto. Humble and Fred, I mean, still had it 20 years later.

Yeah, that's a fiercely independent podcast. You're right. And those are fiercely independent. And you guys are entrepreneurs in the sense that you're out there. You're getting the advertising yourself, you know, for those shows. And that, you know, that is a way to survive in the long tail, which is tremendous to be able to do that. So that's part of that story.

But, you know, there's also other, you know, Quebec, just touch into Quebec for a second, where you have this smaller market and smaller pool of talent and podcasts, is that some of the biggest Canadian podcasts are actually French-Canadian podcasts, even though French Canadians don't listen to as many podcasts as English-Canad by percentage.

But Mike Ward, Suze Koot, is a very big podcast in Quebec. There are two or three others that kind of come in and out of the sort of top-pinner top-20 podcasts year to year. But, you know, and those are actually video-first podcasts for the most part. So let's close with that video chat because I think I probably read this in your fine, the Canadian podcast listener report or study, if you will, that YouTube, okay? So YouTube plays a growing role in podcasts. podcast discovery, right? So, can we talk about that?

Because I'm, like, I'm kind of hypocrite in this regard, because I believe podcasts to be audio-first formats. Like, to me, this is, you're going to be walking your dog or exercising or whatever you're doing, you're throwing on a podcast, and it's theater of the mind audio presentation. But all I hear about in these reports is how vital video is. So what say you, Jeff, as we just talk about this pivot to. video. Well, I'm an audio fan too. I mean, to me, listening to audio is I learned so much more

from having to hear people talk. And it goes back to what you're talking about getting to know the personalities. I can hear more, I can get more of an understanding of somebody from listening to them than watching them. I mean, and that's the nature of the medium. I mean, video is full of distractions. So you're not really paying attention the same way that you are with audio. So I love audio. And I don't ever, I listen to probably 20 hours of podcasts a week, but I don't watch a single podcast. If I want to watch something,

I'll watch the Nirvana movie you just talking about. Nirvana, the band, the show, the movie. Because that's lean back and kind of entertainment. It's a different kind of thing. You'll throw in the pit or something. Exactly. But, but, but, you know, so audio has kind of a magic to it.

But also, you know. Yeah, having said that. If you're a YouTuber and you're not putting your show onto a podcast, if I can turn down, if I can turn off the picture and still understand what's going on, then you should be putting the down, you know, making those, that content is available as a podcast.

Because as you say, when you're walking the dog or you're doing the chores, you can't watch a podcast. When I'm on a bike ride, I'm not watching anything. Yeah. Now, you might have the TV on in the background and you're hearing it.

Right. That's fair. But, you know, but yeah, If you're on a bike ride, you can't have the TV on in the background, right? But then why is the seemingly, and I do read quite a bit about this, but why has there seemingly been this pivot to video in the podcast world? I mean, it's just because it's additive.

It brings in a new audience. There are some people who prefer to watch a podcast than listen to one, so why not make them, make podcasts available for them to do that? There are some podcasts, though, that will never work on video. I mean, you know, a lot of the, the CBC podcast you're talking about. Oh, yeah, it would be heavy production because they're not live-to-air experiences. It would sort of lose that whole low barrier to entry that you get from podcast.

It's really easy for, you know, people to start a podcast because it doesn't cost a lot of money to do it. If, you know, if you have to do something more than just set up a camera in a, in a studio, then, you know, you're, you know, you're, you know, okay, well, this is a good example. There's a camera on you right now, Jeff. Surprise. Okay. And I have been recording the video. And I will. this will be a podcast only,

but typically like 24 hours later, I put it on my YouTube channel, but I don't promote it's there. It's sort of, I don't, I'm not even sure. I think I do it because I feel I should do it, but I almost, I'm not ashamed of it being there,

but I don't want to promote the video. Does this, I don't even know if this makes sense as I say it out loud. Like, I want you to subscribe to the podcast, and the podcast is audio only. But there is a way to see this unedited audio presentation and watch our lips move and see our, you know, facial expressions or whatever on my YouTube channel.

You were going to ask a question there. No, I just, like, you're curious. Yeah, another piece of advice is if you're doing it, I would, I am doing it. I would mention that if you, if you prefer to watch a podcast, you can watch Toronto Mike too. Yeah, I don't think I've ever, I don't think I talk about it at all. Like, it's like, there's a few, like, I don't, I have a Patreon. I never talk about that. And I almost want, like, maybe I'm embarrassed to be, it feels like I'm,

you know, asking for Mike, I'm passing around a hat or something. Like, oh, $2 please. But then I don't hesitate to say, hey, there are tickets available for my Elmo show. Exactly, exactly. So I feel that's different. I do promote my TMLX events like crazy on the podcast. But there, so there is a,

and two things, one little thing that makes it interesting because I do produce a lot of podcasts for people. And typically my clients want video. Like that's, I did one this morning for a guy named Avi Federer. And we had a great conversation with this actress, a filmmaker named Jennifer Podemsky. and she's pretty well-known,

but we had their chat, and of course I recorded the video and the audio, and it will be a podcast, and it will be a video for the YouTube channel for Avi Fedder Green's Unleashed podcast, and that's absolutely going to happen. But one thing that kind of is interesting to me when we talk about YouTube is that Google,

who owns YouTube, at some point a few years ago, or maybe several at this point, it's all a blur. They decided to shutter Google Podcasts. So they closed down Google Podcasts, And then you're like, okay, Google, what is your podcast app you want us to use now? They're like, it's YouTube. So, and because I said the G word, my phone is listening and it's going to answer at some point, but ignore that.

But so now Toronto Mike is available on YouTube as a podcast, which means it takes the image for the podcast and it plays the audio. Although it kind of messes up analytics, but that's another story because it's now got its own version of the audio that it's now sharing. But aside from that, I'm also going to post the actual video of us. So there will be two instances. On YouTube, there will be two instances of this episode of Toronto Mike. One is the actual podcast because that is the Google Podcast app. The other will be the fact that I did record this video and I'll throw that up there in the next 24 hours. That's interesting.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, but it does make sense. I mean, Google, it will see how. it all develops and how YouTube takes advantage of that opportunity. I mean, now, of course,

you know, Apple Podcasts now has video as well as Spotify as well. So video as an option is there for others as well. And I, you know, you will, you will never have a huge YouTube audience, probably.

The more celebrities you were to interview, not Jeff Viddler, but more celebrities. Like Neil Young. If you had Neil Young, then people don't want to see that because they want to see Neil Young. It's a celebrity attraction. You know,

I work with, with a Mike Bond, who's an MMA reporter, he has a podcast called The Bonfire. But that's like 95% is video because people want to see the fight. He's interviewing the MMA fighters and they want to see the fighters, right? You know, on your way out, you're hitting that point, which is the world seems to adore celebrities. That's right.

That's right. And that is one of those things that makes a video podcast, a video podcast. Great, Jeff. Great point here. and just before we say goodbye, I struggle also with the fact that I know, I know Jeff is not going to bring, this is going to be shocking to you,

but Jeff won't bring in the listenership that, who can I pick on that's actually accessible, not Neil Young? I don't know, who do I pick on? Getty Lee, okay, so, Gettily, because Gettie Lee, I think is somebody who might do Toronto Mike. Absolutely.

Neil Young's not doing Toronto Mike. And I'll bet you, your YouTube views will go up. Yes, okay. So, if I cared only about, most ears or eyeballs, I would stop booking Jeff Fiddler and I would focus on the Getty Lees of the world. Yeah, well, but again, I would hate my own show. I don't want to be that guy. I'd hate that show. That's not, again, that's not the piece of the podcast universe that you've chosen for yourself. Don't compromise.

You don't have to be like indie and certainly play, you know, and do what everybody else is doing to be successful. You won't be successful. Long tail, Mike. There's so many podcasts out there. You've got to be unique. Jeff, I love this chat, man. How was it for you? It was fun. It was fun. Thank you again for inviting me. And thanks for having me.

I mean, whatever that means. I had, Jeff Fiddler, let the record show. It was episode 1871. So glad we did this. Continue to enjoy retirement. I know you're still connected. You explained. You're incented to still give a shit.

But enjoy retirement, buddy. All right. Thank you, Mike. And that brings us to the end of our 1,871st show. Go to Toronto Mike. Yeah, you're going to have to remember that number, Jeff. That's your number forever.

1871. Nobody can take that away from you. I'll remember that. There must be some event that happened in 1871 that will, I can use as my memnomic for that. But that would be, you know. Something happened that year. Go to Torontomike.com for all your Toronto Mike needs.

and buy a couple of tickets to see me and Rob Proust from Spoons and Honeymoon Suite at the Elma combo on May 21st. Much love to all who made this possible. Again, that's Great Lakes Brewery. Jeff, you've got your fresh craft beer. That's yours. Thank you.

Palma pasta. Don't leave. I got to get it from my freezer, but there's a lasagna for you. Delicious. Wonderful. Nick Aini's. Speaking of rush.

Recycle MyElectronics.com. CA and of course Ridley funeral home. See you all tomorrow in real time. I'm going to my calendar to tell you I will be visited by Ralph Ben Mergie at 11 a.m. tomorrow and I can't wait to catch up with Ralph. See you all then.