Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Lou Schizas: Toronto Mike'd #234

Episode Date: May 2, 2017

Mike chats with business analyst Lou Schizas about his years on BNN, AM 640 and how to make money.

Welcome to episode 234 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a local independent brewery producing fresh craft beer. And propertyinthesix.com, Toronto real estate done right. I'm Mike from torontomic.com and joining me this week is Lou Skiza. Welcome Lou. Hey Mike, great to be with you my friend. I've queued up a song for you but it's a long one. We're gonna let this simmer. But when I said Lou's coming in, what song do I have for Lou? It's not the first time I've heard it, baby. Did you ever watch Louis C.K.'s show Louie?

No, you know, actually I didn't. I really couldn't get into it. Whatever his comedic thing is, it's not registering with me. Black humor or dark humor. Yeah, it's like funny that's not ha-ha funny. It's sort of disturbing funny, but I quite like it.

But this was the theme song. So whenever I hear this track, I think of Louis getting his slice of pizza in the opening of that. Now, what I want to say to you as a greeting is

you must get this every time somebody sees you in a grocery store or whatever, but happy capitalism to you, Lou. That's right. Back to you, Mike. And, you know, it's a great system that allows us.

You know, here we are in your studio. And it kind of brought to mind some of the entrepreneurs in the Silicon Valley that started their enterprises in a garage, right? Promise? That's, yeah, a lot of the weights, I guess, like Google and like eBay and these kind of places, they start in a garage. Sure, Apple. Apple, yeah. You know, many, many, many enterprises start, you know, with somebody like yourself who's

got passion for an outcome and, you know, drives the reality. You know, if you look at that gal from Scarborough, Lily Singh. Oh, yeah. She's a YouTube sensation. Scarborough or Brampton? She's Brampton, right? No, I thought. Superwoman?

It could be. Maybe she moved. Yeah, maybe she moved or I got it misdirected. But the reality is, I think that, you know, the next media star, you know, obviously is coming from alternative media. Do you own that term? Yeah, I've trademarked it. So do you sell coffee mugs and T-shirts? No, I haven't gotten to that yet.

I could, I suppose, but really the only thing I've done with it is protect it from, you know, infringement and that sort of thing. But, you know, with a trademark or a copyright, it's not a shield as much as a sword. So if I want to protect the copyright or the trademark, I've got to pick up a lawyer and whack somebody with it, right? Right, right, right.

So when I open up my shop after this episode where I sell my happy capitalism mugs, I could expect a note. Well, you'll probably get it from Lorne Honigman. I would give him that capitalism mugs. Yeah, go ahead. I could expect a note. Well, you'll probably get it from Lorne Honigman. You know, I would give him that assignment. That's right, Lorne. Hey, and by the way, I noticed I got to tell the people at home,

although we'll take a photo after this so I can attach it to the entry, but you're not wearing suspenders. No, well, you know, not to be rude or anything, Mike, but those are for paid gigs. Oh, there's beer. I'm going to get to the beer in front of you, Lou. Come on. I'm talking about cash, not trade. If I paid you to speak

at a convention, you'd be in suspenders. Yeah, full regalia. Kevin Frankish was here a couple of months ago, and he's given up the suspenders, but you'll still wear them for cash. You have to have some standards, right? You know, in terms of, you know, why am I getting dressed, right?

Oh, I'm getting dressed because there's a check at the end of it. I'm just glad you did get dressed. Like, no suspenders, but you're actually wearing pants. Yeah, yeah, no, I'm not doing all nude radio anymore. That might be the next 640 format, but we'll get to that later. We'll get to that later. Andrew Stokely. Yes.

Firstly and foremost, I got to say happy birthday to Andrew. Today's his birthday. Wow, nice going. He made it. He's still with us. And I guess I'm going to just give another shout out. It's been a while. But Andrew Stokely, when I decided I was going to start this thing here.

I'll turn down the hot chocolate now, but Brother Louie, that was, that's fantastic. It makes me want to, you know, groove. But Andrew, when I started this project, I'm like, Andrew's my friend and he does all the audio for Blue Jay games on Sportsnet and he's doing like curling events during the winter. Like he's in the...

He's very active. He's in the truck. He's very professional, yeah. And he's doing the cave, whatever. He's making sure you hear the stuff you watch on TV. And he recommended these microphones and the swing arms and this mixing board. And he helped me put it all together. So can I ask what the budget was?

Yeah. Okay. So the initial budget was $1,600. Wow. Means of production. I remember when I... So originally, I was doing this at like the first half a dozen, maybe the first dozen or so episodes, I was going to Humble and Fred's studio. Okay.

And I would go and use their stuff. And I'm like, at some point I realized if I'm going to do this the way I want to do this and the way I see it evolving, I got to be able to do this in my own home. So I said to Andrew, what would it cost for me to sound like, sound good? I don't want it to sound like I got some $50 USB microphone hooked up to my laptop. No, this is a great setup. In fact, at $1,600, you think that's the current price or the original price? I think it's pretty similar. So the only things I've added since the initial investment of $1,600,

see these swing arm guys? I used to have the stands like that I'm pointing to. Okay, so static. So I got two of these and they were like, I think 200 bucks each or something. So I have, and then my hard drive died. So I've had some work to do on the actual laptop side,

but the whole project is probably right now, I'm probably looking at like $2,500 worth of gear. That's, you know, very affordable. In fact, you know, you should be consulting with people that need to podcast, right?

Later, I'm going to ask for some business advice on that front. Yeah, sure. Because that's what you're here for. But I should point out that $2,500 investment did not get me loose skis as in suspenders. So, because the cash has to go to you. Well, that's your capital investment. You know, it's not like you're sharing it with me. You didn't give me an ownership stake.

To be discussed. Okay. So I want to find out, when I tweeted that you were coming on the show, Stokely, as he often does, lets me know whether am I dealing with a good guy or a rotten egg? Like, who am I dealing with? Right. And Stokely gave you rave reviews. So tell me, when did you work with Andrew Stoke? When I came to Toronto in 1999 for the launch of Report on Business Television, that's when I met Andrew. He was doing audio and so on.

So he was helping put that on the air. Yeah, no, every day, right? He's like a Marine. That's before he became an independent contractor. Well, I think that at the time he was on contract i don't know if he was on payroll huh right so andrews would you concur uh you are being recorded but you know that but would you concur stokely's a good guy oh yeah yeah straight up right you got a question he's got an answer right and you he won't steer you wrong so no he is a good guy yeah he straight up told me that if you want to sound decent this

is what it will cost and he said, get it from this guy. And then I just basically, all I ended up doing was using my credit card. And then he helped put it together. So let me ask you this. With your podcast, do you have it stored on the cloud somewhere? Yeah, there's a web server, a guy named Ian Service in Guelph, who's a friend of the show, has been on an episode. His server hosts, basically, so after this episode, I'll have an MP3 file.

I'll upload it. I'll FTP it to his web server. And then I edit my XML file, which tells all my subscribers. Basically, it tells all the aggregators, like be it iTunes or Google Play or TuneIn or however you access this audio, it gets told basically, hey, there's a new episode.

Here's the title. Here's the description. Have fun. Here's the location of the MP3 file. So all those different systems, like iTunes is the most popular, but I happen to use Google Play Music, but there's a whole bunch of these things, right?

That's distribution, right? But they're all looking at the same one single XML file, so I just have to update that. And that is stored at your pal's place? That actually, okay, the XML file's on my web server, which hosts torontomic.com. The MP3s are on Ian's services. So is there a monthly churn

to that? Yeah, there's a, yeah, this is where I have a good relation. So I offer free technical support to Humble and Fred in exchange for using a piece of their web server that they have with E-In-Service. So currently, this is approximately $250 a month, approximately. I'm actually not paying that right now.

Humble and Fred are picking that up in exchange for on-demand technical assistance. Is that your background? Technical background? Oh, it is evolved that way, but I'm actually an English and history major from U of T who was always on the creative side.

And in the late 90s, I basically started writing HTML and JavaScript and coding. Well, coding makes it sound better. It's more client-side programming, which is like a markup language. But you can call it coding, if you will, because I taught myself all that. And then I started trial and error stuff on my own website.

And then I brought that to the B2B world so I could pay my mortgage. And that's what I do today, digital marketing for a software company. Okay. Because when I met you years ago at that party at Humble's house, he was saying that you were on the technical side, helping them do some things online or what have you. Right, right. That's right. So because I was pretty good at the creative and the technical,

I let Humble and Fred take care of content. Right. And I did the technical side. And you're right, I'm going to say that was about 11 years ago, maybe. A long time. Yeah. They were just starting, I think, with Kim Stockwood and Colleen and what have you.

And Rick Hodge. Right. Right, right. And so because of my involvement with Humble and Fred's podcast in the back end, I call the back end, but the technical side, I got the itch to try this side. This is about five years ago now.

And then I bought this gear and just did it. Well, I think it's brilliant because I don't know if you remember Brian Linehan. Of course. I model my interviewing techniques after the man. Okay. So I just recently read that his estate had contributed or donated a thousand hours of interviews to, I'm not sure if it's a university or a foundation or what have you. And you're building the same kind of catalog and you're much younger than Lineham with obviously better health. Hopefully. By the way, so it's funny you mentioned Brian because youngsters don't know who Brian is, but I grew up watching the Brian Lineham interviews. City Lights.

Yeah, City Lights. Yeah, and not only the Martin Short imitation on SCTV, which was great. What was that, Brian something else? But bottom line is I loved how prepared he was. Like he did his homework and he asked, he was very, so what I've tried to do with my interviews with people like yourself is I try to make sure I'm prepared. Like I do my homework.

So if you go in a certain direction, like I can go there with you and be comfortable because I know the subject matter. It's sort of... Well, you're not having some $9 an hour, you know, associate producer banging out questions without background, right? Right.

A to Z, it's all me. Right. It's on me. So you take it seriously. Thank you. Yes, I try. I try. That party, I was going to say, I was wondering if you remembered. is that it's all me right it's on me so you you take it seriously thank you yes i try i try uh that party i was gonna say i was gonna i was wondering if you remembered that we uh partied

together 10 10 years ago i don't remember when it was but i do remember you were there and i was amazed that um you know there was somebody like yourself independent who was helping them that was working at the time or Howard anyway uh was working uh you know for a broadcast entity that didn't really understand what you were doing they were that was back when they would do like they would all go to Dan Duran's house and record one-off podcasts like they were sort of testing it out right and yeah so I think they started doing the daily thing about I don't know five and a half years ago or six years ago. But yeah, we used to do once in a while. They would all get together and we'd record some audio and then they'd hand off this MP3 file and say,

OK, Mike, what do you have to do so people can hear this? And then I would take it from there. Right. Well, that's what, you know, any kind of communications technology, whether it's television, radio, internet, what have you, you need to have somebody that understands the widgets and the gidgets, right? Otherwise, it's just a great idea with no implementation. Oh, man. Absolutely. Absolutely. A couple of sports notes before I tell you how I'm paying you today, which is in beer. But Raptors have their hands full, so I don't know if you're a sports fan. Yeah, I follow sports. I'm

only a fool, I think, would bet against LeBron James in the second round, and I'm no fool. But I was hopeful maybe we had made some adjustments that could hang with the big boys, but this series, it's going to be tough. I mean, I'm not sure there's a Raptor fan who really believes we can win this series. Well, LeBron isn't I mean, I'm not sure there's a Raptor fan who really believes we can win this series.

Well, LeBron isn't working by himself, right? He's got a good team around him. And the question becomes, will the other parts step up? And, you know, if you remember last year's playoffs, LeBron basically put the team on his shoulders and dragged them to the championship, right? And in that game seven, at the end of that seven, again, you're right. It's just like, guys, get on my back. We're going to win this thing.

This is amazing. Yeah, we're not letting this opportunity get away because I think he had learned over the course of his career getting close ain't good enough, right? Right, right. And now he's been in six finals in a row. He's won half of them and looking for a seventh. So that's going to be tough.

And one last note on sports here before we go into talk about happy capitalism. The Maple Leafs last won the Stanley Cup 50 years ago today. Yeah, I didn't really register with me. I was living in New York at the time. So it was, you know, either the Rangers or Montreal in my case because I was born in Montreal. Well, they never, they don't have much. I think 93 was their last cup,

but the Rangers won in 94, I remember, to end their drought. But they didn't get a 50-year drought. This is an unprecedented drought. But anyway. Wait, could you say, you know, more pathetic management, you know, ever, you know, put in a corporate environment

than the Leafs? Our pal Hal. Holy chump, pretty lame. Did you know Jeff Merrick buried him? Yeah, yeah, through, pardon me? Oh, sorry. Yeah. Buried him?

Yeah. He was working at Park Lawn Cemetery when Harold Ballard died. So Jeff Merrick put the dirt on Harold Ballard's coffin in Park Lawn. Did he get a video of that? One day I was in Park Lawn for another reason. My buddy happens to be buried there. And then I texted Merrick and I'm like, where's Harold

Ballard's grave? It's only on the ground. You know when you have the marker on the ground? No mausoleum. Right. So he helped me find Harold Ballard's grave. Wow. I didn't realize that. But that must have been a decent gig as a grave digger. Yeah. It's funny, the small world, because he

had another job at that time. He worked for Great Lakes Brewery. This is your sponsor. Right. So this is so bizarre how this all... Why don't you tell me a little bit about Great Lakes Brewery? Okay. These guys are cool.

They're near that Costco near Queensway and rural York area, just between the Gardner and Queensway. So it's a micro brewery. Yeah, they're a local craft brewery, independent. The guys are amazing. I went there just to hang out. I was there like, I think, Friday afternoon last week and had a pint of my favorite, Octopus Wants to Fight. And yeah, which is a great, and it's a great beer. It's got a great citrus taste to it.

But these guys are fantastic. We're actually flirting with the idea of having a Toronto-miked night at Great Lakes Beer where listeners can kind of get together and meet each other. What a great idea. And have a pint. So more details, but early discussions on that. But you're taking that home with you, the Great Lakes Brewery. There's only five here.

There's only five. Where's the sixth one for this six-pack? You know what? You're not the first to complain about that. So I turned the six-pack to a five-pack because you're also taking home the glass. And some people take public transit and they can stick that in the empty slot. That says propertyinthesix.com. That's from Brian Gerstein.

So Brian Gerstein, he's a real estate agent with PSR Brokerage. And I'm going to give you Brian's tip and then I got a real estate question for you. Yeah, go ahead. Brian says that the market in the last month has changed so any home evaluation prior to April is useless. So he's asking that you contact him for an accurate home evaluation. Give him a shout. Propertyinthesix.com is how you contact Brian.

Tell him Toronto Mike sent you. He's a great guy. I'm a great agent. I urge you to chat with him before you buy or sell. So, Lou, I have a couple of questions for you. One is, real estate in the GTA, is that like planting a tree where the best time to do it was 20 years ago, but the second best time is today? Or is this a bubble that's going to burst? Do you have a crystal ball you can look into and tell me what's going on? No crystal balls, no ponchos, no granola, nothing like that. But let's just talk about markets. Talk to me. So here's the question. Do you own this home that we're in? Yes,

I do. Okay. And how long ago did you buy it? Three and a half years ago. Were you happy with the purchase? Yes. Okay. And your family lives here with you? Yep. Okay. So here's the housing cycle, how I see it and how I'd like to communicate it to your listeners. Number one, you start out in your family's home. So your parents have a home, whether it's a rental or they own it. And that's where you have your formative years. And then if you're so fortunate, you can either own your home or rent a home, but it's still your home. And then you go through that part of the life cycle and then eventually end up in a senior's home. And then you go to a nursing home. And then the final residence, your funeral home. Okay. So I think that what I've learned

over the course of a lifetime, and I've informed people, is that you're going to need shelter till the day you die. Okay? Yes. So I think that if you ask yourself this question, if you accept my hypothesis that there's a housing cycle that is in conjunction with your life cycle, that you will need a residence till the day you die, shelter. And if you play it right and ask yourself this question, will the property that I acquired today in 2017 be worth more or less in 30 years? Do you got an answer for me? I'm going to say more. Yes, very good, Mike.

So, you know, I'm hearing all this whining and complaining. That's really what it's about. It's a bunch of career politicians that have found an issue where they're going to go to people that don't get up every day and don't go to work every day and telling them a story about how the government's going to provide them with housing. Now, if you look at Toronto Community Housing as an example of their stewardship. Toronto Community Housing is the largest slumlord in North America. So these geniuses that brought you things like the Green Energy Plan, which has only driven electricity prices through the roof in Ontario. Also, you know, closed gas plants and spent billions trying to protect their

elected base. The Orange Air Ambulance fiasco, which didn't provide any kind of anything except a slush fund for their cronies. And you look at some of the other debacles that are out there, and you ask yourself, can I really trust them to manage what for most people, Mike, is their largest asset? If you look at your asset base, the average person, you'd have to say that their principal residence is a substantial part of their assets. So these clowns are now going out there and suggesting that, you know what, we want to protect the interests of people who don't own a home while crushing the asset values of people who have done the thing that we've always had to do to

own property. We had to sacrifice. We had to save. We had to find the courage to strap on debt and buy a property. And now we're going to take any value that's been accumulated around the concept of fairness. Fairness to people who don't have a position in the market while crushing the value of people in the market. So when you're asking me, do I think there's a bubble? I think asset prices have gone up. That's typically what we want when we buy an asset, Mike. We're not looking to get crushed in a depreciation. We're looking for appreciation. So I think you need to look at the proponents of the concern around rising real estate prices and ask yourself this question. What have they done for me lately? And if you look at it rationally,

you're going to walk away and say, my God, I'm on a pirate ship with Blackbeard. Okay. So I would say that I don't have any faith in them. I have no trust in them. Their resume absolutely speaks to failure. And now they want to mess with my biggest asset. Well, I'm not happy about that happy capitalism yeah so i'm looking after myself no right you're right you know and you know do you have a pension from a taxpayer-based enterprise uh no i have no pension right so your assets will provide you with the resources necessary to provide you with shelter till the day you die. And this cadre of fools has got you bamboozled, or a lot of people bamboozle, and

thinking that it's about fairness. And I don't think it's fair to me. And I don't think it's fair to you. And I don't think it's fair to any homeowner, property owner, when you look at the rent control that they brought in, where they're only going to allow property owners who have rental property to increase their rents by 2.5%. If you know, in the inflation rate, as I do, which is 2%, so you're barely keeping up with inflation. And so you got 0.5% as your rate of return on your capital. Wow. Wow.

And, you know, Toronto Community Housing, how did it become such a slum? Well, because they never funded it appropriately in order to maintain it. But can't apply, if you make substantial infrastructure improvements. Like what? I mean, I don't know. New air conditioning system? I don't know. What do I know? For who?

Like what are we now? Hold on, hold on. Are we now in the science business or are we just providing shelter? All right, yeah. So we look at the problems with residential real estate and who is the biggest slumlord in the city?

Oh, it's Toronto Community Housing. And they want to now take rental accommodation, people that I would assume want to provide decent habitation for their clients, and squeeze the cash out of them in the argument of fairness to the renter without allowing them to upgrade the property. Well, you're going to end up with more slums. That's a guarantee. And in fact, economists, Mike, have said things like, if you want to destroy a city, the number one way, you bomb it.

Number two way, put in rent control. So my opinion on real estate is leave it alone. The market will figure itself out. If there are people out there that are over leveraged, so they don't own enough of the house, if interest rates go up and they get blown off of their properties, you know what that looks like to me? A buying opportunity. Stop messing, get your grubby mitts off it and let it... It's going to go its own way. And if you look at the other things that they've tried to do

and failed miserably at, and, you know, green energy, orange air ambulance, gas plants, and so on and so on and so on, this is going to go down that same drain. Wow. So that's my opinion. No, good. That's what I wanted. That's the opinion of any of my clients other than me.

You were just representing Sweet Lou. Yeah. No, I have my own opinions, and that's one of them on the real estate side. And I think that if you were to get your sponsor, Brian Gerstein, you should give him an hour's worth and get his professional opinion because he's in the trade. I'm only an investor in terms of my principal residence and some rental properties. Okay, great. Now, I'm going to start diving in here. Uh-oh.

First tweet is from Terry, Terry C. Yes. Really enjoy Lou. Hope he relates how he became a displaced New Yorker and ended up living in and loving Toronto. Okay. Well, it's a long story. You got time? I got time. All right. So I was born in Montreal. So my father is a Greek immigrant, came over in the post-war era. My mother is French-Canadian. They met in Montreal. They had a family. My father went on to New York to work for the Onassis North American division called the Central America Corporation.

So he's working in New York. He brings the family down. I go through high school in New York City. And when it comes time to go to university, my father advocates that I come to Canada because, you know, I mean, I could see the economics of it. You could get an Ivy League education in this country for the cost of a community college. Okay. So I said, yeah, all right. So I came, I went to Western. Then I went and did graduate studies in the United States at the State University of New York at Stony Brook when I graduate, when I didn't graduate, Stony Brook when I graduated, I didn't graduate, pardon me, when I concluded my studies. That means I didn't finish my PhD and I needed to make some dough. And so with my last 800 bucks,

I got on a plane and came to Calgary. And I spent 19 years in Calgary. And then I got an opportunity to come here and work for the launch of a report on business television. Here's how I picture it with you growing up. Were you like Alex P. Keaton? I remember Alex. Yeah. You remember how his parents were sort of like former hippies who were working in public broadcasting? My parents were not former hippies who were working in public broadcasting. My parents were not former hippies.

But you were like Alex P. Keaton, who I believe, I've seen him in Suspenders, I'll just say that. But he was all about capitalism and market and all this business-minded person. So back then, you were a bit of an Alex P. Keaton. I'm just looking for an excuse to play the Family Ties theme song.

Hey, you know what? You don't need any excuse with me to play Family Ties because I liked that show. Great show. So let me tell you that part of the drama. I realized at a pretty young age that if I wanted anything, I had to go to my parents and ask them for it. And I thought that absolutely sucked, right? Because the answer I most often got was no. So I realized that I was an economic slave, that I had no freedom of decision, and I didn't

have my own resources, and I depended on the kindness of my parents. And I also realized at that very moment, when was very young that no matter how much my parents loved me they couldn't provide me with the resources to live out my life and I said to myself what were they thinking bringing me into the world and I'd have to figure it out on my own right right and so at that very moment I said well I'm gonna get a paper route I'm gonna hustle up some money I'm gonna look for uh side hustles I'm going to hustle up some money. I'm going to look for side hustles. I'm going to do whatever I can to put green in my jeans so I can get the things that I want. And that's how I proceeded from a very young age.

And I bought my first stocks when I was 11. I started my first business when I was 15. And I just said, you know what? when I was 15. And I just said, you know what? I can't depend on anybody because if you can't depend on your parents to provide you with income for the rest of your natural life,

well, you better start digging. And I don't know if you remember the, you're probably too young, but do you remember Roots, the Alex Haley miniseries? I know of it because I know of it. Okay, but you didn't experience it. So I watched it.

It was the first big broadcast miniseries, bonanza, blockbuster. And the character that resonated with me was a character called Chicken George. And Chicken George was a slave who figured out that if he could figure out and train and manage fighting cocks, that he could possibly make enough money to buy his freedom. And that's what I identified with in 1977 was that I needed to figure out how to buy my freedom from economic slavery. And that's been the full-time mission ever since.

Wow. And you mentioned, so what in Calgary sort of prepared you for the 1999 opportunity at BNN, formerly Report on Business Television? Yeah. Well, first of all, I got to Calgary and I was working in the construction business, just banking every hour, every double bubble hour that I could. I was lucky enough, a character by the name of Willie Pulcher gave me a job on a job site. And within, I don't know, four months, he had me managing the field office, right? Well. Yeah, getting some stuff off of his plate and putting it onto mine because he saw me working like a dog. And in conjunction with that, I was selling the Alberta Report news magazine at night.

And I was selling Chinese egg jars at the local flea market on Sundays. And I was building decks on Saturdays with some of the carpenters from the crew. So I was providing the labor. They were using their skills as carpenters to put the deck on so people didn't get killed. That's called diversification. You're diversifying multiple streams. Well, Mike, I showed up in Calgary with $800 in my pocket, and there may have been poorer people than me, but there wouldn't have been many. So I started doing that, and um, you know, that provided

me with my grub steak. Uh, a former classmate of mine from Western, Rick Babcock showed up in town and said, Hey, let's start a restaurant. And at the time the energy industry was buoyant. And I said, yeah, let's do that. And we put our money together and we opened up a place. And then, boom, the National Energy Program came and knocked the wind out of the entire economy. And I had skins in the game, right? My money was tied up in real estate. And I looked at Ricky and I said, well, happy capitalism, baby. It cuts two ways, right? So the upside optimism met reality.

So every assumption we had made was incomplete without the macro economic environment of, yeah, let's just knock the socks out of the energy industry. So at that point, it was a survival game. And then we had to get creative. And we started Calgary's first comedy club called Beggar's Banquet. Wow. And we went to a place and that all came from going one night to Loose Moose Theater, which was an improvisational comedy theater in Calgary and meeting all of these actors and none of them were getting paid. And I said, well, I think I can change that equation. And so we offered the younger cadre, you know, a certain amount of

cash and a beer tab, much like your Great Lake Brewing compensation package. And they came, we were able to run Thursday, Friday, Saturday at night. People would come and sit, drink, and spend money at a time when they needed a laugh. And two of those characters that we got on stage at that particular time ended up as founders of Kids in the Hall, Bruce McCullough and Mark McKinney. That's, first of all, a big-time fan of Kids in the Hall. Right, of course. I love those guys. Incredibly talented, right? They were working for Squat

and we gave them Squat plus beer and they were happy because the cultural environment at Loose Moose Theatre had an older cadre of performers who was kind of squashing their ascension. No, no, we're in charge.

No, no, we'll be on stage. No, no, you can't do that. You're not really ready. And they were ready, right? And they came out to Toronto, and they were incredibly successful. And so how did I get into report on business? Yeah, like what on the resume made report on business television think you'd make a good on-air equities analyst?

Well, I had been working in, so owning the comedy club, I decided we needed media. And so I went to the local college radio station, CJSW, and I got a radio show Fridays and Saturdays at 10 o'clock. And I made sure to tell people what was coming up at Beggar's Banquet. Right. So tonight at Beggar's Banquet, you can see. Tomorrow you can see. Blah, blah, blah. And I just used that to spin the wheel.

Years later, when I had gotten a license to operate a branch for a securities company, I went around the radio universe in Calgary with a program proposal. Now, before that, I had met Humble Howard, who was the host of the morning show at 107 Kick FM. And he invited me onto his show. So I had this college radio thing that I was doing. I was a guest on his show every Friday doing a feature called Ask Mr. Skeezus. And I can remember walking into the studios at Kick 107, where Howard was working, and saying to myself, you know, this is really just a jazzed up version of CJSW. I mean, sure, they have a janitorial service that cleans this place up. Whereas, you know, the college radio station was a mung pit, right? Nobody cleaned up after themselves. It's exactly what you would think you would find. And so I had some background. Once I got into finance, I realized that I wanted, you know, to use my limited skills in media in order to drive my financial practice.

So I went around to all of the radio stations in the Calgary market with a proposal for a financial show, and they all universally said no. I was crushed on the shelf. And then I went and waited. And one day, AM 1060, CKMX changed formats from Kitty Rock to the Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett station. And I took that proposal and I changed the names on the cover sheet and everywhere else in the document. And I went to see Gary Russell, who is the GM. And we met, we talked. He said, well, do a demo. Let's see if you can actually do it. And because I had had these prior experiences touching these things, it went off all right. I said, fine, do it. So I started doing that. And then, you know, with success in radio, which I had built as a modular program. Right. So I'd have 15 minute blocks much. I gotcha. Yeah, and, you know, so I had the editor of the Calgary Sun,

Jeff Scotton, on as a guest in one module, and we became lifelong friends. And within a year, he had me contributing to columns in the Calgary Sun. I was contributing to the news package at CFCN in Calgary. So, you know, if there were financial issues that they wanted to discuss, they'd call me, I'd run up to the Hill and we'd do whatever we had to do, right? And then Report on Business Television was launching and I had the demos,

right, to show them that I had been at least a guest in television and sent it out. And I got an offer and I took it. Because at that point, my partner had taken over the financial practice. And, you know, I was single. I had no ties to the community. I was kind of semi-retired, Mike. And I said, well, this would be a new adventure. I was kind of semi-retired, Mike.

And I said, well, this would be a new adventure. And it just so happens that my lifelong friend from Calgary, Humble Howard, was living out here. So I got in touch with him. Wow. So that's 1999. You make your way to the Big Smoke. Big Smoke. I got a duffel bag.

I got a suit box with a bunch of suits in it. And I show up here. And from there, just the last 17 years have unfolded. Awesome. So now Report on Business Television, at some point it rebrands as Business News Network, BNN. You were there till 2007. But while you were there, did you meet anyone special at the... Yeah, that's where I met my wife.

Right. Yeah, it's very special. So Linda Nazareth, my wife, the economist for the station, and I got together. We got married. We subsequently had a child, our daughter Madeline, who's now 14. Wow. And so, yeah, so I would say that that would be the most significant person that I met when I was there. Although, you know, from a capital perspective, I did get the opportunity to meet Ken Thompson, Canada's richest man.

Wow. You know, through that and other people in the business community. So it's been, you know, it's been good being here. So Linda ran fairly recently, I believe. Linda ran for Oakville counselor. That's right. She ran as a ward, I guess, counselor and did not succeed. as a ward, I guess, counselor and did not succeed.

But, you know, it was good for her in that it showed her, you know, what the ropes are all about. And, you know, I was very proud of her for, you know, taking her brand out there and seeing how it would resonate. And, you know, so that's the, you know, and subsequent to that, she made a lot of contacts through her run. Do you have, I guess I'm wondering if you have any political aspirations at all? I don't really have those skills, Mike.

You know, I mean, I see what politics is all about. And I said, not for me. You know, a bunch of blathering, a bunch of posturing, a bunch of pouting, posturing. You know, it's just not my thing. bunch of pouting, posturing, you know, it's just not my thing. But, you know, might I use it as a marketing platform like Kevin O'Leary? I mean, did anybody take O'Leary's run seriously? Okay, I'm with you, except most of us did not take Donald Trump's run seriously. Different character. Different character. Like I worked with Kevin for a number of years. And when I saw him,

you know, throwing his hat in the ring, so to speak, I said, he'll be out as soon as he didn't buy it for a minute. Well, I thought, you know, he, he probably saw it as I did, which is that it was a good marketing platform. His name was everywhere. He was in, you know, every newspaper, they mentioned, you know, everything he was doing, right. All of it is true. Yeah. So, mentioned, you know, everything he was doing, right? All of it. That is true. Yeah. So, I mean, for free publicity and, you know, I was talking to one of the donors, contributors to his campaign, who was very upset about him pulling out. And I said, well, what did you think you were buying? Right. Right. So, you know, I would say that that's a good model for a relentless promoter like myself. Right. That might be something. I think the worst

thing that could have happened to Kevin and possibly to me would be to actually be elected and have to serve. It just reminds me of the Donald Trump story. I always envisioned his endgame with some kind of a right-wing network or some kind of a, you know, I never envisioned his endgame was to actually win and then have to serve a term as president. Yeah, I think that... I'm not sure he did either, but that's... Well, I think if you looked at, you know, which handicapper you were using for the election, you know, there were early indicators that Hillary was a really bad candidate. Yeah, except at the end, the two I...

Maybe I'm looking at the wrong two, but the two I was looking at, which was like, I think one was like the New York Times and the other was 1530. I hope I got that right. But a very popular one. But both had me fooled because by 8 p.m. on election night, I thought I didn't think it would be close. And I was very wrong. Yeah, I was right. I called it right on air.

So you called it right. Yeah, I called it right on air because there is a professor at American University, and I forget his name, every election cycle. He's called every presidential election right since 1980, let's say. Right, that's the first Reagan, right. Like, I'm not a professional when it comes to politics. Right. I'm not a professional when it comes to politics. So I always, when I'm betting on something, if you will, where I have no expertise in which to make an evaluation, I always look for a handicapper.

Who's a good handicapper? Here's one. And I advise our listeners at AM640 that you should pay attention to what good handicappers are saying. And don't buy into the professional pundit community. Like after the election, I can't tell you how many political expert for this station or that station or this newspaper, nobody saw it. I said, no, you're wrong. You're absolutely wrong. A lot of people saw it. I'm sorry that you're not so good at your job. But the reality is you have to listen to all the voices and you have to handicap the outcome. You mentioned AM640. We got lots of questions there. Before I dive into the AM640

stuff, why did you leave BNN? Oh, I didn't leave. No, they asked me to leave. They didn't renew my contract. And they, you know, I guess they'd had enough. And they wouldn't be the first one in my career that had enough of me. But is it strange that your wife, because she stayed until 2012, right? So you were both there, and then they didn't renew your contract. Well, why should she leave? No, she shouldn't. I just mentioned the Howard Stern story. Why should he leave?

Because Robin was let go. He's got to stay. Yeah, well, when was she let go? She was let go. I think it was Washington. I want to say Washington or New York Because Robin was let go. He's got to stay. Yeah, well, when was she let go? She was let go. I think it was Washington. I want to say Washington or New York. She was let go. And she was upset that he stayed in the movie anyways.

And in the book, Private Parts, he explained that he needed to stay on in order to get them. He needed to keep the gig in order to get them back on. But there was a scene where Robin was upset that Howard did not quit in protest. Yeah, I don't see why you should fall on the sword, and I didn't expect that from my wife, right? Most subscribers probably know you best from 640. Right. So let's start by, can you tell me, like, when during the day would we hear your voice on AM640? At current manifestation?

Right. I know it changes a lot. I know it changes. Well, it doesn't change that much. It's not like every day or anything like that. But I'm on at the top of the hour. So let's call it 55. So 6.55, 7.55, 8.55, 9.55 in the morning.

And now 4.55, 5.55, 6.55 in the afternoon drive. And that's, so that's Oakley's. That's the John Oakley show. So are you doing these things from home? Yeah. I have an ISDN hookup, which is a box with two phone lines running into it, which gives you studio quality sound. It sounds like you're in the room.

It does. And that's why that decision was made, as opposed to... If you listen to radio where somebody's calling in on the phone, it can get annoying. It sounds like the phone to me. I can tell when someone's phoning it in phoning it in if you will literally but the isdn line i because i recently learned from bill hayes that john derringer sometimes was doing an isdn thing well i mean you know i think that over time that may be the way things evolve right like do you have to have all that real estate you know so do you ever have to make an appearance at the Corus Quay there? No, I haven't, and I try not to. I mean, you know, when you live in a city

like Toronto with the mismanagement of the infrastructure in the city, where the, you know, I could get tied up for hours going hither and yon. Oh, I know. So I will go to Toronto for a check, but I get direct deposit, so I get direct deposit.

So I saved myself that. And they just closed the exit to the Yonge Bay, York. I think I found a Dodge around that. But you can take Lakeshore the whole way, I guess, but that would be tough. Well, you get off. Well, I'm not going to tell people my Dodge. Jervis, right? I'm not telling anybody my Dodge. Just jam up my route.

But I don't come into the city that often. I'm very happy living and working in Oakville. And, you know, coming here is a treat because you don't have to go into the belly of the beast. No, yeah. This is great for you. Yeah, you're kind of like in the mouth of the beast, but not the belly. Yeah, exactly. So you never have to hang up the cool kids at Sugar Beach.

You never have to. Well, you know, I guess if I had to, right? But they'd have to pay me more for the grief of getting there, right? Okay. By the way, a quick aside is that I got a tweet from Todd who says that you were a great panelist on Off the Record. Yes. During the sports work stoppages, etc. So what kind of guys?

I got to ask you. What's it like? Michael Landsberg is a guy, I've invited him on the show. Via email, he showed great enthusiasm. But when it came time to, hey, what day in time can we book you? He goes radio silent on me. He's got anxiety issues, you know that, right?

Oh, well, yeah, he's very public. I didn't know if that, so he doesn't. I'm sure that has more to do with it than, you know, just being part of your universe, right? Don't take it personally. Yeah, I, you know, I think if you take anything personally, you're doing yourself a disservice. You know, who knows what's going on in Mike's life when you ask him, you know, and try and close him. He's not that closable. You know, did you offer him beer? Did he know there was beer in the deal? I got to remind him there's beer. Okay. And what about the glass?

The glass is a new development, so he probably doesn't know about the glass. You see, you didn't put all of your assets forward in trying to make that appeal, but you could try again. I will. What was it like doing Off the Record, though? It was fun. Well, I mean, everything's fun, right? I mean, you know, I got to tell you, like my experience or my first experience in broadcasting was when I lived in New York. My mother dragged us into Manhattan. I say dragged. That's not really.

We were willing participants, but she wanted to get us on Romper Room. Of course. Yeah. I think every big city had their own version. Right. It's the 1960s, and mom's taking us to Manhattan for Romper Room. And then there was a local show called Sandy Becker. And I was pretty comfortable as a kid, you know, just saying, okay, so here we're

going to play with these nice people. And, you know, typically if you look at how broadcasting is structured, so, you know, off the record, for example, there's a host and you're a guest. Off the Record, for example, there's a host and you're a guest. So do you understand those roles? I understand my role as a guest, right, is to, you know, be nice to the host. Did you have to share the stage with any wrestlers? I noticed they went heavy on the wrestlers at Off the Record. This is my memory.

I know it's long gone. Not long gone, but it recently was canceled. Was it? Yeah, Off the Record is no more. Because michael lansberg he's only doing the 10 50 morning show on tsn tsn right tsn radio maybe he didn't want to do it anymore you know it's a lot of work and it takes a lot of money to put on a daily show right yeah daily tv show i think he left off the record a similar fashion to you leaving oh so there was no there was no extension right right uh i got an anonymous note uh which i'm gonna hit you with nothing too harsh similar fashion to you leaving. Oh, so there was no extension. Right, right.

I got an anonymous note, which I'm going to hit you with. Nothing too harsh, but I'm going to read it verbatim. Yeah, go ahead. Lou's schedule on 6.50, sorry, 6.50, 6.40, there's no 6.50, 6.40 used to include

three afternoon appearances on the 55s, the first being at 3.55 at the end of the Kelly Cotrera show. Right. Very recently, he and Kelly had what sounded like a seriously nasty exchange, speaking of the wrestlers, that's my ad lib there, on air, a disagreement over something I can't even remember now. Days later, he was no longer on at 355 during Kelly's show

and instead appeared only with Oakley at 4, 5, and 6.55. It seemed too coincidental. Lou Skeezes, you're on the hot seat right now. Do you want to address these allegations of a falling out with you and Kelly Cotrera? Well, first of all, I don't make those kind of decisions, right? I learned one thing, Mike, in business. Find out what your client wants and give it to them. So they wanted to make the change.

I said, I'm okay with that. In fact, I really enjoy it more because I have a wider spread from 10 o'clock to almost 5 o'clock to do other things. It's like a split shift. You can do, yeah, this kind of stuff. Yeah, I do. And I used to have to say, okay, I've got to get back by 3 in order to do the 350. Well, I have more time in order to adjust.

So, again, I have no idea. And that may be the perception of a listener. Right. But I have no background on how that decision was made. And I really don't care. Because you know what we say in my house, Mike? The pay is the same. Make the customer happy.

Find out what the customer wants and give it to them. No, because I know Kelly pretty well, and she's a more liberal, skewed person, not as conservative a voice as I'm used to hearing on AM640, if that's fair to say.

Yeah, okay. So I would think that that would be part of the dynamic would be sort of if you and her disagreeing on some issues where you might have more of a conservative opinion in hers dragging you left. Again, I don't get involved in that kind of content manipulation thing, right? I do my thing. She does her thing. And now I'm doing it.

It seems to make more sense, to be honest with you, to have me on during the entire Oakley show. And you've been doing, you've been, you know, you've been on the air of Oakley forever, right? Not forever, but you know, a good long number of years. Not forever. Yeah. I mean, you know, I, I, I can't even remember. I remember when it started. See, it is forever. I'm just kidding. Well, you know, it's just like I don't have my fact sheet in front of me, right? I got this old memory bank going on. But I'm thinking, okay, speaking of Humble Howard, so here's how the worlds all collide here.

So Humble and Fred got an offer they couldn't refuse. No, they couldn't refuse it. Yeah. Yeah, you're right. They could have refused it, but Howard did not want to refuse it. And that was with Standard Broadcasting to move to Virgin. Not Virgin.

It wasn't Virgin yet. It was Mix 99.9. Right. So they left Chorus, where Fred had been forever. Well, it wasn't always Chorus, but it was with the same company forever. When I say forever,

I guess he's going back to the 70s anyways with CFNY. Yeah, Fred. So Humble Howard and Fred move over to Mix 99.9, which means they leave the morning show at Mojo Radio 640, and Oakley is the cat who takes the spot. So I'm thinking that's like 2001 or something like that. No, I started at Mojo when they launched in 2001.

That was 16 years ago. I started at Mojo when they launched in 2001. That was 16 years ago. In fact, Mike Stafford was just noting his tenure, anniversary and all that. And I said, you know, 16 more, baby. Keep stringing them together. Stafford, by the way, is a port credit guy.

He goes to Chorus Key because he's got to go to the office. And he's a Lakeshore all the way backhore all the way back guy he doesn't even touch the gardener just an aside i've never stafford well he's also on a shift i guess where that works best for him right right you can avoid the uh the rush hour well no he's on at nine right so he's he's pretty well smack in it yeah you know depending on what time you know what the travel time is and distance from Port Credit. Back to Oakley real quick. He recently moved from that morning spot to afternoons.

640 introduced a new morning shot. Do you have any idea if that was like, did Oakley ask to move or was he told to move? No insight into the Oakley move? I don't go into the building. The posing, the posturing, the pouting, the politics, I have no background on. And, you know, I don't have any inside information because nobody I know or interact with, you know, feeds me that kind of dish. So, you know, it's not that I'm, you know, not answering your question.

I'm honestly telling you, I have no idea. Not answering your question. I'm honestly telling you, I have no idea. And however that was manifested, you know, so be it. Move on. Again, I think Oakley's smart enough and been in the business long enough to figure out what the client wants and give it to them. And that's how business continues. I don't even see that as a, I think that's a parallel move. The two big spots are the morning show and the drive.

And, you know, it's six of one, half dozen of another. Again, you know, what does the client want? You know, it's not like we own these assets. You own these assets. You decide what happens at Toronto, Mike, right? I am my own boss here. Right. So you can decide.

But if I came in here and I was a lousy guest and I insulted you and your family and all this, you'd say, I think we're done with this. I'd say no beer for you. No beer for you. No glass. I'm breaking this glass and cutting your throat with the jars. It would be a great conversation piece. You know that Lou Skizis guy in 640? Yeah, you know what he said to me.

Yeah. So I think that for listeners, right, they get a certain tone of it. Well, I get that Oakley question a lot, and I have no idea myself. Why don't you ask Oakley? Yeah, Oakley is a— Have you asked him to be a guest on? I have not. I would love to have Oakley here, but I have not yet asked him.

Well, you have to ask him. I've got to pace myself here. We're going for the long haul here. What do you mean? You think, what do you mean? You're already 230 into this? That's true. Is it 230 or?

It's 234. 234. So you're approaching Linehan territory. Is that right? Well, you're almost a quarter of the way there. He's said to have had a thousand hours of video. Some of these episodes go well past an hour. So if I add up all the hours...

Yeah, it doesn't matter, right? Yeah. It doesn't matter. I mean, I guess because you're not constrained by somebody else's show buttoning up against you, right? No constraints. All self-imposed. So I would say...

And, you know, I had a question for you. Yeah, please, please. Am I the first financial guy that you've had on? Wow. Do you want to know why? Yeah, tell me. I have such little interest in the subject matter, which I think is part detriment to me,

which I'm going to ask you for some personal advice in a minute. When it comes to this podcast, for example. Sports? Entertainment? I love sports and entertainment. All my guests are typically people in subject matter I'm personally interested in. I'm personally interested in.

I'm personally interested in you, Lou, less so in the actual business reporting. No, but I noticed because I did my research and looking at, you know, Toronto Mike, and I looked at all your guests and I said. Nothing like this. Yeah, well, you know, it's mostly sports people, sports broadcasters. Yeah, a lot of that. A lot of musicians. Or like a Steve Anthony. Elvis you have on a lot.

For a dead guy, that's pretty good. Elvis is my buddy. But you're right. I go to places I'm interested in, which is typically like city TV people from the 80s and 90s or CBC personalities now. Or you mentioned sports media. I love sports. So I have a lot of like Bob McKenzie's or Brian Williams was on recently. Those kind of people.

I saw that. Storm and Norman Rumack, who was on 590 for many, many years, is coming over tomorrow. Oh, wow. So for you, Lou, and the happy capitalism stuff, here's my question for you. I got this podcast. I put some money into it. I try to crowdfund it through patreon.com slash Toronto Mike, which is having a very lukewarm results. It's early.

It's early. That's right. It's early. Monetizing this podcast, I've never hustled. I've never actually gone out and tried to sell it. The beer company one day wrote me an email and said, we're in your neighborhood. Would you come in for a meeting? And I happily biked over because I would bike over to meet just about anybody to talk about whatever. And they pitched me on something and then I thought about it and then I said, okay. So that was 18 months ago. So the beer has been going for 18 months. There was another sponsor for six months and then has now paused. But then Brian came on board to fill that gap,

and he's been sponsoring it for only about a month now. But he signed a six-month deal. How should I be going about monetizing this thing? Or should I even bother? Should I keep this as a passion project? I have no idea what to do in this regard. With your existing experience with sponsors, are you breaking even or are you cash flow positive?

This podcast is only costing me my time at this point. So you're breaking even on hard costs. Right, exactly. But you're not compensating yourself for your professional time. No, maybe for a McDonald's combo a week or something like that. Okay, so the question becomes, how much time do you want to devote to chasing sponsorship? That's exactly how my head computes it

in very little. I'm a very busy man. That's not your thing. I don't like that. So I would say that if you're not willing to do it yourself because you're otherwise engaged, then are you willing to hire somebody

to chase that money for you? I'm stuck at a point where I don't know if there's any there there. Like, I don't know if this is worth doing that for. What are people buying now? So the brewery, the real estate guy, this, let me get his name right here. My glasses. Brian Gerstein. Correct.

From The Six, right? Propertyinthesix.com. Propertyinthesix.com. Propertyinthesix.com. Let's get that right. So if you were to hire somebody to chase these kind of accounts, what are they buying on just to be associated and affiliated? Well, I have hard metrics on unique downloads per episode. Is that what they're buying on, those measurement systems?

This is actually part of the problem. To me, that's evidence of unique listenership. And what goes around with that would be things like being affiliated with an independent podcast that people seem to enjoy, and then some social interaction and stuff that I'm often on via Twitter or the blog, torontomike.com. So I believe there's a package of value there to an advertiser looking. Okay, so you would go to them and show them what your measurement is indicating.

So many people, so many hours, what have you. Now, do you have a metadata on where these people are? Which postal codes they come from? I have, yes, I have a geographic breakdown. Yep. All right. Well, that could be very important. You know, if you think about it, you know, does this area of Toronto, and I don't know, I haven't done your postal code analysis yet. But if a lot of them were concentrated in this geographic area, you're kind of like the local radio station, if you will. The thing about the IP addresses is it doesn't get that granular. Like, it'll be Toronto. Like, it won't be like what neighborhood in Toronto.

The more you get, the more you know. Right. Right. So then you could, you know, once you know where these people reside, if it's mostly Toronto. It is definitely Toronto heavy for some obvious reasons. Yeah, well, I guess the title itself would suggest it. So you could get a sales rep to go and talk to known advertisers about coming and being part of your equation. And I'm sure, I don't know what you're charging on your rate card,

but I'm sure you'd be very competitive, right, from a price perspective. So it's just a matter of having somebody do it in exchange for a percentage of sale. You're not going to do it. You already told me that, right? So you're not qualified, right? You haven't done it, and the likelihood not going to do it. You already told me that. So you're not qualified. You haven't done it and the likelihood that you will do it is low. Because you have a steady gig that enthuses you, right?

Right. And pays the bills and you understand it and you have a good relationship. And then when I do have free time, That's not what you want to do. Because I give this project about 90 minutes a week and then I got four kids sucking up all my free time.

Lovingly. Bless their hearts. Lovingly. And I love it. Yeah, absolutely. But you're right. I'm not going to hustle this at this point. Okay.

But you have an opportunity that is underdeveloped. Now, some of the things that you might consider next year, do you have the financial resources to lay out some cash to get somebody to try and take your flag out into the harbor? Couldn't that person be compensated, like a percentage of sales? You could, but if they were to give you a rough ride on it,

people are entitled to minimum wage for the hours that they work. So it's either they're going to make some money on a sales commission basis, or if it doesn't work out, they could come back to you and want to get minimum wage for every hour that they claim and that you assert that they worked for you. So it's a cash call, to be honest with you, Mike. you assert that they worked for you. So it's a cash call, to be honest with you, Mike. So one of the things you might consider doing for next year,

there's all kinds of Canada summer work projects that you can apply and get government grants to hire people, young people generally. So, you know, theoretically, you could be the recipient of government support for a sales rep for the summer of 2018. Yeah, I realize now you need to turn into my therapist now because I realize having this conversation with you that I so dislike this side of it all that I don't even I'm not even enjoying the conversation about it. Well, I mean, it's you know, it's it's not what you do. Right. You're not a sales guy, right? If you ever showed up in any business I was involved with, I would reject you immediately as a sales rep,

not for your other skill set. It'd be a misapplication of what you bring to the party. If I said, well, here, go sell something, right? It's not where you are, right? Otherwise, you would have this going beyond. And congratulations, by the way, on breaking even. Right. But it walked in the door.

It did walk in the door. So it validates what you're doing. And in order to get some more cash flow, you really need to take that further. Very good. You know what? Painful, but I'm glad we talked. It's not painful. What's painful about it?

Oh, it's unhappy capitalism. Oh, it is not. It's just recognizing how the puzzle goes together, right? Yeah, absolutely. Very good. I've got to pepper you of some more questions here. And I know the answers to this one because you don't involve yourself in this, but there's rumors forever. There's been rumors of a format change at 640,

but you have no insight into any potential format change. Yeah, I can't help you with that. What would it be? All traffic, all the time. I've heard that for 16 years that I've been there. That's why I asked, because I've been hearing it for 16 years. Yeah, so I don't know. I mean, do you think that that would work in the Toronto market?

I think it'd be tough sledding because of the heritage. Do you think that that would work in the Toronto marketplace? I think it would be tough sledding because of the heritage. Well, 680 has been doing similar updates like that since 1993. Yeah, but you have to wait for the traffic. Right. On the ones. On the ones. Right.

Now, that seems to have satisfied most people. Right. And I'm told my good friend Mayor Mihaljevic, who's a great accountant, by the way, friend mayor mahalowitz who's a great accountant by the way um you know he uh uses uh online systems right smartphones and all that to get the traffic info he needs so i'm not sure you do google right they uh they do that yeah because they have the all the android devices that have opted in are sitting in the cars and they can measure what speed they're going and everything and tell you exactly where the slowdowns are and everything. It's pretty fantastic. Okay, so I don't know if that would be a good application of an expensive undertaking.

But, you know, so what else? Any other formats other than traffic? No, I don't know what you would do. The AM is not for music, I don't think. You're doing talk, which is probably what you should be doing, so I don't know. But the traffic is the rumor I keep hearing. Yeah, but it's been going around a long, long time.

And if it hasn't been picked up yet, it's got to tell you that nobody has any faith in it. Is there any existing all-traffic station in any market that you're aware of? I don't know, but I know there's none in this market. That's for sure. that you're aware of? I don't know, but I know there's none in this market. That's for sure. I once was talking via internet

and what have you with, you know, Pat Holliday. Of course. Okay, so Pat, you know, at one time we were talking about AM and I said, what do you think? He said, sex.

I said, okay. You know, that would get people's like, whoa, where are you going with that thing? Yeah, just, you know, human sexuality. You almost had that with Mojo. It was just didn't, I think it just got pulled back. It got squashed. Just get Freddie P talking about that, and he'll tell you that it was a great opportunity missed.

What, Mojo? Yeah, Mojo. Or the sex lady after the Maple Leaf games. What was her name? I can Mojo. Or the sex lady after the Maple Leaf games. What was her name? I can't remember. That's true. All I know is that it freaked out the Maple Leafs. Oh, my God, we can't have this after the game.

Right. That's as I understood that story at the time. iHeartMedia is, of course, a massive American radio chain. About to go bankrupt, yes. About to go bankrupt, yes. About to go bankrupt. But Bell Media in this country has licensed the name for their stations. Do you think there would be any... If iHeartMedia in the U.S. goes bankrupt,

does that have any effect on the Bell Media station? It's just a brand, right? So iHeartRadio bought up... I'm trying to remember the name of the pre-existing radio. Clear Channel. Clear Channel, that's correct. And they strapped on somewhere in the neighborhood of $20 or $25 billion worth of debt. And sadly, the cash flow is not adequate to service that debt.

And there's talk that it's going to blow up. Now, what do I mean by blow up? Does it mean it's going to close that debt. And there's talk that it's going to blow up. Now, what do I mean by blow up? Does it mean it's going to close? No, they're going to kick the shareholders to the curb. They're going to slap the bondholders around and they'll try and make the model fit the cash flow. Okay, so they'll say, well, you're going to have to take a haircut on your bonds.

Yeah, your stock's not worth anything. But the new iHeartRadio, now that's got a chance of being profitable. Is that similar to the CHCH situation at all? I don't know enough about that. They go bankrupt, and then from the ashes, immediately a new company forms and hires back the same people. There's some valid assets there, right? and hires back the same people. There's some valid assets there, right? Typically, the reason that there's a creditor protection application

in the States is Chapter 11 here. We just call it creditor protection. It's because we're trying to salvage something. So the creditors typically get control of the company and then say, is it viable? Will people buy what we're selling? And can we do better and maybe find an exit with all of our money intact? So, you know, the unsecured creditors get slapped around, thrown under the bus. The shareholders get thrown under

the bus. But the creditors, you know, the secured creditors get control of the operation. Gotcha. So I don't know what happened at CHCH, you know, but they had to get their cost in line with their revenue, right? And, you know, these are very challenging times in the broadcasting industry, right? For sure. For sure. ESPN just let go, like, over 100 of their sports journalists, like, this week, I think it was, or last week, I should say. But lots of shrinking, if you will.

But I want to ask you about the CBC. What do you believe the CBC, the mother core, what do you think, Lou, what do you think the role of the CBC should be in this country? I think that TV or radio. All of it? All of it. Well, I don't use the product, and yet I have to pay for it. So that offends me right off the bat. When I lived in Calgary, there was a local CBC station.

And I said, wow, this is bleak radio. I don't need any of this, right? Because it's all the woe be gone. Isn't it sad? This one getting, you know, I don't need those this, right? Because it's all the woe be gone. Isn't it sad? This one getting, you know, I don't need those stories, right? I mean, the CBC to me, Mike, is focused on minimum wage as opposed to maximum opportunity. So they're constantly telling Canadians that, oh, it's so sad. It's so bad. It's so tawdry. And I'm thinking, my God, you know, you're 35 million people living on the resources of a continent. Come on.

Shake it up. So, you know, what I think the CBC, its assets should be sold. If somebody wants to maintain it, great. But to come to me every year for a billion dollars, me and I mean the taxpayer, to subsidize this vanity play. to subsidize this vanity play. You know, one of the things that I did when I was living in Alberta in Calgary, I was the treasurer of the Alberta Motion Picture Industries Association. And one of the things I observed is that, you know, basically, you know, we have an arts welfare system so that if you're a beneficiary, you get to tap the taxpayer for your arts projects. And, you know, whether or not it makes money is irrelevant. So if you look at the number of people

who get money from, say, the Canada Council or those kinds of what I used to refer to as commie bucks organizations, you don't have to make profit. So what happens is like, you don't have to make profit so what happens is like i don't know if you're familiar with the filmmaker adam agoian yes absolutely okay so he has gone to the window multiple times and never returned the capital that he's absorbed making his uvras is that the proper pronunciation i think so okay so you know i look at that and I've cited it many, many times. It's like when I was treasurer, I looked at the list of people that had gone to the window multiple times and never created a winner. I'm thinking, shouldn't you try somebody new? Shouldn't somebody else?

Equian did do the suite hereafter, but you're right. Yeah. Was that a moneymaker? I don't, I can't say for sure. I don't think so. I haven't done that homework yet, but it was critically acclaimed. Yeah, well, you know what? Again, that's cute and all, but if it's not making money and returning capital so other people can take a swing at the plate, then it's a farce.

So I look at it, you know, you ask me about the CBC, it's just an arts welfare program. So when it comes to things like the Olympics, for example, you don't believe the CBC should be even allowed to bid on something like that. I think they inflate the bid. Right. Because they have no accountability. Right. Right. They don't have to answer to shareholders or board of directors or anything. It's all like whatever they feel like. Right. So I you know, and I think if they were out of the picture, the cost of the rights for the Olympics would go down, right? Fewer bidders, obviously prices can't stay up. Right, because it's probably like CTV versus CBC.

And then CBC, you're right, doesn't have the same... No, they just inflate the price, right? They bid it up. Whereas if there's only one bidder, have you ever been in a one bid auction? That's the price. Right, right. Speaking of the Olympics.

Which one? So were you in Calgary in 88? Yes, I was. So what are your thoughts on hosting an Olympic Games, like for a city? Because Toronto's tried a couple of times. Well, they haven't even gotten to the bid. Twice we did though, but yeah. To the Beijing beijing one and i remember the atlanta one in 96 we lost to atlanta that one and then the beijing one in 2000 i think it was or 2008 or something

uh we lost that one whenever the beijing one was i can't even remember but twice we got to the finals and if you didn't get the bid right Right. So you didn't have enough. Should we take another kick at this can, or is this a sucker's game? Okay. The reason that the Calgary games were successful, and they were successful from a couple of points of view. Number one, at the time, the rights, the TV rights, were growing. The rights, the TV rights were growing. And the committee in Calgary, the Olympic Committee in Calgary with Frank King, who is the driver behind it, got a great deal out of ABC.

So they were flush with cash. Then they had a guy by the name of Bill Pratt, who was a hard-nosed construction executive. And every facility either came in on budget or people's heads rolled. So they controlled the cost. They had good top line. And they left a legacy fund to support the Olympic facilities like the ski jump and all that stuff to this day. So it's not a drag on the treasury. So that was a well-managed game, similar to what Uberoth did, I think it was in 84 in Los Angeles. Again, now Los Angeles had the benefits

of having all these facilities that had been built for, I guess it was the 32 Olympics? 32? Yeah, 32, because 36 was in Berlin. Right, right. So I looked at Calgary and said, well, well done, right? You executed the games. You left a legacy fund.

That income from that fund has now maintained the viability of those facilities. Excellent. Now, do I think that you have that kind of strength in Toronto? Well, I think the Pan Am Games already speaks to that issue. I mean, the Pan Am Games was an open sewer, right? In terms of your money going down and not coming back. If you look at some of the initiatives

around the Pan Am Games, like the Union Pearson Express, which if you look at the budgeting process around that, we're going to charge people $29 to go to the airport. No, you're not. You know, it's down to $9 and an endless subsidy program, like most mass transit. So I don't think that you got what it takes to actually do the job. I think that an Olympic bid, successful Olympic bid in Toronto,

would make the abortion that was the Montreal Olympics from a financial perspective look like a Sunday picnic. Wow. So this is one of those better to let somebody else host this party and be a... We just don't have the skills. I just don't see the demonstrated skills. I just don't see the demonstrated skills. I've talked to you over the course of our conversation about what I think about the financial managers in terms of Toronto Community Housing. So the question that arises for me is, what in God's name would give you the idea you have the management capability to pull that off without creating a huge financial bomb? So that's the question.

If you showed me some responsible and accountable people as opposed to political hacks, I'd think about it. But it'd take a lot of thinking. Are you still a professor of finance at Sheridan College Institute of Technology? No, that ended up— Which is a big, long title, by the way, for a school. But go ahead. Well, I'm not in charge of branding.

That's not on you. It used to be Sheridan College, right? But they had to gussy it up. No, I'm no longer teaching at Sheridan. I was going to ask you what would maybe still relevant. What advice do you give young people in 2017? Like you got a bunch of young, bright-eyed students in college. What piece of advice, if you could only have time to give them one piece of advice,

what would you say to those kids? Well, you know, that's funny that you should ask, because when I was first approached by Cal Koteca, who is a professor at Sheridan, to come and talk to his class, I said, if I'm only going to spend an hour with his class, and that's all the time you usually get, it's actually a 55-minute hour or a 50-minute hour. But I said, how can I help them? So I created a presentation called The Seven Things You Need to Do to Be Successful Before You Graduate. Because if you recognize the financial burden on students today, if you just come out with your newly printed diploma and think that that's worth anything, you're wrong. So I created a presentation called The Seven Things You Need to Do to Be Successful Before

You Graduate. In fact, I will be delivering that to an initiative of the Rotary Club on Saturday, the 6th of May, called Camp Enterprise. So the Rotary Clubs International put together a three or four day event where they bring high school students identified or self-identified as being good potential participants in a process of learning the rudiments of business. And so I will be presenting it to them because they're in the right space.

Where's that again? That'll be in Bolton, Ontario. But Camp Enterprise happens all over the country and around the world. Cool. That sounds really good. I have a grade 9. My son's in grade 9. You should find out if his high school is affiliated with Camp Enterprise.

Is he business oriented? Hard to read right now, but I think so. What does he like to do? He likes to... That's another great question. How does he spend his time? He spends his time, he hangs out with his friends and he... Okay, well, like everybody. Yeah. But what do they do? What do they do? What do they do? They're big on sports. They play a lot of sports. They watch a lot of sports. They talk about sports.

All right, good. They simulate the sports on their devices. It's a lot of baseball, hockey. Well, for him, it's more hockey and basketball. But what else is... Okay, so that's where his focus is. And there's plenty of employment opportunities around sports, right? You know, I think it's McMaster has a sports management program.

And there's even now, I think, an MBA in hockey. Right. I think that's run out of the University of Calgary. So sports has an outcome because it's a business, right? Sports is not just, you know, amateur sports. We pay nothing. The professional side is a big business that needs a lot of brain power. I like how you think in that way.

Well, everything's a business, Mike. Everything's a business. That's where I've gone wrong. This is a break-even business. This is a break-even business. Toronto Mike. And, you know, you need to hire somebody to chase revenue. Listen, my car just turned,

in fact, it's right now turned 18 years old. Excellent. What kind is it? It's a Protégé, a Mazda Protégé. Okay. How many miles? It's got about 270,000 clicks. So you don't drive much? Well, that's the thing. The last six years, I've been working from home, and my commute disappeared, and I don't

drive that car much. If I want to go on a long road trip, I now borrow another car. Does your family have another car for groceries and kids trips and all that? Those groceries, I prefer driving mine for city stuff, but if I have to go, I just took a trip to Prince Edward Island in August

and borrowed... There's six of us on the family trip, so there's only five seatbelts in the Mazda anyway. So we already have a problem right off the bat. So who lent you a car for a maritime cruise? That was GM, General Motors lent me a car. And part of the deal was, here's a car, and I would write about the experience and post pictures.

I love it. And so he struck a deal. Yeah, see, there you go. Happy capitalism. See, and you went to them or they came to you? They came to me, but they came to me well before the podcast. Ford and General Motors have had a great relationship with me because I had the blog for about 15 years now,

torontomic.com. Okay. So that's sort of well before the podcast began that we were doing things like that. So for long road trips, I'm in another automobile, which is great. And I don't have a commute anymore. And I bike everywhere, especially with the two older kids. Like if we have something that's 15 kilometers away, and the weather is decent, we don't drive ever.

We all get on our bikes and go. So that's why the kilometers have stopped accumulating on this that's great so you got many many more years of service coming out of that so let me just get back all those rusty now but that's another quickly the seven things you need yes please yes to be successful before you graduate so i created this and i give it to service groups in general so number one you need to find a mentor. So your 14-year-old son. 15. 15, pardon me. He needs to find a mentor in the field that he wants to work in. And it could just be an area of interest, right? It could be robotics. It could be sports robotics.

It could be whatever. But he needs to find somebody with real experience in the field, and he needs to kind of learn by watching and doing, right? So find a mentor. Number two, get some real experience in the area you want to make your career in. So if it's medicine, you've got to find some way into a hospital or a doctor's office. And if it's sports, you've got to get onto a sports track. You need to join the industry association. So you're a college student, right? Because that's really the career track people follow. Every industry has an association. You need to join it.

And for the most part, most industry associations have a student membership that doesn't cost anything. So you join that. And who do you meet at the industry association? All the decision makers. Right. Because all the important people believe the industry needs to be fostered with their time and talent. They don't get paid for that. They're volunteers. You need to attend industry trade shows so every industry has a trade show i am in fact i sent uh howard a uh link to a trade show for blog or for podcasts in uh las vegas i should send it to you as well yeah not surprised yeah so you could go to the uh las vegas trade show for the podcast business and maybe that's where you find your sales or not right you don't know you're you're really fishing but as a student when you show up at a trade show and toronto does pretty well attracting trade

shows yeah for every industry like in my industry in the finance business, there's a symposium, a conference, you name it, every week, right? And as a student, you're welcome because we're always looking in business for the next generation, right? We age out. There's no two ways about it. And we don't know what the young people today know in terms of their fascination with technology and everything else. You need to learn how to sell yourself, right? Everything is about sales. So most people, you know, when they have to go and do something, get all flummoxed because they don't like sales, much like yourself, Mike. And you need to learn how to do that. sales, much like yourself, Mike. And you need to learn how to do that. And one of the things I recommend is, you know, every bank has got a phone room with people calling their existing clients,

trying to sell them something else. Ideal for students. Ideal for college students. Why? Most of that dialing activity happens at night when there are no classes. Right. And you can plug yourself in. And what you'll learn is how to script the conversation to get the meeting that you need to get the things that you want. Okay? So these are the kinds of advice. This is the kind of advice I give to young people. Why? Because I want them to be successful.

And I'll tell you specifically why. Tell me. Somebody has got to pay for my health. The next generation, if they fail to be successful, that's really an ugly day for me and mine in my age group. The boomers generally have not saved enough for their retirement. So we're really looking at your son to take us all over the line. Me too, man. Me too.

Well, we'll see what happens, right? And so I think that young people today need to get their heads out of the minimum wage and start looking at the maximum opportunity afforded in this country. Is there a question I did not ask you today, but you wish I had? No, I don't structure interviews for other people. That's my new question because, and I can't remember who to... If I was a twee, what kind of twee would I be?

But I can't remember who to attribute that to, but somebody I respect, and I've got to go find out who it was. But I was reading that that was the question they asked at the end of their interviews that often, not always, often resulted... So you're stealing it? That one I stole.

Okay. I took note, and it often resulted in some of the more interesting content that they would generate so I said heck I'm closing

every single interview with that one and it works with everyone they said except it won't work with Lou because

Lou's making me do my own dirty work come up with my own questions get a shovel did you have a good time excellent Mike always a pleasure and we'll have to good time? Excellent, Mike. Always a pleasure and we'll have to do it again. I mean, I

noticed the number of times you had Elvis in. You know what? It's true. I got to stop inviting Elvis. No, don't. I didn't mean to do that. I'm just saying. No, listen. Like every parent, you have your favorites. We are going to do this again because we're just

this is just tip of the iceberg stuff here. I just wanted to keep it at 90 minutes, but I've got a lot more business questions because I don't have anyone else I can ask these questions. You need to be my business mentor. Is it too late for me? No, it's never too late. You know, Colonel Sanders was bankrupt at 65 until he got on the road with his recipe and created Kentucky Fried Chicken.

So never give up, never surrender. And that brings us to the end of our 234th show. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike and Lou is at Lou Skeezes. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer and propertyinthesix.com is at Brian Gerstein.

See you all next week. Yeah, the wind is cold, but the snow wants me today. And your smile is fine, and it's just like mine, and it won't go away. Because everything is rosy and green. Well, you've been under my skin for more than eight years.