Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Rob Farina: Toronto Mike'd #1013

Episode Date: March 11, 2022

In this 1013th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike is joined by seasoned radio executive Rob Farina and they can talk radio! Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Canna Cabana, StickerYou, Ridley Funeral Home and RYOBI Tools.

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in the system and it's available at Home Depot. Joining me this week is seasoned radio executive Rob Farina. Welcome, Rob. How you doing? I'm doing really good. I'm very excited to join you in this podcast. I sent you a note,

I guess, a few weeks ago congratulating you on your thousandth episode. I've been one of those people out there that listens often but never comments or never wants you to know about it. So it was a thrill. First of all, congratulations, because it's the Herculean task. Doing what you do is like, I've worked a lot in developing artists, and we used to say whenever we'd get a singer-songwriter, a lot in developing artists. And we used to say whenever we'd get a singer songwriter, when I worked at a company, I started in LA called Black Box. We always said it was like pushing a boulder up a hill. And that's exactly what you've been doing. You know, there is so much work. There is so much you go through where you don't see where the light is or what the point is, but you have to continue doing it to get to the level where you've gotten now. And it's only the beginning.

So when I sent my congratulatory note, it was truly heartfelt because I understand how hard it is to do what you're doing and how much work and dedication is involved. Well, those are kind words and I appreciate it. And yeah, I had no idea you're out there listening. Of course, I know who you are and it's like, oh, Rob Farina is listening, but it was news to me. It's interesting to me that I've been doing what I've been doing for a decade now. And every episode I treat it like it's the most important episode I'm going to record and I do my homework and I do my best and I try to churn out the great content. But the mainstream media didn't notice or at least didn't acknowledge I existed until I recorded episode 1000. It's just interesting to me what it takes to get attention. Like, I guess you'd call it

earned media, but what does it take to get CBC calling and the Toronto Star calling? It took episode 1000, all five hours and 40 minutes of it for people to say, hey, can we talk? Right. It's the tipping point, right? Right. The tipping point where you do, you know, one of the books I'm reading right now is Atomic Habits. And one of the things Atomic Habits talks about is it's these small little things that when they add up, all of a sudden it starts a real momentum and an inertia of its own. And that's what it took. Well, better late than never. And I do appreciate the earned media just because awareness is everything I don't have you know

Bell Media or Rogers or any of these big conglomerates behind me helping to promote so I'm just a guy in his basement but honestly it's a pleasure to speak with you and in my intro I called you a seasoned radio executive and that's because I stole that

descriptor from a Bell Media press and that's because i stole that descriptor from a bell media press release that came out in 2016 and the headline of this bell media press release was uh bell media calls on seasoned radio executive rob farina to help launch i heart radio in canada so i thought i'd borrow that phrase i'll take it it. Take it. I have a song for you, but before I kick out that jam for you, I know you're a DC comics guy and my brother's huge. My brother tells me he hated, like he passionately hated the Batman. And I just want to know if you've seen it yet. I've seen it twice.

You didn't hate it. And I passionately loved it. Okay. I have not seen it, but tell me what I can look forward to. No spoilers, but this is something you enjoyed, so maybe I'll enjoy it too. Here's what I enjoyed about it. It brought Batman back to his roots as a detective. It reminded me a lot of Chinatown, classic film Chinatown,

in terms of the narrative and the way the story unfolds. I thought each character was incredibly well-developed, and the performances were really good. And I'm really excited to see what they do with this incarnation of the Batman if they indeed do another one. You know, I'm such a DC Comics freak, and I have been as long as I could remember, that the DC Comics and the entire canon are kind of like religion for me.

So I have unrealistic expectations every time I'm going into a DC movie. And clearly they haven't been met because there's been some real clunkers there. To me, the, the Batman is fantastic. I went with different groups of people both times I went. And one of the recurring comments was they felt it was too long. I'm somebody that struggles to stay awake through a movie. And I have no problem for three hours. A three-hour movie seemed to go by real quick.

But I'm in some ways an easy sell because i want batman to win well and i find it interesting that you're you sort of have a a team here in the dc versus marvel sort of like somebody who would say i'm coke versus pepsi or whatever but it like do you do you enjoy marvel movies as well or you you love them okay so you love you love comic book movies, but you're partial to the DC universe. Yeah, I'm partial to the DC heroes. Huge Batman fan, Superman, The Flash, Wonder Woman. I'm looking forward to seeing Hawkman make his debut in the new Black Adam movie, which I read today has been pushed back to 2023.

Okay, exciting. Good stuff to look forward to there. And I need more details as to what my brother hated about the Batman, but maybe he was in a bad mood when he saw it. Who the heck knows, but it's good to hear it might not be so bad. Now, I have a jam for you. So I want you to just sit back, relax, and soak this in. Then we'll talk about it, and then we have a bunch of radio to talk about. But here we go. Here we go.

It's making me hungry for palma pasta here, but this is, well, you tell me, who am I listening to here? You're listening to my uncle, Enrico Farina. My uncle was a recording artist. He actually had two MOR hits when there was an MOR chart in RPM magazine, which stood for Middle of the Road. He had a hit called Hello, Hello in English, and I forget the second one, but he was signed to London Records. And it's funny that you've pulled that up because I often tell people everything I learned about capturing an audience and building an audience, I learned from my uncle. Because my earliest memories as a kid was going around with the band and they would play like

festivals and weddings and you know whatever they would book for and you know as much as you could do with when you're nine ten years old I would help them you know the band set up and stuff and then that night I was always watched the show from behind the stage I would watch my uncle's back and the audience's reaction and that's been my vantage point my entire career, whether I've done projects in radio or in the music business, I've always thought of the audience first. And that's always been my perspective. And it always like, it's just ingrained in me.

So, you know, and my uncle, you know, funny story about my uncle, how he started his singing career. My uncle and my father, his brother grew up during the second world war and, and they had Nazis and, you know, the neighborhood and stuff. And, and, and to earn some money, somebody had to deliver bread to the Nazis. And because my uncle was only eight years old, they thought, well, there's no way they're going to shoot an eight-year-old. So let's have them do it. Well, my uncle actually started performing at gunpoint because the Nazis would be drunk, put him on the table, and have him dance and sing for them. And similarly, my father, who was a couple of years older, he started his career as a carpenter, also affected by the war,

because his job was to build coffins. So I'm just thinking of these two young men, these two children whose lives were faced by the, changed by the Second World War. And that occurred to me recently in that, you know, in that what the atrocity that we're seeing going on right now in Ukraine. But yeah, my uncle, he earned a living his entire life as an artist. He passed away several years ago, but he was a profound inspiration on me, you know, as was my dad.

Well, I tip my can of Great Lakes beer to Enrico Farina. And I mean, he played not just playing weddings and, you know, bar mitzvahs and such. He's playing the O'Keeffe Center. He's playing Maple Leaf Gardens. These are our biggest venues in the 70s. Yes. I remember he used to, he presented some awards at the Junos. One memory I have is he presented an award

with Sherry, I forget Sherry's last name from Toronto and sorry about that okay and and Holly Knight the the the two female leads from Sherry was the guitar player Holly was the lead singer in Toronto and the Junos come and they're presenting a word with my uncle and either Hawley or Sherry called Bruce Coburn, Bruce Cockburn. Of course. Yeah. And I always remember that. That's great. I mean, as kids, we all thought it was Cockburn and you're like, well,

how does that become Colburn? But anyway, yeah, it's Annie Woods. Wait, is it Annie Woods hold on here I just want to get uh because we all know your daddy don't know here but uh uh Annie yeah Annie Hollywood's okay Hollywood's Brian Allen uh Sharon Elton Sharon Elton that was the guitar player she was a great guitar player okay I love I love it. Love those stories. Okay. So let's get into radio because a recent guest on Toronto Mic'd, I don't know if you caught this one, was Sharon Taylor.

Did you hear Sharon Taylor's appearance on Toronto Mic'd? I did not hear Sharon Taylor, but I had the best time working with Sharon when we got to work together when I was at Astral. And Sharon's a real legend and broke so many barriers in our business and an incredible creative thinker. Was Sharon still in charge there at CFTR when you showed up at CFTR? No, that was after the fact.

So I showed up to CFTR when they brought a new program director and his name was Don Stevens. Don went from programming CFTR to being the morning man at CHFM in Calgary for many years. But at that time, it started off as an internship for me. At that time, it started off as an internship for me. And I had this internship and my job, and I was so excited because I knew I wanted to be in radio. I knew I wanted to be in music radio because music was, you know, what I was most passionate about. And my job was we had a row of cassette tape machines outside the control room and I'd have to go collect the cassettes turn the cassettes over for fresh recordings and then on a little headset in

the sales pit I would listen and you know little girls would call for new kids on the Block, you know, or to give their editorial on New Kids on the Block. And I would just tabulate the results, just mark them down. And it was definitely, I landed at CFTR right in the middle of New Kids on the Block mania. That's okay. So that's Hanging Tough, the first big New Kids on the Block album. And that was big because, I mean, for a top 40 station like CFTR, I remember like, you know, Please Don't Go Girl and Cover Girl and Hanging Tough and all these big New Kids on the Block jams just dominating the top six at six.

Well, and there was also everybody around new kids on the block. So Seiko, who was dating Donnie Wahlberg at the time, had a hit. Biscuit, who was the bodyguard for the new kids on the block, had a hit. And I'm pretty sure there, I know I met, well, then there was Mark Wahlberg, who's Donnie's younger brother. So then we rode the Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch wave. So, but those were really exciting days. What made those days really exciting for me is I've always loved black music.

You know, I used to watch award shows as a kid and go to bed and pray to wake up black because I didn't identify with white people. And black music was a real challenge getting it on CFTR. I know that the sales manager at the time used some derogatory terms about the kind of music we were playing, but there was something really exciting happening on the street. And I think if it wasn't for the rise of hip hop making it onto mainstream radio, because if you remember in the late 80s, what happened was a lot of the music coming out for youth, there was a lot of hip hop coming out. At the same time, the new country movement was starting. So top 40 radio had lost a lot of the 25 plus audience and was really relegated to the young audience. And we had problems with management saying, well, we can't play this music because

nobody over 25 wants to hear it. And to me, somebody that was passionate about the music, I always believed and still believed, and I had a great program director that believed that too, that top 40 needs to be on the street. Top 40 needs to be where the kids are. Top 40 needs to be on top of where the trends are going. So we fought really hard. And I'm so proud. Back then, even the Canadian labels wouldn't release U.S. R&B acts. So I remember, boys to men, I added Motown Philly off a cassette. And the label at the time, and I can't remember, I know they're

originally signed to Motown, but I forget who the distributor was at the time. They have no plans to release Boyz II Men. En Vogue, those En Vogue hits, there was no plan to release En Vogue. Meanwhile, acts like Svengali were being signed. Not that I had an issue with Svengali because quite frankly, I was huge 80s metal head and go head to head anytime on 80s metal trivia. But I loved what was happening and I loved the new sound happening. And I really think that really made CFTR

such an exciting station there. We got away with a lot of stuff. Of course, it was hard to get records back then that were sanitized for radio. So I remember putting on playlisting Naughty by Nature album cuts in the evening show with like the most obscene language you could imagine. And I remember driving home one night and because I played Naughty by Nature, thanks for sleepwalking, because I thought it was such a great jam. And I remember driving home and listening to it. And I thought, oh, I'm getting fired tomorrow. There's going to be complaints.

And well, you know, in all that time, not one complaint. You know, okay, so much there. Just so we have a frame, a timeframe of when you're at 680 CFTR. What's your years of service there? So I was there 87, 88, and I was there to turn the lights off. So by the time they were ready to launch 680 News, which I believe was 1993, I had already, Sandy Sanderson, who was the general manager and one of the greatest people, you know, I've ever worked for. Sandy took me in about a year before the decision to change to talk to me confidentially about it. And I never told a soul about that. And the day everything

was supposed to happen, it was incumbent on me to gather all the announced staff and get everybody into a boardroom meeting. And I remember Jesse and Gene, Gene Volaitis in particular, I remember Gene going, what's the meeting about, Rob? And I'm like, I don't know, Gene. He's like, you're full of shit. I know you know what the meeting is about. What's the meeting about? I said, Gene, I can't say anything, right? He was like, I remember that. I remember that being a real, you know, awful day because that station was, this is going to sound ridiculous, but when you're a program director, you kind of treat the radio stations you're the steward of like a child.

And it felt like your child was being taken away from that. your child was being taken away from that. So I was at CFTR until the very end when they flipped the switch. They started with a 500-song countdown, which really pissed me off because I didn't put it together, and it wasn't reflective of Toronto, and I hated it. And at the end of that, 680 News made its debut. And is the last song, We Built This City? Is that the final song before?

I believe that's the final song they picked. You know, the final song I really preferred, I was there when Tom Rivers did his final show on Afternoon Drive. Tom was such a big figure and such a great guy. And I remember on Tom's last show, he wanted to pick the song. And we thought, oh, fuck, what's he going to pick? Because we were so focused on being focused on the youth audience, not breaking format and stuff.

We thought, well, Tom's going to pick up like a clearance, clear, clear water revival song or something. He played Madonna. This used to be my playground. And I thought, holy fuck, what a great song. I was going to ask you about a shotgun,

Tom rivers there. A recent episode of Toronto Mike featured Mike Cooper. Yeah. I don't know if you caught that one, except he was, so he was telling some Tom Rivers stories slugging Tom at a Christmas party or something, like just punching him in the nose,

basically. And, you know, I've had Larry Fedorek on many times who knew Tom quite well, not only at CFTR, but also elsewhere on the FM dial. But just what kind of dude was Tom Rivers? I mean, he's such a legend,

but gone far too soon. I'll never be able to have that man on Toronto Mike, but what kind of guy was he? In some respects, Tom reminds me of Rick Hodge in that Tom never trusted management. And luckily when I worked with Tom, I wasn't in management. So we had a great relationship. management. And luckily, when I worked with Tom, I wasn't in management. So we had a great relationship. We actually used to, Mike Cooper used to meet us once every couple of weeks after Tom's shift, and we'd go out for beers. And that was, you know, to have the two of them and just be a fly on the wall while the two of them go was amazing. So he didn't take well to management. And probably rightfully so when you see the kind of management you get in a lot of the radio business. He was a real champion of the people.

Like he really, if you were a junior op or young and looking to get into radio, Tom had all the time in the world for you. young and looking to get into radio, Tom had all the time in the world for you. He had a massive heart. There are legendary Tom Rivers stories from before my time of Tom at 1050 Chum and just the craziness that happened. The great thing about working at Chum is that you heard all the stories from the past there. So incredible guy. I remember going into CFTR, I guess when I started, Tom was still on mornings and Jesse and Jean were on afternoons before they

made that flip. And I used to have to go in because as well as myself tabulating the requests from the request line, the announcers also had to do the tabulations too, as people called. And I remember going to see Tom and he'd have this ashtray that was absolutely overflowing with Marlboro butts. He must've smoked, like it looked like he smoked three packs of cigarettes during a three, four hour show. And then he would follow up those those three packs of cigarettes with about four hot dogs from the cafeteria, you know, and that was like a daily thing. It's like cigarettes and hot dogs. Yeah, you know, it's one of those deals where when you hear somebody passed away far too soon,

and it's shocking to hear, but not at all surprising considering the lifestyle. Right, yeah. But if you're on the cigarettes and hot dogs diet, it's not a lot of surprise. I mean, I don't smoke cigarettes, but I absolutely love a good hot dog. I like to load it up with mustard. I love a hot dog. And I just, I can't stand that this delicious food is so bad for you. Like, why, why, like, why can't hot dogs just be, you know, good for you?

You know? Yeah, I think, I think when it comes to food, there are moments where you have to conveniently partition off your mind on what's sensible. Yeah, don't think about what you're eating, I suppose. Yeah. You know, that's what kills me when people say, well, I don't know what's in the vaccine. Well, first of all, I'm not, you know, neither one of us are virologists. Second of all, and it's usually somebody that's smoking a cigarette at the McDonald's drive-thru.

It's like, so you're worried about this vaccine that's been 20 years in production, you know, in study, but you're okay with your pack of Demarier. Well, Rob, I'm always like, so you're telling me that this science has created this vaccine that will basically keep me out of the hospital should I get this contagious new virus that's flying around. Like, I'm like, just here's my arm and shoot it as often as you contagious new virus that's flying around like i'm like just here's my arm and uh shoot it as often as you like because that's amazing you know like i'm always like yeah you know give me a can i have may i have some more you know like oliver or something like that okay i love the well i have to do my own research it's like uh what what research are you going to do

like are you attending stanford are you right right i? Like, are you attending Stanford? Are you... Right. If you have a doctor, maybe your doctor, you can talk to your doctor about that. Okay, so lots of CFTR questions. You mentioned Jesse and Gene.

And so which order should I go in here? Okay, maybe I will approach it this way. So when you find out the plan for 680 is it's going to go all news, how much insight can you share now? I think the statute of limitations has passed on this, and you can just spill the beans. But I understand there was a race between 640 and 680 as to who would go all news first.

What insight do you have into that? So 640 had launched AM640, the hog. And we were, yeah, I remember it well. Me too, me too. Oh, I got a great hog story with Jesse and Gene. But we'll get to that. Don't forget. But at the time, the executive team, which was Sandy Sanderson, Tony at the model in New York of the news wheel. At the same time, the great thing about that time is once I got the information, I, again, completely partitioned it out of my mind. Like we probably, and I say we because it was an incredible team at CFTR, we probably did the best radio in the last year of that radio station

that we could have had. And it was outrageous. Like I remember the last year of the radio station, we didn't have a program director. I remember the last year of the radio station, we didn't have a program director. So Sandy had set up myself, Larry Silver, and the promotion manager to be the associate program directors. And the great thing is the other two guys weren't very interested in being a program director. And I was in my mid-20s, I guess, at the time. And I really cared deeply about this radio station.

And I remember back then that every morning was, I'd get into the office, and there'd be a phone call from somebody and be like, yeah, I'm calling about details on my trip. And I'd be like, oh, what trip is that? He's like, well, I won spring training in Florida for a week on Jesse and Jean this morning. And I'm thinking, we're not giving away any spring training tickets to Florida. I remember one morning, I don't think I've ever been as angered and amused simultaneously ever in my life. But we had just done, we had rolled out the red carpet to get the presents for the Bon Jovi. I think it was the Keep the Faith Tour, but I can't even remember. But it was near the final days of CFTR.

So we ended up getting the presents for two nights at Maple Leaf Gardens. And it was a big deal. We did massive promotions. So the day after the second show, I'm driving into work and phone rings. And it's the sweet little girl. And she picks up and Jesse goes, 680 CFTR. And she says, did I win? Did I win? And he says, did you win what, and she says did I win did I win and he says did you win what honey because did I win the Bon Jovi tickets now keep in mind the show just is over they've gone like Bon Jovi's out of Toronto now right and Jesse proceeds with what's your name she says Jessica he goes Jessica you not only won Bon Jovi tickets she's's like, oh my God. Oh my God. But you also won a leather Bon Jovi. Oh my God. Oh my God. And Jessica, you were going to go backstage and oh my God.

Oh my God. He goes, but Jessica, there's only one problem. The show was yesterday, you stupid moron oh horrible and i'm not doing the bit justice anyhow oh jessica got in touch with me that day and we and we we made her happy i think we actually might have flown her somewhere to see bon jovi oh wow wow but i remember it was like this constant, like I remember one day, one day, and this is while Don Stevens was still the PD, Jesse and Gene ran a bit on can you park a bicycle in the crack of someone's ass and will it stand up? decided to volunteer for their ass to be the test subject to see if the bicycle would stand up in an ass crack, which was all well and good. I can't tell you to this day if the bike stood or not, but what happened was the guy was a teacher. And this got back to the school board, you know, not a good look for a teacher. The guy ended up losing his job, unfortunately. So I remember the Jesse and Gene days of like every day there was like,

what have they done now? Is that the Howard Stern effect? I loved it. Because Howard Stern was making lots of noise in New York, as you know, and is that an attempt to turn Jesse and Gene into sort of the Howard Stern appeal? No. I'm a huge Howard Stern fan. What Jesse Dillon brought to the table was just as brilliant, but very unique from Howard. I don't think to this day I've ever worked with anybody whose brain works as fast as Jesse Dillon. He is hysterically funny,

incredibly bent. You know, I'm going to, I'm going to give you my AM640 story. Oh, sure. Unfortunately, I don't even know, like, is Adrian Bell still around? Do you remember the name Adrian Bell? Yeah, I do. Yeah. So Adrian, you know, great guy. So definitely no slight against Adrian. But during the last year of the radio station, again,

we're centered around the last year before 680 flipped to news. They had fired the morning show on AM 640. And I guess they were thinking, listen, the writing's on the wall here. The city can't sustain two top 40 stations. Advertisers don't want to advertise on a station that's playing a lot of hip-hop and r&b music because we definitely uh we definitely got backlash for playing black music back then and they decided to move adrian bell from overnights to the morning show and one thing you got to know with jesse and Gene that every time they were on the air,

and that's every announcer at CFTR, we always had the giant reels to reels running on record. And as when we were in songs, the announcers were all on the phones, they were mining for gold on the phones. So I'm, I'm at home, you know, I've just gotten out of the shower, you know, and the radio is on, of course, it's early in the morning, I think it's like 6.15, 6.30. And I decide to monitor Adrian Bell for his first show on 6.40. you know, AM640, the new hog, they had branded it at the time as the new beat of Toronto. Because the new beat of Toronto, it's time to tell the big boys that there's a new morning man in town. We're going to call, we're calling the competition.

So here the phone rang, it picked up, it's Jesse Dillon. And Jesse answers, hi, it's Jesse and Gene. You're live on 680 CFTR, as he always did, even though we're running on tape. And Adrian thought, oh, it's Jesse and Gene. You're live on 680 CFTR, as he always did, even though we're running on tape. And Adrian thought, oh, I'm live. This is my break. And he says, hey, Jesse and Gene, this is Adrian Bell. And I want to welcome all your listeners to the new beat of Toronto AM640. And there's a dead pause. And Jesse says, that's great, Adrian. Why don't you suck our cocks? So live on AM640. Adrian can't compose himself after that. Wow.

And all you hear is somebody wrestling with a phone and then the phone hang up and then they go to commercials. But there was no way you were ever going to catch Jesse Dillon by surprise. Yeah. Ever. Jesse and gene are both fotms as you are now yourself rob so welcome to the club welcome to the club so okay so 640 i mean just set the table here a bit like uh music at least current music is moving to FM, like the writing's on the wall and there's some kind of an, seems to be a race like 640 versus 680. Which one flips to like an all news type station first? We all know what happens, but like being there, like what was that race like from the inside? side? From the inside, we were concerned about them flipping first, but I think that concern would have been bigger on the executive levels. At that time, I was in the trenches, and for me,

it was like, you know, I almost had this notion, if we could turn this ship around, maybe they'll change their mind. You know, if we can make this as great as we can and build the numbers, maybe we could turn the ship around. Now, in the last year, we actually did get the numbers up. I think we were, I think we got it from a, it was around a three and a half share. So we got into a four and a half share. Like we were competitive with Chamafem at the time, you know, they were ahead of us, but we were competitive there. So I didn't, I didn't really get, get a sense of it going on. You know, it's funny though, several weeks before, maybe, maybe even two weeks before the flip Canada's Wonderland used to do a night called grad night where the park would be open all night to grads and that was a big place to be if you were a top

40 station so I remember I remember that night and I got the okay from my bosses I thought well we're going to pull up all the stops so we have the giant 680 CFDR hit monster there. But as well, I was able to get dry ice and very lights and fireworks and stuff. So I remember the 640 team walking up the hill to see our setup as opposed to their setup, which looked pretty Mickey Mouse in comparison. And I remember them walking away going, oh, we're so fucked. And it was like, and I thought to myself, if only you guys knew. You're about to get handed the whole enchilada.

And you're about to have a knock on the door by Jesse and Gene themselves, because as they tell the story, like literally, like I guess when you do that mass firing of everybody, except the news department, everybody's gone in June 93. Jesse and Gene, yeah, they go straight to 640.

And there you go. And they did some amazing radio at 640. They made Pat Cardinal and Danny Kingsbury's life hell. But that's what they should do. That's what that show should have been doing. You know, I always, you know, people would often talk about back in the day about how high maintenance the show was. I never found it high maintenance. These were incredibly creative guys. They, you know, they danced around the line, but at the bottom of it, you know uh they danced around the line but at the at the bottom of it you know they had great

hearts because one of the things we forget about jesse and gene is they also did a lot of great community stuff in the middle of all that outrage and stuff and their comedy wasn't scatological comedy it was like very you know yes it was it was silly and could be juvenile, but it was legitimately funny stuff. Like when I watch South Park now, which I'm a huge fan of, you know, and I know it's good, like they're on season 23 now, I think. You know, I think of that bent, twisted comedy, South Park, Arrested Development and stuff. South Park, Arrested Development and stuff. And I felt like Jesse Dillon fell so well within that because he had such a bent sense of humor and it was smart. I remember listening to them when they were on,

before they got to CFTR, when they were on Q107 and one of their frequent bits was basically crapping all over AM radio. Like this was a big, you know. And I still remember like when it was, I don't know, when I learned they were heading to CFTR, I'm like, wow, like really? But, you know, I guess money too tight to mention there. Sure. Yeah.

And I think the money at CFTR was really good. That's another funny thing. I remember one morning, it this like the endless mornings. It's like there's a bill on my desk for a seven series BMW. It's like, what? You know, I'm 25 years old. What am I going to do with a bill for? It's like, well, Jesse Dillon got a new car.

I'm like, well, is he supposed to get a car? Like, I don't, what do I do here? Wow. But they delivered the goods. Now, hey, I got a little mop up here at CFTR before I realized I could do two hours with you on CFTR. But apparently your career extends beyond CFTR. So let me just point out an observation, I suppose, that no woman DJs on CFTR, right? Like, I mean, you had Evelyn Macko in the newsroom.

Evelyn Macko in the newsroom. We had Tom had, and I'm blanking on her name. She was on Channel 47 for the longest time. Lucy? No, Lucy. Lucy Zillio. Okay, yeah. She was on CFTR.

Lucy Zillio, yeah. Tom had Lucy Zillio that he used a lot as a sidekick. We did not have any female jocks on 680 CFTR. And that's just an old school radio thing, I suppose. Like, I mean, there weren't a lot of women in radio at the time. You had Schumacher on Chum, which we'll get to. But you, you just didn't put women in those positions back then. Is that the deal?

I think back then, I remember back then that there was a research study that got repeated to me. So I didn't see the study, but it's, you know, the powers that be at the time, would say that it was a real challenge for women to listen to women on the radio. Because we predominantly targeted a female audience, there was a notion that women didn't want to hear women on the radio. Now, thankfully, that's been proved wrong in a variety of incarnations. But, you know, it's funny. I think of that, I think back then,

and I think we didn't have any women on the air. We didn't have any people of color on the air either. Right, right. Yeah, man. Let me ask you about the rise of Tarzan Dan, because I mean, I recently had an exchange with Dan via Twitter DM in which he essentially, I'll just tell you,

I invited him on the program because he's precisely the kind of guy I want to talk to on Toronto Mic'd. And he felt that being on Toronto Mic'd would be narcissistic was his word. So I think that means you're being narcissistic right now, I suppose, Rob. Well, yeah, that's probably the most ironic thing I've heard today from Tarzan Dan. I love Dan dearly, but Dan was never lacking in a healthy self-esteem. Do you think this is because of that? Do you think maybe he had been told in his career he's narcissistic,

so he swung completely the other way in some regards to trying to almost overcompensate or prove people wrong or something like that? I don't know. I would tell Dan that he doesn't have to swing anyway. Tarzan does swing, right? So that's the idea. But yes. Dan was the hardest working top 40 jock.

I was able to actually op his show a few times and it was like hanging on to dear life because of how much stuff was going on on that show and how hard he worked so dan with both reels to reels going um and every time the mic turned on it felt like the maxell commercial where your hair just blows back right you know he'd come he'd come barreling through and he really made Top 40 magic. And he was exactly what CFTR needed. He was a real catalyst for 680 CFTR.

I have a lot of great memories of Dan. He was such a great guy to work with and a good laugh, great guy. One of my memories of Dan was, again, we're up at Canada's Wonderland. It's the middle of summer day. We're hosting a show at Kingswood Music Theatre that night. It's probably like crisscross and snap or, you know, and Dan is standing in the middle of a crowd inside the main gates, and he's surrounded by 5,000 kids, surrounded by 5,000 kids.

And he's just furiously writing autographs. He was loved and rightfully so. And this guy was, one of the things about Dan is that person was who Dan was. He was so passionate about the music, so passionate about the new sounds that were coming up from the street but also passionate about you know the new kids on the block and and being part of that and really understanding his audience so Dan was really a force of a force of nature and and when I look back to the 680 CFTR, I don't think I've ever worked. I've worked with some amazing DJs.

The face of top 40s changed considerably, but I've never worked with somebody that could do what Tarzan Dan did. So of all those people you let go in June 1993, and I might need some more detail on exactly how that went down. But of all the people, there's only one left who's actually still on the air in this market. You want to guess who it is? Chris James. Correctamundo. Yeah.

Yeah. Because I worked with Chris when I launched Boom, which was like when I launched Boom, like the first person, there was two people. The first one, Chris James, was already at Easy Rock. And I thought, well, this is going to be perfect for Chris. Right.

And the other one was May Potts. Who I was on a three-hour Zoom with last night. I love May Potts. I've hired May Potts twice. Like Chum, too, right. And never regretted that. But when I hired May away from Chum to come to Boom, because I envisioned Boom and I worked with, with Wayne Webster.

That's still the music director there. Who's an awesome guy. And, and, and Troy the PD there also an awesome guy at that time, Troy was in the production department, but it was really helpful. Is it Troy Callum? Or do I have my Troy's mixed up? Troy McCallum. Very good. And we wanted, Jack had come to Toronto and failed. I had just started this new job at Astral and I have this huge executive role. And I came to them, I think the first week and said, we're going to blow up EasyRock and launch a classic hit station. Well, I think they wanted to fire me right then and there because EasyRock happened to be their number one moneymaker in the

company. Wow. Shout out to John Tash. Yeah, exactly. But I thought, listen, we're never going to, we're always going to be a me too to CHFI, but we could own something that's really unique and special here. And at the time, Astral had these small oldie stations outside of in smaller regions in Quebec called Boom. And I thought, well, I love that. I love the 45. You know, I love the visual of that. I think we could do a lot with Boom. So that led us to really, you know, talk about pushing a boulder up a hill. There was so much resistance

of us getting the station on the air. But when we finally got it on the air, you know, we launched it Boxing Day. And, you know, Boom continues to be, you know, we launched at Boxing Day and, you know, Boom continues to be, you know, along with Chum and CHFI, the top dogs in the city, adults 25, 54. I mean, I remember having like almost a front row seat to the Easy Rock flip to Boom because my buddy Howard Glassman was there. Yes. At that moment him him and colleen rush home were there but i guess we are gonna get there uh last little bit of cfd here can you can we get off black cars already a little bit more black cars is the jam i heard many a time on cfdr by the way oh and i just talked to from Men Without Hats, and I think in about 1987, I heard Pop Goes the World

every hour on 680 CFTR. That was a high rotation jam. Yeah, for a while there we went on an hour and five minute rotation on records. Sounds about right. So you were going to hear the same record every hour and five minutes. If you want to hear Madonna's

True Blue, just give it another 60 minutes you'll hear it again yes all right so um chris james last man standing on the air in the t-dot he's at boom and uh kat spencer by the way is in montreal and tarzan dan is on the air in calgary but before we leave uh cftr with the specifics of how it all went down, I just wondered if you could say a few words about Gary Bell, because his career, he's no longer with us, gone far too soon. But what a strange career pivot for a guy that I don't think many people remember he was a top 40 radio DJ at some point. Yeah, I remember Gary was on Overnights. I remember, you know, it's funny, as soon as I haven't heard his name in years,

but as soon as he said his name, the image of him kind of walking into the music library with his toucan, he always had his toucan. Didn't matter if it was January or June, Gary had that toucan. Didn't matter if it was January or June, Gary had that toucan. Great guy, great journeyman announcer. You know, it was several times in my career I've had the unfortunate job of having to recast the play.

had the unfortunate job of having to recast the play. As society changes, culture changes, tastes change, you also sometimes have to make tough decisions on some of the people that are on the air. And there's a lot of those that have happened when the play needs to be recast, for lack of a better term. You know, I know you talked to Lee Eckley. Lee Eckley, one of my favorite, one of the most talented announcers you could ever work with, and also an awesome guy. But I remember having to have the meeting with Lee Eckley. I remember having to have the meeting with Rick Hodge. You know, it's like they're not fun meetings, meetings to have. So I remember Gary near the end of CFTR when they made the move to move them off of off of overnights. But other than that, I haven't heard Gary's name in quite a long time and uh um may rest in peace right like if you only knew gary

as like uh i don't know uh i want to say could like aliens conspiracy theorist kind of ufo guy like a spaceman like if you only knew that gary bell like from am radio uh where was he 640 i suppose for a long time at the end but But you know, nobody would like connecting that that guy is this guy who was a top 40 radio DJ at CFTR. That's a difficult. Oh, one last thing about Chris James, too. I just what's your professional thought as a seasoned radio executive on the fact that he changed his moniker to KJ when forever he in this market, we knew him as Chris James. Do you have any thoughts on that? when forever he in this market, we knew him as Chris James.

Do you have any thoughts on that? You know, I don't know why Chris went from KJ to Chris James. I could tell you that with Dan, I was a huge proponent with Tarzan Dan that he had to start using Tarzan Dan Freeman and do an evolution. Because my fear with Dan was he was going to be a, start to be a parody of himself. Because at a certain point, you know, and I'm definitely there now, we're the old guys in the club. This is like Mad Dog. He needs to be Jay Michaels now.

Like Mad Dog, you know, and it's funny. I had the same, you know, did the same thing with Jamar McNeil, because Jamar's on-air name was J-Nice. And he's still, he's got an amazing DJ hustle as J-Nice. But when it came to putting Jamar on the air at CHUM, nobody had any reference point for Jamar. They were meeting a brand new person. And I thought the moniker J-Nice was a barrier from people getting to know the person. So we went with, and Jamar was completely cool with it, with his real name on the air on Chum. I really liked Jamar. Very early, very soon after he arrived in toronto

i invited him over and we just had the best chat like so shout out to jamar and i've seen him dj because he was uh dj-ing for uh mishi me when i went to uh speak with chuck d at the cne band shell and uh very cool great to see him very cool jamar jamar is a an unbelievable talent an unbelievable guy um you know talk about a hard-working guy he um uprooted everything to come to toronto and start this adventure and it was a real tough role in that you've got Roger Ashby there and Marilyn Dennis. And the Darren B. Lamb experiment, you know, I think worked to a certain point, but then Darren became disenchanted and wanted more. So, and actually, ironically, I was over at CHFI and hired Darren away from the Chum Morning Show. And then I came back to Chum after and uh and you know along with Sarah Cummings uh hired uh

Jamar and so there's a lot of okay so I mean recent episodes have been with people like uh Tom Jokic for example was on very recently and yeah and so we're in fact that's where we're going next so for those who don't know because I realize we're kind of doing like a tarantino thing here but after cftr your next stop is chum fm right no okay what's your next stop after cftr after cftr uh rogers so the deal i had with sandy was sandy saw something in me uh that i could a program director. So he told me that when CFTR ended, they would find something for me. And sure enough, after three months, they put me in as program director for CKY Winnipeg, which was an AMODI station at the time. And it was fantastic for me because it was an opportunity to be a

program director. All of a sudden I'm managing a staff of people that are more than twice my age, seasoned professionals. And, but it was also the other side of it was I went from CFTR, which was you constantly had everybody at your doorstep at CFTR because getting a record on CFTR remained a huge deal. And then you go to an AM Oldie station where the phone doesn't even ring. And I remember clearly I had become friends with Alanis Morissette back then. And I remember Alanis called me to congratulate me on the job. And I never called her back because I felt like such a loser that I was in Winnipeg doing oldies that I never called her back. And of course, you know, didn't see her until years later

and she was on the jagged little pill roller coaster. Well, when she added her last name back there, speaking of names, but that was another jam I associate with 680 CFTR was too hot. Atlantis is too hot. Always too hot, never too cold. Take your best shot. Too hot to hold. Yes.

So shout out to Atlantis, not Atlantis Morissette, but the OG Atlantis. The OG Atlantis. So you're in, how long in Winnipeg for? So Winnipeg, Winnipeg was a year and a half. So I went to Winnipeg because Rogers were buying the Moffett stations and they wanted, you know, a Rogers person out there. So I went there for a year and a half and then about a year and a half into the job, they offered me to move to Ottawa to take over the country station.

They had a country station called CKBY and CKBY, while the new wave onslaught had come and gone, CKBY was still playing a lot of really traditional country, was underperforming and stuff. really traditional country. It was underperforming and stuff. So Rogers moved me to CKBY and we had a great, we relaunched as Young Country 105. I actually took the station number one in a white collar town, which I don't think has happened since. But around that time, I was in the process of, you know, I hid the fact that I was gay. I couldn't deal with it. So I threw myself into work and stuff. And then I realized that when it was time for me to, you know, that I couldn't hide this anymore, I had to be who I was. I felt I was going to be a real disservice to a country music station coming out as a gay program director. In hindsight, it probably wouldn't have been that bad, but it felt that bad at the time.

And at that time, Chum had come to offer me the role as operations manager for their two stations in Ottawa. And I thought, well, maybe this is the way to make a clean break. I could start living a more honest life. So I did that. And it's that leap to CHUM in Ottawa that a couple of years into taking that job led to them hiring me as the program director for CHUM FM. Firstly, good for you. How did it feel when you could be your true self and not try to hide that aspect of your life? How did that feel?

It felt great in some respects. But in other respects, homophobia in many businesses continues to exist. And in my career, because I'm gay, it has created certain barriers in me being allowed in certain rooms. So, you know, I often wouldn't be invited out to the golf tournaments or out to see the hockey game or that kind of stuff that before I came out of the closet, I'd get invited to pretty regularly. So, so in some, you know, So in some, you know, overall, it was incredibly great for me.

But I do, but I have had a vantage point of the industry from a different corner because of who I am. And in some ways, it's, I would say it's actually hampered me in some things. That's sad to hear, to be honest. Well, it's reality. It's reality. It's reality. And if anything, the last year has taught us,

the last two years has taught us, is we really need to face reality. You know, when we talk about unconscious bias with racism, there's also unconscious bias with women in the workplace. There's unconscious bias with gays and lesbians in the workplace. Wow. Yeah. And you have that perspective and that's, yeah, just still awful to hear. It might be real and this is real talk, but still pretty shitty to hear that this exists. But okay, so you're now in the Chum family and you can return to Toronto. And you're from Toronto, right?

Oh, yeah. I know you went to Humber College, so I figured he's got to be a Toronto guy. But you're at Chum FM. And it's funny because you mentioned Lee Eckley, who just visited me the other day. And I met him for the first, although we've been like,

I'd say we've been Twitter friends for a long time. It's the first time I met him. And he alluded to the PD that didn't like him and fired him, but he never named this PD. And it's funny, I DMed him later and I said, that's Rob Farina, right? And he goes, yeah. And I said, just heads up,

you're gonna hear him on Toronto Mic'd on Friday. So what a small world we live in. You know, it's funny, just the opposite. I love Lee. First of all, I love Lee as a person. He's a great guy. But on the air, I thought he was an unbelievable talent. The problem again was we were moving Chum, because remember at the time there wasn't a Kiss 92.5. Chum FM was essentially, had grown from, you know, the big chill station to the Spice Girls, Backstreet Boys, you know, that kind of a feel.

I mean, for all intents and purposes, a top 40 station. And as part of that, there's kind of a refresh you need to do to make sure you're ahead of the curve in terms of taste and personalities and whatever it is. personalities and whatever it is. And Lee, at the time, I didn't, you know, I didn't feel was a great fit for where the radio station was going. You know, I heard you talking to Tom Jokic about the Rick Hodge story, and it's very similar to Rick, who's a tremendous talent, but was cast in a wrong role. I mean, essentially, Rick was coming in to do sports updates on a heavily female skewing station where there wasn't a lot of interest in sports. By this point, I had taken Theater of the Mind off the air.

Sunday Funnies I had taken off the air. Never have I had more backlash from anything than taking Sunday Funnies off the air. I loved it. I loved it as a young man listening to the Sunday Funnies. Loved it. Yeah. It was great, but it didn't fit the mold of where we were taking the station and where we needed to be to continue, continue to win. So I don't remember. I vaguely remember having to let Lee go.

And all I remember about it is him being an absolute gentleman and a class act. But, but no, I always really liked Lee. I used to listen to Lee when he was on Q107. I think he'll be glad to hear this. He was a huge fan of Lee. And one of the reasons I like Lee is my all-time favorite band is ACDC. And at the time, Q107, a lot of the disc jockeys would be a little disrespectful in referring to ACDC as bubblegum rock.

There was a period there after Back in Wack. And Lee Eckley was always a guy that when he talked about ACDC, he didn't do it in a sarcastic manner and that always stuck with me with him. Okay, so Lee, and this came up again, my three hour Zoom last night has not broadcast yet as a Toronto Mic'd episode, so nobody missed anything. It's going to be episode 1021. And what is this? 1013.

Okay. So it'll be in a couple of weeks. Who knows? Two and a half weeks. But Marsden was on the Zoom, David Marsden. And the interesting thing about Lee, who I quite like too, is that Lee was replaced by David Marsden on the air at cfny and like i don't know 76 77 i get confused there but then lee's replaced i believe by uh john derringer takes

his spot on q107 who took a spot on chum um by the time uh when lee when lee left Chum FM, Lee wasn't doing a dedicated shift. He was doing a swing shift. So I can't remember. But it might have been around the time I brought May Potts in, I think. But that is a good trio. Like if you can be replaced by Marsden, then Derringer, then May Potts, I feel like this is a good trio. Like if you can be replaced by Marsden, then Derringer, then May Potts, I feel like this is a great trio. But Lee was not replaced by May.

I don't want to make it sound that way. Because yeah, he was doing fill-ins and swing stuff and it's not like he had a friend. I think it was around the same time, but yeah, it was, yeah,

I'm trying to think of the timing of it all now on who replaced him. I feel like, I know, I think it was 2000, I think, when think of the timing of it all now. I feel like, okay, I know, I think it was 2000, I think, when Lee leaves Chum FM, I believe. But while you're thinking to my, I just want to, because I know Lee Eckley is listening right now for sure. So hello to Lee. When Lee was here, I gave him a meat lasagna from Palma Pasta. So Lee, let me know how that goes.

I'm sure it'll be the most delicious lasagna you've ever had from a store. Shout out to Palma Pasta. So Lee, let me know how that goes. I'm sure it'll be the most delicious lasagna you've ever had from a store. Shout out to Palma Pasta. And just so you know, Rob, you're not here. We're remotely doing this, but I would love to give you some, not only lasagna from Palma Pasta, but fresh craft beer from Great Lakes Brewery.

And I have a toque. I know it came up. I have a toque for you from Canna Cabana. They've got over 100 outlets across this country, and they won't be beat on price when it comes to cannabis and cannabis accessories. Much love to cannacabana.com. And while I'm giving you stuff,

I have a Toronto Mike sticker for you from stickeru.com. And one day I hope to meet you, Rob and bury you in these treasures. What I really need, Mike is I'm in the middle of building a house right now. So your new sponsor, RYOBI that has a beautiful suite of tools.

You could, you could pile those up next time we get together. Oh, Rob, you're good at this. If you're any good at hammering nails, maybe I'll have you bring that lasagna, those tools, the cannabis and the beer and the sticker out. Well, you got to use, of course, when you're doing your work on the home, you got to use the Ryobi 18-volt 1 high capacity system by the way it's funny just this morning i was on humble and fred's podcast and i'm i had this box this drill this power drill from ryobi on the table and dan duran saw it

there's a name for you dan duran said oh ryobi and i said dan actually they pronounce it ryobi and dan says no they don't that was his answer his answer. I'm like, well, okay. I talked to Ryobi and they assure me it's Ryobi, but Dan has decided it's really Ryobi, but it is Ryobi. And yeah, great new sponsor. Great products, little tip. When you're buying your Ryobi tools, buy an extra battery. That way when one's charging, it can still be working.

My wife did that. She's the handy one in this relationship. And she exactly did that. That's a great tip there. Okay. So I got to ask you about something that went down when you were at Chem FM here. So I understand, and you'll speak to this from the inside. Again, statute of limitations has expired. You have to deliver the real talk here. But CHFI, I believe they might have made a huge offer to Marilyn Dennis to leave Roger Ashby and replace Aaron Davis and Don Daynard over there at CHFI. So is that true? Was Marilyn Dennis being wooed by CHFI in like 1999? So before any of that happened,

they made a huge play for Roger Ashby. Ashby, okay. They made a huge play to hire Roger Ashby, which worked out really well for Roger. And then the, I was there when they made the overture to Maryland, but it never got, it never got real serious with CHFI in Maryland. Because first of all, Maryland is very loyal and was very dedicated to the show. And working at CHUM was like working for the family. You know, there was a feeling there that you were part of a family. So at that point, I don't think it ever got serious into an offer. But the thing you have to keep in mind, and I don't think Rogers had the assets it has now, like there was no City TV

back then because that was under the Chum umbrella. Marilyn was heavily tethered to Chum because of the television show. So she had this well-established radio show, which was going really well, and a well-established TV show that was just going really well. So to my knowledge, the CHFI offer was never really formalized. And I really don't think it ever happened behind Aaron's back. I think it was in the in-between phase, I think when Mad Dog and Billy were there. Right, and then speaking of Mike Cooper, she ends up at Easy Rock.

I forgot this right. Yeah, Easy Rock with Mike Cooper, and then I guess Julie Adam realizes she made a huge mistake. Is that how the legend goes? of my time working with Juliet Rogers, albeit not that it wasn't long. So I wouldn't say, I'd actually wouldn't say it was a mistake. I'd say that the thought that Julie put in and revitalizing CHFI and breathing new life into it and taking it in a new direction was good. new life into it and taking it in a new direction was good. Where it probably fell was on the execution of the actual morning show itself. So I think, listen, Julie would probably be the first one to tell you that, you know, getting Winter Varen at that time was a terrible, terrible mistake.

But Julie didn't make that, you know, Julie didn't own that decision on her own. There's always a lot of people in a room, you know, when you're having consultants in and researchers on that. So that's all I'll say to that only because, you know, every once in a while it comes up. And I actually tend to look at things of, you know, maybe the timing was wrong and maybe the focus is on everything we learned from the experiment. But calling it a mistake, I think is a mistake. Rob, this is why you're the seasoned radio executive and I'm just a guy in his basement because of course you're so right there. Seasoned.

Look, I got white hairs. I'm a seasoned podcaster. Now, Gary Slate. Okay, so Gary Slate was always tweaking 99.9 because he was obsessed with trying to beat 104.5. And I'm just wondering from where you sat there at 104.5, what were your thoughts? And I'm just wondering from where you sat there at 104.5, what were your thoughts?

And I'm asking this as a guy who currently produces this duo's podcast. So I'm very interested in what you thought of the recruitment or the poaching of Humble and Fred to be the new morning show on Mix 99.9. to be the new morning show on Mix 99.9? Well, it was a fierce competition between Chum and Mix in my perspective. Like, when I'm programming a radio station, I always look at the competition as enemies. station, I always look at the competition as enemies. Now that I'm older, I have, you know, a much more measured view of it all. But I was a real asshole. If you were the competition, you know, I'd pull out all the stops to, you know, I would bite off my nose to spite my face or whatever the saying goes.

So when I heard the news of Humble and Fred being hired at Mix, both those guys are so talented and funny, like funny. And they really, it's really hard to keep a team together, but also a team that understands the language of each other and, and timing and how to play. And they're such well-defined characters. So when Humble and Fred came on Mix 99.9, and they made the music a little more aggressive. I really thought they had something. But I also, my feeling was that Gary would always get so involved in the programming that no matter what they decided to do,

there was going to be a memo coming from down the hall any day on doing something a little different. So my feeling with Mix was they never have the fortitude to stick to a plan long enough. You know, you can't throw on Humble and Fred and then eight months later, lose faith. You can't then throw Carla Collins in, you know, and then eight months later, Lose Faith. You can't then throw Carla Collins in, you know, and then three months later, Lose Faith. I mean, obviously there's reasons that force you to make changes, but trying to build a show and get the personalities to gel, and most importantly, getting the audience to feel that the show

is worth their time, takes time and it takes incremental steps and it takes a lot of terrible shows and a few good shows. And then all of a sudden, you know, there's less terrible shows and more good shows and a show really hits its stride. And if I was to say the biggest downfall of a lot of talent, and I say this about Humble and Fred, is they seldom have been allowed to the runway to develop their show on a new station. Not to say that these guys need to develop, but whenever you're in a new environment, you need to develop for that environment. So if you're on CFNY, the Mixed99 listeners don't know who you are. You know, a few will, but a lot won't. So you're essentially reestablishing yourself all over again. So that's one of the comments I have on, you know, great talent like Humble and Fred,

you know, and Jesse and Gene are the same thing. You know, a lot of people, managers were too afraid to hire them, you know, because, oh my God, if we hire, you know, Humble and Fred, then, you know, they're going to be impossible to control and this and that. And the other thing is, you know, people don't, aren't willing to make the commitment. And I see this all the time. I've been through it. I've been through it where we've hired a show. We've gone through great lengths to bring a show in and everybody's happy. This is going to be great. And then six months goes by and somebody comes down the hall to my office. It's like, well, the numbers are terrible numbers. It's like, yeah.

So like, so, you know, how much time is fair to give a new show for it to, you know, find its feet and find its legs there. Well, um, three years. Three years. Well, you know, there was a study done in Australia by a neurologist that talked about how long it took to break a habit.

And I got this from Valerie Geller, who's an amazing talent coach. And I got this from Valerie Geller, who's an amazing talent coach. And the neurologist came out to the number of around 1,000 times. So if you're trying to quit smoking, if you're trying, it's like you've got to do something 1,000 times over before your brain starts making it a pattern. And if I'm a listener of CHFI in the morning, and when they go to commercial, I pop over to Jamar in Maryland, it's going to be a long, I need to catch these little moments that are meaningful to me and bring value to my life over several, several times before it becomes, you know, okay, I'll listen to them for the whole commercial break or I'll, you know, or maybe, and then there comes a morning

and it's like, you know what, I, you know, I'm preferring this show over that show, but it takes a long time. Wow. Three years. Okay. So, okay, my friend. So I realize here at some point, am I saying it right? Astral? Astral. Okay. I said astral. They would say astral. Could I hear, okay. Because I remember when Howard was working there, I remember he told me it was called astral. And of course, I wouldn't actually want to call it astral, but astral, that's a

little pretentious, but if that's how they say it, okay. So- Well, do you say spaghetti or spaghetti? I say spaghetti. Well, that's my feeling on astral. In English, it's astral, and in French, it's astral. Gotcha, okay. So astral, and this, so how do you end up at astral? I guess we're looking at like 2009 here.

Oh, yeah, that was a real tough move for me to make. So CTV had bought Chum and Chum had hired a new president for the radio division. And he had been hired for a few months. And in those few months, there was no communication. And some of the other people on the senior team had been let go. And I was the vice president of programming at the time. So I thought, oh, my God, I think my days are numbered here, which is really sad because I love this place. And around that time, Charles Benoit approached me about joining Astrale. And Charles was the head of programming and operations and

then became president of Astrale. And I had known Charles a little bit before, but we went out and, you know, smoked cigarettes and drank wine. And he made a real compelling pitch to me to come over as the EVP of content and platforms. So I was overseeing all the programming of the 84 stations, French and English. The digital, which I was really proud about because we launched Canada's first on-demand music app. Unfortunately, when we launched it, they announced the sale to Bell. So all the funding to develop it went under. Jacques Grisien was the president of Astral at the time. Sorry, the role was radio, digital, and marketing, and also the syndication division. So it was a big meaty role. It sounded exciting. And being from an Italian background,

working with French Canadians jived quite well. You know, there's a couple of things. First of all, you'll have meetings where it's fuck you, fuck you, fuck you. Okay, let's go have a glass of wine. So there was that mentality of it that you like fight really hard, but there'd be, you know, the best catered lunches, like I've never worked in the business where they bring in wine and cheese for lunch at a business lunch. But they really, Astral came into the English market because they bought the radio stations from Slate Communications. They came in with a real underdog mentality. And I really thrived in that environment. First of all, it was a great, dynamic, smart team to work with,

but also they weren't afraid to, you know, like the Virgin Radio rollout, which I think with the exception of Ottawa, which the horse was already out of the barn by the time I started, I think was a brilliant move when they did the move with the NRJ brand out of France. It reinvigorated the stations and they really leaned into digital hard and gave me, you know, all the resources I needed to kind of build something special for not only the radio division, but also, you know, building some new business models. So Astral was an amazing experience. building some new business models.

So Astral was an amazing experience. And you spoke earlier about flipping from Easy Rock to Boom, and this is where that happens. Yes. Yeah, I think that's the first thing I did. Like, it was first week. Quick question about Boom, because I'm going to take all the full advantage of the fact that I've got your attention for as long as I want it, Rob.

There's nowhere you're going to go. You're going to hang up on me. So how come in some markets, Boom is owned by different companies? Like how is calling Rush Home working for Boom in Ottawa, which I believe is a chorus maybe? Like how is it that that branding is different depending on what market you're in? Sure. So I may have the timing wrong, but the station had been already launched as Boom when the station was sold. But I know that with Boom, Bell has a licensing agreement with Stingray on it for the Toronto market. But Stingray owns Boom for the Toronto market. But Stingray owns Boom in the Toronto market.

Right, but it used to be owned by Astral. Right, okay. But when Bell looked at buying everything, the CRTC forced them to break things off. So they couldn't hang on to City TV. They couldn't hang on to, well, the stations in Toronto that were affected were Virgin, Boom and 1010 were all under Astral.

Right. Okay. So it's just a licensing thing. And maybe it's similar to the, like we have now, speaking of Stingray, I almost called them NuCap, but speaking of uh stingray i almost call them new cap but speaking of stingray they have today radio which is owned by uh a different company at west i suppose or wherever the heck it is but yeah so so they license that branding essentially yeah listen in a lot of these in a lot of these situations it's situations, it lands to first to register. So I think we went through a problem. Well, you remember the famous KISS 925 launching as Power 925.

Yes, I did. Only to find out that they didn't know. So if you're first to register, it's really hard for you to continue to be in business. If you're first to register, it's really hard for you to continue to be in business. But if you really like the branding and stuff, it's often very easy to just do a licensing deal with somebody that owns the trademark. And often they'll either own the trademark for the name only or the name and the logo. But often in these setups, what you see is them taking the name and then creating their own identity around the name only or the name and the logo. But often in these setups, what you see is them taking the name and then creating their own identity around the name.

Okay, gotcha. So yeah, it sounds like that's the deal with Stingray and what's replaced Flow, which actually I'll get to that later because I do have a few like general radio questions I want to drill by you here. But okay, so you're at Astral. And why does it end for you at Astral?

Well, the company was sold to Bell, which was a long, arduous process. At the end of the process, Ann McNamara, who was the head of HR at the time, who had a great relationship, she was Astral's head of HR. And Anne was a great lady, and she had moved over to Bell to oversee the transition of how to bring these two companies together. And the conversation Anne had with me is like, they would like to hire you as a special projects guy reporting into Kevin Krull. And Kevin was the head of the media division. And at the time I'd been in the business a long time. I felt like every project that got thrown at me,

I was able to, you know, do well with it. And the companies made money. I felt my years of having to prove myself, I wasn't up for it. And what really kind of layered that for me is I thought Kevin Krull was a dink. Like I had met him once. He talked to me what a great musical Cats was.

And I thought, well, you know, if Cats is your version of great entertainment, I don't think you and I can vibe. So Anne, and whether she was allowed to do this or not, said we could either offer you that job or I could give you a package. And I said, let's get that package. And you get this package, and then this is when you head off to Beverly Hills, right? Shout out to Weezer. Yes.

Yeah. So at the time, my husband and I had bought a house in Palm Springs that was like, we bought it during the recession. So we got a great deal on the ugliest house on the street and started embarking on like a massive renovation, like massive renovation, more than I even intended. Like I remember I, my husband had been down for a month doing the demolition. And I drove up with from Vegas with a buddy of mine, who's from New Zealand. And we arrived at the driveway and there's like this construction fence around and I'm gobsmacked, my jaw's hanging. And my buddy Phillip says, well, by the looks of it, love, you bought a house and threw it all in a dumpster.

It was like that. So while I was working on that, Olivia Tortella, who was the president at Warner Brothers Records, she was let go from that role. And me and Liv had been friends for a long time. So I started spending, honestly, my husband, Mark, kept telling me because I was like the Italian woman that kept throwing herself at the coffin on a funeral. Like, what do you mean? What do you mean we didn't pass code for this? What do you mean the inspector didn't approve this?

Shout out to Ridley Funeral Home. Absolutely. So I was that person. So, so out of, you know, for Mark to keep a sanity, he kept saying to me, why don't you go to LA? Why don't you go to LA for the week? So I started spending more and more time with LA with, with Livia. And Livia was, you know, she's somebody that's been really involved in some amazing artist careers, like, you know, everybody from Sum 41 and American Hi-Fi and Death Cab for Cutie. You know, like, for God's sakes, Bruno Mars was an intern at the Atlantic offices. So Livia had this amazing experience and really focused on knowing how to develop artists. And she wanted to start

a company, but she didn't want to do it by herself. And I was excited about the prospect of working with Livia. So we started this company called Black Box, which was a new model, which basically provided a whole suite of services for artists. In a nutshell, we would do what traditional labels used to invest in, but would no longer invest in anymore, because they were looking for a ready made product, a story. So we would get an artist and, you know, one of the ones I would highlight is Andra Day. Andra Day's album had been sitting on the shelf at Warner Brothers for three or four years. And when Andra came to us as a client, we were actually, we'd get hired by the managers. When she came to us as a client, it was about, okay, what's the strategy we need to do to build

enough of a story around Andra Day so that Warner Brothers goes, wait a minute, there's some smoke here. Let's add some fire to it. So that was an incredible experience, Mike, because all of a sudden from being, you know, from working in these huge, you know, roles at media companies, roles at media companies. I'm at a club on the outskirts of town with seven people in the audience and eight people on stage and figuring out how we're going to make rent for everybody.

Okay, so Rob, there's Black Box and Beverly Hills here, but you were seduced back to the dark side here because you end up at Rogers as VP of content. Yeah, well, it started... Julie, I really missed media because as much as I love the artist space, there are way too many variables that happen,

like some of which are in your control, most of which are completely not in your control. But Julie Adam called me, and Julie called me under the premise that she wanted to hire Blackbox, me in particular, to kind of provide some digital intel and some programming oversight on a retainer, not a full-time job.

And that conversation kind of snowballed into being a full-time job. All right, my friend. So you're not there particularly long, right? How long is this run at rogers here god it was it wasn't long it was a massive flame out for me career-wise i'm only going to ask you about this because you've already uh you know been very public about this but can you speak to the email that I suppose it leads to your dismissal,

this email, but you write an email and then I've read your piece, Let's Talk, but can we hear it in your words? What happened there? Yeah, it's actually, it wasn't the email at all. Okay, tell me. Because for some reason I thought it was an email you wrote about Bell conspiring against Rogers or something. No, what's that?

Okay, let's get the real talk here. bell conspiring against Rogers or something. Okay. Let's get the real talk here. So I remember, uh, you know, uh, the first thing that has to be said is I was, I'm living, Rogers has a series of townhouses on Huntley street. Uh, and I'm living in run of the Rogers townhouses. And I'm, you know, I remember that time I was literally, you know, it's funny, I wanted to do such a great job and was having such a great time at Rogers that it became everything to me. And I didn't have like, my husband was still in LA because we had actually bought a house in Los Angeles. So he was in the process of renovating that to get it on the market and sell and we were going to find a place in Toronto. that to get it on the market and sell, and we were going to find a place in Toronto. And over the course of a few weeks, we were getting denied either promotional opportunities with artists, and we were getting wind back that Randy Lennox was actually trying to stop us from getting access to some of these artists.

And for me, I went into Papa Bear mode immediately. And I remember it was the night of, I remember the weekend was playing the Rogers Center. And I remember Charlie Walk, who was a huge recording industry figure that was brought down by the Me Too movement. But Charlie Walk, I had gotten information that he was giving preferential treatment to Bell over Rogers. So I go crazy and Charlie denies it. And I call him a duplicitous cunt over email, over text rather. So the next, the next morning is a, that day's a Friday.

Cause I remember that day ended with me getting on the phone with Monty Lippman, who was Charlie Wach's boss, the head of Republic. We had smoothed everything over. They understood there was a bias going on. They were going to work hard to eradicate it. I, you know, then I remember either Julie Adam or Rick Brace sent out an email to the entire senior team saying, yay, Rob, he stuck up for us. And then over the weekend, things started to unravel. So what happened was Charlie Wach walked my text down to the legal team at Universal in New York. And one of the guys, one of the lawyers for Universal was good friends with Guy Lawrence, who was the president of Rogers at the time.

And Guy Lawrence, who has not had any background on this, all he sees is an email from, you know, one of his employees acting like a complete asshole, created a whole domino effect that ended in Rogers letting me go. What they didn't take into account is that I legitimately was going through a mental health issue at the time but I think the momentum to get me out was so strong that there's nothing that could have been done like I would tell you I, it's the worst day of my life, the day it happened. And I remember Julie Adam coming into my office to have to deliver the news. And Julie is such a good person. And I know Julie did everything she could that it was so hard for her. think she could, that it was so hard for her. And then it was followed up by Colin. I believe it was Colin Watson, who was in HR, who's also like an awesome guy, deliver the news. And I think everybody walked away from that. And in hindsight, I would say they did the right thing. Like I deserve to be fired for what happened. I learned a tremendous amount from it. Not the least of which is impulse control and not going off medication arbitrarily.

Right. Can you go on? That's important that you stopped taking your medication, cold turkey. Stop taking your medication, cold turkey. Yeah, I probably started, I probably stopped taking, you know, and it's really weird, Mike, because it's the second time I had stopped taking it. And, you know, the first time there wasn't any kind of crazy public incident, but I did go, you know, emotionally off the rails. And I didn't even realize, you know, this happens to a lot of people that you get to a point where you're feeling so good that you think, I don't really need this. Right. I don't think mine was that conscious, conscious other than one day, I forgot to take my pills. And then another day, then another day, then another day. And pretty soon where, you know, a week or a week and a half in, because this was really around that time.

And you're like, well, what's the point of taking them now? I haven't needed them for the last week and a half, but I didn't really have any objectivity on, you know, there was no voice inside me going, yeah, Rob, you know, we might be getting fucked over from Bell on a Demi Lovato interview, but who gives a fuck? How important is it? Like, because it's not really that important. So I didn't have that objectivity going on. impulsive and erratic. Yeah. Quoting yourself there. Okay. Now this is where the story is.

If you're following along at home, so I'm just going to put these pieces together. So you have that issue of sort of like a bell versus Rogers thing that caused you to. So I go, so I go toe to toe against Randy Lennox. Just tell the people who Randy is. Cause I know you dropped that name and I know who that is, but tell the people who Randy Lennox is at this point.

Randy is a legendary entertainment figure in Canada. One of the nicest guys you could meet. He was the president of Universal Music for

many years before coming over as the president of Bell Media. So he's of Bell Media. Right. Yeah. So he's the Bell guy. You're a Rogers guy who go in toe to toe against the Bell guy. And you send that, I guess you said it was a text, not an email,

but a text with that expression you used that some guy brings it to the legal team who's buddies with the guy at Rogers. You end up getting canned. But here's where the story I find is fascinating because you end up working for Bell Media when all the dust settles. You're working for Bell Media as a senior advisor for the launch of iHeartRadio in Canada, right?

Yeah. That's wild. It's like a movie. Talk about, talk about irony, but a lot of that has to do with Randy's character and Randy also, Randy had known me for 20 years. Like he knew I wasn't that guy. He knew something was off. He knew something wasn't right, but he knew he, he knew enough to knew that I wasn't that guy. And he also was in the business long enough to know that I could deliver.

Because at the end of the day, nobody will do you a favor if they don't think you could deliver. And I had some great people inside. You know, David Corey, that was the program director at the time. I hired David out of Boston to become the program director. And although me and David weren't tight, you know, when the prospect of launching iHeartRadio came up, David was the first person that, you know, went to Randy and said, here's the guy you should hire to launch this. is the guy you should hire to launch this. So, okay.

Yeah. So you are now working for, then you would start working for Bell with the iHeart Media, sorry. Yeah, the iHeart Radio. It's all very confusing to me, but the iHeart Radio rollout, I guess that's the, yeah. And I don't know,

you have a lot of big titles there, but maybe Head of Content Strategy and iHeartRadio at Bell. Would that be the title there? That was the last title I had, yes. All right. So what happens there? You can let us know how it went with iHeartRadio and everything, but why does it end for you at Bell?

Well, we'll talk about iHeartRadio first. Yeah, sure. That was an incredible ride. When Randy brought me in for iHeartRadio, there was no iHeartRadio staff, and for the longest time, I was the iHeartRadio staff. But at Bell, we had a lot of great people. So there was great support from the marketing team. There was great support on the radio side, where there was no support was on the digital side,

because the digital team in Montreal thought that they could create a better iHeartRadio in a few months than the team working on the platform for the last 12 years were able to do. And we actually ended up launching that shitty product for the first year. I think to this day, George Cope doesn't know that we did a bait and switch on the iHeartRadio product because I spent a year fighting tooth and nail to get the real product released to in the marketplace which we were able to do we also you know that led us to doing a lot of amazing you know to be able to stage shows at the Scotiabank Arena you know we we put together our first jingle bowl with the weekend headlining and the chain smokers and a bunch of other acts. There was no team to do this stuff.

So it was beg, borrowing and stealing from around the building for whoever I could get to support. A lot of times there was friction from other managers that didn't want their teams working on this. But the product was so exciting, especially to, you know, anybody that was young and into music at Bell Media, that it was easy to create like a magnetic field to get people to come in, roll up their sleeves and help with this. So it was an incredible launch, and I think we did a really good job of establishing that brand in Canada. I tell you that things really changed, and I'm dovetailing into the question about why I'm not at Bell anymore. I think things really started to change around COVID.

I mean, you know, we all, I was already living in this reality that there was a senior management team at Bell Media that's main interest was the senior management team at Bell Media. Media, that's main interest was the senior management team at Bell Media. It was a very, I've never worked for a more, and this is not everyone, but a significant portion, a more entitled group that felt they were beyond reproach, thought everything they did was the best thing ever. And I always come at it from a completely different angle. I'm always like, let's rebuild the beast from within. That's where I came from. So when I was misled in my employment agreement that I was going to be part of the senior leadership team.

And then a year later, they acted like the conversation never happened, like I just dreamt it up. So that started creating fiction for me because I knew that if I'm not at the table with senior leadership team, that I can't really fight for the things that we need for the people, whether it be the radio division or the digital team as it related to iHeartRadio. At the same time, there seemed to have been this weird trend of putting people in positions for jobs they had no idea what was involved. Like no idea what was involved. And so Bell for me was the most dysfunctional organization I've ever been part of and wasn't a great experience managing up with the exception of Randy, who was a real guy that wanted to do good work and wanted, you know, to make people feel valued and rewarded for doing that work. But Randy was a little bit of an island and I,

you know, I guess I was part of the Randy Island. So I think when everything, when Randy was like, Oh, before Christmas of, I think it was before Christmas of 2020, I can't remember. I kind of felt like it was a matter of time for me and I wasn't unhappy about it either. Like it just, you know, what I wasn't happy about was the like that team there. When you look at, you know, we talked about the Chum FM team and many of the people there, you know,

amazing people, some amazing programmers across the country and amazing talent across the country, both on air and off. I miss that. And I felt while I was there, I had a responsibility to those people. But that's the only part of that I miss. I've never been happier to leave a job than the Bell job. Interesting.

So would you consider yourself a free agent? Is that what your status is currently? I, I, you know, honestly, I, I don't, I feel like Bell was such a horrible experience that, um, I don't think I ever want to work for a media company again unless I really, really know the people and know the environment I'm getting into. So right now what I focus on is I focus on doing projects that I think are fun with good people. And that's as far as I look at it. My main focus is getting this house finished because we've been living with friends in, I'm now back from, I've spent a few months in California. I'm now back in Budeli, Ontario. Beautiful Budeli, Ontario, ladies and gentlemen. Where's that? Should I know that?

Do you know where Rice Lake is? Keep going. Name things and I'll tell you when I know one. Coburg. Yeah, I do. Go to Coburg, drive north. Okay. I know where Coburg is. Okay. Yes. 20 minutes north of Coburg, there's Bewdley, Ontario.

So been living here with friends while we get a house in the country built. So I'm focused on that adventure. I've been doing some work in the artist space in terms of providing some strategic direction and helping build out some businesses for some emerging artists. And in terms of media, there hasn't been a ton of calls, but of the calls there's been, my gut reaction is always no. Okay, so Rob, this has been fantastic. And I know I've gone kind of long here, but can I just like rapid fire just a few like current radio things I'm curious about? I think you'd be as a, you know, a former, a seasoned former radio executive, I think you might be a good guy to run these, uh, bounces off of. Are you cool with that?

Of course. Okay, good. So where will I begin? Okay. So flow flow 93.5 of course was a, was a station, uh, in Toronto until very recently when they kind of gave that branding to a smaller signaled station g987 g987 and they have the logo i always say it's like they gave them the logo basically and flow is now today and today it's it does some like what phony baloney chatter like it feels very like scripted and faked or something and then there's it does some like what phony baloney chatter like it feels very like scripted and faked or something and then there's like you never know what they're gonna play because it might be a country song and then there'll be like a uh a dance song it's just it's all over the place but i'm curious from where you sit right there uh what what do you think of the flip to

today radio and what that means for that station? What can you tell me about that? So I'm struggling with what to say. Right. I think, you know, one of the things that has me just enchanted with radio is I don't see a lot of really forward thinking. And while, you know, I'm not privy to what the team at Stingray, and I know, you know, those guys, they're incredibly smart guys. I think they had a real dilemma on their hands on what to do. I think they had a real dilemma on their hands on what to do.

I know they have a consultant there that, you know, probably pushed them in a direction. I think they're trying to replicate what Now FM did at Edmonton. But honestly, I could bet money on the fact that Today Radio is going to be as successful a year from now as it is right today okay so i don't think it's gonna i don't think it's gonna make any impact on uh on uh chum or virgin or chfi uh i think it's gonna languish around the the the the two and a half to three and a half share points that that flow was in with the difference of they don't own a lifestyle group.

They're trying to get on buys to be part of somebody else's lifestyle group. And my thought is, and I'm not a seasoned radio executive, but I play one on podcasts. you know radio executive but i uh play one on uh and podcasts but no i i would i like the names that were like part of the lineup and of all due respect to these i'm sure they're great people but no name recognition at all like for me even who kind of follows this stuff you know for sport but so if i don't the music i mean my wife had it preset because she liked flow and she was telling me about there's some song that she liked it was like a retro jam and then then they went to some country thing and she's like she was gone like she she tapped out so like i'm not sure who the music is for there's no names that would make you kind of curious to kind of tune in and hear their

personalities or stuff like i don't get it at all like i don't get any of it i don't i mean but what do i know because i have this discussion with mark weisblatt once a month and uh he seems to be kind of digging today and i honestly i know you said you got to give something three years but i i just don't get it listen i i would tell you i don't think there's anything there okay so we're on the same page okay i don't think you. Listen, I would tell you, I don't think there's anything there. Okay. So we're on the same page. Okay. I don't think you could give that five years. Like there still won't be anything there. Hey, you mentioned Mark Weisblatt. You know, Mark Weisblatt almost ended my career. Please tell this story because I know he's listening. Oh my God. So, you know, you should get Mark's version of the story. Uh, and I will April 7th.

He's here April 7th. I'll get his version, but if it differs from mine, he's lying to you. Um, because this is exactly what happened. So, um, so Ivor Hamilton was the promotion rep for Polygram at the time. Just to tell you, he was on that three hour zoom call I had last night. So this is a very small world, but please continue. Yes. So, and I at the time was the music director at CFTR. And just a bit of a backdrop, I really prided myself, especially because we were leaning into hip hop so hard. And there was a hip hop community, but it wasn't recognized by the record

labels. So many of the records we were playing came from the streets, came from cassette tapes and stuff. And I really worked hard on finding great Canadian talent. And I remember Ivor Hamilton came in. It was a Monday or Tuesday because we would do the music meetings on Wednesdays and we would see the record reps Mondays and Tuesdays. And Ivor came in with this guy that I understood to be an intern. I don't remember the guy being, you know, introduced to me as this is Mark Weisblatt. He's a writer at iMagazine. Because not that I would have said anything different,

but maybe it would have been. So I remember Mark asked me in the room, he said, is it hard finding enough Canadian content to put on the radio station? And I said to him, my direct quote was, well, it's not like we have to go with whatever makes us gag the least. As a matter of fact, right now, there are so many great Canadian acts out right now. And I started to list the act. And at the time, we added Be My Yoko Ono off a cassette tape, you know, like we were, you know, and I was proud of this. Like, I didn't know at the time it meant something. I do now. But I was really proud of this because I was the guy at the party that always wanted to control the turntables,

you know, always wanted to kind of introduce new music. And I remember flash forward a week, I'm walking to a CFTR ratings party, and open up iMagazine and the giant quote is, when it comes to Canadian content, we add whatever makes us gag the least. Wow. Okay, but I'm curious because I know sometimes I talk to many print journalists and they say, oh, I have nothing to do with the headline. Is it possible someone else puts that headline in their content? I confronted Mark about that, you know, soon after.

I've actually haven't seen Mark in years. I think Mark turned a phrase around because it made for a better headline. But I would tell you it almost killed my career. Now, the other thing it did, here's the great thing that come out of it because I really believe in life sometimes you know some of your disappointed most disappointing moments or moments where you veer off the road with them comes many great lessons and experiences. Right. So I remember one of the first people that reached out to me was Dave Charles. Dave Charles is a legendary consultant. Good FOTM. Good FOTM. Dave Charles reached out to me and

Dave said, here's the way we're going to navigate through this. And through Dave, I ended up, you know, coming on to the board at SOCAN, joined a bunch of boards, was able to get my story out and turn the ship around. So out of that came a lot of really good experiences, but I really felt like it was a bullet that came out of nowhere because it was the complete opposite of everything I was most passionate about in this business. Well, Rob, here's what I can pledge here. I will, because he is going to be here on April 7th at 2 p.m., so I will absolutely pull that clip and get his response because if it is as you said it is, and of course that's how it was, that's a dick move. Yeah, I'd say. And listen, I'd be the first to say, yeah, I made the comment. It was a stupid comment. I acted like an act because trust me, I am the, I have no

problem, you know, uh, accepting accountability and realizing when I fucked up, but that really felt like a hatchet job to me. Not that he meant it that way. Like, I don't think, I don't think Mark understood the rep, what the repercussions were to me. Um, uh, so I, I don't think Mark understood what the repercussions were to me. But if Mark intentionally misrepresented what you said, not only is it a dick move, but completely unethical. So we need to discuss. We will discuss. But I'm sorry that happened to you.

Great. Okay. I'm almost done here. But okay. I'm to you. Great. Okay. Uh, and I'm almost done here, but okay. Uh, I'm curious about CHFI. Okay. Now you did mention earlier, Darren B.

Lamb. One of the things I'm obviously very curious about, which I'm sure you'll have nothing to say about, because I asked this as a few people lately and I get these like, like, like, Oh, you can't ask that question.

Uh, what happened with Darren B. Lamb at CHFI where he just disappeared? They brought in Mike Cooper to work alongside Maureen Holloway. And do you have any insight into what happened with Darren B. Lamb? So I actually don't. So Darren and I were actually really good friends. I hired Darren out of Vancouver with the plan to bring

him to Chum FM as the afternoon drive show, and then a year in, make the transition to replace Darren with Rick on the show. I remember you telling, I remember Tom telling you the Rick Hodge story. What the Rick Hodge story actually is, is, you know, again, in this need to always keep the radio station moving forward and you have to change the chairs, Rick was becoming the odd man out on the Roger, Rick and Marilyn show. He wasn't in the room that often. And quite frankly, he didn't really like the other two. Like, you know, I mean, there was definitely friction there. Like, you know, I mean, there was definitely friction there. Like,

you know, so Rick wasn't happy. It wasn't making sense. We didn't need sports segments on, you know, on such a heavily skewed female station when sports was so heavily serviced in the marketplace. So I made a deal with Rick. I said, Rick, I'm going to offer you a three-year contract. It's three years, your full salary, but this is the final contract. And at the end of these, and you could leave at any time before the three years and get 50% of whatever's remaining on that contract. So that, because I wanted to do a deal with Rick that was respectful of his role in the, you know, in building, you know, one of the biggest morning shows in the country.

And through that, Rick, I think Rick stayed on for another year and then Easy Rock offered him the role to come over there. So at the time when Rick left, we moved Darren into Mornings, and I think it was a pretty good success. Like, Darren added a real spark. He had a great sense of humor. Years later, when I was at Rogers, and we were looking at revitalizing CHFI, which led to kind of a new logo, a new imaging package, refresh the music. And part of it was kind of bringing a new person into the morning show. And that's where Darren B. Lamb came into the equation. And it's actually funny because Darren, I did the deal with Darren. He had a non-compete.

And then I get blown out of Rogers. And Darren calls me. He's supposed to start in like a week or two. And I'm the guy that brought him in. He's like, what does this mean? I said, Darren, you're fine. And I think they had a good run. In terms of what happened, I would tell you that I felt like I was good friends with Darren. And then we lost touch

and never regained communication again. So in terms of what happened, I have no idea. But what we do know happened is that they eventually said goodbye to that whole morning show crew. So Darren B. Lamb, who hadn't been on air in many months but him and maureen holloway and fill-in replacement guy mike cooper all sent packing and they bring in uh from cp24 they bring in puja handa and gurdip alohalia and i'm just curious what you think of this move, because these are not radio people and they're good looking TV people.

Are they at CHFI just so they don't compete with breakfast television on CP 24 breakfast? No, I don't. CHFI is too important of a radio station for them to do, make a move like that. I think, and I've only been back in town for a week, so I've only been able to listen to the show once or twice.

I think they're there because they're really talented broadcasters. I think they have a great chemistry together. And I think they're there because they're good. I feel like Rogers is the kind of company that, you know, under Julie Adam would make the commitment to give the show all the time it needs and resources to develop. So I would tell you they're a morning show to look out for and not to judge them by these early days. But based on what I've heard, I think there's a lot of promise there. But would you be surprised to learn that, I don't

know, around Labor Day 2022, that they were actually the breakfast television team and that there was another couple of people in the CHFI seat? Would that be a shock to you? No, it wouldn't be a shock to me. But one of the things to keep in mind with our business is that there's not an endless pool of talent at that level that could come in. So especially if you don't take the job. So while I wouldn't be surprised by anything, I think from what I've seen, there's a real commitment to build this as Toronto's foremost show. And I think they've got, listen, they've got a big hill

because that Jamar and Marilyn show show that's one good show and the other one my my personal you know i had a hand in having casting the show was the is the adam tj and jack show on virgin speaking of maryland another show that i really love right uh speaking of maryland dennis that's uh okay this is great and you would be equally unshocked. Is that a word? You would not be shocked to learn Toronto Mike was the new CHFI morning show host come Labor Day 2022. Not at all. Thank you. Okay. Not at all. Listen, you're sporting exceptionally great hair today. And I think that hair is going to look good on billboards all over. great hair today and I think that hair is going to look good on billboards all over uh you know oh you know yeah if you could keep it that high what do you have scaffolding there to keep that

I was gonna say now that I'm on you know I had my uh 15 minutes of mainstream media get that made at the CNE is that is that I've been out of the country is that it's a phony cover of the Toronto Star uh because people can't actually see it. That's the Toronto Star? Yeah, that's the Toronto Star. That's the Toronto Star. Like that, that's huge. Oh, you did, I didn't know.

I thought, because I did tweet about it. No, I have no idea. Okay, so this is in all seriousness. Two Sundays ago. You are the talk of the town. So talk of the town, but then when you open it up, so it's almost too much because you open it up and there's another three color photos mastering the mic. Like it's a two much because you open it up and there's another uh three color photos

mastering the mic like it's a two-page spread like full page in the toronto sunday star so it's quite a it's my 15 minutes of mainstream media you know how hard i've worked to like pray for like half a page of coverage like them like we'd end up working like i remember at one point we made the toronto sun uh because of a um i forget what pop artist it is it might have been bismarck key there was a bismarck key riot at the mall and and i thought i opened the paper and go oh you know maybe cftr will be in the paper and it said a local radio station i'm like like, damn you. That's the worst. No, I don't know what to say. I can tell you. It's not like two full pages.

Well, I could tell you humble and fret or jealous if that means anything. So, okay. It means a lot. Okay. So this is it. On this note, I'm going to close out here. I could do this all day.

But the fact is that episode 1021, which was a couple of weeks away, is all about the station CFNY, the history of CFNY at 102.1. And I even have a member of the current morning show on the program, Jay Brody, kind of representing the current crew at 102.1. I'm naturally, even though I don't listen to much terrestrial radio anymore, I still am very curious at sort of the Indy 88 versus CFNY battle for whatever, New Rock, Alt Rock, whatever we're

calling it these days. And I'm wondering in your opinion, your professional seasoned radio executive opinion, like how much longer before one of these two, you know, flips formats and dies? Like, are we in end of days for CFNY or is Indie 88

going to blink first? What do you think about that one? Is there room for both still? Well, there's a lot of emotion in CFNY and a lot of history, obviously. So one of the things that team has to think about is think about the heritage. When you have a heritage station, we spend a lot of time talking about what the value of the heritage is. And I don't know what the answer to that is in this climate. You know, I think 20 years ago, there was something in heritage.

I don't think people give a shit anymore. I don't think they give a shit about the history of CFNY. I don't think, I think Jay Brody does. I don't think the station does. Right. I would agree with you. So, but I think it's be a tough decision for them to make. The great thing about Indy 88 is that they're an independent broadcaster. They don't, you know, other than Rock 95, they're not dealing with 30 other radio stations. So they're able to really dedicate.

To me, Indy, and I have a lot of respect for that management team there, Megan Bingley and Ian March, I believe is the PD there that I used to work with when he was the, he was a music director, a great music director at that. music director at that. I think because they have an independent spirit and not part of a big company, that actually gives them a leg up in the space. So whether two can continue to coexist, maybe they can. Toronto is a big market. But I think there's a bigger opportunity in another format for one of them. And what do you think that format would be? Well, I wouldn't tell you that.

And why is it country? No, it's okay. All right. So I lied. I have one more question. I'm just thinking now real quick, but again,

I'm holding you hostage here, but we have, I'm hearing rumblings about like the CRTC might be changing, or I guess it's like a, if it comes to parliament, I'm not sure what, but basically right now, you know, Bell can only own four stations in the market and Rogers can only own four stations, et cetera.

And there's something about how like the size of your market, you might be able to own more than that. So Toronto being the largest market in the country, you could own six stations theoretically. And if that should happen there's rumblings maybe rogers buys the chorus cluster here they couldn't keep them all because you can only have six maybe they have to sell 640 but they like maybe that's the future of 102.1 is rogers ends up gobbling it up am i talking nonsense here what do you think here? Have I lost it? No, listen, it all can happen,

but none of that answers the question, how's radio going to be relevant in a few years? Because what consolidation showed in the US is, listen, the public pitches, oh, this is going to add to more diversity and bullshit. What it adds to is a much more effective way to be able to squeeze the staff you have working on three radio stations across seven radio stations. That's what it actually does. If there's an opportunity for a format in the market, they'll try to seize that opportunity. in the market. They'll try to seize that opportunity. But I think the bigger challenge as radio has is, you know, how are we going to greet the needs of an audience that have

changed greatly when we continue to do the same thing over and over again? Do you have an answer? I have to pay you for that answer, right? Exactly. Rob, man, for your Toronto Mike debut, you hit it out of the park, buddy. Well, thank you. I didn't know really what to expect. You know, the weird thing, Mike, is I've never,

I've been involved in podcasting. I launched the first commercial podcast on Chum FM with Roger, Rick, and Marilyn. We were doing, we were calling it a podcast back then. And I remember being on CP24 and announcing and telling people what podcasts were. You know, this was ages ago. And throughout my career, I've really pushed podcasts and podcast business. I'm a massive fan.

And I spend a lot more time on podcasts than I do on radio. Um, and I thought before getting on this, I thought I've actually never done a podcast. So, so I'm honored, uh, for my first podcast to be, uh, one of my favorite podcasts, uh, on Toronto Mike. Do you know, we went for, uh, two hours and 12 minutes or so? No. Yeah. Yeah. See, there you go.

Time flies when you're having fun. Rob, amazing. I got to feed the dogs. I know. So that and that brings us to the end of our 1013th show. Don't go feed the dogs yet, Rob, because I need to actually take a photo with you before you go,

so don't go anywhere. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. Rob, how can people get in touch with you? What do you want them to do? Go to LinkedIn? How can somebody reach out to you?

Yeah, go to LinkedIn. You'll find Rob on LinkedIn. That's probably the easiest way. And go to YouTube to hear Enrico Farina. Yeah, right. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta.

Sticker U is at Sticker U. Ridley Funeral Home is at Ridley FH. Great podcast from Brad Jones called Life's Undertaking. You should subscribe to that. It's a TMDS production. Kana Cabana are at kanacabana underscore and Ryobi, they're at Ryobi Tools USA. See you all next week.

Rosie and Gray Yeah, the wind is cold But the smell of snow Wants me today And your smile is fine And it's just like mine And snow won't stay today and your smile is fine and it's just like mine and it won't go away cause everything is

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