Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Scott Fox: Toronto Mike'd #581

Episode Date: February 10, 2020

Mike chats with 91.5 The Beat's morning show host Scott Fox and his many years at Z103.5, his chats with Rob and Doug Ford, working with the Toronto Rock and more.

Welcome to episode 581 of Toronto Mic'd, a weekly podcast about anything and everything. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times and brewing amazing beer. beer. Palma Pasta. Enjoy the taste of fresh homemade Italian pasta and entrees from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. StickerU.com. Create custom stickers, labels, tattoos, and decals for your home and your business. The Keitner Group. They love helping buyers find their dream home. Text TRONOMIKE, one word, to 59559. And Banjo Dunk from Whiskey Jack, one of the most celebrated roots country bluegrass bands in Canadian music history. I'm Mike from tronomike.com,

and joining me this week is 91.5 The Beat morning show host Scott Fox. What's up Mike? How are you? Good to meet you Scott. How is it going? It's going good. This is the first time we've met. I mean I've seen your podcast a lot of times but this is our first time in person. You were mentioning to me before we started recording that you listened to the Scott Turner episode. Yeah. I'm a big fan of Scott. He was my boss very, very briefly back at a radio station called 88.5 The X. So some people that have been following the business for a while probably remember The can 1480 ckan in new market okay when that flipped to fm it was uh best of the 70s 80s and 90s format and then scott came in as a consultant

and flipped it to 88.5 the x which was very similar back in the day to cf and y yeah no scott's the man for that stuff like he's he likes to he's a very creative guy and I think he likes to start things up and we were talking about when he was at the, the beat briefly, not the beat, you're at the beat. Where the hell was he at?

Scott was at the beat. He was at the beat, right. But those, I'll tell you as this show progresses, I'm not as comfortable with the Kitchener stuff.

Like, you know what I mean? Well, I was in Toronto for 23 years. Right. I just moved to Kitchener back in October. So, we can talk about whatever market you want. Like, you know what I mean? Well, I was in Toronto for 23 years. Right. I just moved to Kitchener back in October. So we can talk about whatever market you want.

No, we're going to talk about all of it. Absolutely. But here's, let me, oh, by the way, to get back to Scott, Scott's returning because he kicked out the jams. He did songs from the 70s and 80s. He has to come back and do songs from the 90s and the 2000s. So Scott is coming back. And I'm going to ask you about this real quick here.

First, I'm going to see if Scott Fox can name this tune. Closer to Free? Bodine's? Right. And what television show is this the theme for? Closer to Free. Party of Five. Yep. Was it?

Yeah, it was Party of Five. Okay. Did you watch Party of Five? Not as much as I wanted to. I was on the air in the evenings back then, so I didn't get to see it. This is a leap, but you got to work with me here. Okay. Okay. Because your real first name is Scott, right? Yes, it is like you're really a scott but you're not a scott fox sort of now i am yeah but you're not like you get that's this is a name that you took on at some point in your radio

right so my dad also works in radio and and he had the name and and it was sort of believed back in the day that you couldn't have two people with the same name in the same market. So, yeah, I got mine changed. And this wasn't even what I went with first. When I got hired at 103.5, which was back in 2000, I was driving in for my very first shift. And Tony Monaco was on. And I was coming on after him. And Tony said, and coming up at 2 o'clock, it's the new guy, Scott Fox. And I thought, they just changed my name on me.

Okay, so they didn't consult you? No. They just anointed you, you're now Scott Fox. That's where it came from. I don't know if Tony Monaco came up with it or somebody else, but I heard it on the radio that that was going to be my new radio name. Okay, then I'm changing my theory from this being something I thought maybe you did to something that I think Tony did here.

Okay, so Party of Five was pretty popular. Yes. I watched it. It had Nev Campbell in it, and it was pretty cool. But the two male stars were Scott Wolfe and Matthew Fox. Mm-hmm. Okay? Okay, I see it.

I got it. I think your name is a hybrid of those two guys, Scott Wolfe and Matthew Fox. I'll have to ask Tony where he came up with that. I don't know. But Tony Monaco deserves all the credit for it. I'll find out. Because I just came up with this pet theory.

And in my mind now, I'm convinced. And I actually need resolution here. So when you find out from Tony if that's where it came from, let me know. I bet you Tony was a big Party of Five guy. He seems like it, doesn't he?

Yeah, you know, Matthew Fox went on to do Lost. Like, that's where, but I don't know if Scott Wolf ever did anything again. Hard to say.

I mean, that's one of those shows that was so big, but you don't see it in syndication these days. You'd think by now they would have brought it back or done a reboot or something.

Right. No, I don't know what's going on. There's You'd think by now they would have brought it back or done a reboot or something. Right. No, I don't know what's going on. There's a free idea for any producers that are listening right now. And you got the CanCon with Nev. And then I know the young actress has done a few different things. She was actually the original voice of the daughter on Family Guy,

whose name I should know. Mila Kunis. Yes, Mila Kunis is the second voice. So the original voice is the youngest of the party of five. All these names are eluding me right now, but bear with me, Scott. It's been a long day.

I've been talking about horse racing with Peter Gross for the last few hours, so I feel like I've been at the track all afternoon. So find out from tony if that's the origin of the name scott fox uh did you watch any oscars yesterday i did yeah it was really political a lot of messaging in those acceptance speeches but i kind of liked that it rolled without a host but they still used a lot of comedians okay what time do you have to wake up to do your show? Three.

Okay, so can you watch all the Oscars? No. So I usually plan naps around what I have to watch at night. There's a few shows that I want to watch. I like The Bachelor. So I'll stay up and watch the whole Bachelor. I know, it's weird. But I watch the whole Bachelor, stay up,

and then I just plan that when I get off the air the next day, it's right home and take a nap. Oscars, those are one of those things that you have to watch. And I made it right up until before they presented Best Picture, fell asleep, and I found out this morning from my co-host, Kat, that Parasite won Best Picture. Parasite's very good. Have you seen Parasite?

I haven't yet, no. It's excellent. Yeah, it was my second favorite movie of 2019, so I was glad to see it win, and I thought it had a pretty good shot. Although I kind of felt going into the Oscars at 1917 might win Best Picture. But I'm kind of glad I was wrong. I think Parasite's the better movie. So there you go.

It's one of those ones that I think everybody was genuinely happy to see it win. And now they're intrigued. That's one that'll get a real bump from having won. see it win and now they're intrigued that's one that'll get a real bump from having won and i think people will go back and watch like previous movies that uh uh bong bong hoon joe i do do you remember i should know that i know it's bong i think you're close definitely close let's go with that i'll fix it in post here but he's had some like he's had some critically acclaimed movies that people probably missed. I know I did. But now that Parasite kind of

blew up and got recognized, people can kind of go back and check out these previous films, I think. So, yeah, very kind of cool. The Oscars are great promo for movies. The blockbusters, you're either going to see them or you're not based on their marketing and on their reviews. But on some of the lesser known ones,

those are ones that I think really benefit from the Oscars. It's like free advertising or a big commercial for them, particularly Parasite. I think that's one that people are going to go and search out now. For sure. And they'll be glad they did. It's a good one. Now you're back on the air in where you were, you're born, right? You're a Cambridge guy. Yeah, I was born in Cambridge and I started off my radio career though in Newmarket. So I was originally commuting back and forth. Okay. And that's quite the commute, right? It's a long drive. It's two hours each way. Right. So, okay. Let's talk about your origin here because you started so young. I'm trying

to figure it out. So were you on the air as a 16 year old? Could that even be true? Yeah. So I was 16 and I got hired to do, uh, I was scheduling music for them. It's weird. That was my very first entry into radio was scheduling music, but it was when music scheduling software had just come out and I was familiar with computers, whereas no one at the station was. So I was scheduling an oldie station. And this is, uh is AM 1480? Yep, CKAN.

Okay, so they needed some young whippersnapper who knew their way around a computer and you were there. Exactly. So I scheduled their music and I did some op shifts. They were a telemedia station running Jay's games. Oh, yeah. And I would go up and do that. And it was just weird. One day, there was somebody who wasn't available to come in.

They got sick or something. And so they asked me if I would go and do some cut-ins from a charity event. So I went and I did it. And they said it was fine. So they let me voice track a few shifts. And it just worked from there. And what name were you at this point when you're on the air? Scott Chapman.

So you're Scott Chapman. Okay. So this is before Tony. This is well before tony gets to you after his uh party of five bin and decides that you should be scott fox yeah okay cool now uh so am 1480 and i'm interested i will tell you this i love radio and typically it is all in of course you spent years on a toronto station that i could probably bike to in 15 minutes from here.

It's real close. Yeah. Yeah. In Etobicoke Baystone. We'll talk about that later. But you have an interesting radio career that's on the peripheral. So it's kind of interesting to hear these names I'm not that familiar with. So AM 1480 flipped to, if my fact checking here is correct, 88.5 The Phoenix.

Yeah. Okay. So it was superstars of the 70s, 80s, and 90s, best music variety type format, and it was only around for about a year before they flipped it to an active rock station. It was new rock and 80s retro was the format. And that's 88.5 The X.

That's right. And that's the.5 the X. That's right. And that's the Scott Turner. So Scott was brought in as a consultant to make that flip. That sounds like him. Like that format sounds like him. He knows it so well. He is a brilliant. Okay.

So that sounds like a cool station actually. So playing retro 80s and cutting edge new rock. So like, why was that such a short-lived station like tell me what happened there you know it was a revenue thing 88.5 has a fairly small signal they still do and they couldn't make a go of it so the station got sold and the new owners wanted to compete in the dance chr wars so with energy 108 up and running and hot 1035 they launched power 88.5 okay so when you're at 88.5 the x before it becomes power 88.5 uh what do you what exactly are you doing on

the air then i was doing evenings so i did evenings and the top 38 countdown okay 38 and that was scott's idea i was kind of trying think, does that tie into 88.5? But it doesn't. He just doesn't like top 40. I think he wanted something different. He told me last week that he, because he created the Thursday 30 for 102.1. And the reason it was the Thursday 30

is because he didn't want to be associated with top 40. So it's the Thursday 30. And I'm guessing it's the same spirit, if you will, behind having a top 38. It's just to make sure it's not top 40. That's what I'm thinking. I don't really know what the logic behind it was, but it worked. It was a popular show. And I was still young. I mean, I was still trying to figure out how I wanted to sound in radio. And I didn't know much about the format at all, but he worked with me a lot. Good. He seems like a nice guy. So, uh, I'm glad to, glad to hear that.

So I guess 88.5, the X, they didn't get it much time, but it wasn't making enough money. Uh, it must be a small signal. I never heard of the station. So like, uh, I guess you're literally just targeting, uh, like, uh, where are we here? Newmarket? Where are we? It was out of Newmarket for York region, and it comes into Barrie as well. I have so much to learn about these stations up north there.

So it becomes Power 88.5. And so what was, and this is, tell me what Power 88.5 was exactly. It was a dance station. So this is back in the day when Energy 108 and Hot 1035 were both playing dance music, and the new owners wanted to get into that radio war. So this was a dance station and the owners owned a few nightclubs and we were live to air from a few different places. And it was a fun radio station. It was a lot of fun to work at. Don Burns was doing the afternoon show at the time. Don Burns and Scott Turner afternoon show at the time. Don Burns and Scott Turner were both on Energy 108. That's right. So Don was doing afternoons at the time. Amanda was doing the midday show. She eventually went on to become Billie Holiday from the Mad Dog and Billie show.

Wow. There you go. And Tarzan Dan was doing the morning show and I was on at night. Was the Tarzan Dan morning show there, was that syndicated or was that like literally he was doing that in Newmarket? No, he was there in Newmarket. Oh, that's wild. Okay, these are some big names. They had a great lineup. They really did. Don Burns, rest in peace. What a great voice he had. He was doing a lot of voiceover work and he was

remind me, DJ Trans? What was his DJ name? Do you remember? Oh, I should know this. I think it was DJ, you know, I should know this i should know this let's i think it was dj you know i should know this too dr trans i think it was dr trans uh someone will correct me right away of course but uh and amanda you mentioned became billy she's been on the show so hello to fotm billy holiday uh no one probably best known for her work of mad dog i would say, and that's a big deal. And Tarzan Dan, like, forget the whole, like, I think it was 680 CFTR, I believe, is where I first heard him. But he had that YTV show, too.

He did, The Hit List. And where's he, out west? Do you have any idea where he's at? In Calgary or something like that? I believe he just went back to Afternoons out in, it's in Alberta. You know. Power 107, Q107, I'm'm not sure maybe like a q104 does that mean anything i don't know q102 i actually haven't heard from him in years i hope he's doing great

i'm gonna track him down scott we're i gotta track down tarzan dan get this guy i'll get up get the fotms to uh pump up their patreon accounts and that'll fly Tarzan Dan in for Toronto Mike's appearance. We've got to do that. And you were known on Power88.5 as the Chapman. Yeah. It was just a spin on Chapman. It was just something different. Very clever. Yeah, it worked.

It caught on and it was catchy. Alright, so here's the ongoing history of these stations I'm unfamiliar with. But I'm very, very interested. And now that I'm doing this, next time they're mentioned, I'll be like, oh yeah, that's the place that had, you know, Scott Fox and Tarzan Dan. Okay. So in addition, let me see here. You're at, oh yeah. Is this where you become program director? was the dance format was fairly short-lived too. It only lasted just over a year. And they decided there was a hole in the market, so they flipped it to a country station. So I think that was the fourth format in five years.

It was a country station, and I was the afternoon drive host, music director, and program director. Do you care what music you serve up when you're a talented host? You're like a personality. Do you care what the music is around you? Jobs are hard to come by. I don't think you can really be picky. I'll tell you though, I have had a lot of fun doing country radio. I really did enjoy that format. I like the listener. I like the way it rolls out. And these days, it's almost like a

CHR. I mean, country music is so much fun. In where you are now in Toronto, where's the closest country station? Do you know? I have to think it would be KX. Does Hamilton have a country station? That would be KX, I believe. So there's two KXs on either side of the city

and I think between the two of them, they bleed into the city. I don't think Toronto proper has a full country station I would for sure not like not since I would say not since Kiss went to whatever they turned to top 40 or whatever but I will say I've had conversations with people like Colleen Rushholm

where she would tell me the same thing like she's worked a bunch of different formats and she said you know the musicians you'd meet in the country music arena were so down to earth and wonderful. She said, and she's a rock chick, but she said she fell in love with the culture, like the people.

Yeah, the fans are incredibly loyal. They listen so much. They really connect with the hosts. And it's funny, if you go on a CHR station and say Post Malone's name wrong, you're going to get called every name in the hosts. And it's funny, if you go on a CHR station and say Post Malone's name wrong, you're going to get called every name in the book. In country, if you say Deanna Carter, someone will call in nicely and correct you and say it's Deanna Carter, just so you know. I would need that because I butcher all the names. Okay. So, and for those who aren't in radio,

let's remind them what CHR means. So CHR, that's like current hit radio. Contemporary hit radio. See, I have no idea there. Okay. Contemporary hit radio. See, I have no idea there. Okay. Contemporary hit radio. So that would be like your Taylor Swift or whatever. That's a top 40. Yeah.

That's a top 40. A lot of those in Toronto. Yeah. No, there's a lot of those in Toronto and it's hard to tell them apart most of the time. So when 88.5 goes country, from power 88.5, they decide to call themselves 88.5 the cat. Right. And their tagline is, today's cool new country. And you stuck around and you were still music director?

Yep. Did you know a lot about the genre when you became music? I didn't know a thing about country music. So tell me then, at this time, what is your, like, what kind of music are you into for personal listening? So at the time, I really enjoyed what Power 88.5 was playing. I liked dance music and I enjoyed doing my club gigs back then. So country, it was an incredible change of pace.

It was from 100 to zero real quick. That's the biggest change, right? Like, I can't imagine a more jarring change than dance to... Dance to country. Right? Yeah. Yeah. It was, it took some getting used to and I had to really change how I delivered what I did on air. Did you add a twang? No, no twang. I still wanted to be myself, but I definitely slowed down that delivery and I talked a lot more about family and personal things. I bet you, yeah, now that in my head I'm picturing like how you'd talk at a, you know,

an energy type of dance style radio station and then how you'd talk in the country. You're right. You would talk much faster in the, you know, more energy, if you will, in the dance music. And then for the country, you kind of mosey, mosey it on down a little bit. Am I right?

Like you got to slow her on down. I did slow it down. I mainly changed the focus of the content. But yeah, the delivery had to be a little bit. Am I right? Like you got to slow her on down. I did slow it down. I mainly changed the focus of the content but yeah, the delivery had to be a little different, no doubt. So it's funny

because you work with a cat but not a feline but you know what I'm talking about. 88.5 the cat, like what does that refer to? What did that refer to, the cat?

I don't even know where that name came from. I think they stole it from a station in the US to be honest with you and at the time there was a couple of stations that were hot new country, so they wanted to be cool new country. So that's where they came up with the cell line. And they did a no-repeat workday, and it was a fun station.

I mean, it was totally different from what I was used to, but I enjoyed it. Well, like you said, it's not like there's a plethora of radio jobs just falling off trees. You better enjoy it, Scott. You have to. What are you going to do? I quit. I want my dance music back. Okay.

So let me see here. So what happens? Why do you end up leaving 88.5 The Cat? So at the time, the owners of Hot 1035, I think it had switched to Hits 1035 at that point, were in the process of taking over 88.5. So as that negotiation was going on, they said, we're going to take you from 88.5 and bring you down to 103. So they moved me out of New Market and down to, they had just moved to their Etobicoke offices from Brampton. And they had me doing weekends and swing shift. And I moved into a midday shift

pretty quick. It only took a couple of months before I had something full time. And I did middays for about a year and then they moved me into mornings. You took over on Valentine's day, 2001, right? Yeah. Kenny, the hit man was doing the morning show at the time and they decided they wanted to make a change. And I did not want to go into mornings at all. That was the last thing I wanted to do because I thought from mornings, there's nowhere to go. But isn't that the pinnacle, like mornings? Isn't that the top job in radio? I wasn't sure I could do it. After I'd done swing shift and weekends and doing that full-time 5.30 to 9 a.m. morning show commitment, it was intimidating.

And I looked around at who else was in the market at the time, and I thought, there's no way I can compete. But they didn't really give me a choice. They said it's mornings or mornings or nothing. So I went into the morning show. They hired me a great co-host. It was Josie Goyer. Josie wasn't there very long

because she ended up getting hired to do middays at KISS 92 when it went CHR from country. Right. Okay. Now, I know you didn't work at KISS 92. Did you? I did briefly.

Oh, you did. Back in 2013. Okay, let's keep it chronological, Scott. But when was Jack FM? Was that, I was post-country, but was that like, did they go, do you remember it was a country, did they go country and then top 40 and then Jack and then back to top 40? I remember Jack FM.

I do remember Jack. I think Jack was in between Kiss 92 and Kiss 92 5. Okay. So it's Kiss 92. If I remember it right. Right. Okay. okay so it's kiss 90 if i remember it right right okay so josie uh who is a co-host who's the morning show co-host with you uh got a gig an offer she couldn't refuse and left for rival station

yep and who did they pair you up with so from there uh they hired melanie melanie martin who was there with me for two, three years. And we also had somebody working there behind the scenes that I wanted to bring on the air. He was a producer in the background, Dave Blizzard. So it was Scott, Melanie, and Dave. We had, I think, a great show going. We had a good time back in the day. But Melanie ended up leaving.

She took an offer from Flow 93.5 when they launched. Mel's been on the show she's an fotm she came on with uh jj uh laborde yep and uh they still podcast together that's right they still and jj's on uh cbc uh cbc music but okay so she goes to flow and uh is that okay and she's paired with jj right? On Flow. Right. So when she left, at the time, 103 had changed the name

from Hits 103 to Z103 and it was myself, Dave and Melanie. Melanie left to go to Flow 93.5 but at the time, we were actually grooming somebody to fill in for Melanie when she was off because Melanie loves her cottage

in the summertime. So she took a lot of time off in the summer. We had a traffic girl that was Ashley Greco. So it was Scott, Dave, and Ashley. And now Ashley is the same one you hear on Shum FM. Look at that. Okay. So let's talk a bit about Z103 because I, I drive by that all the time. Like, uh, that's the Evanov group. That's right. And they're on Dundas. Did you ever, uh, you think, like Dundas Street Grill? Is that a place you might go?

When we had meetings that had to be out of the building, it was almost always at the Dundas Street Grill. Now, I love the Dundas Street Grill. I've been there many times. It's not too far from, it was very close to Apache Burger.

That's right. Funny, in all the years that I worked at 103, I've never been to apache burger oh my goodness uh you're missing out there but everybody tells me that my annoyance there is a ridiculous uh problem which is that i'd like to pay with a credit card okay and they don't accept credit card really apache burger oh wow and it really does like uh annoy me for to no end so i'm easily annoyed though the the academy award nominated uh movie the room this is from a few years back had a a scene take place in apache

burger since we're talking oscars here so some useless trivia for you but i went to high school near like dundas and islington there and this neck of the woods we're referring to, like Six Points area we're talking about. I knew it very well because they had some other burger places too. Like a place, I don't know if it overlapped

with you, it was called G&B Burger. I think it became Red Cabin. Okay. And then Red Cabin, now it's all condos going up. So I think they, like that whole part of the city

is being redeveloped to be more logical, I want to say. I think so. I mean, the whole point is to make traffic flow a little better. They seem to be doing an okay job, but the construction has taken a long time. See, here I am asking you questions

about a gig you haven't worked at in a while. So my apologies. No, that's okay. But, and we'll talk real estate a little bit, but a lot of stuff going on there in the Kipling and Dundas area. The condos are a little more affordable there than downtown.

That is true, that is true. So what was it? I have friends who work for Evanoff Group and I'm just curious, is what you can tell us about the experience with the Evanov group i had a great experience with them uh i was always on the the top 40 side and always on 103 they uh they treated me really really well so i got involved with the um uh the crtc side of things in that when they were on a big push to try and acquire new stations,

they brought me along. So I would make the case for the spoken word part of all of our applications. So I got to travel the country and we made the case for a lot of different radio stations and some we were successful on and some we weren't, but I had a really good experience working for them. Okay, great.

I know they have Proud FM, for example, and you probably know my buddy Bob Willett. I know Bob, yeah. Who for years was program director of Evanoff Stations. Right. And some people know him better as Bingo Bob. This was his Humble and Fred name. Back in the day. Right.

And he's out, where is he now? St. Catharines or Niagara Falls maybe doing something with Bell Media Stations. You know, I haven't heard from Bob in a long time. And it's weird because I think we're Facebook friends, but I only ever check my own wall on Facebook and it's just to see what comments people are leaving for my show.

I never think to check what else is going on. Bob's a good guy. He's coming back to kick out some jams what else is going on. Bob's a good guy. He's coming back to kick out some jams, some different jams. He's a good pal. So do a little bragging, if you will. Tell me about your show, your morning show on Z103.

By the way, why Z1035 when we're in Canada? Shouldn't it be Z103? Z1035, number one, it rhymes with 103. Right. I think that's number one and two and Right. I thought when I stopped working there, I'd get to stop justifying this, because everybody asks. But it rhymes with 103,

and they were also, at the time, that they launched from hits to Z-103, very closely modeled after Z-100 in New York. You'll notice they have the same logo and some of the same features and so on and so forth. So that was why they went with Z. It was also a little bit different. Yeah, well, it's different because it's wrong. Not your fault, Scott. Don't worry. We won't blame you for that one. But okay, so do a little bragging though in regards to because only because

when I was digging around, it sounds like your morning show on Z1035 was very successful in your targeted demo. Do you want to do a little bragging here? We had a... Toronto's a tough market. It really is. And we got fortunate in that we had some competition and the competition would drop off. And the new competition would pop up

and then that competition would go away. Like specifically though, I love to hear the names. For example, oh, they got rid of Mad Dog and Billy. Like, is there any of that, like, any specifics? Initially, we were up against, for example, Energy Radio, Energy 108, and that chain went away. And we thought, okay, that's one less piece of competition.

We originally had to go up against, let's see here, Kiss 92, and then Kiss 92 went away. And we had Flow 93.5, and then they went much more in an urban direction. And as different things came up and went down, we just persevered there. Our biggest competition demo-wise was Dean Blundell, and then Dean Blundell was gone, and that helped us out a lot. There was people that used to switch back and forth. Every station is competition. It doesn't matter what the format is. And that's particularly real in the morning. People will flip around.

And in some cases, they'll listen to music they don't like just to hear a personality that they do. So yeah, when Dean went away, that was great for us. Terrible for him, but great for us. It's great for a lot of people. Now, here is a claim that I want to hear, because this is a claim that was made. I just want to understand how it's true.

Not that I'm questioning it, but I am questioning it a little bit. I want to know. At one time, the Z103.5 morning show was the number one rated Toronto morning show with all persons, I guess all people, under 34 years of age. So am I missing any qualifiers there? Is it 12-24, 18-24? I could see that. Maybe way back in the day

when there really wasn't a lot of CHR stations to compete with. And you had a massive 5.2 share of the Toronto Morning Radio audience. I guess your target demo, I guess that would be, right? Yeah, I would think so okay so bottom line is we can say it was it was popular and successful so uh okay what happens in

2011 so you're with z1035 and then you're not and you do come back but but why do you leave? What happens there? Real talk. What had happened was it was myself, Dave, and Ashley. And they let Dave go. They just wanted to restructure the morning show. They wanted to make it a two-person morning show, one guy, one girl. And then they eventually let me go. And that was for a whole bunch of different reasons. But I don't even remember formally what the actual reason was.

But they did let me go. Creative differences. Creative differences, we'll say. So they let me go. And I did a couple of different things. Number one, I was working out in Kitchener at Chime, 96.7. And I was doing weekends. And they had me voice a countdown for them. Simultaneously, that was throughout the summer months,

starting in September when Taylor Kaye went on her mat leave, I was going to be covering middays on Kiss 92.5. So I was working Monday to Friday in Toronto middays on Kiss, and then I would go weekends to Kitchener. Wow, busy guy there. It was a good time, though. It was the top 20 most wanted, I guess, on Chime. Yeah, myself and Adele

hosted that countdown. Adele, the singer? No. I think Dave, Dave Blazard, is that how you say it last name? Yes. I think, and I hope I got this right,

but I'm sure you'll find out shortly after this gets posted, but I think I bumped into him at a Guns N' Roses concert. That wouldn't surprise me. He pretty much, that's his thing. Because I him at a Guns N' Roses concert. That wouldn't surprise me. That's his thing. I was at a Guns N' Roses concert with my buddy Elvis.

I went to the washroom and then somebody in the hallways there at the Scotiabank, I guess it was the Air Canada Centre back then, introduced themselves and just said they enjoyed my podcast and we had an exchange and I believe it was him. So find out if I got the right guy. Okay. All right. Ironically, Dave is now my boss. He just took over as program director of 91.5. Oh, wow. Okay. And why the beat? Okay. So we're

going to get to that. Okay. So you're, you're doing this work at Kiss 92.5 on during the weekdays and on weekends you're at in Kitchener at Chime. And you got lots going on here. And what brings you back to Z103? Well, as that mat leave was coming to an end, it was only a mat leave contract. And Taylor was ready to come back. So I think she decided she was going to transition slowly

back into her midday show. She was doing two or three days a week. And I do the other days and I was off after that. So we'd had a couple conversations about what might be next. And I liked morning radio. I really did. And, and Kiss has got a fabulous morning show with Roz and Mocha. There was really no room for me. So we discussed a couple of scenarios about what would happen when Taylor came back. And at the time Z was, um, looking to make a change as well because they were not a hundred percent happy with the morning show.

They had replaced me with, and it just worked out that when Taylor came back, Z wanted me to come back. So I did. Is there some personal like satisfaction and somebody like a company parting ways with you and then sort of, it's sort of like almost like Aaron Davis style in the sense that, oh, can we undo that and bring you back? For me, there was nothing personal at all. They made a business decision and I don't blame them for doing it. They wanted to try something new and it didn't work and that's

okay. You'll never know unless you try. I was just happy to have a job. This is a common theme in your career. Yeah. I mean, I've been lucky enough to really never have been unemployed, but at the end of the day, I know how precious and few of those jobs are. So I certainly appreciate having one. Like, yeah, we need to help our buddy, Scott Turner right now. He's looking for a gig. So if you have anything. You know, it really is remarkable how many great talents there are out there that are on the sidelines. No, for sure.

Yeah, most of them, I think, is the answer to that. Lots of them, that's for sure. Okay, we're going to pause here. Then I'm going to pick up. I want to find out about these Toronto Sun Reader Choice Awards and other kind of medals, if you will.

But I want to give you some gifts because you've come a long way to be here today. So where do I begin? Do you like Italian food? I love Italian food. Good answer. Because if you love Italian food, there's four Palma Pasta locations in Mississauga and Oakville. So we've gone a little west for you to make your life easier. But I have in the freezer upstairs a frozen lasagna for you.

Would you prefer a meat lasagna or a vegetarian lasagna? I think I'd prefer vegetarian. Oh, look at you. Okay. You know, it used to be kind of close. I feel like for a time it was 50-50. But lately, meat's been winning, been the overwhelming winner. Really?

I'm almost surprised now to hear vegetarian. I am, I've made a lot of changes in my lifestyle lately and that I'm really trying to cut out meat. Well, you're lucky I have a vegetarian in that freezer. So Scott, you get one for sure. Honestly, yes, they pay me to say this, but I was saying it before they paid me to say it, which is best Italian food you can buy in a store.

And you'll be tweeting at me that that's the best lasagna you've ever made that came from a store. I'm excited to try it. Thank you, Palma Pasta, for sending over the lasagna. Palmapasta.com for you to cater your events at home or at work. And they're on Skip the Dishes too,

and they're really good people. I love the family-run businesses. I was thinking about my sponsors. Like I can go and have Face time with the owners of these places like i can go talk to anthony petrucci from palma pasta i can go have a conversation with peter bullet from great lakes brewery that's a fiercely independent operation here in etobicoke they've sent over a fresh six pack of beer for you scott wow we got a couple of different varieties in here too. Lots of different varieties. Yep, you got the Lake Effect.

Even at a winter, and this Winter Ale is fantastic. You're going to love that. I'm very excited about this. You got my attention with the beer. If you like fresh craft beer, and again, fiercely independent. These guys haven't sold out.

There's still family run operation here. And they're fantastic. We're going to have, I have decisions to make regarding TMLX. That is the Toronto Mike listener experience. The last one, TMLX 5 was at Palmer's Kitchen and they were fantastic hosts. I'm now leaning towards the next TMLX being at Great Lakes Brewery in June. So this is a, people paying attention, this is a change of tune here because I was talking about an April one,

but I don't think that's going to happen. So stay tuned, nothing definitive yet, but they're fantastic hosts for these events at Great Lakes and I'd love to bring it back there.

So thank you, Great Lakes. StickerU.com, that's a Toronto Mike sticker for you, Scott. I love it. This is really good. That's a Toronto Mike sticker for you, Scott. I love it. This is really good. They have a storefront on Queen Street near Bathurst where they have a,

now it's a permanent exhibition and sticker museum. And I was at it the other day and it's just fantastic. You could just go there, 677 Queen Street and go for free and check out this museum. It's really cool. Lots of nostalgia and lots of good information, lots of history. But if you need anything,

like any sticker, decal, temporary tattoo, you go to stickeru.com and order it online. And it's fantastic quality, great price. And they're good people too. Andrew Wicken has kicked out the jams here. He's the founder there. So thank you, Sticker U. I have a book for you from Duncan Fremlin. I call him Banjo Dunk. Okay. He's this founder there. So thank you, sticker you. I have a book for you from Duncan

Fremlin. I call him Banjo Dunk. Okay. He's this guy in the caricature here to my left here. But his book is called My Good Times of Stompin' Tom. And Banjo Dunk has recorded a little message for us. So let's listen to that. This is Banjo Dunk. And for the last few weeks, you've been hearing my ads on Toronto Mic'd about the big Stompin' Tom show coming up on April 16th, 2020. But there's another Banjo Dunk production that's happening very soon. My music buddy Douglas John Cameron and I, known internationally as Doogie and Dunn, are going to be performing in Oakville at the Moonshine Cafe on February 27th,

not too far from Toronto Mike Head Office. So, if you live in Toronto, Oakville, Mississauga, Burlington, Milton, and surrounding areas, you'll find all the information you need at themoonshinecafe.com. We look forward to seeing you on February 27th. Thank you, Banjo Dunk. February 27th. See, more West End action. That's Oakville for that one.

So now whereabouts, like what city would you call home right now? I live in Milton. Okay. I still go back and forth. I commute from Milton to Kitchener every day. But the difference between driving from Milton to Etobicoke when I was at Z and the difference between driving Milton to Kitchener is literally two minutes wow okay I guess you were uh jumping on the 427 I guess when you were 401 to the 427

to get here now it actually ends up being closer to go to Kitchener because on the way home that construction on the 401 westbound through Mississauga that they've been doing for like 25 years, it used to add 15 minutes a day onto my commute home. Wow. It's funny how that works in this big GTA metropolis here. I talk about geography here with you because of real estate. So if people are looking to move to Toronto

or have any questions about the GT, I would say the GTA real estate, any questions at all, we talked about all that work they're doing at the, I called it the KIPP district once and I got a correction. Apparently there's only one condo that has branded itself the KIPP district.

I thought they were calling that whole area of like Kipling and Dundas the KIPP district. So apparently I fell for some condo marketing spin there. It's good marketing then because it says the Kip District for like a full kilometer along Dundas Street. Okay, I got corrected and then I just assumed that person knew what they were talking about. But if you have any question, like we're in southern Etobicoke right now and you know there's a lot of people moving to Mimico, which is just a little bit to the east of me. Then you got Longbranches building up. That's a little bit to the west of me and

Alderwood to the north. And I'm in New Toronto here. And all these pockets have so much going on. And if you have any question at all about Toronto real estate, I urge all you FOTMs to text Toronto Mike, one word Toronto Mike, to 59559. The Keitner Group have partnered with Toronto Mike to fuel the real talk, and I sincerely believe that my pal Austin Keitner can help you. So have a conversation with Austin,

no obligation, obviously, and I'm sure if you were Scott, not that you would now while you're working in Kitchener there, but if you were ever considering moving to Toronto, Austin's your man. Okay, good to have a contact. Yes, he's a good FOTM. So where were we now?

I kept reading about Toronto Sun Reader's Choice Awards. It sounds like you were very popular with the readers of The Sun. For whatever reason, you know, we won a lot of them over the years. And it was always very surprising and humbling to me when The Sun would just call and say, hey, we want to congratulate you. You won four Toronto Sun Readers' Choice Awards. I thought, what? Really? I couldn't believe it. Was there any, like maybe the Evanoff Group did a big campaign or something?

Or was it just... I'm not saying they stuffed the ballot box. No, no. I mean, I don't know that they ever bought any advertising in the Sun. There might have been some partnerships there, but I'm not sure. Oh, now the real talk.

You've bought your way to the victory circle. No, weak kid. But you got a medal for Toronto On Air Personality of the Year. Did you win that? I did win that once. Okay. Well, you only threw it once to make the claim.

So you've got that. Did you literally get a medal? That was from the Top Choice Awards, I believe. No, in the Sun, I did win Favorite Toronto Radio Personality. Okay. At least once I got that. And then we also won that

with the Top Choice Awards as well. Gotcha. So tell me about how do you get paired at Z103 during the second stint there? How do you get paired with Cat Callahan? Well, it was actually kind of a funny story because when I was going, at the time that I was working at Kiss 92,

Ashley, my old morning co-host, had been moved to Middays. Right. So she was doing Middays and when they were bringing me back, I couldn't tell her that I was coming back. What I didn't know is that at the time, she was in the process of negotiating with Chum FM. Right. So as I was coming back. What I didn't know is that at the time she was in the process of

negotiating with Chum FM. So as I was getting ready, her and I met on a patio one day in Mississauga and I was ready to tell her the great news. Hey, I'm coming back. We're going to get the band back together. And she said, I'm leaving. I'm going to Chum FM. So I was coming back with no co-host and I was trying to figure out who I could work with that would be a good fit for me because I did want to change things around a little bit. For so long, it had been my voice into and out of every song and leading all the bits. And I thought, I don't want another co-host. I want another or I want a co-host, someone else to do a lot of the lead jock work. co-host, someone else to do a lot of the lead jock work. So when I thought about who was out there and who was available and who might be interested, and I asked a lot of colleagues, who do you think

would work for what I want to do? The name that kept coming up was Kat Callahan. So Kat was doing drive at Cool FM in Kitchener, which is now Virgin Radio in Kitchener. And I reached out to her on Facebook and said, hey, what do you think? And she came down and we met in Toronto and we had a great chat. And then I brought in my program director, Paul Evanoff. And the three of us had a great chat and it didn't take long.

She was there in three weeks. So is it safe to say there was instant chemistry? There definitely was. Her and I are very similar. We didn't know each other, but we grew up in roughly the same period. We went to rival high schools in the same city and ended up in the same industry

and didn't know each other. And you worked at a country station named after her. I did. And long before Kat, it's funny to meet a Kat with a K, but long before we worked together, yeah, I worked at a country radio station that was called The Kat with a K. So you got the Z1035 morning show of Kat Callahan. And again, I guess more awards, top choice morning show from the GTA. And you got Toronto Sun readers calling you the best morning morning show four times, it sounds like.

And maybe tell me a little bit about, like you had a pretty long run. Like how many years did you guys do it together at Z103? Kat and I were working together for seven years and she was actually on a mat leave when all of the things that led to us going to chorus happened. She was off and scheduled to come back in September. And as she was getting ready to come back, cause I'm more, I basically left her alone for her mat

leave so she can enjoy the time with her new baby. But you know, we exchanged it a couple of text messages here and there and chorus reached out to us and said, you know, just wondering if there's any interest in having lunch. And so I texted Kat and I said, what do you think? And we decided, okay, sure, we'll go for lunch. We had a conversation and that led to us eventually leaving 103 to go to 915. So Kat was actually off Z, I guess, eight months before I was because of the mat leaf. That was the most common question people had i said we got any questions and people such as danny cava uh why did you leave z103 so that's that's the big question so so basically you were recruited by chorus that's right now you left toronto for a smaller market like was there any uh i know you're from there is that was that a big part of your, because typically people want to come to Toronto

from the smaller markets. So did you have any concern there going to the smaller market? No, you know, I mean, I'm working for a really good company right now. Chorus has been world-class. And what a lot of people don't realize about Kitchener is just how competitive that market is.

Now it may not have the same population as Toronto, but when you compare the number of stations to the population, it's a really competitive market. Okay, give me some specifics here because, okay, there's the, you got the beat where you're at right now, but what are the other, like, what are the, what are the competition? I know you don't like talking about the competition. Oh, I have no problem. Okay, so this is, hey, so would we call this region Kitchener-Waterloo? Is that the... It's Waterloo region.

Okay. And that includes Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge. It includes some of the surrounding areas, St. Jacob's, Listowel, Ayer, places like that. I don't think they can use electricity in St. Jacob's. Well, we've got ratings there, so they must have radios. Okay, good. I bought a beautiful quilt there once. Very nice. Highly recommended to visit sometime. Oh, no, it's beautiful. It is beautiful. The big station there is the Rogers station. It's Chime

96.7, which is very similar to CHFI. Gotcha. And okay, and the beat and and what's the okay what is the station that okay carlos right carlos benavides right who likes well like scott turner used to work on 102.1 he's interesting he was in kitchener i think he was he might have been at the beat i think he was okay and he he did some work at uh 102.1 again and then made a decision he wanted to go back. He wanted to go back to Kitchener. So he chose Kitchener over Toronto, essentially. It really is a great radio market. I like being on in Kitchener.

And I mean, let's face it, with apps and streams the way they are, really doesn't matter geographically where you are anymore. People can listen to you across the country. But still, I know I agree with you, except a lot of people are still in their car in rush hour, turning a knob. Like that's still happening quite a bit. Like we're not quite past that yet. Absolutely. And I mean, that's one of the challenges that we had is people said,

oh, I can't get that radio station here. I don't know what's wrong with my radio. It's nothing wrong with your radio. It's's an hour further west yeah for the record like i can't go now to my car and tune in the beat right like right well it's weird because you can turn on a lot of toronto stations in kitchener and get them there is that because of whatever do we have bigger signals is that the more higher more wattage do i sound like i'm talking radio here? Is that called wattage? I don't know. Yeah,

there's big sticks. Some of them have real big, big signals. You have to get it on top of the CN tower. I think that's the, that's the trick there. Okay. Now I have a question,

an obvious question, I think, regarding you being a morning show for Chorus. So, well, maybe first before I ask this obvious question, which maybe isn't as obvious as I think, how are things going at the beat with you and Kat now? You've left the big smoke with, you know, Dundas Street in Etobicoke. You've left the big smoke for Kitchener. You're both from

around there. Right. Which must make that easier. And like, how many months have you been there now? So we started right at the beginning of October and Chorus did a really good job at promoting that we were coming home. That was their angle. Scott and Kat are coming back. Waterloo Region gets back their morning show and here we go. One of the things that was nice

about coming back to Kitchener is we did have an audience there because 103 was actually fairly popular there and people in the market knew us. So that was good. There was some people that grew up listening to us which was great and we had a good audience i mean the beats got a big share in the market particularly in the morning so the reason we're there is because carlos like you mentioned had been doing the morning show and he decided he was going to go full-time into teaching at Conestoga College. So that's why there was an opening and why they wanted to hire a new morning show.

And he basically left things for us ready-made. Most of the things we did on our show in Toronto, we brought with us, including our podcast. And we were able to fit it into that Kitchener market really, really nicely. And it's nice because we have an area that we're serving and we know that area. One of the tricky things about 103 is that while it's physically in Toronto, it's technically a radio station for Orangeville and Dufferin County. I was going to ask about that. And I couldn't remember if, I guess this was happening when you were still there, that the CRTC kind of put some stricter rules on the fact that you can't pretend you're a Toronto station as

clearly as you were? You know what I'm talking about? Like you're an Orangeville station. There has to be some kind of Orangeville traffic maybe or Orangeville weather. Well, I mean, we did. I do my own news in the morning and I can tell you firsthand that I spend a lot of time A, in Orangeville and B, reporting on Orangeville stories. I mean, if it was relevant, then absolutely. The thing that we didn't get bogged down in is if they're planting new flower beds along Broadway. Well, you know, to me, that's not news. People will figure that out by driving down Broadway.

I don't know that that's necessarily of top of mind importance. But yeah, I mean, I didn't think that that criticism was necessarily fair, but it is an Orangeville, Dufferin County station, and I think they serve the market quite well. I've always been curious about that because, of course, Edge 102 is a Brampton station, right? And there's no signs of it being a Brampton. You know, the chorus key isn't anywhere close to Brampton,, right? And there's no signs of it being a Brampton. You know, the chorus key isn't anywhere close to Brampton and they talk Toronto, right? So it seemed interesting when they had these rules that say whenever you got your wrist slapped or whatever,

Z-103, about, you know, remember you're from Orangeville, that I guess it's different somehow. Yeah, I don it's different somehow. Yeah. I, we, um, I don't know why specifically they singled out one Oh three, but, uh, uh, I can say that from our perspective, yeah, we were very much embedded in Orangeville. I did spend a lot of time there. Do you miss one, uh, Z one Oh three always. I mean, I was there for 20 years and they are a family business, and you feel like part of the family when you're there that long. So I certainly miss seeing a lot of those faces.

I'm very happy to be where I am now. I really, really like being at Chorus. But yeah, I mean, obviously, when you don't see people all of a sudden that you used to see every day for 20 years, you miss them. Now that you're in the Chorus family, when there's an opening,

because there's a current opening, you probably on 102 on 102.1 yeah you know the uh alex oh my god maybe yes alex and ruby carr got it got a year they came from vancouver they're a brother sister they got a year and then they were showing the door and there's an opening there right now. Like, uh, and I, I'm friendly with the Y 108 morning show. Okay.

Okay. And, uh, they've been on the show, the whole show. I was in hindsight, you and Kat should have come on. I didn't think you liked her.

I, I, uh, yeah, I've been a little slow on the uptake lately here, but, uh, I'm sure she'd love to come on.

Cause I had all three people from the Y108 morning show and that's a Hamilton based chorus station. And I know that like, like it would make sense to take an, a show like an existing chorus show from outside of Toronto and drop it into the 102.1 slot. Like, and if you have name recognition from your many many many years at z103 then uh

scott and cat on edge 102 makes sense to me i don't know i'm asking if there's uh what your thoughts are on that i think that i will tell you i am really really happy to be in the chorus family okay i thought i was gonna get the uh i'm i'm happy to be on the air in kitchener i and i'm i am very happy to be on the air in Kitchener. I am very happy to be on the air in Kitchener. That's a great radio station. And they've made some really positive changes lately, especially in hiring Dave Blizzard, who, like I said, was my intern 20 years ago. And now is my boss. And I'm really excited to see what happens there in that market.

But having said that, I mean, I work for a great company and I trust the programming minds there to do what's best. So I don't know what's down the line, but right now I'm very, very happy in Kitchener. So nobody's asked you if you had any interest in working at CourseKey? No, no, no, no. I wonder what they're doing there. You have any, anyone talking in the hallways? Anybody got any rumor mill stuff? You know, one of the great things about Kitchener is it's very Kitchener-centric. I mean, we really are embedded in that market and it's kind of different

to not hear the daily Toronto radio rumors, which we're getting out of hand for a while there. So it's kind of nice to be a little disconnected from that and just be in my own little Kitchener area. Because I produce the Humble and Fred show, which is a podcast, although it's on the air in Hamilton at a station called Funny 820,

which is a Bell station. But they did send notes to the appropriate people. Yes. I tweeted it from the Humble and Fred radio account. So I'm not sure I should have done that. But okay, I'm glad I did it. But they were told, oh, they have a plan in place

and thanks, but no thanks. And then a weird move. And I saw Dean Blundell of all people, who's not an FOTM, but he was tweeting about how Chorus had asked them the same thing they asked Humble Fred, which is to pretend like you don't want the gig. And they were going to do, I think,

a fun bit or something with other people turning down the gig. Like, I'm not sure what the full bit would be but maybe it's like humble and fred don't want it dean blendell doesn't want it and here's the new morning show uh scott and cat okay i made up that last part but uh so i don't know but it's just uh curious if uh we know because i know i know who's not going to be the morning show but i have no idea who will be the morning show. Yeah, your guess is as good as mine,

but it's a great opportunity for whoever gets that show. I wish them nothing but luck and success. The Beat Breakfast with Scott and Kat airs Monday through Friday from 5.30 a.m. until 9.30 a.m. And you said you wake up at 3 o'clock to get there from Milton. And what kind of music do you hear on the beat? So we're a top 40 station. It's very upbeat, very progressive.

They are really, we got a great music director. Actually, it's a music team. There's a couple of different people that work on it and they are great at getting on top of new music and exposing it to that market. And they still do some fun things like their old school Sundays where they go back to their roots and they play a lot of focus on 90s and early 2000s. It's a really well done radio station. Can you run off the rest of the daytime lineup for the Kitchener, Waterloo? Tri-Cities? Tri-Cities is Kitchener, Waterloo and Cambridge. Cambridge, gotcha. I spent a lovely summer day in Cambridge very recently. I wanted to see the

Handmaid's Tale films in Cambridge. And there's this where like people are hanged and stuff in the Handmaid's Tale and I wanted to check it out but there's this bridge that's prominent in the show as well and stuff and but it's just a charming as all hell like city it was amazing absolutely yeah it's funny because people in Toronto think Cambridge is as far away as Montreal and it's really not it's kind of in your backyard and as the GTA continues to expand, more and more people are moving out to that market. Right, for sure. And my boy might be going to University of Waterloo next year,

which means I'll be there every freaking weekend. Who knows how often I'll try to get there often. Great school. We'll see here. So our lineup is myself and Kat in the morning, and then Melanie Martin is on during the middays. So we're kind of working together again, myself and Melanie. When did that start? Melanie has been doing that for about a year now. Okay.

So she's on middays. In the afternoon, we had a girl named Elle, but she is on mat leave, just left back in January. So we've got Joey Castillo, who was on Energy 95.3. And then at night, Mr. D is back. So he's on there. And he was one of the originals on that radio station when it first launched. And he's back on at night. Okay, cool, cool. Now I have another question for you from a Daryl Fisher, who says,

can you ask Scott Fox if he has any political aspirations and running at any level of government? political aspirations and running at any level of government? Because you are, I want to say, a fairly politically-minded individual, at least from what I follow on Twitter. Yeah, I've thought about it so many times. I really don't know what's going to happen in that sense. I know that, I think actually, that I would do a very good job if I were to get elected. The problem is the way the system is set up is it's going to be very difficult for me to actually

get the nomination in my local riding to run. So I don't know if I'm willing to put that up. I'm still having a good time. You would consider a municipal, is that the level or? I don't think I would do municipal, but it's hard to say. Uh, I live in Milton right now. I will likely move to Waterloo region. I'm not quite sure what the future holds. Would you consider yourself a conservative or is conservative leanings? I don't even know what is conservative anymore, to be perfectly honest with you. There seems to be a couple of different conservative parties, but generally speaking, I'd say I tend to lean fairly right on a lot of financial and fiscal issues on a lot of social

issues. I don't know. It kind of seems like there's parts of the conservative party that want to bring it a little more to the center or even a little further left, but it all is going to depend on who wins that leadership race. Who do you think is going to win? I mean, at this point, it looks like Peter McKay and Peter McKay is a great guy. I've known him for a long time. I don't know who could beat him that's currently in the race, but I don't think I'd want to make a guess until I find out who is in and who is out. Aaron O'Toole, maybe?

That's hard to say. I don't know that Aaron has that appeal. He did okay in the last one, and he's certainly a great guy as well. Whether or not he can win that, I don't know. One of the things that the conservatives are particularly bad at is picking people that can win elections.

They don't think long-term when they hold their leadership conventions, and I'm not sure that they're going to make the right choice again this time. So they should be looking at someone who can win against Justin Trudeau if they want to get back in power, and I don't know if the right person

is currently in the race. I'm not sure. And I would argue, and again, I'm speaking from Toronto, so maybe that's where that perspective comes from. But I think that if you want to win federally, you need to be more socially progressive. I think it's the social values when you hear sheer and stuff and some of these conservative social values that pretty much alienate you from a good chunk of this province. Yeah, I feel alienated by that party from time to time, mainly on social issues. So I think that

this is a unique opportunity for the Conservative Party to reach out to the people that they've disenfranchised over the years and to try and expand their big blue tent, as they call it, because there are a lot of conservative values that i think many people that are left of center would agree with but they just can't get behind them on many of those social issues now speaking of politics i'm going to bring you back to z103 for a moment here and i'm going to play a little clip like about 45 seconds uh of you in a particular program which well let me just play it here. Mayor Ford, I know that you have said

the only poll that counts is the one that happens on election day. And that's true. But some of the polls that are coming out now say you might be slipping a little bit in support. What do you think? You know what? They said I'm up there.

I'm down. I said, you know what? I ignore the polls. I know what the people are thinking because I was out just as of last night walking out. And I don't want to sound conceited, but I just get mobbed by people and taking pictures and saying, I support you. That's the poll that matters. And I want to debate my competition.

I want these people to stop talking about running and run. I'll give credit to David Cignacchi, the ex-budget chief for David Miller. He's a complete disaster, but at least he put a name in. So all these other people, talkers, I want to have a full debate. I'll put my record up against theirs any time, but I'll tell you right now, this is going to be a war.

At the time, that was Mayor Rob Ford, and his brother was there as well. We didn't get to hear him, fortunately, but he is now,, at the time he was a counselor. Yep. He's now our premier. We were the radio station in Etobicoke. And I think that most politicians know that if you come on with me, I'll be fair.

I'll be tough, but fair. And they don't usually expect that out of a top 40 station. Normally, if they do a top 40 interview, it's just a bunch of dumb questions. But I'll actually ask them questions that they want to be asked and that they're used to be asked or they're used to be being asked. But I do it in a fun way. And I really just try and get answers that I think my audience would want to hear. So were there any, I guess I'm curious because I do a lot of interviews myself. And did they have any rules?

Like, like, like, did they, did you get a... The fore of interviews myself. And did they have any rules? Like, did they? The Fords came with none. So they said you can ask us anything. Yep. The Fords were actually very, very good. I've interviewed Rob Ford twice. And Rob was great. He gave me a full hour.

And to use an hour doing a political interview on a top 40 station seemed crazy. But he was so popular that I don't remember an interview where our phones went that crazy, as did the day we had Rob Ford on. And I had Doug on, sorry, Premier Ford, I think three times, three or four times we've had Doug on. And no restrictions whatsoever. I mean, they really are an open book. And they're very genuine, too. I mean, if you ask them a question, they'll tell you how they feel right from the gut. And they're very genuine too. I mean, if you ask them a question, they'll tell you how they feel right from the gut. Okay, now straight up. I listened to the whole thing and I need to know, did you pull any questions just to be nice? Like, I understand they said no rules,

but did you, because this is the height of the crack video stuff going on and everything. And I listened and I wondered if maybe you were holding back some obvious questions on that front. Potentially. I don't think so. I mean, when I have Doug Ford or Rob Ford in today, if Doug Ford was here, a lot of things I'd ask him about. But when I had Rob Ford in front of me back in the day when everything was going on, I mean, we touched on it, but I also don't think that that was the only thing that people were wondering. I mean, sure, Conan O'Brien and Jimmy Kimmel had a great time with it, but there were

other things that were relevant to people who live in Toronto and rely on services. And I don't think these, I don't mean this to come across as a shot because you are not the national, you know what I mean? Like, and that's another thing too. Like, I'm not even suggesting you need to, you're not, well, at the time,

I guess it was Peter Mansbridge, but, uh, you're not the, you're not a news, you're not a journalist and you're not a news, uh, person.

Uh, you host a fun morning show on a, like a, you know, a top 40 radio station. So you're not the go to you're not matt galloway on metro morning for example okay so exactly because i would argue if mac the same interview by matt galloway uh and we would there would be uproar i think because of uh how kind it was like

how kind and gentle it was i did take criticism for not or for being nice to him and not that i didn't ask him about certain controversies that were there because I did definitely allude to everything. But I led into it in a way that he could talk about it freely. And he said what he wanted to say. And then I went back to other things that were a little more relevant for what I was doing. Other stations asked him about it nonstop. And, well, they had five minute interviews. I had an hour.

No, that is definitely true. So if you could go back in time and do that whole thing again, would you change anything? No, I don't think so. I mean, I think at the time when Rob Ford was Rob Ford, Mayor of Toronto, running wild,

I think that that was a good interview for the radio station that i was on at the time and uh i forget who it was i think it was canada.com at the time actually ran an article nationally that said uh listen to this it's the best interview you've ever heard with rob ford you probably would yeah i think what you gave him was, uh, something we aren't used to hearing on top 40 music stations, which is, uh, room to breathe,

like longer form and not to be, to be blind. Like this wasn't a very, uh, particularly challenging interview for the Freud bros. Right. But, uh,

you, you wasn't one of the, you know, this was actual room to breathe and i'm a big fan personally of longer form conversations i love that too to be honest with you and i don't think that because you're on a top 40 station you can't do that sort of thing i i think that there's definitely room for it you got to pick your moments and you got to pick the right guests to do it but there are certain ones at certain times where you can spend time with it. And I think your audience

will give you the leeway to do it. Does anyone, does anyone do that though? I, I don't, I don't feel like any top 40 station is doing longer than three minutes. In the morning, I think is a little bit different. I've heard interviews that, for example, Roz and Mocha did on Kiss 92.5 and they've done some longer form ones. I think Adam on Virgin has done a few that are a little bit different. I've heard interviews that, for example, Roz and Mocha did on Kiss 92.5, and they've done some longer form ones. I think Adam on Virgin has done a few that are a little longer. Not an hour like I did with Rob Ford, but at least closer.

The problem is finding the right guest that's going to have the mass appeal, and whether you love him or not, because the Rob Ford thing was very polarizing. I got so much hate mail for even having the guy on. It was crazy having him on i think that's almost a no-brainer like you should have him on and being kind to him is also like good for you i i i like to think i would be kind to him as well but i think you can you can probably and again no judgment i don't mean this is unjudgmental you're not on metro morning that's not the show show you do. I would love to do Metro Morning, by the way.

You know, there's an opening there too. I've heard, yeah. Do you have any, I was going to ask you, in Kitchener, are they talking about who's taking over the Metro Morning gig? You got any clues?

Not even rumors about that. It's very isolated. Very, very isolated. Any rumors Toronto Mike is taking over Metro Morning? Although I wouldn't wake up. I don't want to wake up at that hour. Really?

I don't think there's, I'm not sure there's a price tag. I'm really not motivated by money though. This is probably one of my, one of my greatest weaknesses. I don't know what dollar value it would take for me to have a wake up time of 3.30 a.m. or whatever the hell these people, people like yourself. I'll tell you, it changes your life doing morning radio. I firmly believe it'll probably shave years off of it but getting into that

zone and being up early, being done work at 9 or 10am and then having all day but then having to fit in those naps strategically, it really takes a lot of planning but I don't think I could go back. I mean, even when I go on vacation,

I'll be up at 6 a.m. as opposed to sleeping until 9 or 10. Right, because your body's trained, I suppose. Yeah, you do get used to it. But you saw the vast majority of the Oscars. Like my impression of radio show hosts is that they're saying goodnight at 7.30, 8 o'clock or something, right?

I fall asleep every night watching the National. I watch it at 9. And I'm up every morning, 3 o'clock, 3.15, out of bed, in the shower, ready to go. And I write most of my news and most of my prep the night before. But when I get in, usually around quarter to five, that's when I put the finishing touches on things and add whatever happened overnight. And I like that peaceful period between about 4.30 and 5.30 a.m. That's a great time of day. Well, good, because you're in the biz now, man. You're doing it now. You better love it or you're in big trouble there. What happened to your finger? Oh, okay. So this is such a stupid injury.

I don't know if you know, but I work for the Toronto Rock. I'm the in-game host at Scotiabank Arena. I didn't know that. Our pro lacrosse team in Toronto. Of course. And I was, Saturday, I was changing a wiper blade on my son's car. And it's an old Subaru. It's one of those ones that's got a, you don't take off the whole windshield wiper.

You just replace the actual rubber part. So in taking out the old rubber part, it was stuck. And rubber, elastic principle, when you pull on it, it's going to snap. So it got stuck and I pulled really hard and finally it came out and it whipped across three different fingers. And I'm pretty sure that the knuckle is broken there.

So me, I didn't want to go to the knuckle is broken there. So me, I didn't want to go to the doctor on a Saturday night and I had to do the game yesterday because we played Buffalo at Scotiabank arena. So we win, we did 13, nine. That's our rival, right? Big divisional win for Toronto. That was huge. So I went and I, uh, I went to the team trainer and I said, Q, do you think you can take a look at my finger? And I felt bad. I mean mean there's pro athletes there with Achilles injuries and high ankle sprains and all sorts of stuff and I'm standing there my finger hurts can you help me out so he actually sent me to see the team doctor in the back room and he looked at it and said I'm gonna splint that and you're going for an x-ray tomorrow because you know they don't that's pretty much all they do for a chipped bone like because I I have a I chipped my pinky bone uh from a bike crash like I don't, that's pretty much all they do for a chipped bone. Like, cause I, I have a, I chipped my pinky bone, uh, from a bike crash. Like, I don't know, now we're going back 18

months maybe. And it still doesn't quite function right. And it was a long time before I could shake somebody's hand properly. Yeah. And this was, it was really, really swollen. How old is your son? Your, your son's driving. Uh, how old is your son? Uh, my son is 19 now and he goes to school in Boston and I didn't want him driving an old Subaru. So I let him take my car and I'm driving his old Subaru to get him through the winter months. Look at you. What a good dad. Okay. Good for you having the 18 year old son and Ashley Dawkins. She still does stuff with the rock, right? Ashley's great. Yeah. So she is doing, she's still mornings on five 90, I think. Yeah. Okay. So great. During the rock right ashley's great yeah so she is doing she's still mornings on 590 i think

yeah okay so great during the rock games she is the the person between the benches so not only does she have to duck the ball and players that are getting checked into the box she's doing a really really good analysis on the sidelines and then doing player interviews as well and do they uh are they selling out these games uh you know i'd say probably average attendance is about 9 000 so basically we can fill the lower bowl okay i'd love to see it do better i mean i really don't think that people didn't used to do better am i misremembering back at maple leaf gardens it did really really well uh maybe the very first years at scotia bank arena um for whatever reason, you know, we're just

in a city where people think Leafs, Raptors, and maybe the Jays, maybe TFC, maybe the Argos. And for whatever reason, people don't seem to want to try out new things. And they think, I don't know lacrosse, so I don't like lacrosse. I think people, if they actually went, would be pretty shocked. I mean, this is a sport where we play music throughout the entire game, and there's people drinking beer. It's more like a party atmosphere. We say come for the party and stay for the game. And I'm pretty sure there was a season, maybe two or three seasons ago,

where Great Lakes was at the Rock. They were a sponsor of ours. Yeah, they were. I remember that going down. And you know what? They were a great partner. I'd love to get them back on. But yeah, it's a good experience.

I mean, I highly recommend it. And tickets are cheap. I mean, there's not many things that you can do for $32 in Toronto. No, here's what my experience with a sport that we're not used to in this city. I know lacrosse is Canadian. Like that's our national sport.

And you know, Mimico lacrosse is enormous. Huge. You know, Shanahan's and yeah, the whole thing, right? But I grew up and never seen any lacrosse is enormous. Huge. You know, Shanahan's and yeah, the whole thing, right? But I grew up and never seen any lacrosse, never played any lacrosse. I didn't grow up in Mimico, but it's still kind of an alien sport to a lot of us, in Toronto particularly.

Another sport like that is rugby, okay? Absolutely. I should point out I never paid for these tickets. This is a key part of the story. And this is key because I don't know, like I never knew anything about rugby and I had an opportunity to see a rugby game for free, the Wolfpack and at Lamport stadium.

And I went and it was so much fun. I had another opportunity. I started, I started to be able to go again, not costing me any money at this, at this point. And I saw several games and so much fun. Like, it was amazing.

And now I would pay now to go see the new guy, Sonny Boy Williams. I hope I have the right name. And it was exciting. But almost like lacrosse in Toronto almost has to do some kind of an incentive just to give sports fans an opportunity to see it for free. And then they'll realize, like, this is something worth paying for. Yeah, I mean, they do a lot of marketing. They probably spend actual dollars more than any other franchise in the city.

And it's unfortunate because, like I said, I think they run up against that attitude where people think, I don't really know lacrosse, so I don't like lacrosse. And I really think that if people would just go and try a game they would enjoy it but one of the things that's new this year is they are back on tv so for rogers customers you can watch it on rogers ignite okay that's a good opportunity that's a station rogers ignite yeah as far as i know internet service no i think if you have rogers cable you have rogers ignite i am not exactly sure how it works because i'm not on here okay i have five here as well um or you can watch games they've got a great partnership with twitter there's one game a week that is televised on twitter and uh br live is another way that you can watch games too and once a week there's usually

one free game on br live and how long you've been doing this with the uh rock this is my fifth season with the team they're uh i'm really passionate about the sport. I think it's so much fun, high intensity, great athletes, and the best players in the world are all from the GTA and Southern Ontario. I feel, you know, I've never seen a rock match. Well, please come. You just tell me when you want to come and the tickets, you won't pay for those tickets either. Okay, and we have a deal. So you strike a hard bargain there,

but we have a deal. Scott, this was a lot of fun. Is there anything you want to share or promote or discuss just before? Okay, well, can I give my podcast a plug? Of course, yeah. It's called After Nine and it's myself and Kat.

We've been doing it for about four years now. And that was one of the, actually when we went to Chorus in Kitchener, they built a studio in the radio station specifically for us to do this podcast. Is it nicer than this one? Nothing's nicer than this one, I'll tell you that. No, that's not true.

You have a great setup here. I'm really impressed. But with the After Nine, so our angle on it, it's a little bit different, and it's going to be very jarring for people that are fans of radio to hear because we basically do a daily radio show for people that don't listen to the radio. It's the same content you would hear on radio, but because it's not on terrestrial radio, it's completely uncensored.

So you can swear. We can swear. We can talk about much, much much much more mature subject matter it's totally not safe for work but it's something different and if you'd like to hear something a little different and we intentionally record it though do you record it after your that's why we call it after nine oh yes every day right after nine okay i'm a little slow today well that was the thing it was i don't know what we're gonna call it but i don't know we'll do it after nine and that just sort of stuck.

And we called it after nine. And there's one out five days a week and we intentionally keep them short. So they're 30 minutes each, roughly. That's a good idea. And then at some point, the future radio is just that, right? Like this is the future.

I don't know how far down the road, but that will be the radio at some point. Absolutely. Digital is, there's a big future in it. And some people are already there and just waiting for everyone else to catch up. And if you drive a car with a connected dash, for example, or with built-in Wi-Fi, you know how easy it is to just call up the Radio Player Canada app and you can sift between stations in Vancouver, Halifax, Toronto, Montreal, and Calgary, Player Canada app and you can sift between stations in Vancouver,

Halifax, Toronto, Montreal, and Calgary, just the same way you can in Toronto, listen between Chum and Virgin and Kiss and 680 and everything else. They're all just one button. But it's the on demand, right? So it's like, yeah, that's joining a stream, I guess, or an in-progress show. But the on demand, pressing the button for your commute and hearing from the beginning the after nine from that day. Like the on-demand digital service of broadcast is the, that's where radio's got to go.

Am I right? I think that people want to hear certain things and radio is very routine and it's by design that they're called benchmarks. And every morning it's a 745, this station does that. The ability to hear that on demand is something that TV is begging you to try. Radio hasn't even offered it yet. So I don't know why that is, but we decided to do this podcast on our own long before we got to chorus. Okay. And we decided that we would make this available in podcast format so that

people could listen on demand. And I'll tell you the most popular time for listening to this podcast that we do is between 9 PM and 3 AM. Interesting shift workers and so on and so forth. Interesting. I would have bet the afternoon drive, people commuting back home. That's second most popular. They listen to us on Terrestrial in the morning, and then they listen to us in podcast form on the drive. So breaking news, Scott and Kat are moving to 102.1.

Is that the announcement we're closing with? But then I'd be pissing off my buds at Y108 because I could make the same announcement about them. And the truth is I have no idea who's coming to, I just know who's not going there and it ain't going to be Strombo. It ain't going to be Blundell and it ain't going to be humbling Fred. And it ain't going to be Toronto Mike because they didn't ask me. So you never know.

The day is not over. Scott, thanks for doing this, buddy. This was a lot of fun. Thank you for having me. And that brings us to the end of our 581st show you can follow me on twitter i'm at toronto mike scott you're at uh scott fox oh wait

do you tell us what is your twitter handle again scott fox on air so s-o-t-t-f-o-x on air and it's the same on instagram twitter facebook linkedin you name it tiktok it's the same on all and you're gonna ask uh tony monaco if it's from party on all of them. And you're going to ask Tony Monaco if it's from Party of Five. I will. I'm going to phone Tony later on because he replaced me on Z. He's the new morning guy there. So I'll send Tony a text on the way home and get an answer for you. And tell him I actually

wrote him an email. He had some email I just published on his personal website or something. And I wrote him an invitation to come on this program. This is going back now, I don't know, nine months or something. And he hasn't done it? Never heard back. Really?

So I don't know if it went in spam, because normally you get a reply, right? Usually. Yeah. So let him know if he wants to reach out that I'd have him on Toronto Mike as well. So do that. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer.

Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Sticker U is at Sticker U. The Keitner Group are at thekeitnergroup.com. That's K-E-I-T-N-E-R. And Banjo Dunk is at Banjo Dunk with a C. See you all tomorrow when I should be talking to Jack Armstrong. That's so exciting. Hello!

This podcast has been produced by TMDS and accelerated by Roam Phone. Roam Phone brings you the most reliable virtual phone service to run your business and protect your home number from unwanted calls. Visit RoamPhone.ca to get started. But I wonder who Yeah, I wonder who Maybe the one who doesn't realize There's a thousand shades of green