Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Sports Media Roundtable: Toronto Mike'd #808

Episode Date: February 26, 2021

Mike hosts a sports media roundtable with Mark Hebscher and Fast Time Milon. Topics discussed include Tim and Sid, Jay and Dan, Natasha Staniszewski, Doug Smith, Mike Wilner, Dave Cadeau, Brian Burke, and more.

Welcome to episode 808 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. CDN Technologies, your outsourced IT department. Contact Barb, she's Barb at cdntechnologies.com 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. Ridley Funeral Home. Pillars of the community since 1921. And Mike Majewski, or as I call him, Mimico Mike.

He's the real estate agent who's ripping up the Mimico real estate scene. Learn more at realestatelove.ca. I'm Mike from torontomike.com. And joining me for our quarterly sports media roundtable discussion is the host of Hebsey on Sports, Mark Hebbshire and Milan Telsania from Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repair. Welcome, guys. Nice to be on the show again, Mike. Hey, Mike. Quarterly.

It's been since August, I think. I know. I was kind of winking when I said quarterly because it's been a long time. It's been like 100 episodes. Last time we did this, we were all in my backyard, which was really nice. But today, for the first

time ever, we're doing these things via Zoom. So it'll be not quite as intimate, but it should be an engaging conversation. So thanks for doing this. Let's start with Hebsey. I just want to let everybody know, I literally spoke to Hebsey 10 minutes ago. So it's not like I can't say, hey, it's been a long time, Hebsey, how's it going? We recorded different show, different, different, different show. So let me just tell everybody, maybe you can speak to it. But Hebsey on sports has been on fire lately. Hebsey on sports is your podcast. Like tell us like, how's it going with Hebsey on sports? I think what happened was all the talk about sports media during the course of the pandemic the shrinking of sports media as it were um really had an effect i think on a lot of people because

we just weren't used to you know waking up in the morning and finding out that someone that we watch or listen to uh and engage with is no longer there it's they're gone and then the explanation is not a good explanation, a good enough explanation. What was it? Did this person steal from the company they have, you know, they charged with a felony. Oh, you're just, you're cutting salaries. That's the reason. And I think that has a real, it's a visceral effect on you because you, you know, you, you,

you kind of feel as if you're maybe a friend to that person and, and you're losing touch with something that was important to you, you know, not hearing Jerry Howard's voice. He was the one that, you know, that called that Jose Bautista home run. I still get chills just like thinking about it. You know, they have a particular attraction and they stick to you. And when that person leaves and and the station that that person works for, shuffle somebody else in, naturally, you're not going to like that person. It's just

the way it's human nature. And so it just seems it's happened way too much. Player gets traded, a guy or a girl that you watch on TV or listen to on the radio or read in the newspaper or online or whatever, suddenly gone just like that in the midst of a pandemic with everything else that's going on in the world. And because of that, I think a lot of people have been, have picked up on my show because I'm talking about real people that we know, not, not the athlete that's making a hundred million, but the guy that you watch on TV, the woman that you listen to on the radio, and has been a companion of yours. And now they're gone. And so I've talked about it openly about what it's like to lose a job

in broadcasting people that I know, you know, stories that I saw the writing on the wall and got out, you know, I'm not sitting here going, I told you so far from it. I hope any broadcaster worth their salt is looking and seeing what's going on landscape and saying, I'd better be prepared for my life after broadcasting, after media. I have to be prepared for that. And if you're not, you're really fooling yourself. You're in denial because this is the way the world's going. Now, Hebsey, we're going to cover a lot of the recent changes, you know, the Dano tools, and we're going to talk about a whole bunch of stuff that's been, you know, in the sports media landscape since our last discussion. Anyways, let me just say hello to Fast Time Milan, as I've decided is your new handle.

How are things at, here we are in a pandemic and things are coming out of shutdown. Like, what's the current status of Fast Time Watch and Jewelry Repair? Yeah, thanks, Mike, for having me on again. And great to be on with Hebsey. So we've just reopened our locations, our retail mall locations, all of them except in North Bay, where I guess there's been an outbreak in North Bay, in the North Bay Parry Sound area.

So that's the only location that's not open right now. But we've been open in Richmond Hill throughout the pandemic. We were doing curbside repair, pickup and drop off. So that was interesting. Never done that before and seemed to get a great response from our customers here in the Richmond Hill and the surrounding GTA area. Okay. That's good news. You know, it's been tough on small businesses, but you guys, again, family run, you know,

I think a Hebsey on sports, the first words with apologies to Great Lakes beer, because they kind of introduced me to this phrase because this is what they are. But Hebsey on sports is fiercely independent. I see here on the Facebook, you know, Brian says Hebsey brings the real talk without any asses to kiss upstairs. Like you can just, you can tell it like it is because you don't have to appease any corporate bosses and et cetera. Now, Milan, you guys at Fast Time, this is a family run business that you guys,

and we all heard the story on your previous visits of like being in Sears, Canada and how they, can I swear? Can I just say they fucked you over? Can I say that? Can I say that? Sure. You can say that. I just did. Okay. So, I mean, we should,

if anyone out there needs any like your watch battery replaced or need to buy a watch, I heard Hebsey wants to, Oh, I hope Hebsey's girlfriend's not listening to this, but I think he wants to buy something very nice for her at West. Like any kind of watch or jewelry requirements reach reach out to you, right, Milan? How can people contact you? Yeah, that's it. You can visit us at FastTimeWatchRepair.com.

We have a location in Richmond Hill. Come by and say hi. A lot of Toronto Mike listeners and followers have come by and said hi and had their watch repaired or jewelry repaired. We do all sorts of repairs on all brands of watches. So come by and say hi and visit us at the fast time, watch repair.com for a location near you. And when you do talk to Milan or meet Milan,

a fast time Milan is how we'll now refer to him. Okay. So it's good. Milan, you've got a place in Kitchener, don't you? Yes, we do. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. I was there, there a few weeks ago visiting my son and it's open. Like you can walk through the malls there and all that. Yeah. Yeah.

Well, it was amazing. I was in our Belleville location a couple of weeks ago in the quinti mall and they're in the green zone you know i lose track of all these color codes and it actually felt normal believe it or not the food court was open i think it was 50 percent really people wearing masks it actually felt somewhat normal believe it or not so yeah it's it's been quite a it's been almost a year i can't believe it feels like 12 years, but you know, it's been 12 months. Wow. Yeah. Unbelievable. Where, where, where should we begin? I got a lot of things I want to cover. Let's, let's start with the recent bell media cuts. Uh, you know, and we'll kind of kind of ducktail in the bell media cuts.

Cause the bell media cuts meant breaking up Jay and Dan. And this all happened at the same time as we learned Rogers was breaking up Tim and Sid. So that's a lot there, I know. But let's start. What's your take, Hebsey, on the Dan O'Toole, Natasha Stanishevsky? How do you say her last name? Stanishevsky?

How do you say it? Stanishevsky. Stanishevsky How do you say it? Staniszewski. Staniszewski. I should say that. Christian Jack and all these other Bell Media cuts that affect sports media. Had you not brought it up, I would have said I'd forgotten about it already. And that's the unfortunate thing. This is part of life.

And, you know, usually 24, 48 hours, you know, you feel bad for the person. You reach out to the person via social media. Condolences. You'll land on your feet. It's just a natural thing to do. I thought about Farrah Fawcett Majors. She happened to die the same day as Michael Jackson. And it was unfair, I guess isn't the right word. But from the standpoint of recognition, unfair, I guess, isn't the right word, but from the standpoint of recognition, it just, sometimes it happens where the timing of an event, the event or the person involved doesn't get the proper ratio of coverage. Let's put it that way. And so, you know, nowadays it's like, you know, they all were let go on the same day or no, Dan, no, I think was it Dan went like the news of Dan's departure was first. And then how many hours later did they say, Oh, and by the way, Natasha's out or Brent Wallace is out. So it was in a span of, let's say, I don't know, Milan 24 hours where we heard like, boom, you know, oh they fired somebody in ottawa oh um cjd in montreal closed down and then the next day news talk 10 10 so it was sort of that week it was like every 12 hours or every 24 hours it was you know a couple more names a couple more stations uh then the vancouver station the whole station went down

so that didn't allow for under normal circumstances, the Dan O'Toole tributes to breathe for a while, the Natasha tributes to breathe, Christian Jack to breathe, Brent Wallace to breathe. Had those people lost their jobs during a week where there wasn't anything going on, we would have spent a few more days on it. We would have. And the same is true, for example, even this week of the Doug Smith tweet, right? You know, there was all this for, and then 24 hours later, there's other stuff, right? You know, tiger happened. And then there was other stuff. That's just naturally what happens. But I, you know, I just think that these are human beings and they're in a job. It happens to be a high profile job, different from a job as you know, if your bank teller wasn't there, you'd go, Oh my God,

what happened to the bank teller I've been going to for 15 years. This is a little different, but at the same time, you're still a sports fan. So you tune in the next night to watch your team's game and you see someone else on the air. And then before you know it, you're not thinking of the person that you used to watch on the air. You're looking at the person now evaluating them. Are they a good replacement? Or do I like watching this person?

Would I rather see the other person? And then that, that connection that you had with that person, you know, just drifts apart until after a while, you don't, you don't think of them as much. It's too bad. We know a lot of, we know so many people like that media people. Hey, remember that person had a really good job in media, but boy, that was four or five years ago now. Right. But what are they doing now? Right. Right. Milan, what were you going to say there?

Yeah, sorry. I was just, I thought Hebsey brought up a great point in the, in the intro there about, do you, you know, Hebsey knows a lot of the personalities and do you feel in, in today's, you know, listening to Scott Ferguson's, your interview with Mike with Scott Ferguson and Norm Rumak and Howard Berger in the past and so many others. Hebsey, do you think that the current media, you know, those in the media right now are preparing for that second, you know, life after sports media,

or is it still that delusion of that they're going to be there for life kind of a thing. I think, I think once you're in it, you think that when, if you lose your job in stand terrestrials, radio or TV or whatever it was that if you think you have enough of a following that you can move to the next step,ing for example that we do and still you're a broadcaster you that's still your area of expertise you're still talking about uh things but for example had had the toronto star not hired mike wilner and wilner said you know i'm going to start my own podcast i'm going to do a daily podcast and i'm going to talk about jay's stuff and i'm still going to have access hopefully to the people that i used to be able to cover, and they'll still want to talk to me, and I can still do a show maybe and be able to make a living from it. I mean, that's a big step,

right? A lot of people have tried and failed. Few people have tried and made the transition so that they can make a living from it. There's a big difference. I'm not trying to make a living from this. But imagine, and I'm just thinking, I'm trying to think of one of the guys, oh, Rob, Rob Fay is his name. He's out in Vancouver and he was, he had a show on the station 1050 TSN. Yeah, 1040. And 1050 radio. And almost immediately when that was canceled, he started up his own nightly YouTube show or show that's available with the same format, same guests that he could get just because he's not on terrestrial radio. And, you know,

let's take that momentum that we had me and my listeners and let's move on to the next step. So that's a natural thing. Can he get the sponsors? That's another story. Mike can tell you best, of course, you know, how difficult it is and how many sponsors you need to be able to carry, to make somewhat of a living, even to look after your costs. And so are they prepared? I can't say. Some are, some aren't. Some think like some, like some athletes think that once their career is over, they can just slide into the broadcast booth. A lot of them think that way. Well, if he can do it, I can do it.

And that's sort of the same in media, not just sports media. I always look at Keegan Matheson, FOTM Keegan Matheson, who sort of started his own thing, a subscription thing, Baseball Toronto, I think he called it. I subscribed to it. Yep. Right. I got my refund check, actually, a few weeks ago. Okay, and if you notice, so, I mean, he really tried hard to get this own independent thing going, owning his own shit, as we say, because you want to own your own shit. But, you know, the moment that when Gregor Chisholm took the job at the Toronto Star to replace Griffin, Richard Griffin, who took the job at Toronto Blue Jays, suddenly there was an opening at MLB.com and Keegan said goodbye to the, you know, he realized that's a lot of work. I'm going to go,

I'm going to sell out basically. And I'm going to go work for MLB and not have to worry about inventing my own thing and just cash that check every couple of weeks. He's on his way to Florida now he's driving down there for MLB, but obviously, yeah, if you've got the backing of MLB and you're providing them with all that content and you have access everywhere because you've got your MLB credential.

Right. Sure. Versus your Baseball Toronto credential, which I don't know if is even a legit. I mean, I don't know if I hope, I would hope that other teams would allow him media access because he is writing about Major League Baseball. But who knows nowadays? Sure, who knows nowadays?

He's got to do what they want. So in a nutshell, tell it to us straight here, Hebsey. Why did they break up what we thought was a successful brand? Why did Jay and Dan get broken up? Because Dan O'Toole is the big name who was caught up in that Bell Media purge. You know, I think like anything else, however many years they were together, once you reach a certain time together, if the buzz is gone and the salespeople can't sell it the way they used to and nature takes its

course, you look and go, you know what? When we started, what did we expect? 10 year run, 15 year run, coast to coast, they go to the States and come back, you know, pretty good. And so from a business standpoint, from a bean counter standpoint, I was like, look, you know, this show is costing us a million dollars a year. We can't afford a million dollars a year. We can't take in a million dollars a year we can't take in a million dollars a year more it's got more we can't take in 1.3 million a year to make it worthwhile a worthwhile production um we can slot somebody else we can whatever people still tune in and so you know the bean counter the not not not the program manager who loves these guys i would expect and everybody it's a good group there and there's good morale there and you know the bean counter says you got to cut

okay that show there jay and dan that's one million dollars a year if we include salaries it doesn't include the the crew or whatever basically because the crew would be there no matter what show they were doing but the show was jay dan a head writer and a producer and probably an associate producer too, part-time, I don't know. But it's like, all right, who goes and who stays? And that's the cold part of it. There you go. So Jay got to stay, and I'm sure that's not a great feeling. I'm sure he does not feel wonderful and warm and fuzzy inside. Oh, I get to do it all by myself no no no no no there's a guilt feeling too that i'm sure he must be going through he says he's okay i reached out to him a while ago but still you know and then you know and you got no time to sort of reinvent yourself as

solo host jay on rate so you're not going away for a couple of weeks i think that he might have right into it it was him by himself maybe after a few days of being off the air, boom. Right. Hi, welcome to our new show. It's just me. And he did that beautiful heartfelt apology, but still you got to be feeling it because he's also got to be like everyone else going. She's I wonder like, what's my life expectancy here. What's my due date, right? What's my due date. Five years, 10 years. Can you realistically realistically go if you're a middle-aged person

i got 10 more years right now milan uh how did like what did you think of the dan o'toole news were you surprised i was surprised a little bit but i mean you know with everything what's going on i think i was more shocked that you know tsn cutting its ties in Vancouver and you know a big conglomerate like that um you you wonder in a sky-falling scenario like what what what will happen to the sports that sports uh you know stations in the Toronto area kind of a thing was the first thing that went through my mind but when we getting back to Dan you know you you wonder exactly what hefsy said about about jay but jay on right he's got to be looking you know over his shoulder and see what's going on because i'm just trying to think that anytime sort of a duo has been stripped of one half of their

partnership the program hasn't really lasted much longer you know and and it's you know it's ironic we talk about tim and sid i believe it's sid's last show today. On that program, I know Sid's being, you can say, promoted to breakfast television. But if you're Tim McAuliffe, they talked about rotating guests, co-hosts. Tim and Friends, it's called. Right. I don't know if that's the working title of the show, but it's like Tim and Friends. It's like, let's try people in and see what works out. They did that with McAllen on the round table for the longest time.

You got to reinvent things. What do you do? Plus, is it a radio show? Did a TV show again? It's sort of that thing, right? What, you know, the Tim and Sid thing, it's great to look back and they, they, and believe me, they got a great use out of it and they, and they did a terrific job, but yeah, now it's like, you know, Tim is exposed now. And so is Sid. And so Sid's, you know, partners, you know, those that he's going to be engaging with on the morning show,

that's a whole different thing. It's like, Sid, you can get your way out of this. I mean, you can talk your way out of that. You can interview your way out of this. You can do a stunt, you know, you're multi-talented that way. You've got a sense of humor, you know, go and be you, Tim. It's more, all right, Tim, what do you want to do? Should we continue on in this vein? Do you want to have co-hosts? Do you want to go back and forth like you did with Sid on topics with people you want to have guests, you want to have games, you want to have, you know, all that know all that type of thing and so um what do you think happened here like is was this Sid's decision again they were together how many years are you together for it's the same pretty much the same

amount of time as Jay and Dan right right you only got so many years together I don't care if you're the Beatles I you really there are name me hey how about this name me in in in canadian media name me duos television radio whatever it is that stayed together longer than 10 years ron and don ron and don not the same okay once a week you know pretty simple thing to do every year both personalities on their own part of a hockey broadcast that people are going to watch whether the Leafs or Canadians stink or don't stink they're on kind of I'm talking about on a daily basis morning radio afternoon radio play-by-play and color uh anchoring on TV jim and i were together for 11 years on sports line right all right uh dutchie and uh you know and uh jen for the most part have done the evening thing on tsn for i don't know

better part of a couple decades i guess jay and dan 15 years 18 years sid and tim 20 years 18 years 16 years again after a while it's inevitable that two people are going to break up. Either they're going to be broken up by their bosses or one or both of them are going to say it's time for a change. Do you think part of the reasoning for Bell Media and why they, why did they fire a Dan O'Toole and keep a Jay Unright? I mean, obviously that cuts the cost in half, but do you think part of the reasoning is that so long as Jay wants to collect his paycheck by Bell Media, there cannot be a Jay and Dan right now.

Like that cannot be at this moment. So they can't take Jay and Dan and I don't know, make it its own independent thing like Hebsey on sports or take it to, I don't know who else would take it, TSN or whatever. So simply this is a way to like break up. There is no Jay and Dan so long as Jay is on TSN. Right. Does it make Dan's position more difficult?

I don't know. I mean, again, I laugh when I hear people go, oh, well, they can just go. Like if someone leaves, gets fired by Sportsnet or gets their contract not renewed, immediately it's like oh i'm sure tsn will take them which is the furthest thing from the truth there is no competition whatsoever in fact this week alone we had a sportscaster from rogers sports net interviewing

another sportscaster from tsn i've never in my life ever seen a sportscaster interviewing another sportscaster in the same town, right? As rivals. I mean, sure, if you go to spring training, hey, let's talk to Yankee broadcaster Ken Singleton. But never have I seen a sit-down interview between two sportscasters. What is one sportscaster going to ask the other sportscaster? Why wouldn't one sportscaster be sitting down with some interesting person, right? Athlete, coach, whatever for that in-depth interview. Why is a sportscaster interviewing a rival sportscast? I mean, I just, I didn't understand that one at all. I thought you could have chosen i don't know a better couple of people to discuss that particular subject now now uh that was for our sportscasters covered like do you really you're gonna look that much inside of you do you identify yourself as a sportscaster and if so how do you think

sportscasters are let's talk sportscaster to sportscaster. Come on. Okay. Really? But just to give it a little context, this is for Black History Month. Donovan Bennett from Sportsnet had a conversation with Kayla Gray, who is employed by TSN. I actually thought it was pretty cool that TSN blessed this and said to their talent, Kayla, it is okay if you go do this thing on the rival network. Like, I thought that was kind of neat, but you, you don't get that one. Hempsey. Here's what I don't get Mike. I mean, really, are we talking to that? We're just into talking about ourselves, right?

But we're not interested in, in the opinions of, you know, people that matter. It's just, let's just get somebody nearby and let's talk about that but hebsey man this is i just had nikki reyes on toronto mic like maybe it was actually this week it's been a long week okay so nikki reyes told me that when she was with sportsnet she was one of two women of color that were in front of the camera on sportsnet the The other, of course, is Hazel May. So there was Hazel May, shout out to Hazel, and Nikki Reyes. Sportsnet chose not to renew Nikki Reyes's contract, and then she eventually found a new gig at TSN radio. Now she tells me

she is one of two women of color in front of the camera on TSN. Like, think about it. That means in all of, if you combine TSN and sports, and the other, by the way, of course, being Kayla Gray. So if you combine TSN and Sportsnet, there are now with Nikki Reyes, and she's actually not in front of a camera, she's in front of a microphone

because I think she's only on the radio, but hopefully she gets some TV time. But there's only three. There's Hazel May, there's Kayla Gray, and there's Nikki Reyes. Like, I think that's why this happened. There's Kayla Gray. And there's Nikki Reyes. I think that's why this happened, because it's still... Think of how difficult it must be for a woman of color

to get an on-air sports media gig in this country in 2021. That's mind-boggling to me. Am I crazy, Milan? No, no. Agreed. I mean, I think... And I got to agree with you, Mike. I think it was kind of cool to see donovan bennett and kayla gray i think the sad you know on on sports net and psn giving its blessing i'm sure there's probably a was it quid pro quo i'm sure maybe donovan will

have to you know it was a good cause it was black history month so i think that was a big reason that commentary right the sad commentary like you said is that there's only so limited people of color who can interview each other in the first place. So you need the two networks in order to have enough numbers to interview each other. This is my thing. So, you know, speaking specifically of women of color, two of the three women of color in Canadian sports media are of Filipino descent. Okay. Much like the lovely Monica, my wife. So if you're talking about black woman black woman

there's one right and that's why donovan needed to cross networks because there's it's like a unicorn there's one like this is a whole separate diversity conversation but it kind of ties in nicely because i was wondering aloud and you guys could speak to this when tim and sid sid is going to breakfast television, he'll be on across the country in mornings and it's not just sports. He gets to spread his wings. Tim's going to have to be teamed with these guest hosts or whatever. How important is it that they

team Tim with someone who is not I'll say a white male? Hebsey, what do you think? Do you think they need to find a non-white male to be beside Tim McAuliffe in that show? I'll tell you, I wouldn't like to be the one to have to make the ultimate decision.

I think it would take a special person to be able to have carte blanche when it came to making the call and only choosing the most talented or the person that they feel would fit best. Now, my idea of a great fit might not be the same as your idea of a great fit. And that's where any accusation of favoritism, prejudice, discrimination could raise its ugly head easily with only one person suggesting. Right. So I'm going to reserve comment on that because I don't know what the right answer is.

All I know is I'd like to see the most talented person for the job and try not to look at color, person for the job and try not to look at color, race, gender. Really, if I think that these two white men would be great together and would be better together than this white man and black woman, but I can't make that call because of the optics of it. I might resign the position. I might feel very uncomfortable having to make a call based on sex, based on race, based on religion, based on my personal favorite, of course, which anyone would be that way. What is it you like about this person right can i say for example excuse me that that the situation occurred a hundred years ago when a jewish person tried to get a job and someone said

we don't hire jews black person couldn't get a job we don't hire blacks we don't hire Jews. Black person couldn't get a job. We don't hire blacks. We don't hire Italians, whatever it was, right? There's somewhere back there. There's that, you know, Hey, I was rejected. I was discriminated against. Uh, and now that it's just a part of the conversation. Now it's not, the question is, the question isn't, are they good they really good if you heard the voice of Nikki Reyes and didn't know that she was a woman of color could you make your judgment just that way oh of course that's the way you should make your judgment you should go out that girl's good she knows her stuff sounds real good gotta have her on the airwaves right right and then someone said uh

and then you met her you went oh i didn't know that you were a woman of color should that make a difference at all you sound great i mean i'm sure it's happened before i know people have heard recordings for many years and thought the person they were listening to was not a person of color was a white person and then when they found out it was or vice versa they went whoa so um i i'd hate to make the decision is all i can say i think this is where uh it'll all work out because i believe the best person for the job and i want to hear your opinion on this milan but i think the best person to you know take the sid spot on tim and whatever it would be Donovan Bennett. Like I think to me, it's,

I think he'd be fantastic in the position regardless of his skin color. Well, I think I agree with Hepsi. First of all, I think whoever's got to make this decision, they're in a tough spot, especially you're talking about when it comes to choosing Tim's partner, whoever it may be, you're talking about a prim time slot on radio and prime time you know from a from you know from a television not from a television perspective but from a radio perspective anyways because of the the simulcast and then you got another i'm sure which is an expensive show to produce with jay so these are important decisions whoever is going to have to make them. But I think this goes back to, I'm going to blame Rogers and Bell as the two major, and you can put chorus in there as well, that they haven't built up a roster over all these years of someone who can come in, let's say, of someone of a minority or female, you know, a BIPOC person, you can say in the last,

how many years that these stations have been on the air, they haven't built the talent roster that someone could have. It should have been an easy decision that, okay, if Dan gets too expensive or Sid gets moved to another location, another show that someone let's say of color, you know, who's been maybe in the afternoon radio slot, you know, or in a less, in a less primetime position. And we talked about way back in the day, you know, when, how Strombo and, and Makowitz got their start and Jeff Merrick,

even who's on a, on a prime position right now on Sportsnet, I think they started at one, two in the morning on the plane. And there was that sort of utility or the bench position that you could have, you know, created now that someone could have come up. We say Donovan Bennett right now. And I really like Donovan Bennett, but I'm going to agree with Hebsey. And I know he mentioned it on his show. I think with Donovan and Tim,

you have two of the exact same kind of skill set and you need the yin and the yang. You need sort of the vanilla and and chocolate if you know sort of different flavors yeah we might want to change that analogy you know you don't Milan you don't have to be careful Milan you're a person of color so you're I mean you're exempt let's face it it's no but as a listener from a fan's perspective right right I want the two best I want to be entertained and and donovan's great but again i don't think you mentioned earlier in the intro again about you know being that best friend that you've listened to all these years and that's every time we do one of these shows that's the sad part we're talking about sort of you know the reduction of all the people that we've

listened to for all these years whether it's bob mccowan or or whoever and all this kind of stuff so again i'm going to go back to blaming or whoever and all this kind of stuff. So again, I'm going to go back to blaming Rogers and Bell and some of the major media companies for not, you know, developing that young talent. You can say of the next generation, whether it's female again or minority to take over these spots. I tell you what, I think that, yeah, you're right. They missed the boat. I think the problem was in Canada, for some reason, we don't like to turn media personalities into superstars. I mean, Don Cherry developed into one. They couldn't stop that train, right? There was no way. But essentially what they did was they're basically saying, you know what, we're okay with a bunch of good and even mediocre people to do these jobs right we're we're not you know as

opposed to and i'm not saying for example global could have gone out and said you know what jim and mark we're gonna like elevate you guys to this status where everybody who watches sports is gonna watch that show. We're going to give you one-off specials. Your show's on every night at 1130. We're going to take it from a cult following to really going to go places with it. And you know what?

It might have happened if it wasn't global. It might have happened if it was a CTV station. It might have happened if it was TSN in the early days. I don't know. What happened was the personality part of it, I always felt, was something that they never promoted in Canada. Do you know what I mean? Like, like I think, like, I think Chris Cuthbert's a fabulous play by play guy.

I've met him a few times, obviously, but, and from what I understand, a heck of a guy, but like, not a, like, like not for a second. Did they ever say, let's take the, let's take Chris Cuthbert. Let's put him out there, man. He's an interesting guy. Okay. He's a well-read guy. He knows all kinds of sports, got an interesting history and all that. This is the man behind the voice and really make Chris Cuthbert like a, you know, you could turn him into a star or,

and it didn't matter whether they were young, old, whatever it was, but if they had some personality and there's something to them, make them. But instead in Canada, especially it was like, no, no, no, like no no no we don't want people to get too much of an ego we don't want to turn them turn into like in the states well guess what the most popular people in the states are people that have opinions and they have a sense of humor and they take a stand and they have a personality and people are drawn to them. They're magnetic personalities. I don't have to name these people, but in Canada, there's not even a handful.

But that's done purposely, right, Hensley? That's done purposely. And what that does is it takes the entire industry down a bit because it's like, oh, no, no, we're media. We're not person. We're not turning them into personalities. That's what you should be doing. Especially with Brian Burke now leaving. You know, I look at, I look at the most, you just talked about it. What is the most entertaining panel to me?

Can't miss for me. I'll go back on YouTube and watch it. If I miss it live. Charles Barkley, Kenny Smith. That's right. With Shaq, with Ernie Johnson, with Barkley and Kenny Smith. I will go back and watch to see what they, I call it destination listening or viewing. Yeah, appointment. In the Canadian sports media, can you say does that? Nobody.

Well, I'll tell you what, there's the potential is there. From a Hockey Night in Canada panel? No. No, no, but they could do that with a Hockey Night in Canada panel because we've all seen intermissions where it's like whoever the guests are that night, everyone's kind of clicking, right? Right. You know, back in the day of Don Cherry, and when it was working, baby,

it was working, right? It was, you know, Ron and Don going at each other for seven or eight minutes. And then, you know, whatever the next segment was was a good, you know, the satellite hot stove maybe. Al Strachan was getting into it with Eric DeHatchik, with John Davidson. Anyway, the point is, is that that's the content that you're there for, I think. And what's happening is it's kind of become very vanilla. And a lot of it has to do with where people are afraid to say what's on their mind.

And usually when people say what's on their mind, that's the fun stuff. That's the fun stuff, right? fun stuff right don't hold back tell me and if it's funny even better if you have a sense of humor you can laugh about it a little bit or whatever not take yourself too seriously because let's face it it's sports casting right you know what i mean really let's not do and we get it we just we've gotten so far into what isn't sports like out of the realm of the actual game itself which is really all we love it's sort of like just i think the networks and i'm going to blame the leagues to a certain extent too i think they've forgotten about the entertainment yeah the fans what do the fans want to see but guys and tsn and bell sorry rogers and tsn in particular it's it's become an infomercial really because they don't

want to offend their their media partners you know the leagues here you know how many times did we hear about you know when ron mclean would ask the tough questions to gary bettman you know and then there was friction behind the scenes there um my understanding is that the nhl does have a say on who um you know who oh yeah they yeah oh yeah all the big companies and now the teams have even more say because they're controlling the own message from the locker room and from management they'll give you we'll give you whatever they want to give you and by the way we'll allow you three questions from the media but we can choose to not answer or pick the questions that we want to or we can choose to pick the or pick the questions that we want to, or we can choose to pick the reporters,

ask the questions on the zoom calls, because we know that those reporters aren't going to give us a hard time. And if they do, you know what I mean? And that's why the Steve Simmons is, that's why the Steve Simmons is being, Oh gosh, what Steve, Steve Simmons is going to ask a question that other people won't ask an uncomfortable question, but a question that demands an answer that the fans want to know the answer to.

I never hear Steve Simmons ask questions that the fans don't want to hear the answers to. I hear him asking questions that other reporters are afraid to ask. But the scary part, Ebsi and Mike, is that Steve Simmons is of a dying breed. Also, polarizing, how many people love to hate Steve Simmons?

I mean, I, I literally booked him on humble and Fred this week and you should see the tweets. Like that's one way to have zero listeners. Like what, you know, like don't book this man. I'm like, they'll all tune in. They'll all tune in just like they all read his column. I get an email to me now. I'm a part of the email. I get it Saturday night, the Sunday notes column. It's beautiful. Hey, good for him. Right. Okay. I just find it. It's almost like a lot of, there's a, there's a,

there's a bunch of sports media consumers in this country who don't want to hear criticism of their team. They don't want to hear that Nylander is like an Ikea. I can't remember the thing, but they don't want to hear that, especially from Steve Simmons who they're seeing. But Mike, but Mike, and that's why AM Sports Radio is in the situation it's in. Okay, let's talk about that. That's why they're getting a 1.5 share,

because people are going elsewhere for the unfiltered talk. Let's talk about that. In Vancouver, so I'm not Vancouver Mike, but I hear that the big sports media station was TSN 1410, I think it was. Well, it's 1040 now. 1040, I'm sorry. What's 1410? It was 1410, and then they switched frequencies.

It's a whole story in Vancouver. You don't want to get in. So there was a TSN radio in Vancouver that was the most popular sports media station because the Sportsnet, which includes FOTM Andrew Walker, that's never had the same ratings because I guess TSN got there first, just like in this market, Sportsnet got there first. They were there for, I think, 19 years. Right. But in this big Bell Media purge a couple of weeks ago, Bell Media decided to turn it

into a funny station, just like Hamilton's Funny 820, which is a very inexpensive, automated stand-up comedy thing. You don't need to have anybody on the roster, really. One $14 an hour person has to press a button or whatever. So it's gone like the tsn station in vancouver wiped out winnipeg's tsn also wiped out and turned into a funny it's as if bell media is almost like saying we can't make money on these am stations even in hamilton too yes it to that one turn you're right that one turned to bnn like uh yes you're right there's a hamilton 1150 which is is now Bloomberg Radio or something like that. rights to the CFL team in that market. And then it was a beautiful synergy because it's TSN radio with the rights to

the CFL games, which are telecast on TSN. And they figured this is great, right? We'll just get, we'll grab the Hamilton rights off of C of, of a CHML who had had them for years and years. We're just going to start our own little satellite kind of Hamilton, you know, version of it with Thai cat stuff and McMaster or whatever. And, and, uh, but then eventually what happened was, is that the other stations in the market, the non TSN Bell owned stations, they were the ones that were spending more money and wanted to rights for the CFL games. Like in Winnipeg, the TSN station didn't have the rights to the Winnipeg blue bombers. I think that was CJ the rights to the Winnipeg Blue Bombers. I think

that was CJOB, which retained the rights. So how do you run a sports radio station if you don't have the rights? And that's the problem in Vancouver, right? Vancouver, they didn't have the rights to the Canucks. So 1050 here in Toronto, which most listeners are going to be concerned with, that has partial rights to Raptors, rights to uh leafs and that's why that station is safe for now that's right that's right the tsn 1150 in hamilton only had the tycats um which are going to end up probably going but i know they're going to probably end up the tycats are going to probably own just their own um audio rights oh like uh streaming it i guess right in montreal t the bell station Montreal, which is the TSN station,

um, has the rights to the Canadians. And I think the Alouettes, I'm not sure, but yeah, I mean, the idea being is that you were thinking, Hey,

if we own the station and we own the rights for radio and we own the rights for TV and we're heavily invested in the league, this is great. And then someone says, yep. By the way, we don't even know if we're going to have a league, this is great. And then someone says to you, by the way, we don't even know if we're going to have a league. Right. You're going, you know what? Let's get out of this radio business.

Let's get out. The only one that's surviving really is TSN 1050 in Toronto. And I think Montreal is as well. The TSN station in Ottawa that does the games for the senators is still alive there. They're the only one. And there's enough senators talk, I guess, to sustain that. I think Edmonton's got one, too, I think. Edmonton, but the Edmonton doesn't have the Edmonton station, I don't think, has the rights.

Right. So how did they survive? And that's the other one. That's the thing is that one of them does, but some of them don't. Like I say, Montreal, yes. Toronto, yes. Ottawa, yes. Out West, you're right. Maybe it is Edmonton.

Calgary does not have a TSN station. They have a Rogers station. So it's all buttled. But anyway. And of course, as mentioned here on the Facebook feed, CFL, this might be the second year in a row where there is no CFL. What is the CFL right now? It's hibernating.

What can it do? Every other league figured it out. Are we talking more of is AM radio in trouble? Even CFRB. If I tie the sports with Barb DiGiulio and Jim Richards and some of the old folks we listened to back

on the fan days. Jim did get an overnight program. I look look back on it as yeah you know being we talked about sears and i'm going to bring a retail sort of into it but it's sears cut itself they kept cutting costs cutting staff cutting it until they went out of business and that's what i fear that you know if i look at the fan a station that you know we've talked about listened to since way back in the early days since the 1430 days right i fear that's what's happening over there as well well let's talk about that what is the mic i have a bulletin here okay it's a Toronto Blue Jays have made some changes this just in from sportsnet in an effort to minimize travel and closely adhere to team

league and government protocols related to the pandemic. Sportsnet will be streaming streamlining production, sorry for the 2021 season by simulcasting TV broadcasts on Sportsnet 590, the fan and across the Sportsnet radio network. I didn't want to say I told you so, but Blue Jays fans can now enjoy the legendary voices of Dan Schulman, Buck Martinez, and Pat Tabler on both TV and radio. While Ben Wagner remains part of the Blue Jays

on Sportsnet broadcast team, joining Jamie Campbell, Joe Sittle, Hazel May, and Arash Madani in covering all the bases throughout the season. Hebsey, I called that on Hebsey. You agreed, but we both called that on Hebsey on Sports this morning. Well, earlier, no, no, I called it about a couple months ago.

Oh, yeah, I know, I know, but just... You said, what's going to happen with radio? And I said what what would be so bad with simulcasting dan shulman the great dan shulman and buck martinez okay what what would be the downfall to having those two guys voices on the radio describing a game come on but you talk more on the you have to paint the picture for the no you don't have to that's my point mike that's my point is you're so used to listening to dan showman and buck martinez you're not going to be going hey how come they're not talking to me and they're on the television broadcast they're both going to be hip to the fact that it's simulcast so they're not going to go oh look at that look at that they'll describe it they'll say well for the tv audience we're looking

at blah blah blah so milan is a prose so easy okay because forever I was told that radio call of a baseball game is different than the television call and you shouldn't be simulcasting the tv feed for radio but you're saying because these not always going to be the same Mike things change in broadcasting you should rapidly as much as anyone what used to work in the past right isn't necessarily going to work today we all have to adapt mike right you of all people with over 800 podcasts should know that this is how we adapt that ben wagner had to know once mike wilner's job was taken away he had to know that his job was in some kind of jeopardy when they didn't immediately announce his replacement.

And those of us who said, you don't fire this guy until you've hired the next guy. Well, obviously they weren't planning on hiring the next guy. They were planning on just taking these two voices here and putting them there. And I have, I don't have a problem with it as a listener because I want to hear Dan

Shulman and Buck Martinez described the game. And if I don't have a problem with it as a listener because I want to hear Dan Shulman and Buck Martinez described the game. And if I don't have a television near me, or I don't have a device where I can stream it, I'd like to listen to their voices describing the game. It's hard to argue when you have, your voice is going to be Dan Shulman because nobody does it better. Right. Right.

You don't think when the Dodger games were simulcast, Oh geez, we've got to listen to Vince Scully. Are you nuts? Yeah. You know, you, and again, are you nuts? That's the voice of the blue Jger games were simulcast, oh, geez, we've got to listen to Vince Cully. Are you nuts? Yeah, and again. Are you nuts? That's the voice of the Blue Jays, Dan Shulman. Ben Wagner was never the voice of the Blue Jays in my mind,

the same way the dome is the Sky Dome. No, that's a bad example. But again, Ben Wagner never established himself as the voice of the Blue Jays. Dan Shulman, the voice of the Blue Jays. Buck Martinez, the voice of the Blue Jays. Dan Shulman, the voice of the Blue Jays. Buck Martinez, the voice of the Blue Jays. I'm okay with that. My issue here, FZ and Mike, is that they're hiding behind the COVID rationale.

I don't think it's got anything to do with COVID. I think this is a wave of the future. It's not going away. It's not going away. It's a great opportunity to take advantage of an unfortunate situation with COVID and utilize that, even though these companies, I mean, Rogers is making a fortune. All this stuff about them losing money, that's bullshit. It is. It's out of this hand to there. You can't take money from the government, right? Assistance there. And then say, oh, well, we're losing all this money. In fact, Paul Romanak had a tremendous accounting of all of that. Recently, he posted something on LinkedIn. It was very, very interesting, a real deep dive. Basically, it's that Rogers is saying, well, we lost all this money here.

But in fact, they didn't lose that money at all. That money ended up over there, was moved to there. Very creative accounting. You know what i mean did you read the uh the bobcat uh with uh howard burger on howard burger's blog yeah interesting that bobcat still doesn't quite get like he doesn't seem to understand why would they fire me i made money like this uh and it's interesting and this is a good segue because i want to talk about the future of sports radio in this market Toronto like they just let go the program director at the fan 590 uh Dave Cadeau was his name uh do you guys have any uh

prediction or uh thoughts on you know what should the fan 590 do to right that ship Tim and Sid is gone they fired Bobcat and uh I know hebsey you're not the biggest fan of that morning show on 590 i'm not because your morning show should be your absolute best show it should be your funniest show it should be a show that's um that's appointment listening you got to tune in in the morning and if you don't have that draw okay and other look let me put this with you if you were a music station and you had sensational music you still have to have a morning team, uh, people that, that you want to wake up to every day, because that's the most loyal you could have. Right. You want, and so if it's someone that's, if you, I mean, I'm not saying that there isn't an audience

for that, but I think that if you really want to, you know, attract listeners, you've got to have big names. You got to have people that are, that are controversial. They're funny. They're entertaining. They've made a name for themselves. I know Don Collins tried that with Dean Blundell, but Dean Blundell wasn't a sports guy. And right off the bat, there was a credibility issue there, but, but had Dean Blundell been a sports guy, let's say, and had that kind of, you know, off the wall, maybe a little racy, you know, looking to make fun of some stuff, been there, done that. I had a radio show for a couple of years. I used to make fun of Mike Palmatier every night. We called him Floppy the Goaltender. Okay. We did skits. I wrote skits,

radio skits, where I was pretending to be a reporter and I wanted to interview Floppy, the goaltender, because at that time, Mike Palmatier was, if you've ever seen some video of him, was the most outrageous goaltender. The Leafs were horrible. He was flopping on his back half the time, trying to make these double pad stack saves, kick saves. They were a terrible team. He looked completely disinterested. And so we took him to task but we did stuff this wasn't even in the mornings that was pretty outrageous but people loved it it was funny we made fun of you know some of the stuff that was going on in leaf land they were such a bad team you know we had a protest in front of maple leaf gardens we burned like tickets and stuff like that

i'm not saying that that's what's got to happen nowadays, but that's how you get people talking about you. You got to do stuff, right? You got to do stuff that moves the needle and it's sports. Come on. So if you're the program director, if you're the new program director, Hebsey on the fan five 90, right. What do you do? Here's what I do. I say, I go and hire Dan O'Toole, Natasha Staniszewski, put them with Tim McAuliffe in the morning, right. I say, I go and hire Dan O'Toole, Natasha Stanishevsky, put them with Tim McAuliffe in the morning, right? And say, here we go. And I dress them all up in Blue Jays outfits or whatever. And I, and they have a fricking breakfast on the street at the corner, young and Dundas and invite everyone, whatever. And George Bell is there. And Lloyd Mosby is there and Vladdy Guerrero is there. And they make a big, huge deal out of it. They get maximum coverage, maximum. This is our new morning show, broadcasting live. And right off the bat, they're meeting people, they're together, they have this experience to talk about, and away you go.

okay if you i mean if you want to be part of the radio market if you think that it's worthwhile if not just just just hire mediocre people or you know better than average broadcasters and hope that their families and friends you love them as much so much that they're going to you know tell their friends and all that and they're going to build an audience but the only way to build an audience man is people right off the bat have got to, there's got to be a reason to what's going to make me get away from my device to listen to you. So, Oh, you've got these, those, wow. You got those people together. Wow. Well, big names. Really? We can meet them in person. Really? Wow. That sounds like fun.

Coming to my neighborhood or we're going to have pancakes together. We're going to have a cookout. I don't know, whatever it is, we're going to get to meet them post vaccine neighborhood or we're going to have pancakes together. We're going to have a cookout. I don't know. Whatever it is, we're going to get to meet them. Post-vaccine, of course. Keep part of this big launch that we're going to have. Sounds like fun to me. It was a big name.

So, Milan, you've been listening to CJCL when it was 1430. Well, The Fan when it was 1430 and 590 since day one. You probably also listened to the music of your life, probably, on the old CJCL 1430. What do you think of Hebsey's new morning show of Tim, Dan O'Toole, and Natasha? Would you listen to that? Is that what you're looking for? I don't know if those are the personalities I would, but I understand Hebsey's point in terms of the concept. I think it's more political than ever.

Internet's not as good in Richmond Hill. People, people working from home. You know, exactly. So, you know, it's more than ever.

You're going to need big names. These companies have deep pockets whether they're going to spend or not. I question it. I mean, they let go of Bobcat. They let go a lot of the high, you know, it looks like they've let go

a lot of the high income folks. But I think I agree with Habs in the sense that you do need some big names. If these companies are willing to invest. Yeah, but they're expensive. My concern is, is that they've given up on these stations other than.

Yeah. Well, we didn't mention it earlier, but when Hebsey did that great spiel about how we, in this country, we suppress the fame and the, like, we don't build up our personalities to be larger than the brand or

whatever, the network, because like it happened to Don Cherry. but what happens then is it costs you a lot of do-re-mi think about how much like what's tony romo making in uh the states like i know it's 10 times the market and everything so it's not a fair compare you can't make that comparison though no but can you divide by 10 and do that like that way no you can't and here's why because tony romo is a superstar and they try to promote Tony Romo as Tony Romo. He does Skechers commercials. He's a major personality.

They don't do that in Canada. They don't do it in Canada. But isn't that because of Do Re Mi? Isn't that why? No. I told you before, Mike. It's because Canadians don't want to put other Canadians in a position

where their ego can get away with them. One day they might live in a gated community somewhere and drive a Rolls Royce, God forbid. We as Canadians try to tone that down. That's why the really talented people that deserve that opportunity end up going to the States. You think Alex Trebek was going to stay in Canada doing Reach for the Top when he could go be himself on Jeopardy, have a personality, and he might be recognized as Alex Trebek and not the guy from Jeopardy whereas in Canada is aren't you the guy from that show you know what I mean okay but Bobcat's house is was listed I think it's still listed for like 11 million dollars or something like so what does that have to do with it maybe he made some other great investments you

think he was making like a fortune here okay and even so comparatively speaking would he have been that guy in the states probably one of the few but even so he was a toronto guy tony romo's a national guy would you as the new pd for the fan 590 would you bring back bobcat no no i wouldn't because first of all to introduce a whole new audience to what bob does i don't think would be fair. I think he would have to have an established enough audience already from the people that had listened to him before. And also too, that his show would be different and better because the last incarnation of Bob was people saying stuff like, you know, he's alien in sometimes, he doesn't sound that interested,

you know, he's grumpy Bob and that type of thing so it's not like you know even though his numbers were good and such like that it's not like he was like you know there was no way he was going to get let go that was part of an overall plan i guess it was it was bob later it was don cherry eventually it was if you fly under the radar salary wise you're probably okay but if you're making big bucks right because think about it kip rios was making good dough mclean was making good dough i'm sure shannon was making good dough and let's face it if you're a bean counter and you're going oh okay what are these guys exactly doing they're sitting around while the game is going on watching the game between periods they're talking about it they're making some notes they're doing some

research they're watching other games but to a layman to a bean counter they go what the hell are we why are we paying these people this money we're not getting our value out of these people right right even if it's 150 grand a year or 200 grand or whatever it was it's like well wait a minute and what and we're paying them for and they're working six months out of the year and they're and they're doing what exactly that's's a tough one. If you're not in the business to look and go like, what are they doing in their eight hours? Stuff like that. And so they're making how much immediately any good bookkeepers like, well, there's an expense gone. Oh, we got six people like that. Eight people like that. And let me tell you, even in

the business now, there there are there are women who are on mat leave for example are going to come back to a a role that's going to be completely different than what they left because because the landscape's changed and and their colleagues are gone a lot of them are gone or they've been shuffled or there's something else and they're going to have to wonder okay well they can't can me because I'm on mat leave. That's against the law. But who's to say when I come back from mat leave that my job isn't numbered or my hours are down and they can justify not paying me or my contract isn't renewed or that type of a thing. Right.

What were you going to say there, Milan? I would bring back Bob. I think looking at the numbers, especially the recent books, and Bob would have to take a big pay cut you know yeah yeah that's why I say you asked me if I was a program director I couldn't go to Bob and say Bob will give you 150 grand to do primetime sports they they they've got to stop the bleeding I don't think it's I don't think it'd be a long-term hire maybe at this time would be a good time to groom someone with Bob to eventually maybe take over that slot. Oh, you think Bob's going to like that?

But you got to stop the bleeding. These numbers are horrific right now. What they're producing right now, especially in the afternoon and the morning show you can't have, I'm sorry. And I keep picking on him and I apologize. But Mike Zygomanis cannot be the co-host of a Toronto morning radio show he just can't he'd be great I'm sure hockey central or you know the pre-game show but you cannot have him as your morning guy you just can't so in a case of Bob McCann because I can't think of any names you talked about bringing big names back I agree with you but i think if you're serious about the station

you got to bring back a big name these listeners are going elsewhere whether it's to overdrive or to various different podcasts uh but you got to stop the bleeding somehow and the only way we're going to do that is to have a star a big name to give people, you know, a reason to listen to, like I mentioned before, how I remember, you know, even years ago, listening to the fan and there'd be certain guys who, you know, you would stop doing what you're doing to listen to them, whether it be a Howard Berger or even a Wilner, whether you love him or hate him. A lot of these, you know, polarizing guys that I'd have to stop, you know, may park on the side even,

or get off the phone because I want to listen to what they had to say. How many people can I say that about now? I can't think of any really, to be honest with you, that is destination listening. No sandpaper. There's no Hebsey's anymore out there. Like the Hebsey's a great example. And I can speak because I am not Hebsey, but I know Hebsey though. I'm a friend of Hebsey, but Hebsey is a polarizing guy because he tells it like it is. There's, I don't, I don't think there's any of that.

And Brian Burke was, I mean, I didn't love Brian Burke and on sports net because he always looks so miserable to me. I just, he just seemed like he was hating being there and doing his job. Like I had an issue with that. I'll be very honest,

but at least he, he said he had a bit of sandpaper to him. You know what I mean? Like he's one of those guys. So I find it. And I mean, there's a good opportunity just to address this, that it's interesting how he was there.

And I always thought maybe he's being, he's going to be the next Don Cherry or something. Like he's going to do something in the intermission and tell it like it is. I don't even know what they've got going on in the intermission anymore, because I don't even watch anymore. I watch my game and then I go off and do something else and then I come back for the second period or whatever. Mike, just getting back, we talked

about what Hebsey would do if he was a program director. What do you guys think will happen though? I don't think they're bringing back the big names. What is the future of sports radio here? Is there a future? I don't know. Are there going to be more simulcast? Is this where we're heading now?

Yep. Cost cutting. What's happening now is whoever's entering the business of sports media has to be a one man or one woman band, right? You've got to be able to, if you're in video, you got to be able to shoot, edit, write, interview, right? And then, you know, put all that together as well and be able to do it on multiple platforms. So you've got to have a way with words. You've got to be able to construct sentences and put stories together. You've got to have contacts as a reporter. You have to be able

to know the quality of, you know, you have to know what to shoot if you're shooting the video, if you're even allowed to shoot the video, or eventually you're going to use what the team supplies for you, which is the way it was back in the day right you know i don't have any oshawa generals footage well jim would make a call and the generals would send over a tape you know of some game highlights or whatever and we would utilize that on our show you know we're not going to go shoot it and well the same kind of is now it's almost like we don't why should we spend money on someone to go and shoot something when the team is going to supply that so that's all part of the idea of all of these broadcasters eventually are going to have to do more than just what they're doing now on multiple formats okay

and i'm not saying that but the day may come where chris cuthbert at the end of the after he's done his show and is off to do the next hockey broadcast has to do a blog or has to do something or an audio thing, a little commentary saying, you know, it was a great game last night and we're looking for, you know, something to that effect. And this is where I say, where that's why the, the personalities of these people have to come out. We're seeing more and more documentaries. I know Fred Van Vliet's a hell of a ball player. I don't know much about him as a person. Oh, there's a documentary coming out. I'm interested in Fred Van Vliet. And so I think that if you put the idea into people's heads, that you're going to find out a little more about some of these people and they're going to make

them more human to you, personal to you, that it's going to be up to these people to say, all right, you're out in the road. You're doing, you know, you're not doing anything where you're on the flight, write a blog, give me a little audio clip so that when the day is done, Chris Cuthbert has just done play by play of a game, right? Has a day off until his next game or two days off. And in those two days has, has put something out on Twitter. You know, maybe a commentary has written a little blog, a little something a little about his experiences or some little thing like 31 thoughts, the podcast, whatever they'll note.

And there he is on multiple platforms and he's, you know, earning, he's earning his paycheck according to the bean counters, but they're just asking him to do more. Right. But they're not happening. It's already happening that way. We need you to do more. But you have someone like Steven Brunt, one of the greatest broad, you know, I haven't heard Steven Brunt. What's he doing now? Exactly. Where can I, where can I listen to Stephen Brunt or he sees Stephen Brunt? Yeah. It's on writer's block, I guess on, on the afternoon show.

And see, that's just it. I don't listen two to four. Is it? Yeah. I'm not available. Oh, that's the Jeff Blair show. Right. Right. Right. But here, here, you got a gold mine with a guy there who you're not using enough. And then when he does do something, you question whether it's too Rogers friendly, right? With the whole Shapiro piece. Oh, right. That was a documentary feature. You question the, it's a glorified infomercial. Right. You know, where's our Canadian 30 for 30? It's too expensive to produce probably. And so again, this cutback, cutback, cutback until you're left with nothing.

People are going elsewhere. They're going to podcasts. They're going for unfiltered talk. I think Canadians still want that. As a sportsman, I know I want that. And it's, we talked about Steve Simmons. He's of a dying breed and it's sad who is who is next the next generation steve simmons because all of these guys we talked

about being vanilla and again i know i keep knocking you know but i can't tell the difference still to this day between arden's welling the ben nicholson smith to to to a lot of these other personalities. Gregor Chisholm. Yeah, all very talented, I'm sure. But like you said, Hebsey, they're not allowed to showcase their personalities. Yeah. I always loved listening to news and commentary or sports and commentary. Dave Hodge would do sports and commentary.

So he would read the story. He wouldn't just read the score. He'd say the story. And then he would comment on it like, like you and I would. And it was refreshing. And it was, why aren't all broadcasters like this? I used to listen to Brian Henderson on chum, Rick Hodge on chum FM. I mean, these guys would say stuff, you know, I was similar when I was doing it, except I was working for the station that had the rights to the blue jays and the leafs so i had to be more careful and i had a talk show which was even tougher because right you know i wanted to kick the you know what out of jerry mcnamara the

leafs general manager but it just so happens that all their games were on my station okay and if i was to keep it up then mr ballard would take the rights to another station which he did eventually okay uh and i lost my job it was like wait a second for someone that's for someone with a bit of a vision needs to come in i can get my highlights anywhere within seconds whether it's on any sort any form of you know social media on a website i can get my you know the basic news the basic highlights like that what i need then is someone who will give me real opinions. I think there's a huge opportunity for someone. If someone's got the balls, they come in and do it, you know, but they have to do it independently. They have to do it.

They have to roll their own like Hebsey. I don't think Rogers or Bell has the stomach or the, the, what I want would want the risk of having somebody on who's going to tell it like it is. Well, McCowan did it. Why? McCowan always called them the suits and got away with it. Good for him, man.

Listen, when you would say the suits, and you pictured those guys going, what's he saying about us? You loved it. I mean, I love McCowan for that. I tell you that right now. It was like, look, I'm not taking any of this crap. I say what's on my mind. Right.

And we love that. We knew you were getting that. Right. But it's gone. That's gone. I do it. No, I agree with you. Don cherry's gone if mccowan could come back in that capacity just like you know not streamlined at all like mccowan raw right like he was like if you ever heard mccowan in his early days like i was his producer right he was wild and i i don't mean

i mean i'm talking wild in the sense that we're talking in the late 70s so just the way the world was but also imagine smoking a cigarette you got a drink going here right who's next on the phone he would man he how did sir i have a question for a guy would rant to you so sir i have a question how did you dial the phone wearing a straight jacket right yeah sir sir you're slobbering sir we can see you give yourself i mean he would cut these people to ribbons but at the same time he would allow people who were really quite um passionate about sports to have their say because you want to hear what the season ticket holder has to say you want to hear what

the person that follows the team every piece of news everything about say you want to hear what the person that follows the team every piece of news everything about them you want to hear what they have to say right not if it's some guy going i think the leafs should trade this guy for a bag of pucks but i'm you know talking real commentary people didn't give the fans enough credit for being knowledgeable and curious and have suggestions and i love that and mccowan loved that stuff. Put them on the air. Okay. But that's what you need. You need people to put people, you need people that are on the air to get people on the air that are enthusiastic, that are funny, that are blasphemous for all I care, but,

but just different. Okay. But Wilner took a lot of heat, the, you know, and we should, you know, talk about his new role at the Toronto star, but Wilner took a lot of heat for being, what did they call him? I remember now, condescending and arrogant with regards to some of the calls he was taking on Jay's talk. But he was right though sometimes, wasn't he? He wanted to do the same thing.

I loved it. He wanted to cut that guy off. I'm on the record and I've never hid from this. I loved Wilner on Jay's talk. The best. I don't want the person doing the Jay's talk to be like agreeable. I don't want Roger Lajoie doing my Jay's talk. You know what I mean?

No offense to Roger. He's a lovely, lovely man. What do you mean no offense to Roger? You just said it right there. I don't want Roger Lajoie doing Jay's talk. My Roger's good at certain things, but you don't want him doing Jay's talk. Grab him in the back and then pull it. When 590 pulls the plug.

I agree, Mike. Wilner was jay's talk wilner was not and i just never could see wilner as the play-by-play or color guy because he was jay's talk the same way i know people said to me say hebsey i'm really sorry buddy but to me you're the guy that did the hebsey awards the funny guy right that's you you're not an interviewer you're not a this you're not a that you're not a this. You're not a that. You're not a news person. You're Hebsey, the guy with the sports bloopers. And it took me a while to accept it. If that's the way the person to look at me, I'll try my best to show them how well rounded I am. But if that's their opinion of me. Right. I guess that's your the original. I think they've given up. Honestly, I think this I that's what it tells me.

So it's in the Jays talk last year. It was Josh. Someone I think I would always look, look for it. I couldn't Rob Wagner's going to do, do J's talk. Yeah, probably you're probably on TV and radio. They're going to simulcast everything from television.

Here's an organization. Rogers. I just spent what? About $150 million on George Springer have jacked up. The payroll are going to have no fans likely this year. And they're not, I think they're not broadcasting any spring training likely this year and they're not i think they're not broadcasting any spring training games no they're not commercial you could have

in fact the radio so what they're going to do is every spring training game that they're going to telecast right is going to come from some other source not sports net right which means they can't do any radio spring training games at all right right because there's no simulcast of the tv game because we're not doing the tv games unless they're doing i'm looking at the schedule unless they're doing maybe four games they're going to produce because don't they have to produce some games for their own spring training because that's where they're going to start the regular season in dunedin at that stadium wouldn't they already be there with camera positions exactly i don't want to be the voice of the Jays right now.

Yeah. Rehearsing, huh? Right. And how much could it cost? You're going to be setting up there anyways with Showman and Buck. Fans are dying for something. It's like, oh, wait a second. There's a shot of George Springer in the batting cage.

Exactly. Oh, could you get a close-up? Like, it's a shot from, like, 50 feet away. Right. Right. Right? Like, somebody, like, a spy is doing it. Doe-ray me.

The best commercial you could have for your product that you own and broadcast and you're not going to do anything until, until the opening day at Yankee stadium. Come on. Death by a million cuts. Death by a million cuts. And that's what scares me that I think it's all going to be about cuts and it's going to be simulcast. I think I wouldn't be surprised that it comes to the day that the fan five nineties basically a simulcast or whatever they're doing on sports net television.

And you know who you can blame? If you want to blame somebody for all of this, it's Google and Facebook, right? Because Google and Facebook, they get 80% of the advertising dollars right now. I was just going to say that. They're all fighting over scraps. All the MSM that own this world forever forever they're fighting over the scraps left over whatever Facebook and Google don't pick up it's all there everyone's fighting over the rest it's like a subset of a subset like uh it's it's yeah it's crumbs so they're all it's almost like they're

in maintenance mode it's like and I keep thinking about Bell Media saying we aren't gonna have BTS and radio anymore because we could be funny 820 and pay one person 14 bucks an hour to keep this automated 24 seven automation. It's why humble and Fred aren't on the radio anymore because that's not automated. That's actually two human beings talking live. There's no room for that anymore. Everything's in maintenance mode. It's,

it's all unraveling. Yeah. Like what could Greg saying so many possibly do to increase the ratings of this station simulcast the tv station hebsey's on that's exactly what's going to happen they're going to focus on sportsnet television and it's all going to get simulcast on fucking 590 yeah right that's the cheapest way to do it and you know as a company you know if they say listen if we send if if we use this synergy if we create the content and we put that content out on multiple platforms, we save ourselves money. And no one said that you couldn't do a show and just say, let's just take the audio from that

and put it on radio. Now, is it going to sound as good as radio? Of course not. Radio wasn't meant to be that way. Can be done it's been proven it can be done it can be proven it can be done no problem at all i could put a camera in a studio and say all right you're a tv show right and the audio will sound you know people listening on radio won't know that it's a tv show unless it's referred to that way right and eventually what will happen is uh you'll go back to the days when they did simulcasts, right? A lot of teams, a lot of NBA teams have been simulcasting their games from TV. It's the TV play-by-play call. They eliminated the radio guy.

The radio side suffers, though, Hebsey. I agree with you. It's not enough money at stake. They'll lose a few people or whatever, but they don't sacrifice enough dollar bills i i'd argue at this point at one point wasn't primetime getting more than a 10 share on the drive home oh yeah i'm pretty sure they were up around yeah yeah big big numbers brady and walker what are they down to now brady and walker once had a pretty monster book as i recall uh in the mornings uh at five oh they did yeah no doubt about it they you know what they did they brought in people's habits have changed and especially now with the pandemic there's less traffic on the roads

less people are listening uh the experts are saying no there aren't but it's it's you've got to believe that way but the fact is our habits changed from the time that games were postponed right and once you found new habits right it's not so easy to go back to the old yeah right and that's why see if there's an easy way if there way, if there's a shortcut to get to that, what do I need to go back to the way it was before? Let's just use the shortcut we've been using. Such a great point, because that's why you can't just slide Macau at a discounted rate back into the afternoon drive and pick up where you left off, because all those listeners have either gone to Overdrive, because Overdrive probably loves Rogers for that decision. They either went to Overdrive or they discovereddrive probably loves Rodgers for that decision.

They either went to Overdrive or they discovered, hey, I can Bluetooth Hebsey on sports or another podcast. Yeah, exactly. They can listen to five different sports podcasts instead of listening to the guy they listen to every day. So they're not going to go back to terrestrial radio all of a sudden just because Bobcat's back. I don't think it may be.

I think he's still a big enough name, though. I still believe he's the last remaining. Let me pause, you guys, because I do need to talk about what happened with Doug Smith, because I'm aching for your perspective on this Fast Time Milan. But just really briefly here, I do wish we were in my backyard right now, although it is cold, so maybe it's better we're doing it on Zoom, because I would give you guys some fresh craft beer from Great Lakes Brewery. I know Hebsey loves the Red Leaf Lager.

I take care of you and I do owe you. So this will happen whenever you're back here. I would love to give you guys some Palma Pasta Lasagna. I've got a bunch of new stickers from StickerU. Shout out to StickerU. If you need some fast time stickers, Milan, StickerU will take care of you. There's StickerU.com.

If anyone listening, it's not going to be you two gentlemen, although Milan, maybe it is you, but if you're responsible for a network of computers, a network, computer network, and you want to consider, if you're considering outsourcing your IT, I strongly urge you to contact CDN Technologies. My good friend, Barb Paluskiewicz,

would love to speak to you. You can write her now. It's Barb at CDNTechnologies.com, or you can call her. It's 905-542-9759. Ridley Funeral Home. I had a great chat with Brad Jones the other day. Ridley Funeral Home is here in New Toronto, 14th and Lakeshore. Fantastic supporters of The Real Talk here.

Brad's been, he was even at the TMLX we had in the summer. Pay tribute without paying a fortune. You can learn more at RidleyFuneralHome.com and last but not least, before we get into the Doug Smith story there, Mike Majeski is the newest sponsor of Toronto Mike. I call him Mimico Mike. He's been ripping up the Mimico

real estate scene. His motto is actually in the know in Mimico. So if you, uh, Milan are considering moving South to, uh, Mimico, Mike is your man, Mimico Mike, go to realestatelove.ca to learn more about him. Doug Smith. Let me go to my notes here. Cause I have the exact tweet. I don't want to make, get this wrong here. So he tweeted, uh, he tweeted, I'll just say it. Dwight Howard's more of a thug than a basketball player right now. And I saw on Twitter when this happened, I saw like, I saw hundreds of people replying to let Doug know that was a, an offensive term to use in that context. And he shouldn't be using the word thug. There's some racial connotations there. I saw some people

saying that, why don't you just say the word you want to say, which was a suggestion that he's thinking, and this is a suggestion by a tweeter, that he was thinking the N-word. Now, of course, of course, that's grossly unfair to Doug Smith. But a lot of people did tell him immediately that he should delete that tweet and apologize. It was inappropriate. And it lingered for a long time until Doug tweeted this. Having heard from one woman I respect greatly

and whose opinions I hold dearly, I have deleted an earlier tweet and apologize for using a word I shouldn't. Even if it was inadvertent, I should have said, I'll just say it. Dwight Howard's more of a basketball bully than a basketball player right now. Milan, I'm starting with you because I did chat with Hebsey about this on Hebsey on Sports, but we'll get his perspective again. But Milan, what do you think about these tweets from Doug Smith the other day? Milan, are you there? He's frozen. Is he? Oh, you know what?

It's like it's you and me, buddy. I thought it was a pregnant, a pregnant pause, a pregnant pause. Are you there Milan? Yeah. Okay. A few technical issues here. Can you hear me okay? What are your thoughts on the Doug Smith tweets where he used the word thug for Dwight Howard? You know, I think I think

I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think

I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think

I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think

I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think

I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think

I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think

I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think

I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think I think he's gone what a shame he should have known better you know a little bit of a tone deaf common sense plays into this and i i you gotta look at intent and i don't think there was any racial intent on his part but as a sports writer who's supposed to be a master of words i've been i've been listening to him for years i don't i don't i don't want to guess what he meant but that's just i don't believe that's a word you should use today.

There are better words to use. Let's put it that way. What did you think of his follow-up, that a woman he trusts told him it was inappropriate, so he was deleting it and apologizing, even though there had been hundreds and hundreds of people who had been telling him that exact same thing? The suggestion is that perhaps maybe this one woman he trusts,

now he'll do it but he's not going to do it because these these hundreds of people told him he should uh delete like am i reading too much into that malone uh tough to say you know i i finished reading his book actually not too long ago and uh well my guess is that and he's very close friends with demar de rosen and some prominent players you know and right and i wouldn't be surprised if some of them he probably asked for their sort of you know I I think what basically happened here is that you know listen if this thing escalates you're probably talking about someone who could have lost his job you know so I think it was important that you mentioned it took a little bit of time

but that he he nipped it in the bud before this thing sort of escalates I don't think he I don't want to guess again I don't want to speak on his behalf but I don't think he, I don't want to guess again. I don't want to speak on his behalf, but I don't believe he meant any negative intent by it. But at the same time, you know, when, if this, this lady, you mentioned, and I don't know who it was, might've been someone of influence might've been someone, you know, someone who respects or someone of a powerful person. Katie Nolan is her name and she's on ESPN and she's got like over a million followers. So Mike,

was there a timeline, Mike, between when Doug tweeted this and then when Katie Nolan called him out and then he took it down? I don't know the exact number of minutes. It was not much more than like 20, 25 minutes or so. Oh, it shouldn't have been much

more than about two minutes if he got that many responses immediately saying, hey man, take it down. Katie definitely called him out. Katie called him out. This is the Richmond Hill internet infrastructure. Milan sounds like he's at the bottom

of the sea. It's a real shame. It is a shame because, okay, but uh okay but but why don't we get your perspective now and i'll come back to malone when he fixes that up yeah malone are you with us billy because your your internet keeps cutting out so yeah yeah can you hear me okay yeah say that okay and then when you go to make a point you end up sounding like you're from somewhere else maybe it's for the better right if you sit perfect you know what it's like if you sit perfectly still remember in the days when you had an antenna and someone,

like a rabbit ears and say, oh, just hold it right there. You say, hold it right there. Don't move. So it's perfect. Milan, why don't you turn off your camera so we just have your audio for the rest of the show, just so we don't waste the bandwidth on the video. Yeah. Although you're a handsome man.

I'll just tell you that right now. No problem. Can you hear me okay there? Yeah, go ahead. Excellent. Yeah, great. Okay. right now no problem can you hear me okay there yeah go ahead excellent yeah great okay so tell us about uh repeat that last thought you had i want to i want to make sure we can't about katie nolan and that's why i figured who it was but uh i wasn't sure but she definitely did call him out on on twitter and and i think that definitely resonated with, you know, I know we got to be careful with all these words and everything.

And it's, I, you got to have common sense. I think before we start, you know, calling people out, it was not the right choice of words without question. He's apologized. I hope there are no ramifications. Right. We don't want to, we don't think he does. We don't think he deserves to lose his job because he used the word thugs.

Hebsey, maybe we'll go to you instead of Robo Milan over there. He's like a cyborg. Hebsey, what's your... I feel terrible because Milan is making some great points, but I'm only catching every third word, like trying to put a jigsaw puzzle. I'm just glad that your internet for Hebsey on sports is far superior to Milan's.

Cause I don't know how we could do the show every Friday morning at nine 20. If you, if you said it like that, it's probably me. It's probably me. It's definitely you. Definitely. Definitely you,

but that's okay. We're going to go to Hebsey and then we'll close up with you, Milan. Uh, take it away. Hebsey. then we'll close up with you, Malone. Take it away, Hebsey. What did you think of the whole Doug Smith controversy there? I didn't, obviously like everyone else, I know he's not a racist. I mean, that's the most ridiculous thing to even claim that, you know, I get you that you're angry.

It was an ill chosen word, but I was disturbed when Mike, you had informed me that he had had that tweet up there for however long it was before he was called out by katie nolan and and then and the only reason he took it down was and then he acknowledged the fact that he took it down only because a woman whose opinion he respects called him out so right i think it did a disservice to all of his followers who had called him out or had thought of calling him out and then wondered why it took so long for him to acknowledge that it's a real it's not even a not a backhanded compliment it's a terrible

disservice because you're essentially saying well i don't really care that you and you and you and you and you and you you think i should take it down but if Katie Nolan says I should take it down then I'll take it down I have a question for you Hebsey because you're similar vintage to Doug Smith uh yeah uh did you know there was a racial connotation with the word thugs yes in that case I did because I think it came down to this would Doug Smith have described a white player who had done the same thing as a thug. And my answer would be not in 2021. He wouldn't, but probably in 1990,

he could call Bill Lambert a thug because everyone else was. So the connotation has is different, but again, Doug Smith should know better. This isn't a rookie journalist this isn't some kid with a trigger finger that's got to get that tweet out there really really fast so that the opposition doesn't beat him to it the scoop right this is a an opinion by doug smith random opinion where he could be sitting next to someone and said you know what that dwight

howard looks more like a thug than he looks like a said, you know what, that Dwight Howard looks more like a thug than he looks like a basketball player. You know what, I think I'm going to tweet that out. And then he says to himself, but I'm going to preface it by saying, I'll just say this, as if that clears him of something else. It was poorly thought out,

the fact that he didn't take it down for 20 minutes, and then the fact that he sent a second tweet out, which really bothers me. That really bothers me. And that one's still there. So he hasn't, he has not deleted that. And then his apology was very self,

very self-centered. Yeah. It should have been very simple. I screwed up. Right. It won't happen again. I apologize sincerely. And please, let's move on. But instead, it was this all rambling apology. You know, people know I'm not like that

and all that stuff. And my colleagues, it was just very kind of, you know, this isn't really about you, Doug. And by the way, Doug, did you contact Dwight Howard? Will you let us know if you contacted Dwight Howard, the man that you slighted, not intentionally, but that you did slight? Did you contact Dwight Howard to say, Dwight, I just want to let you know, I really apologize for the tweet that I sent out. I did not mean it that way at all. I meant to say, you know, that you were a tough guy or words to that effect. I chose the wrong word and I apologize. And did Dwight, did you do that?

And did Dwight Howard accept your apology? That I would like to know. Not, here's how I feel. Here's how I feel. I'm not like this. This isn't, no, no. I've contacted Dwight Howard. I've apologized to Dwight Howard.

I apologize to you. It won't happen again. End. Well said. Milan, are you with us now? Yes, I'm here. Can you hear me? Yeah.

Just making sure you're still here. So, Fassan Milan, in the final moments here, I know you're a big fan of Caroline Schwed. You saw that she tells us that she resigned her position at Sportsnet, and she's going to be doing something else, I think an independent venture. I don't have the details at this moment, but I just want to acknowledge that change as well.

I mean, according to her, she left of her own volition at Sportsnet. I know you're disappointed. I thought she was really talented. I wish they'd given her more of an opportunity. Yeah, Milan, the producer's giving me the sign. The conversation you had with

Michelle Strachan. Alright, Milan, it's okay. Dying moments here. Fast time watch and jewelry repair. Hebsey's going to buy a watch for his girlfriend. We hope she's not listening right now. You do great work there. All FOTM should sponsor you. But next time we do this, hopefully it's in the backyard because I can't handle this Richmond Hill internet. So we'll go close up with Hebsey. Hebsey, any final thoughts or words, anything we didn't discuss that you think is appropriate for this round table discussion of Canadian sports media? I don't think so, Mike. I think the fact that there was serious breaking news

and still is as we're recording this, because the Jays have announced that they're going to produce three games this spring. Wow. Right? Only three, as we had just discussed recently, getting ready for the regular season. The assumption is that those three games will be simulcast on the Fan 590

and that there will not be any other broadcast. So even thinking that the Fan 590 might pick up the New York Yankees radio broadcast of the Jays-Yankees, I don't think so. Better than nothing, though. Agreed. Agreed. Better than nothing, though. Agreed. Agreed. Better than nothing. And so the one good thing about it is this.

Yeah. It saves the fan and Rodgers a tremendous amount of money on the radio side, which will be spent to get the morning trio of Tim McAuliffe, Dan O'Toole, Natasha Staniszewski. And what you've done is I'm thinking that you've drastically reduced Ben Wagner's salary unless he's on a contract. I don't think he was making that much play by play or not. You've eliminated Wilner salary, right?

You've eliminated any engineering that goes with putting together the radio broadcasting of itself. And unfortunately, and I hate to say this, and I hope that Tom Young's job is safe in the radio booth, but I don't i hate to say this i hope that tom young's job is safe in the radio booth but i don't know how that's going to work the engineer for the jays um right he's the road engineer too so god who knows and these are things i'm thinking about now because sportsnet just like half an hour ago started making these rapid fire, like we were talking about with TSN. Okay, what's next to fall?

What's next that's going to happen? And I think, Mike, we're going to get an announcement on some type of radio programming and maybe program director because the Jays have just shed themselves, or Rodgers has just shed themselves on the radio side of all these expenditures just now. Wow. Wow. Breaking news. I love it. Breaking news. It's, it's, it's amazing. And I, uh,

I do want to just say congrats to Wilner that he landed on his feet. Cause that's tough. You know, after so many years at the fan five 90 to get that, uh, pink slip, uh, it's kind of neat that he now has a job he's very proud of and he'd be very good at, which is, uh, he's taught writing about the blue Jays for, do we know if Dan and Buck will be traveling with the team? I assume not, right? They're going to do it from the Toronto studio? That's right.

No. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. They're going to save a lot of money there too. But not yet though, Milan, because Dan Shulman is in Connecticut and has to stay there. That's near ESPN because he's calling all these college basketball games off monitors at ESPN. And that's where he also calls,

I guess we'll be calling the Jays games from his place there. My final words I'll say before I play us out here. I can see this being the future too. They're going to save a lot of money by not having these guys travel as well. Oh yeah. Tons. But that money they save, they're not going to be eager to spend it on such big names as a Dan O'Toole or a Natasha.

That's why I'm saying that's why. They have to, their budget has to be set. So it's like, look, here's your budget. If you want to take $400,000 out of your Blue Jays radio coverage budget and take that $400,000 and put it into your morning show budget, go ahead. The money's available as long as we get rid of this cost of doing the radio broadcast.

That's an expensive morning show. Even at discounted rates, that's an expensive morning show. If you want to get listeners, you got to have good people. You also got to have some sizzle, baby. You got to have recognizable people you bring in somebody that no one's ever heard of before they better be really really good right off the bat and it's also your promotional vehicle that you've got look i remember when humble and fred all right yeah went over to mojo radio right mike they put on a show that day. Big launch and giveaways and prizes and personalities and special guests, concerts and music and comedy. It was a huge thing.

Mojo Radio. Right. Okay. Humble and Fred are leaving CFNY, FM 102, 102.1, The Edge, whatever the hell it was called. We're going to 640 mojo radio what what 640 yes it's no longer talk 640 it's no longer the hog am 640 it's mojo well that was huge yeah big splash commercials on tv where the guy's taping the toilet the toilet lit up right right it's talk radio for guys for guys only right huge right big commercials big

time i think they even had like a magazine going in an ad campaign with gorgeous women and there was a calendar there was definitely a calendar there you go all that guys radio mojo big huge huge thing right that was chorus yes big yeah happened? Well, you want to know what happened? I mean, they got their publicity and they got going and all that, but they're on 640 AM. Right. There was another problem though. I don't know if you know this.

Ken Dryden stepped in. He didn't like the content on 640. Because they did Leaf Games, right? Correct. They still had Leaf Rights, right? Right. So if you, I mean, I produce Humble and Fred today.

So if you ask Freddie P what happened with the Mojo, it basically got neutered. It got neutered because of Ken Dryden. They had to neuter it. So it was trying to be Maxim magazine on the radio and they had to completely neuter the premise.

But didn't it also... Stern had been on Q107 the year or two years prior to that without raging there was a lot of complaints and and they you know they had to have a local announcer sit in during the stern it was the uh the quebec and so so it was sort of like wait a second we had just gotten rid of howard stern and now you're telling me you're doing this mojo stuff like we had just gotten rid of that type of radio right like that type of radio of radio. Shock, shock stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting.

Milan, now that you actually have a connection, cause I'm going to just be very place, anything, any final thoughts you want to share anything we didn't cover? You just want to put on. I hope the next time we do one of these, we're talking about, you know, more hirings than, than, than firings. You know, I, I, I suggested for Hepzis, maybe you should start an expendables of sports radio personalities. You can play the slice theables of sports radio personalities you can

play the slice the lone role and then you can get all the all the the old gang back together again maybe there's a lot of talent out there is what I'm trying to say who have a voice and you know as a fan who I miss dearly well said Milan I'm glad your internet came back again hopefully next time we do this it's a nice summer day in the backyard and we can maybe from 10 feet apart, we can have another great conversation. So thank you so much for being here today with another great Sports Media Roundtable.

Hebsey, of course, you're the host of Hebsey on Sports. People should pause this podcast, search for Hebsey on Sports, H-E-B-S-Y, by the way, is Hebsey, and subscribe. I also am on that show, so if you're like me, you get some more of me.

That could be a good thing or a bad thing, depending, but you are listening to Toronto Mike, so you might like it. And Milan, tell us again about where people can learn more about the locations and deals at Fast Time.

Visit FastTimeWatchRepair.com. Visit us here in Richmond Hill. Come by and say hi for all of your watch and jewelry repair needs. We've been doing this for 40 years and we appreciate everyone's support. And Hebsey and Mike, thanks for having me on. I got to let Hebsey go because it's been three hours of talking for Hebsey and I, so we're both in need of some rest. That and that brings us to the end of our 808th show. You can follow me on Twitter.

I'm at Toronto Mike. Hebsey is at Hebsey man. H E B S Y man. Follow Hebsey is a good follow and fast time watch and jewelry repair. Is it fast time? W J R. Yeah. On Twitter.

Our friends at great lakes brewery are at great lakes beer. Palma pasta is at Palma pasta. Sticker. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Sticker U is at Sticker U. CDN Technologies are at CDN Technologies. Ridley Funeral Home, they're at Ridley FH. And Mimical Mike, not on Twitter, but on Instagram at Majeski Group Homes. Follow him there. See you all next week.

This podcast has been produced by TMDS and accelerated by Rome Phone. Rome Phone brings you the most reliable virtual phone service to run your business and protect your home number from unwanted calls. Visit RomePhone.ca to get started.