Susan Reade: Selling Air, Building Relationships

Tara Sands (Voiceover)  0:02  
The Sound Off podcast starts now.

Matt Cundill  0:09  
Susan Reade has worked in radio since the mid '80s, starting off as an on-air personality and then pivoting successfully into sales. She has been involved with many of the major players in Edmonton radio, including Wick, Standard, Astral, Bell, Rogers, New Cap, then Stingray, and recently she announced her retirement for later this month. And I figured it would be a good time to get to know Susan. I worked in Edmonton for eight years in the 90s, and it's always fun to compare notes about what we do now and what we did then. One thing that's been consistent wherever she has worked is strong results and being a part of a winning culture, which is why she's on the show today. And now Susan Reed joins me from Edmonton, where we start towards the beginning of her radio tenure. Tell me about Janet from Another Planet.

Susan Reade  1:00  
Well, that was how I got into the business. I had always dreamed of working at Ched. I grew up with Ched Radio, and if I can even digress a little bit, it all started when I was 13, and my best friend won the city track meet for the 200 meter dash, and I thought this is worthy of calling into Chet and getting a request. So I call into Chet. Len Toosen is the drive home show host. I say this. Oh, my best friend Teresa Robertson. She won the 200 meter dash, and I want you to play We Are the Champions. And he said, Kid, I can't remember all that. You're going to do it on the air. So he puts me on the air to do it, and I nail it. And he says to me, "Kid, that was really good. You should be in radio. And that, at age 13, was when I thought that is perfect for me. And that is what I did. I got into radio. So I mean, I went to broadcasting school, etc. and I get out and I get a practicum at Chat, which is again my dream, and I was just a practicum student. And then they had a job as a street teamer that summer for a character they had already decided was going to be Janet from another planet. So they were interviewing various people to be Janet from another planet, and I guess I was wacky enough to get the job, and agreed to wear an orange Tina Turner hair fright wig, and leopard skin pants, and this crazy outfit, and drive around town. And so that's how it started.

Matt Cundill  2:33  
What high school?

Susan Reade  2:34  
Austin O'Brien.

Matt Cundill  2:36  
You know, usually when you're talking about track in Edmonton, it's always Harry Ainley.

Susan Reade  2:40  
Well, that's where my kids go. Funny enough, but no. Well, actually, I went to high school at Austin O'Brien, but this was junior high where my friend won the track meet. So that was St. Brendan's,

Matt Cundill  2:51  
and that wound up being a morning show gig too for you, right?

Susan Reade  2:55  
Yeah, yeah. So I did it for the first summer. Then I went to university. So I graduated from RTA, but I decided I wanted to go to U of A and work on a degree. So I was doing that and coming back again the next summer, and they had me back as Jennifer Another Planet. And the woman-it's funny enough-who was doing the mornings at that time was a woman named Eileen Bell. She's still at Shedd to this day, a legend actually, and she was never as comfortable with the kind of the morning show vibe. It was a little, you know, outside her comfort zone, a little wacky and offside. And she's a news person. Anyway, she had to go somewhere. I can't remember what the story was, but they said, "Well, Eileen's away. Can you fill in? And I just went in there and filled in and brought the I don't know the element that they wanted, and so they put Eileen into drive doing news where she is to this day. In fact, I think she's the news director over there now. And I began my career as Janet from Another Planet on the morning show with Rob Christie and Audie Lynn's.

Matt Cundill  3:56  
And eventually, we saw AM Top 40 begin to sort of peter off in the early 90s, and I think there was a change that took place that sort of forced Ched to go all news, and at the same time, 92 five the frequency became power 92 five at some point. Where are you in this particular period of Edmonton radio?

Susan Reade  4:16  
I am gone. So in 1989, my husband and I got married. He was a filmmaker. He had just graduated from film school at Ryerson, and he said to me, "Okay, I can't have a career if we're living in Edmonton. So you got to pick. We actually went on a long honeymoon around Europe for two and a half months, and we we just decided that while we were on our honeymoon, we were either going to go to Vancouver or Toronto, and we were going to make that decision while we were traveling. And we decided we'd go to Vancouver. So I left in August of 1989 from the show, and off to Europe, and then to Vancouver when we returned in December of 1989.

Matt Cundill  4:59  
So when did you get? Back to Edmonton.

Susan Reade  5:01  
I was in Vancouver for three years. Found it. You know, it was funny. Both my husband and I thought we'd show up in Vancouver and just everyone would be falling all over themselves to hire us in radio and film. And I discovered that that wasn't quite how it was going to work. I banged on a lot of doors and nobody opened up except I did get a job, an ill-fated job at CCNW as a talk show producer, which I was not very good at. And in the end, I got exited from there by a woman named Shirley Stalker, and she said to me as she was letting me go, she said, "You know, you have the personality for sales, and in the moment, I thought, "Well, kick me when I'm down. Thanks a lot, lady. And I was boo-hooing about it at a friend's house, and her husband, who owned a business in Vancouver, stuck his head out in the living room and said, "You do have the personality for sales. So that was when I first started thinking. Hmm, maybe I should get into sales. And funny enough, I did. But it was the company he recommended, where he started, was at a place called Pitney Bowes, which was metered mail, where you're selling postage meters. And I thought he said they're a Fortune 500 company. Go there; they'll give you good training. So I did, and I was doing really well, except that I had no mojo for metered mail. I got to be honest. And they sent us to an Anthony Robbins seminar, and I was listening to Anthony Robbins, and he says to the crowd, "If you're not selling something you're passionate about, you'll never be successful. So that was like a thought bubble appeared above my head, and I was looking around the room, and I saw a guy named Mike Bowman who had been a sales guy at Chad and was now in Vancouver. And I realized, oh my God, Mike Bowman! He's the sales guy. He's in sales radio. That's what I should do radio sales. So for whatever reason, it didn't occur to me until then, and so I reached out to Mike the next day and said, told him the whole story, and said, "Mark, I want to do what you do. And he said, "Well, by now my husband is saying to me we should move to Toronto because IMAX is based there. He he actually had a career in what turned out, he started in IMAX and was that's where he wanted to be. So he said, "Let's go to Toronto. So I told Mike, "I want to be in radio sales, but I want to go to Toronto. And he said, "Well, I'm going to hook you up with my boss, who he just moved to Vancouver from Toronto, a guy named Chris Pandorf. So he gets me a meeting with Chris Pandorf, who's the sales manager at Fox in Vancouver, and I tell my whole story. And he said, "My God, you are so motivated. If you weren't wanting to go to Toronto, I'd hire you. But if you're going to go to Toronto, no one is going to hire you because you have no experience. That's the show. But I'll give you a name: Mark Rogers. They are launching. Ralco is launching a brand new station there. It'll be a country station, and if there's any chance for you to get a job, it's with them. So he gave Mark's number. I held onto that little piece of paper and went to Toronto and called him, and so began my journey. But it wasn't even easy once I got a hold of Mark.

Matt Cundill  8:23  
I believe that was a very controversial flip, if I'm not mistaken, with that station in Toronto, or at least it was controversial when the license came out that that they got it. Because I think there was a lot of anticipation that that would go to an urban format radio station at that time. So tell me what the experience was-I mean, that story aside-but just you know, country in Toronto and and how that worked out.

Susan Reade  8:47  
Yes, it was a rocket ship. Like I have been so lucky in my career in my timing, but I did get hired with this crew, and we launched country in 1999, where there had not been an FM country station in Toronto, and this is the era of you know what I think many people considered you know a golden age of country: the Garth Brooks, the Shania Twains, Alan Jackson, you name it. And we launched at number three. We came out of that first book. I'll never forget. We had a cume of 777,000. We were number three behind. I think it was CHFI and Chum FM and Kiss FM, the Country Station. It was incredible.

Matt Cundill  9:35  
Did you have a personality for sales?

Susan Reade  9:38  
I did have a personality for sales.

Matt Cundill  9:41  
Right, because we when we talk about this, like on on the programming side, oh, you can't really teach personality. You know, you can't really teach them that stuff. But how is it different in sales? Because I've never I thought sales was just can you make sales?

Susan Reade  9:56  
Well, I think you're looking for someone who. Is curious, extroverted, so wants to meet people and learn about their business. Restless, like you have no patience. You want to move things forward. Engaging, you know, can have a very you know you're good interviewer. You're actually a good listener because that's really what is required is more listening than talking, and I just love that with radio there was a lot of creativity involved. Like you had to come up with ideas to engage people with working with us, and you know I here's a little thing I always say: if you reached out to a room of 100 people and asked them, raise your hand if you want to be in sales. I'm telling you, 10% of people would even put up their hand because most people think I don't want to do that.

Matt Cundill  10:49  
Nobody makes that plan in life.

Susan Reade  10:51  
No,

Matt Cundill  10:52  
no, and I have I've got one son who is in sales, and I'm like, okay, I don't know enough about it, even though I've worked with salespeople every day to tell you how well to do your job, or whether you're going to like it, or whether you're even going to be to be good at it.

Susan Reade  11:09  
Yeah, well, and even if so, if I say 10% of people would put up their hand, 50% of those people would not be any good at it. They think they want to do it, but they actually get out there, and they realize this isn't for me. So now we're talking 5% of people can sell something, and then what percentage of those can sell something utterly ephemeral like radio? You know, you can't see it or touch it. It doesn't come with a guarantee. Like you could sell a photocopier, you could sell a car, you could sell a house, but all those things you can test and return, except the house, maybe if you're if you're not happy with it, not radio. So now we're down to I'm telling you, I think it's 1% of people could do this, so that's why it's kind of a an exclusive club that can pay well if you're good at it,

Matt Cundill  12:02  
yeah, it reminds me of Billy Crystal in City Slickers, right? When he goes, "What's what's my life? What do I do? I'm 39 and I sell air.

Susan Reade  12:10  
Yeah, selling air exactly. It takes a special person that has a lot of the attributes, and I think weirdly, I just check them all off.

Matt Cundill  12:20  
And you found your way back to Edmonton at some point. I think it was at Easy Rock, right?

Susan Reade  12:26  
Yes. So what happened was, I started as the rookie at Kiss FM in Toronto, and by the time they sold the station, so this is what happened: they sold it to Rogers and flip format. So it went from being a country station to an urban kind of hip hop station. I don't know if you recall that, and so I had been the top biller at that point. So I was like, "Are you kidding me? Like my account list is decimated from country to urban hip hop, and I just at that moment, I knew I was going to have to start all over again, as we all were. You know, we was retained by Rogers, but I was going to have to start all over again. And I had a had had a daughter born there, and she's about 18 months old. And all our family was back here. My husband Dylan was traveling globally for IMAX, shooting IMAX films, and gone for large chunks of time, and so I was trying to juggle working and being a mom with no family there. And I often say my best closing in a sale was selling my husband on moving back to Edmonton, but he was working at that point. He was well established, and he was didn't need to be in Toronto. He was going anywhere in the world, so it didn't matter anymore. So we moved back to Edmonton then. So I was cast. I decided I wanted to come back casting about for work and got hired as a salesperson at Easy Rock, which was owned by Telemedia at that point,

Matt Cundill  13:56  
and a pretty good station too, right? It was you know the traditional AC station.

Susan Reade  14:01  
Yes, I loved it.

Matt Cundill  14:04  
Yeah, I mean, I'm not here to say it's an easier sale than other formats, but everybody knows what they get. There was a perception, I think, with that format that dentist office at work listening, people listening all day, tons of time spent listening. Again, not an easier sale per se, but oh,

Susan Reade  14:22  
it was easier.

Matt Cundill  14:24  
An easier sale. Yes, it was then. Okay,

Susan Reade  14:26  
we used to call it Easy Street because we would go. You know what? It was objection free. There was nothing. It had a great audience. Women who make most of the buying decisions in a household. It was family friendly. On in the car. On at work, it was really I found it easy to sell that station, you know. Country in Toronto, as much as our ratings were great and we had a good run, there was still you know some people still didn't get it that country was you know a thing in very urbane Toronto, so that. Was more challenging.

Matt Cundill  15:02  
Well, it's not just not as many cowboy hats.

Susan Reade  15:04  
Yeah, it's like you know, again, coming from Alberta, I got country music, but not everybody in Toronto did at the time.

Matt Cundill  15:12  
So this is to the point of the country and as well the AAC stuff. The 90s, 80s were an era where it wasn't what you listened to; it's what you remember listening to, and so not everybody's going to stand up and say, "Yep, for sure, I listen to country, just because what you say and what you do are two different things. And as well, later I think when the PM meters came out in the late 2000s, we found out that the AECs, the Easy Rocks, weren't really listened to as much, and for as long as we thought, people had a lot of other choices. I mean, say, "Oh, I listen to these three stations. Turns out, it was seven or eight radio stations.

Susan Reade  15:50  
Yeah, they punch around the dough.

Matt Cundill  15:53  
Yeah, you you didn't listen to AC radio all day, and so you know when the PPM meter came in, that sort of those disappeared. Jazz radio disappeared. So, from a sales perspective, and as we moved into the into people meters, of which you were a part of in Edmonton, because that's the way it worked. How did that change sales?

Susan Reade  16:14  
Ooh, that is an excellent question. I would say we immediately saw an erosion of unit rate because there was more listening to more stations. It kind of watered everything down, and so at that point, I was the sales manager of the Bear and Easy Rock, actually, and we were making 30% more on our units pre PPM when we were using diary, so that was the first thing was a kind of a gut wrenching drop in what we could charge.

Matt Cundill  16:47  
By the way, that's how we missed each other because I think Standard Radio purchased Easy Rock in 2002 ish, and I left and you came in.

Susan Reade  16:58  
Yes, it was around. I'm going to say might have been 2003 when we joined together, but that's a little foggy for me. But yeah, right around then.

Matt Cundill  17:08  
I remember it was you know January 2002. I left to go to to show them in Montreal, which was also owned by Standard, and I so I missed that radio station coming into the building. So the three stations at the time were going to be whatever was on the AM station, which eventually became TSN Sports or Team Sports or whatever it was.

Susan Reade  17:26  
Yeah, it was first. It was Team, and then it was TSN.

Matt Cundill  17:29  
Yeah, and Easy Rock would have been sort of the AC station, and then the Bear would have been the Hard Rock station. So, tell me about selling the Bear in the time after I left.

Susan Reade  17:40  
So, in the time after you left, I was a sales rep at Easy Rock, and we had two separate sales teams. So there was a bear sales team, and there was the Easy Rock team, and that persisted for years while I was there. So I really wasn't ever selling the bear, but I did become the retail sales manager at Easy Rock, there at the end, briefly before I was recruited by Rolco, the same company that owned Kiss FM in Toronto, to become their station manager for their new station, a smooth jazz station called Magic 99. So I left and went to Magic 99 to launch this smooth jazz license that they had for Edmonton. I eventually went back after three years at the Smooth Jazz Station. Well, three years at the Smooth Jazz Station, one year at Sonic, and then recruited back to come in as the GSM of that cluster. So now I'm sell. I'm the sales manager of the Bear and Easy Rock and what became TSN?

Matt Cundill  18:42  
Yeah, so I don't even know what's on that Magic 99 frequency anymore.

Susan Reade  18:46  
Well, now it's a station called Up, so Magic was a tough sell in Edmonton in the Swiss chin.

Matt Cundill  18:54  
Yeah, well, that was the discussion of jazz, right? I mean, listen, Montreal has a jazz festival and it's huge, and so you'd think a jazz station would work there. It does not. My blood alcohol level is higher than the ratings for that jazz station. Pretty much after one trip to the jazz festival.

Susan Reade  19:12  
Yeah, it it was it was tough. It really was. In fact, we had a consultant, country and jazz, a guy named Doug Pringle. I don't know if you know the name Doug Pringle. Oh my gosh, such a genius guy! But he said to me in his British accent, which I will do a very poor job imitating. But he said, "You picked the tough assignments: country in Toronto and jazz in Edmonton, and laughed so hard about that. But I always say a good sailor isn't made in calm waters. You get good at this when it isn't easy, and both of those were not easy. But it was, yeah, it was interesting. It was short lived, and they became up, which is classic hits station, and they do very well.

Matt Cundill  19:56  
One of the things that really attracted me to moving to Ed. In the mid '90s, was the fact that there were so many radio stations in competition, and as it was explained to me that sometime in the '80s it was thought that the city was just going to grow and grow until the recession hit. But there were tons of radio stations to choose from. But in the 2000s, so many more stations hit the air that I think it was almost like 16 or 17 FM signals. How do you fight your way through that mess? Not only on the programming side, but also on the sales side.

Susan Reade  20:29  
Yeah, well, that they all came at once. You know, it was just in rapid succession. Magic 99 was one of them that popped up. Now radio popped up, Sonic and hot.

Matt Cundill  20:41  
I'm sorry. Are we talking about radio stations or fabric softener?

Susan Reade  20:45  
So all of a sudden, we had all these stations, and this is where opportunity presented itself for many of us, like me, getting you know an opportunity for a bigger role with a brand new launch. But it was hard because it was so competitive, and you know the problem really, you know I think people would say that Edmonton was over licensed, and all of a sudden, from a sales perspective, we had a glut of inventory. So nobody was selling out now. Everybody had inventory, and it's hard to drive rate when the guy next door isn't sold out, and they'll lower their rate, and so that combined with PPM, it all kind of happened within a short time frame. Really put downward pressure on rates, and that was unfortunate. That was the challenge.

Matt Cundill  21:35  
Yeah, I mean, it doesn't necessarily have to be radio because there's always somebody out there who's willing to give away their product for nothing just to have you try it for three months to bring you over? So, what would you say to a sales rep who came to say, "Well, I I can't lower my price any lower because somebody else on the street is giving it away for free" How do you big them up or coach them back up?

Susan Reade  21:57  
This is what I say: is I won't quibble with how someone else prices their product because nobody better than them knows what they're worth. If they say they're worth nothing, isn't that telling?

Matt Cundill  22:08  
When you found your way out of radio, you mentioned real estate. So tell me about how you went from radio into real estate.

Susan Reade  22:16  
Well, I was part of a Bell restructuring, so I'm at what was Astral. I go back to the Bear and Easy Rock, and what became TSN, and then I think it was in 2014 they amalgamated the TV and the radio side, and now I'm the sales manager both CTV and the radio stations, and that lasted for a couple of years, meanwhile, there was just rounds and rounds and rounds of restructuring, and you know when you're just surrounded by it, you think, oh, you know, one of these days that ax is going to find me, and it eventually did in 2016. I thought, you know what? I was in my early 50s and thought, well, you know, maybe this is a sign. I've had a great run. Maybe I need to do something else. And I'd always been, you know, interested in real estate. You know, I used to go around my neighborhood, and when for sale signs would go up, I'd try to guess what the house was worth and go check and see if I was accurate. And you know, I watched shows with realtors and thought that looks like a lot of fun, so I got my license and out I went. And I was selling houses, not a ton, but I did make some sales in that year. And I thought, okay, this is what I'm doing. And I got a call one day from a guy named Mark Mayhew, who was the interim GM at what was Newcap here in Edmonton, and Ian Lurie was the president, and I'd worked with Ian at Standard and Astral, and they recruited me to come in as the GM, GM GSM of Newcap. So that was my brief foray into real estate. I'd probably still be at it if they hadn't knocked on my door.

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Matt Cundill  24:34  
I want to talk about the digital side. We look at 2007 being when Facebook and YouTube startup, we don't really think too much of them. In fact, as radio people, we probably think that we're going to have our own Facebook started up by the end of the month, and we'll wait for that to happen, and then it doesn't happen. But over those years, from 2007, maybe a little bit early, but we'll say 2011, right through to when you departed in 2016, if you had a chance. Do it over again. What would you do different with digital? How would you approach the radio station and the digital, knowing now what you know now about how this all works? Because the YouTube and the Facebook and all that stuff, Instagram, it was all there then. So how would you do it differently?

Susan Reade  25:18  
Well, I think that we, as an industry, and I shouldn't say that because I think some stations. Are you talking about from sales or just overall?

Matt Cundill  25:27  
Overall, because you've done many sides of this, but by the way, you could answer that from a sales perspective. But if you had a chance to just do your part all over again, how would you do it?

Susan Reade  25:36  
Well, I think I would say that we could have leaned into the social side of digital more effectively, and I still think we can. Like I don't think we, as you know, radio stations, do a good a job as pot as we could with you know using social to our advantage for engagement. I think we are still pushing out content, but it's one sided. We're going here. We are. This is what we're doing, and yet we're not doing as good of a job of having an engagement with people, you know. And not to say that some stations aren't doing a good job. I think some are better than others. But I think as an industry, we didn't jump into it as deeply as we might have. Like I'll say now, radio here in Edmonton is an example of doing this very well. They have done an excellent job of engagement of having conversations about, you know, speaking to the listeners on multi-platform.

Matt Cundill  26:36  
Yeah, and tell me a little bit about Stingray now, the iconic brands you get to work with, right? Because I mean, you know, there's there's K 97, which you know for a time was K Rock CFCW.

Susan Reade  26:47  
Yes,

Matt Cundill  26:48  
like you know, there's a number of stations in Edmonton that really haven't changed much over the years. I think of the Bear as being one of them as well, but but those two, and I think of 97.3, and I think of you know what is now 840 CFCW. Tell me about those two iconic brands and getting to work with them.

Susan Reade  27:06  
Oh, you know, let me start with CFCW. CFCW Canada's first country western. It has been the longest standing radio station playing only country music in Canada, and it is so different from any other station. It has it does an amazing job of speaking to the audience in, and we're talking rural Albertan country music fans and ag, ag being a huge part of it. Like we still have the ag hour where we talk every day from noon to one, about things pertaining to agriculture and the music. It has such variety, you know, from real like you'll hear Johnny Cash and you'll hear Ella Langley, like everything. And I, when I took over as GM, my thought was, well, don't f this up, don't go in there and try to do anything but let CFCW just be excellent at what it does, and it continues to be. And I'm just-I think it's a fabulous station. And then K97, as far as I'm pretty sure the K97 is the longest-standing FM in Edmonton that's been true to its format. It launched in 1979, and when I was a kid, it was like I loved chat, but I thought K97 was so cool, and couldn't get enough of it. And I still will have moments where I'll think, "Oh my God, I work at K97. Come on, if you told me that at 16, I would have blown my mind that someday I'd be there somehow.

Matt Cundill  28:47  
Yeah, there's something to keeping your format and not throwing away what you've built and staying true to something. So I'll always think of K 97 Terry Evans. I'll think of him. I will always think of Jackie Ray and Wes Montgomery, and in fact, if I turn them on and I don't hear them, I'll say, "Oh, something's wrong. Like it's just so ingrained in my in my mind.

Susan Reade  29:09  
Yeah, well, and both were you know really legends on the on those dial positions. Jackie retired last year. Terry earlier this year. In fact, Terry and I got our start in Emerging Radio at about the same time, I think maybe even the same year. So we go way back.

Matt Cundill  29:27  
Yeah, I think I think he did start in '85 as well.

Susan Reade  29:30  
Yeah, yeah, I start in Edmonton '85.

Matt Cundill  29:33  
You know, Terry's got a podcast. We worked together. I helped him with his podcast. His podcast is called Reluctantly, and he's made a a very nice transition over, and still talks a lot about Edmonton, the Edmonton music scene, and community. And you know, I think one of the things that we found in podcasting is how local the attraction is. You know, people in Edmonton they never wanted TSN was always the Toronto Sports Network, Daren Detecian. Was ITV before he was TSN, and when you have local content, people gravitate to it. And I think Edmonton is one of the most special cities in Canada when it comes to community relationships, community service, and giving. And I got to work. I mean, I was lucky. I got to work with Marty Forbes, you know, whose dad is Jerry Forbes.

Susan Reade  30:22  
Well, Marty was my, of course, my jam as well, and a a great mentor to me. In fact, props to Marty because at the time I got promoted to retail sales manager, I didn't apply for the job. There were 20 sales reps on the team. Like you can imagine, that's probably three times what anybody has these days. But that's how many people there were on the floor then, and it was just Marty and Carl Stark, who you would remember, I'm sure, the sales manager at the time, who approached me and said, "We'd like you to be the retail sales manager of Easy Rock, and just saw leadership in me before I had even seen it in myself. So I've always been grateful to Marty and Carl for giving me that opportunity.

Matt Cundill  31:04  
Oh, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that 96 three the breeze 96 three by the way was one of the frequencies that was always changing format.

Susan Reade  31:14  
It's a running gag around here, but we did really feel like we went back to our roots to K light by going with the breeze, and again because I was the jam at the time that we made that shift, and I just believed in adult contemporary. We had such success with Easy Rock, and there really was there was nobody in that space. We had that lane to ourselves, so we got back into it. I think 96 three just feels like a spot for AC Soft Rock, and here we are. It's a great station. It's great cume. Yeah.

Matt Cundill  31:48  
What's somebody like me who spent too much time on the programming side of things and still does to this day need to know about what a general manager does today that I wouldn't know from my time in radio? I'll say when I stopped 10 years ago.

Susan Reade  32:02  
Well, I think the GM's role. I am no longer the GM. I'm now the director of sales for the basically the last three and a half years for Edmonton, and then Calgary, and then Kamloops. And just recently, when after I announced my retirement, we're sort of creating an off ramp for me. So I kind of stepped out of Calgary, we launched a new station there, or not launched a new station. We purchased, acquired a new station, a Rolco station. Funny enough,

Matt Cundill  32:29  
at 97 seven, right?

Susan Reade  32:31  
Yeah, and so a lot of cooks in that kitchen, and you know a lot of attention on it, and I just felt with me retiring, no point in introducing me to a bunch of people that I was going to be leaving, so I kind of stepped away from Calgary. I'm still, you know, watching with interest, but not involved daily. I'm still involved in Camloops, but again, just I'm retiring next month, so

Matt Cundill  32:53  
I don't mind talking Kamloops with you.

Susan Reade  32:55  
Yeah. Oh, Kamloops has been a very interesting project. But before we leave Edmonton, one station you're forgetting that we have recently relaunched is Sports 1440. So we, when the day they unplugged TSN, we all stood there, and I had been the sales manager of TSN with our jaws dropped. We couldn't believe it because TSN was the water cooler talk for so many Edmonton sports fans? We were actually horrified, and we're all just lamenting. Any time a station goes dark, it's kind. It's you know, it kind of kicks in the junk. So,

Matt Cundill  33:36  
and that that was one of the better sports stations in the country. It did not have any radio rights, you know, to Oilers and Elk and other sports properties, so they could speak honestly and from the heart, criticize without necessarily having to get a call from Glenn Sather. I got a call from Glenn Sather. We all got calls from Glenn Sather if we said the wrong thing, and then it disappeared. You're right, and Edmonton sports fans were left with nothing.

Susan Reade  34:02  
Yeah, and I, you know, that particular one I do know was profitable because we didn't have the rights. You know, the rights came up while I was there as the sales manager, and I crunched the numbers, and I couldn't see how we could come out ahead. So everyone, you know, it wasn't just my math; it was everybody's math. But we all thought we need to be profitable, and to your point, and we could be honest and be the station that calls a spade a spade, you know. So it was it was heartbreaking actually because we had really worked hard. Stu Myers was the GM at the time, you know, where we built TSN. It had been the team, and we flipped it to TSN, and we did a tremendous job of just improving everything-the product, the sales. It had been one of these, you know, labors of love where we just really got that station to a point where we're super proud of the product and the revenue, and for them to unplug it, you know. Was devastating. So we're over here, and we had a AM stick out of Wataskawan that was playing oldies, and really not providing much except playing oldies on Wataskawin.

Matt Cundill  35:16  
It's 1440, right?

Susan Reade  35:19  
It's 1440. So we thought, why don't we do it? Let's jump in there and take the sports position. And so I reached out to Jason Greger. I don't know if you know that name, but he's an incredible man.

Matt Cundill  35:33  
Oh yeah, no, absolutely. If you don't talk sports and Edmonton radio, Jason Gregor.

Susan Reade  35:38  
Oh, I admire him so much because not only is he an incredible broadcaster, but he's an incredible businessman. So he, when I was at TSN, he bought his drive show from me, and we had had a long-standing relationship where he owned his show and we got inventory within his show. But he completely ran it, staffed it, and sold it pretty well single-handedly, and then did his show. And anyway, we got talking about Sports 1440, and he and I kind of talked about what if he took the whole day, and he in the end did. And so he now runs the seven a.m. to 6p.m. and similar model to what we had at TSN, and he's having tremendous success with it. So are we, and I believe the business community has rallied around us because a lot of the guys who loved listening to Sports 1440 are business owners, and when it was gone, it was hard on them. Like people call it the sad summer when there was no sports, and so they realize, well, if you want a station you love to be on the air, you have to support it, and so they have.

Matt Cundill  36:50  
So when you're planning this out, because this goes back to what we were talking about earlier, which was the digital side of things, what an opportunity! So it may be 1440. The signal might not go be a flamethrower going across Edmonton, but the digital opportunity because Jason Greger, you know, he streams it live to about five different places.

Susan Reade  37:10  
Yeah, he's brilliant.

Matt Cundill  37:12  
Yeah, so now because I I see it on X, you can get it in another in a bunch of other places, and now with new ratings coming all those doesn't apply to Edmonton, but if I were to look at this and going, oh, well, now there there are ratings methods that now count streaming.

Susan Reade  37:29  
Yes, and we see the streaming numbers. Sports has the highest streaming of our stations because the signal, depending on you where where you are in Edmonton, it can be all right or it can be less and a little bit crunchy versus streaming it. It just sounds fantastic, you know. And so, you know, we have amazing streaming numbers on sports.

Matt Cundill  37:50  
Yeah, if only let's say your radio company had a relationship with something like you know TuneIn.

Susan Reade  37:55  
That's what I love about Stingray. I have to say, such a progressive company, you know, so ready to be first to market with, like for example, Dash Sync. We were the first with Dash Sync, and are you aware of what Dash Sync is?

Matt Cundill  38:10  
Well, no. Tell everybody what it

Susan Reade  38:12  
is. So Dash Sync is when you're hearing a commercial on the radio and on your screen on your car. It's giving you a message matching the ad, you know, like a two-line sort of a message. But the salient message from the ad is being shown in your car. It's a little mini billboard, so you're hearing it and you're seeing it. So if you got a really catchy phone number or a website or just your name, and something's on sale right now. It's highlighted. It's brilliant, and we were the first to do it in Canada. Others have come now, but syncing the message to the dash is our. We were the first, and I'm very proud of that. And also, Stingray just has been very progressive and ready to jump into all platforms. So we do anything digital. We do it. We do it extremely well. And yes, TuneIn was a huge play because TuneIn is going to be part of a lot of dashboards that come out of the automotive factories. So we already have agreements with some of the big players to provide the content on the dash, and a lot of the audio will be through TuneIn, which is ours. I

Matt Cundill  39:28  
might have had a beer or two in the lounge in Montreal, and I was on my way to Barcelona, and I don't know how I got started with with this guy, nice guy, but he apparently there was a board meeting involving Stingray, and I told him what I did, and he told me what he did, and I said, "Oh, it's great that you purchased TuneIn. That's a big deal for podcasters. And he goes, "Wait, wait, wait, wait. He calls somebody over. This guy says it was a great idea, and I explain. I but I I explained it from the podcast side of things that TuneIn is really important for smart speakers. So that you can ask for your podcast to be played, you know, in Canada. I know in the states, iHeart was sort of the source of that, but in Canada, it's always been TuneIn, and they let it sit there for a couple of years. And I always saw TuneIn as being sort of the yellow pages of everything audio.

Susan Reade  40:17  
That's a good way to say it. I'm going to. I want to use that.

Matt Cundill  40:21  
You can use that. I don't know if anybody will know what Yellow Pages is shortly, but but that's the way I look at it. I'm not sure what the future is if it's going to you know include a little bit of video and you know you mentioned Dash Sync, which is great, and the metadata that goes across this stuff. I'm looking forward to great things with it, but you know especially for smart speakers, you know asking for your station or your podcast to be played on TuneIn. If you take care of your property, it'll pop up on a smart speaker or or elsewhere.

Susan Reade  40:49  
You're bang on exactly.

Matt Cundill  40:52  
What are you going to do in retirement? Because nobody really retired. You just don't stop doing this.

Susan Reade  40:58  
Ah, well, I have I say three things I want to do: travel. My daughter, for the most part, works in the UK. My oldest daughter, the one that was born in Toronto, and so I'd like the freedom just to get over there and see her more often and stay longer. I would say fitness. You know, I just like to make that a part-time job. You know, I find I always think, oh, I'll get out for a walk when I get home at night after work, and don't always pull that off. So I'm going to make that part of every day. Looking forward to that. And I also have a writing project that I'm working on that kind of excites me. I

Matt Cundill  41:34  
never did talk to you a little bit about Camloops.

Susan Reade  41:37  
Yes, I've actually enjoyed the Camloops project. It's been my first time not working in a major market, and I have really enjoyed the team there. And you talk about community, like you feel it there. The clients are they want to see you, you know. Where sometimes you get in, you know, a bigger city, and you know the stuff is just email, or maybe it's a Teams meeting, and you know sometimes get in to see them. But

Matt Cundill  42:07  
by the way, another AM station in there, NL Radio. I think it's at 580. That thing's been the news station for as long as anybody can remember, and I believe also was the very first radio station that Marty Forbes ever worked at.

Susan Reade  42:21  
It's true. In fact, he told me the story of his dad Jerry putting him on. I think it was a bus or a train, and I think it was the train, and just gave him some money, a little bit of pocket change, and he had a job as a writer, and off he went to NL. And yes, NL is one of the stations that I'm involved with Camloops, yeah.

Matt Cundill  42:43  
K 97 five is the other one, and as well, you've got new country. I think on 103 one

Susan Reade  42:49  
encyclopedia.

Matt Cundill  42:51  
I might have worked with the previous owners with that station, so I do I do know Kamloops quite well, and it's a it's a great spot.

Susan Reade  42:58  
Yeah, it's a great spot, and I've just, you know, I've had like six months involved with them. In fact, just today we announced, like, I was the interim sales manager there, but a woman named Janine Cray, who is the sales manager out of Kelowna, is going to take over Kamloops effective october 1. She's great.

Matt Cundill  43:19  
You're in an excellent position to answer the question about why radio is not dying. So, when somebody says radio is dead, what is your response to them?

Susan Reade  43:28  
Well, I'll often name a very irritating ad campaign, and I'll say, "What do you think of this? I won't name any names, and they'll go, "Oh, I just can't stand that. And I'll say, well, if you're not listening to radio, there's no other way to hear that. So you are listening to radio, and that often is the oh the aha moment for people. They are listening. They just somehow forget.

Matt Cundill  43:55  
Is that an audio thing? Because I have a feeling that you know we treat video one way, but when you you remember the audio, but you just don't remember where you encountered the audio.

Susan Reade  44:07  
Yeah, we always talk about that in in sales that people can't remember why they know something. They've heard of the place. If there's a jingle, it's gotten in their brain. You know, they can sing the whole jingle. They don't know why, so yeah, I think audio is kind of slips in there, and you're not sure how it got in there, but it sure did.

Matt Cundill  44:29  
Where are you going to travel to?

Susan Reade  44:31  
Oh well, I'm starting off joining. So my daughter works in festivals, and she is working the London Jazz Festival at the end of November. So we are joining her there and going to attend the jazz festival because you know my three years in jazz, I did get a bit of an affinity for it, and then we're going to take her to Spain. So we're going to Seville for a week and then Granada for a week. We've got three weeks in Europe. And then get back mid December, just in time for Christmas.

Matt Cundill  45:04  
And so, for anybody who got to the very end of this show and is thinking about going to Spain, I have an episode on my other podcast called "You May Also Like. I think it's like episode one or two, and inside there is a complete guide to all my food recommendations in Spain, including Seville and Granada, I will send you one. Everybody else has to go fetch it on that episode page.

Susan Reade  45:26  
Well, just tell me what's the best place to eat in Seville.

Matt Cundill  45:30  
So many. I mean, listen, every tapas bar is great, but my favorite is El Reconcilio, which is the oldest tapas bar in Seville. It's been open since the 1700s, and you walk in, grab a spot at the counter, and you order some of the cod and some of the spinach and chickpeas. And it's great way to spend two hours of lunch.

Susan Reade  45:54  
Is it true that if you order tapas, they bring a free drink, or is it you order a free drink and they bring you tapas? You order a drink and they bring a fringe tapas. That's how it goes, right?

Matt Cundill  46:03  
Yeah. So Granada is really the last of that. So I've been to Granada for two days and I didn't order anything. All I did was order drinks and they would bring me the food. Seville a little bit less, just slightly less, and not in Barcelona and not necessarily in Madrid much anymore. You might just get a small plate of something to go with your your drink, but Granada, yes, still holds on to that in a very dear way. I will send you my my list of places to eat in Spain: eat cheaply and tapas. This is not going to be fine dining; it's going to be loud bars. Okay,

Susan Reade  46:34  
yeah, that's what we want. We just want to kind of just immerse ourselves in the culture and be in each place for a week, and you know, do some day trips out of each, but largely just hang there and have this time with our daughter because again, she's just a rolling stone. So we got to chase her. She's not coming back to Edmonton too often.

Matt Cundill  46:54  
Susan, congratulations on a fantastic career. Thanks for taking the time to to share and just talk radio and why we didn't never got a chance to work together and catch up and talk about the people we know and love.

Susan Reade  47:05  
Oh, it was great talking to you. I'm glad we finally connected.

Tara Sands (Voiceover)  47:13  
Another Sound Off Media Company podcast.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai