JC Douglas: Rocked The Atlantic

Tara Sands (Voiceover)  0:02  
The sound of podcast, the show about podcast and broadcast starts now in

Matt Cundill  0:13  
May of 2026 in a simple Facebook posting. JC Douglas announced his retirement.

JC Douglas  0:20  
Hi, hey, Halifax. JC Douglas here. And guess what? I'm retiring, well, more or less. And I just wanted to say thank you for all your support over the years.

Matt Cundill  0:31  
Now, in this day and age when any longtime radio personality announces their departure, there's a question that always pops into my mind, were they pushed, or did they jump? And as you'll hear, there's nothing nefarious to see here. The time is right, and priorities change in life. We featured JC Douglas over nine years ago on this show and summarized a lot of the wild times he's had on Halifax radio. We'll touch on some of that and find out what to expect next. And now JC Douglas joins me from Halifax. By the way, in the last time we spoke, we talked extensively about your career, like from beginning to end. But then again, it's been 10 years. So what have you been up to for the last 10 years?

JC Douglas  1:16  
All the good stuff was more than 10 years ago. Actually, when you least expect it, something comes along that, for me, was a dream come true, but I think you and I discussed the c1 100 morning show we were talking about that when we last talked so that would have been just about 10 years ago. I didn't have a full time morning show on my resume, so being picked up by the station that had been the long standing, hard battled competition of the station I was had been with for, you know, over 25 years. Was the last thing I expected to have happen, and just was a blessing. I mean, I absolutely loved doing mornings on that show. I'm glad that I had a chance to work with Peter Harrison and Moya Farrell before she left, because, you know, they were the the heritage cogs on the morning show, Peter, of course, is still still with it, and just a joy to do that, and to have that experience, and have that on the on the resume, and just have have lived that so I didn't see that coming. And to have in the last two years come back to Q 104 to ratchet that time spent up to almost 29 years with Q in total, and to spend two years doing the job basically that I was doing in 1987 which was evenings, but this time for a network of eight stations across Atlanta, Canada, and realizing that there ain't many live shows anymore across most of the country, you know, in the evening. So that was, that was joy as well. It was wonderful.

Matt Cundill  2:43  
You look back at 1987 let's say we were to look at the ratings, and solely on the FM side, we would find Q 104 and c1 100. And today we find much the same thing at the top of the ratings. Why are those two stations so successful? And how lucky were you to work at both and why are they both so successful?

JC Douglas  3:01  
Yeah, Q and 87 probably wasn't there yet. It was into the into the early to mid 90s before we really hit full speed. But certainly once it did, you know, with some programming engineering going on there, what happened was it took this incredibly small but loyal audience that came right from the start with brother Jake and Hal harbor and these incredible, incredible team of jocks and talents who brought a music that had never been heard on the radio here to a an audience of maybe 75,000 let's say loyal listeners who would never forget what Q 104 brought to their lives, and many of whom are still there today and still as loyal. So that made it such a unique station, because it didn't matter. You know what changes and evolution the station went through? These people stayed with us because they they connected with the talent, and the talent in so many cases, almost across the board, has been there from the early days. You know, aside from Jillian foot on our morning show and the guy who has just replaced me in the evening show, Neil Spence, every single one of our on air lineup has been there since either the 80s or the early 90s, and in many cases, left and came back, but have done so and come back, you know, with substantial length of time in their most recent tour of duty. So it's been a phenomenal station that way of connecting with the audience. It's funny. I had coffee with Peter Harrison this morning. We were talking about c1 100 and the fact that it's a heritage station, which, like a chum FM, you know, heritage doesn't matter quite as much you'd think for a station that makes its calling card is more contemporary music, but I think the fact that they connect so much with the talent keeps a lot of people in there, well beyond, you know, their regularly scheduled demographic. So I think much of the same as China. In Toronto, does c1 100 has or now move 100 has exactly the same thing. And they've, they've remained incredibly strong. And, you know, it's often been Q and c1 100, number one or number two, either way. And now virgin in Halifax, which is another Bell station, is in that top three as well. But amazing how much longevity there's been.

Matt Cundill  5:21  
Yeah, and I'm completely dating myself, because I call this c1 100 about halfway through you answering the question, I remember, I think they call it move 100 now,

JC Douglas  5:29  
yeah, yeah. And

Matt Cundill  5:30  
you touched on it with heritage, right? Well, you know, it's, well, I'm not sure that the heritage, well, you kind of give that up when you rebranded under the corporate brand, right?

JC Douglas  5:39  
Yeah. But not, not with such a loyal audience. Who they get it suddenly they're tuning into the same spot in the dial and it's the same Well, it's funny, because I think the rebranding happened the day after I left Belle let me and Melody rose go for the morning show on the same day. It was one of the covid cuts in November of 2020 and they rebranded at the same time. So so there was it was definitely a little different, I'm sure, for the audience, but I think they adjusted pretty quickly the fact that Peter's been there, literally, with a small hiatus since 1984 and on the morning show since 86 that's their comfort zone, you know. So same thing. It's just so well connected with the listeners, and they say that talent doesn't mean so much, but it does if there's a Mount Rushmore

Matt Cundill  6:30  
of Halifax radio. Frank Cameron goes up. That's an easy one, but who else goes up on it?

JC Douglas  6:37  
Jerry Lawrence, Brian Phillips, Don Connolly,

Matt Cundill  6:42  
maybe Peter. Maybe you

JC Douglas  6:44  
Yeah, it could be Peter. There's been so many creative, incredibly creative jocks on the air here in the last, you know, 3540 years, Andre Maisonneuve comes to mind, you know, Andre Mason, as he was down here on cfdr, am, I mean, didn't make the big splash that he could have on the rating scene later days of AM, and he was off to Montreal, at Toronto, you know, before he was really picking up steam, actually, God, the number of ultra creative jocks. I mean, even currently, you know, you've got BJ Wilson and Bobby Mac and Jillian on the morning show on Q 104 Dominic diamond doing his thing. I didn't thing at 89 nine, the wave went from Q 104 there. But he we had him on 96 five, doing mornings at one point. So he's been around for a little while yet now. Griff and the Caroline on Jack. F what do they know? Are they still Jack? You know, just incredible morning talents and other jocks, like Tom Bedell, like, just been a he replaced me in afternoons, 28 years ago in Q 104, he's just, you know, been part of the wallpaper of Halifax radio.

Matt Cundill  7:51  
Yeah. And by the way, that durability is not only on the air, it's also in production and in the hallways. I mean, you mentioned Neil Spence, but I also think of Anthony McNutt, who's one of the best producers in this country, and he there is working right in Q 104

JC Douglas  8:07  
the best, not just because of the quality of his work, which is, I would put it up against any other radio production I've heard in my life, any market. But he's the most proactive guy I've ever worked with. And when I was program director at q 104 for 14 years, when he came in from the valley and joined us, it was it changed my life. It changed the radio station. I mean, having a guy on top of it the way he was. And you know what, even last fall, when I was doing the evening show again and the Toronto Blue Jays, I mean, we're working their way towards the World Series. He and I were connecting every moment of those big, big games. And he was updating, you know, splitters and things to run minutes after the actualities happened on the games. And you know, he was checking around Toronto stations to see what they were doing. And in many cases, crickets, nothing. There was nobody live, and there was no reflection of of the Blue Jays in in that city's culture, it's absolutely dormant. You know,

Matt Cundill  9:08  
when I turned 18, my mom gave me a book. It was a biography from Robert McNeil.

JC Douglas  9:13  
And I've read that book,

Matt Cundill  9:15  
oh, you have, okay, because in the especially in the first two chapters, it talks about early Halifax radio. Robert McNeil worked at C, H and S, and at that time, they were broadcasting out of the top floor of the Lord Nelson hotel. And he's got a few stories that I that I won't ruin, but, you know, he went on to some great things. So I

JC Douglas  9:36  
also remember talking about 1952 CJ ch as well. Yeah, he established his name in Halifax radio before he went off to stardom in the States. Yeah,

Matt Cundill  9:46  
but just a long trajectory of people who have worked in that market and gone on to great things across the country. And you just also mentioned brother, Jake, too.

JC Douglas  9:54  
Yeah, who I didn't work with Jake, but he had offered me a job after I had already accepted. When I see kBw. W in Bridgewater, and I got to know some of the guys here at q 104 while I was still working down there, including Jake and Jeff woods. And I actually drove down here from London together to go into a couple of different radio stations, but getting to know Jake and the spirit of this radio station at q 104 because really the inmates were running the asylum, and it was a kind of situation that you would you'd never find anywhere else, because it was a mom and pop operation. Artie Patterson owned the station, and he just said, Okay, Jake, you seem to know. I mean, there was a, there was a Q 107 consultancy going on, but he wanted somebody to take it hands on. He handed it over to Jake Edwards at the age of 29 and said, You seem to know this rock and roll music. You knew it. And I don't even think Jake had programmed a station yet at that point. Oh, it was like, you can imagine the station built in the image of Jake Edwards, you know, it was exactly that. It was as much as your imagination can conjure. And I came in, you know, at the tail end of that, and it was still beautiful for the next few years. So I being able to do free form radio, basically, you know, a la, 1968 wbcn or something like that. It was what we got to experience in the mid 80s in Q 104, why is now the time for retirement? For you, almost entirely because I have a four year old son, and I'm kind of playing stay at home, dad. We didn't want to do the daycare thing. And I had always kind of thought it would be nice to have an early retirement, because I got a million things I want to do with my life, and I don't want to retire at, you know, 70 or 75 and realize that, oh my god, I'm suddenly of failing health, and now that I had the boy at an elder age, I thought, well, I'll croak long before he hits his 25th or 30th, so let's make sure I get the time in while he's young. So the fact that I went back to work full time the last couple of years doing evenings, I thought, Well, that'll work well with staying home with him in the day and then working at night, but the amount of sleep didn't quite that didn't quite work out so

Matt Cundill  12:06  
well, you missed bedtime, and bedtime is the best time of the day.

JC Douglas  12:09  
Good point. That was the only time of the day I missed with him. But definitely I could know when I was working at c1 100, doing mornings, I was functioning on four or five hours a night's sleep, but I suddenly realized I can't do that anymore. It was a thing of age, and it just kind of kicked in all of a sudden. So Dan Barton and I talked about it about a year ago, and he made a couple of accommodations for me, which was awesome of him. He's just an awesome guy, but I only was good for another year. Yeah, and it's been even the first week of this retirement thing has been absolutely wonderful.

Speaker 1  12:42  
Well,

Matt Cundill  12:43  
just before I hit record, we were talking about this, I said, What's it like being at home during this? Well, you're talking about getting on with your son, and I figure, I guess his son is about 25 years old and still living at home. I didn't know you had a four year old.

JC Douglas  12:56  
Yeah, little guy named Jake, and now he's the apple of my eyes. He's my, my world, and I'm enjoying every every moment. I always wanted to have a kid, but it never quite worked out. And I've got a wonderful wife and boy and and we want to do everything together. So it's, it's really, really good, and now I can do it with a full night's sleep, which is amazing.

Matt Cundill  13:16  
What's your biggest takeaway from four nights of complete sleep and being with a four year old,

JC Douglas  13:22  
oh my god. I had no idea how advanced children were. I thought they were just blobs of goo that you had to kind of fashion into some kind of mold, into some kind of thing. But they're not from the earliest age. They are they surprised the hell out of you. Keep you laughing all the time. And it's phenomenal to see how you can influence them in such a positive way. You teach them things. Like, yesterday, he went to the toilet standing up, and I taught him how to do that, because I do that too. And, you know, just stuff like, it's just amazing, just watching every day the growth

Matt Cundill  13:58  
you started at ck, BW, I started up in Ken Phil

JC Douglas  14:03  
magic 97 or at

Matt Cundill  14:05  
magic 97 which is now 94 nine. What's the health of those radio stations when you drive through the valley, or you drive through the South Shore, you go to Cape Breton, how connected do they feel to the community?

JC Douglas  14:17  
That's a good question. Not as connected as they were, for sure. And you know, I hear the effort. I do hear in certain circumstances. I hear, you know, people out in the community, on the phone, being connecting to the station and connecting to the listenership, but you don't hear it. I mean, you know those stations, when they were full surface radio stations, you know, see kBw on AM, back in the day, it was just, I mean, you were alive, not 24/7 because it signed off at 115 in the morning. But it was a different world. I don't want to be the old guy lamenting for for that state of radio, but it really was a magical state compared with what we have now. And we were lucky, and I understand the reasons why it's evolved the way it has, but you. Gonna ask that question. It's, yeah, not as, not as well connected as they used to be. And it's too bad, because I think the space is still there, because we are uniquely able to be connected with those markets the way that we used to be. The setup still there,

Matt Cundill  15:14  
yeah. And I think Facebook has really done quite a number on, you know, those stations and the impact just because of the immediacy of it. And I'll give you an example, because you announced your retirement on Facebook yet, you know, 20 years ago or 25 years ago, there would have been sheer panic. How am I going to connect to JC, who's like, I'm going to miss him. How am I going to connect with him? And I'm watching you talk about your retirement like, well, I'm still connected to you on Facebook, and you even had mentioned, hey, we're still connected on Facebook. If you wanna keep up with me, you can always follow me on Facebook. I'm still kind of here, right? So, yeah, you're leaving the radio, but I still have many different ways to connect with you still, so I'm happy I'm gonna miss you on cue, but still, I don't feel like you're completely leaving, and you're still also going to be on cue.

JC Douglas  16:02  
Well, that's the thing. I mean, I'm not dying. And, yeah, social media is an amazing thing, and one of the banes of our existence, right? It's such a double edged sword. Radio shouldn't be a double edged sword, and it is still there to I mean, if you want to get into it a little bit, I'm not thrilled with the way the CRTC has permitted, you know, radio to be so bought up by the major conglomerates. But, I mean, I'm not alone there, but I understand how that works, too. I mean, but were there any incentives or real encouragement to keep the mom and pop operations alive? And there's a few of them out there, and it's hard to make them work in today's world. And the advertising market is not what it used to be, probably entirely because of social media. So I just make my soul feel better by going, you know, what? We had a beautiful thing that we lived through, and we got to work in IT. I got to listen to it. And in some of the major markets, you know, particularly radio, still, I feel impacts the market as it and even the medium markets, even even the smaller markets. You know, radio still has a major impact, and they're finding ways to connect with their audience. And it's not all the same. It's not all live, 24/7 the way it used to be, but I know that a lot of great people are working and doing the best that they can with within the parameters that they've got. So, I mean, what, what more could you ask? And you know, people who are working in the business still love the business, you know, as I have. I mean, just in the last two years, doing a live show across four provinces, I've been able to connect with those people live every evening and and having, you know, broadcasting to Newfoundland for the first time in my life, and the connection that I mean through K rock in St John's, the connection that those people have with their radio is phenomenal. The way they interact with the radio station on social media is phenomenal. The calls I got from Newfoundland were phenomenal. You know, just great stuff to put on the radio. I hope there's still room for more of that in radio's future.

Matt Cundill  18:08  
Yeah, I think back to to the number of times we tried to do networking in the Maritimes, and I can see, you know, it was done by satellite. I could see a lot of lonely moments, you know, trying to connect that stuff up. And now we got social media could be as simple as a camera in a chat room and kaboom like you can do a show rock of the Atlantic for four provinces and make it completely interactive in a day, part that a lot of radio companies have given up on.

JC Douglas  18:35  
Yeah, the problem is, as soon as we have a technology that works, we use it. And I mean, this happened in 1993 as far as as Q and A four goes. And the announcement, you know, in the boardroom was that we were going to move towards some use of automation that would require moving in an automated system. And once it's there, all that chat in the past about, oh, well, the station would be nothing without it. It's all about the people, and suddenly it's not all about the people, so, but that's the way industry goes, and we're an industry that is an art form. At the same time, those don't always jibe perfectly, right?

Matt Cundill  19:12  
Kind of wonder if the CRTC really knew that telephones were going to have such an impact on radio directly, because there was a time when FCC CRTC were hesitant to let a newspaper and a radio owner operate one of each there were rules and competition fought and stuff like that. I don't think the CRTC completely understood that the telephone was going to be such a big impact on our lives when they let you know the bell and the Rogers of the world have radio maybe I'm a little naive, but

JC Douglas  19:50  
I don't think you're naive. But you know, to me, it's a shame that when you listen to, I mean, some of my favorite radio stations are in. Europe, and I hear the radio structure that I love the most in some of these radio stations, and I don't hear it as much in North America anymore. Why is that? You know, they're dealing with the same equipment and and talented people.

Matt Cundill  20:15  
We're oversaturated with licenses. Halifax being one of the, one of the main, you know, cities, along with Edmonton, who just, you know, they passed out so many licenses

JC Douglas  20:24  
at a time when there was a smaller pie. It's like, what do you like this? The number of licenses now should have been, you know, the case 40, 5060, years ago, you know, and it wasn't too and we had what, five or six stations on the year in Halifax, like through the 60s, 70s. Now we've got 1012, whatever, with, you know, community stations on as well.

Matt Cundill  20:48  
One of the bigger casualties of radio and downsizing, losing overnights, losing evenings, is talent. But you've mentored, you've always mentored people along the way. You've taught, you've shared. Tell me about a few of those mentoring success stories. Where are they today? What are some of your favorites? And what are some of the ones that stand out in your

JC Douglas  21:09  
mind? Well, you know, one I just recently marked, the 25th anniversary of Matt Cleveland in the business. And like, what an incredible guy. I mean, we brought him on like an intern, basically interning with Harv Stewart, our sports guy, 25 years ago, and gave him an opportunity to do various things on the area. Most kids come into the business going, I want to be on the radio. I want to be a star. And we pointed him in so many different directions. And he grabbed every opportunity. He worked in traffic for a while. He worked like seriously and loved it, and worked in promotions and worked in everything. And eventually, programming was a place for him. And now he's been programming the East Coast Bell stations for a few years now on his own, like programming the network and doing a phenomenal job. You know, I put him on the air a little bit, and it wasn't necessarily his strength, you know, but he was okay with that, and has built an incredible career. You know, I don't want to embarrass anybody some of the people I've worked with here in the market, who've had stellar careers, and, you know, I'd love to take a little bit of credit for working with them and but I don't want to embarrass them by name. But I know there are some jocks that I thought I can hear all this raw talent, but I mean, they're not quite getting what I'm you know, they're not quite picking up what I'm laying down. And so a little extra work and and finesse there, you know, I felt, ah, a few nice cases, just got them really over the hump, and helped them be a more natural, not being afraid to show themselves the true selves on the radio. I just find so many people over the years have just been protective of who they really are. And I think it's that sense that, well, nobody wants to know me, but it's like, yeah, they do. Because, you know, even if you're not brother, Jake, you know, larger than life, you know, you're still interesting. And there's always going to be interesting things in there, and you wouldn't be working in this business if you weren't kind of interesting or weird or quirky or, you know, silly inside. And it just been so rewarding to see that kind of growth happen. And you know what? And one of the sad things about radio today is, and one thing I was so lucky with 14 years of programming, and I really got, I mean, I became the director of new cap Halifax. Oversaw three stations, but I found good people to take care of two of them, and I really remained focused on Q 104, for 14 years. Can you imagine that today? Can you imagine that today having time to work with all my jocks, having regular air check sessions with all my jocks like it just doesn't happen. Maybe it does, and just not aware of it. But I, you know, from what I've found, from kind of feeling around, doesn't happen much, and that's a shame.

Matt Cundill  23:51  
Yeah, I think it was Fred Jacobs. He does a study every year that goes just to talent, and about half of them don't even get error checked.

JC Douglas  24:01  
Yeah, it's crazy. It needs to be done. You know. Doesn't matter who they are, doesn't matter how big they are. They need that feedback, you know, even if it's just for the sake of giving them some positive feedback, you know, they crave it.

Matt Cundill  24:15  
I had an episode with Anna z A few months ago, about a year ago, actually, how did I do? Did I ask the right questions. What'd I miss?

JC Douglas  24:22  
Yeah, some great questions. I mean, it depends on what you want to know, but you were asking some wonderful questions about the history of east coast radio, which I'm totally into. Matter of fact, one of the things I plan to do in my retirement is go through my incredibly massive archives, because I'm a hoarder and a saver of media. So it's, I got audio, I got print, I got video from, you know, a career of over 40 years here in the East Coast, in a place that has been under archived over the years, and I plan to make it public over the next few years. If you're not in the, you know, Atlantic, Canadian radio, television, print, then it's not for you. But it'll be coming out in dribs and drabs, and eventually in a big deluge, once I get it all organized. And it's going to take a few years, really, to pull it all together and digitize everything. But so yeah, you got into some really good historic stuff with with Anna. And I'm a total Atlantic Canadian history buff. I mean, I'm from here originally, formative years in Ontario, but came back here because I wanted to be here, and it's been completely rewarding. And I've found that Atlantic Canadian media, I think, you know, punches above its weight has over the years.

Matt Cundill  25:31  
Yeah? Anna said the same thing. You know, when she got to Halifax, she just loved it and stayed

JC Douglas  25:37  
Yeah, Kingston, girl who calls Halifax

JC Douglas  25:40  
home

Tara Sands (Voiceover)  25:41  
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Matt Cundill  26:15  
So I'm thinking about the archive that you're talking about. And you know, you got a four year old son. I have three sons. They're in their mid 20s.

JC Douglas  26:23  
Because you did this like a normal person.

Matt Cundill  26:26  
I don't know that that's true, actually. So I've, I sometimes think I started a little young, but, you know, the same time here, I'm with you. I'm a bit of a hoarder with my media. I've got a lot of cassettes, and I there's in a pile in the corner, and I think about archiving them in some particular way, which means pulling out a cassette player, plugging it into the computer, playing it, maybe cutting it, looking for a way to enhance it, and then what do I do with it? I don't know. I guess any of the stuff that I have here from the Maritimes, I'll just send to you. Okay,

JC Douglas  26:56  
I'd take it for sure. It mines. Most of the really classic stuff is on cassette. I did digitize a bunch of reel to reels in the past with the help of a friend of mine here locally, who's brilliant with that stuff, takes his own reel to reels and stuff like that. And all my video stuff is all on VHS, but I've got the means now to digitize them, and it's just going to be the matter of time they're all well organized and well labeled, so that part is taken care of. As a hoarder, I'm an organized hoarder.

Matt Cundill  27:27  
I mean, it's very possible I've got some stuff of you sitting on these cassettes for no reason.

JC Douglas  27:32  
Don't know why you would do that. I

Matt Cundill  27:35  
think I used to record the radio when I was

JC Douglas  27:37  
18. Oh yeah. I mean, I did all of that for a long time. And it's not just Atlanta, Canada, too. I recorded everywhere I went. So I got a lot of Toronto stuff and that kind of thing from from the 90s and 80s that I'll unleash as well. Because, you know, even that era of like, classic Toronto radio isn't particularly well archived, not on, not online, anyway, so that'll be among the stuff.

Matt Cundill  28:03  
No, and I'll actually, I'll just give a shout to music milestones, y, y, z or Y, Y, Zed, Ivor Hamilton, Scott Turner, have a lot of this stuff, but they are now talking about it and putting it on a podcast, and it's up on YouTube as well, and they're talking about a lot of the old times, especially with CF and why in the documentary that recently

Speaker 1  28:24  
came

JC Douglas  28:25  
out. Yeah, a lot of people have asked me over the years, like, because anytime I start telling, you know, goofy radio stories, people say, Why you should write a book all the people you met all that, it's like, you know what? The books just don't read. People buy books and don't read them. And I want people to experience some of this stuff. And so I think I'll present it as kind of like my online book kind of thing in bits and pieces. You know, Larry McInnes writes such amazing stories on Facebook. I find it so inspiring and so engaging. And I Oh, geez. I, you know, I didn't have Larry McInnes career, but I've had an interesting one too, with lots of good stories and lots of, you know, audio and video to go with them. So you know what? Talk about, mentorship. I was heading for a career in the creative side of radio because my Fanshawe mentors, Barry sarahson, particularly, he told me, Well, you don't have the voice to make it in professional radio. And he was right. I didn't, I don't know how it happened. So they were steering me towards creative so I did an internship at 1050 chum, chum FM in 8485 and Larry McInnes was my, my guy there, and Mike, aka more, in the creative department. And it was fantastic. And man, what a Oh, my God, to be shown that level of of radio at that age. Boy, oh, boy, just what an education in just a small amount of time. So I have so much to thank larry and mike for and the other folks who were in the department at that

Matt Cundill  29:59  
time. We asked people. Know various people, certain people, if they would like to ask you a question. I got this one from Dave Bannerman up in the valley, and he wants to know about radio peaks and radio valleys. So what represented your peak of personal radio success? The best day for you in radio?

JC Douglas  30:17  
Oh, my God, best day in radio. All right, that'd be hard, because there's so many good ones. When we won the New York festival's Best Music special in 2003 was incredible, because it was such a great group effort, and because I feel like it's the most entered one of their awards. Because, you know, hey, it's radio Best Music special that seemed to be the most, the one most vied for, and the fact that when we finally saw who all the the runners up, the silver and bronze went to, and all the honorable mentions, and there were a string of like 11 or 13 honorable mentions and stuff, and they were from like Ireland and and Australia. So it was amazing. But the silver medal of the the 2003 New York festivals for Best Music special went to a syndicated special by M Ji Incorporated, and it was some something along the lines of country music salutes the heroes of 911 and I thought, and the Q 104 top 10 weekend won the gold medal ahead of that. And I was like, Oh my God, if I can't be proud of that, you know, what can I be proud of? So that was phenomenal. But I think as far as personal, if you want to get really selfish, it was the fact that I got to interview Paul McCartney, which was, like, otherworldly, like, it was just surreal, because I only found out the night before that that was going to happen, so I had no time to really. I was scared shitless, just prepping for it, and I wasn't on the morning show at the time, but I intruded on our morning show because he wanted to do it live at noon in London, it was 8am for us, and we didn't do any big name interviews live anymore, and we went 23 minutes and 47 seconds before I finally prompted him and said, You know, Paul, I feel like you might have something else to do with your time, but he was having a snack, a light snack, while we were chatting, so that kept him on the line for a little longer. And my god, that was it was just phenomenal. I remember having a girlfriend one time who checked into whether she could get me an interview with Paul McCartney for like, a Christmas present. And she couldn't, it was not going to happen. So this was absolutely an alignment of the stars, yeah. So that would probably be and when I got off the air, this was 2009 when I got off the air and the interview was over, the first thing I said on the air was, well, I can retire now. And I kind of meant it. He was like, wow, that ain't gonna happen again. So I

Matt Cundill  32:45  
had a similar experience with Mick Jagger. The only difference was I got about 12 minutes before he said, I think we're gonna wrap this up.

JC Douglas  32:53  
Oh, see when I prepped for Paul. I prepped for what if I've got five minutes, and then I prep for what if in the outside chance I've got, maybe if I push 10 minutes, and then I thought, well, I wanted a million chance it might go longer than that, so maybe I better arrange something for what if I get, and I didn't want to just be random questions, like just to throw at them. And, you know, we had a couple other people on the air there too, but, I mean, they did not know Paul the way I knew Paul, and I thought, Okay, I'm going to structure this so that it'll be an interesting and engaging interview. I think, I think it was few people have questioned my choices of questions, but I think we went down the right road and had an interest

JC Douglas  33:30  
in chat with Paul,

Matt Cundill  33:31  
what was your radio Valley? And it's sort of defined as being the lowest point that tested your radio resolve.

JC Douglas  33:39  
Wow. My head goes right to a moment in 1993 when we made our very first foray into that automated system. It was pre ITC digit Center, which I think was by 95 that's where we went to. This was a, I can't even remember might have been an ITC. I can't remember who the company was. We were working with, and they had a consultant there with me in the control room, when we actually threw to this system, and it was a CD jukebox. Do you ever work with a CD jukebox?

Matt Cundill  34:14  
Yes, I

JC Douglas  34:15  
think it was a relatively new product at the time.

Matt Cundill  34:19  
Was that media touch?

JC Douglas  34:20  
No, I think it was ITC, because I think it was their software that we were working with, and we had to enter the number of each tune that we were about to play. So it was, it was a little work heavy for something that was supposed to be automated. And what we found very quickly, was that it was full of pauses and things that just didn't work for radio. But we after about 90 minutes, it was all cool. It seemed to be working okay. And this, this fellow who was in control room with me, in case there was any kind of emergency. He said, Well, you seem to be okay there now, so maybe I'll go grab a smoke. I said, yeah, no, you're good. And as soon as he left the room, Anna Z was at the. Back of the room at the moment when I came out of commercial, hit the button to play the song, and it didn't play. And I waited and it didn't play, and I started. Oh, you know what it's like at work when you get a brand new computer and blah, blah, blah, and Barry horn, our illustrious program director at that time decided that it was best for using this new gear if we take all the CDs out of the control room, although we still had a player, we still had a Denon CD cartridge player, but they were out of the room, so we didn't lean on them as a crutch. One of the many reasons I wasn't a big fan of Barry horns, so eventually, when it just wasn't going to play, didn't matter how many times, matter how many times I keyed it in or hit play, I shut off the mic and said, Anna, give me a CD. Anything that was pretty low. That was a pretty low point. You know, we all felt fear, you know, a few months earlier, when the word had come down that we were going to automation, and I and I thought at that moment, Oh, I wonder if I'll even get 10 more years in my career, amazing that we're still doing, you know, real radio, the way it, more or less, has been done for many decades in the 2026 so I want to say one other thing, as far as because the other thing that popped into my head, and it's not that it tested my resolve as an individual, as a human, it's going to make me emotional the day after the mass murder,

Speaker 2  36:31  
on this Sunday night, the deadly mass shooting in Nova Scotia, for 12 hours, a gunman disguised as a Mountie terrorized the community.

Speaker 3  36:41  
This is one of the most senseless acts of violence in our province's history.

Speaker 2  36:46  
Several people killed, including a member of the RCMP. Tonight, what we're learning about the accused gunman,

JC Douglas  36:53  
April of 2020 just like a month after covid broke, and that happened on a Saturday night and a Sunday and we had to prepare for that, for Monday morning. I was having coffee with Peter Harrison. I was working at c1 100, doing mornings there we were just having coffee today and talking about this, that it was great radio. And I think, you know, I bet the other morning shows in town had had great shows that day, but that stays with you. And the great thing about it was that we heard from so many, you know, listeners that day

Speaker 1  37:31  
who were glad we were there. It helped them.

Matt Cundill  37:36  
What you guys did that day was exactly what radio is all about.

Speaker 1  37:41  
We had the right guests. I think we struck the right tone. Some days it's just not going to be fun, but it was relating, and everybody was feeling it that still it's hard. That was a tough day.

Matt Cundill  37:59  
There's a scene in the movie city slickers, tell me about your best day. Tell me about your worst day, same day. And it could very well be that the question that I just asked about your radio Pekin Valley is the same day?

JC Douglas  38:12  
Yeah. I mean, you know, you're glad you're a broadcaster on a day like that, but holy smokes. And without Peter, I wouldn't have got through that show. I mean, I'm my emotions are obviously too close to the surface to begin with, which I'm completely comfortable with. But that was tough, man, oh boy.

Matt Cundill  38:35  
What radio station were you on when that

JC Douglas  38:37  
happened? C1 100. And you know, c1 100, you know, the way it relates to his audiences is unique, and it's has earned its reputation and its place in the ratings there. But, and boy, I was feeling the tug of decades of heritage that day, and really was glad that we performed the service that we did that day.

Matt Cundill  38:57  
How did you come back on Tuesday?

JC Douglas  39:00  
You know, it was, it was a few days of feeling the weight and not being the same kind of kooky Funsters that we tried to be because you're the province, was just hurt. Everybody felt it, you know, everybody felt it. Nobody felt divorced from that. Nobody felt separated from it. It was, it took a week to get back to normal. And even then, you know, just back to the normal kind of show. But even then, you know, the province is still affected by, you know, it just don't get past that. You know, it was just so beyond in so many ways. It was just, it was awful. Let's talk about fun radio.

Matt Cundill  39:45  
Can you make any hot take predictions about radio in Canada, where you think it's going to be in the next five years?

JC Douglas  39:56  
Good question. I don't think I'm equipped to do that. I. Frankly, I'm not as connected to the business as I was. You know, I left programming in 2013 and I think I stayed fairly well connected for a few years, and then I just got so much more involved in the air work and less involved in caring about the industry. And then I had a kid, and then I didn't care about anything other than the kid anymore, just prepping for my show. And so people will say to me, oh, you know that so and so, so and so, bought so and so. I said, Jesus, I had, I had

JC Douglas  40:30  
no idea.

Matt Cundill  40:32  
So when you wake up every day going forward, what do you think is going to be important to you, aside from from the kid? I mean, media wise, are you going to want to reach towards, you know, your phone. You want to start a podcast. You talked a little bit about the archiving project, and you obviously showed no interest in writing a book. I mean, listen, you're only day three on in on this retirement thing. So this is incredible pressure to put on you. But what are you gonna be thinking about when you when you wake up every

JC Douglas  40:57  
day? You know what? It's funny, because the archiving is kind of just tripping back to, you know, the old days and what radio did for me, what it meant to me, and the way it was presented in the old days. So I'm sorry, but yeah, I'm older, and I'm being reflective and sentimental, and I have no shame whatsoever that. And we made a lot of, you know, good radio and crazy radio and ng radio and stuff over, over the years, too. And I still love that form. And I love, you know, I mean, I grew up listening to the big eight in, you know, when I was in Ontario and and just loving that stuff. And I love the fact that Charlie O'Brien is still doing big a radio.com I listen to it all the time. And it's just wonderful, you know, I wish it was, I wish it was a full service radio station. It is not. It's an online radio station, but he does a couple of good shows every week on air, and I love them. So that's I think the retirement means I don't have anything new other than a little bit of filling in for some of the jocks to contribute to radio in general. But I've got some really cool stuff from the past that I'd love to share with everybody, because everybody has great recollections of the past, and at least in Atlanta Canada, not a well archived one boy, you try and find some archived, you know, radio and television from Atlanta Canada. It is few and far between, and I've got a ton of it.

Matt Cundill  42:14  
Well, I found a Facebook group. I found a Facebook group that's called like, beta max something, and I'm watching all the old ATV and the ASN community reads and stuff like that. And I said I forgot about those bingos.

JC Douglas  42:28  
Yeah, yeah, there is some of that stuff, but not nearly enough. I mean, my personal archive of myself and all my friends and co workers and people in other markets just dwarfs that. So I can't wait to dig into my stuff. That's the reason, I guess, why I've accumulated it so much over the years, and want to do something with it. Want my four year old son to know what his dad was up to all the years before he came along.

Matt Cundill  42:53  
Well, that's legacy, right? We sort of you know as a dad, you want to leave a little bit of something behind for your for your kids to know. You know what you did, where you came from, where, where you personally came from.

Speaker 1  43:03  
And

JC Douglas  43:04  
it gives me an extra impetus to do this before I croak,

Matt Cundill  43:08  
yeah, you look so old.

JC Douglas  43:11  
I gotta start wearing a rug soon. Because I look at the picture, I go, Oh, my God, you are ancient. You too, Matt. I mean that fully for you.

Matt Cundill  43:22  
I haven't had hair since I was like 23

JC Douglas  43:25  
Yeah, there was a, was a point in my 30s when I thought you're not gonna have that forever. So yeah,

Matt Cundill  43:33  
tell me about Halifax as a city. Is it a good place to move to? Is it on the upswing? I hear there's a lot more traffic now, so looking like for the next, for the next little while, because I just got out of Winnipeg. I mean, I literally escaped. But you never hear anybody saying, Man, I escaped Halifax. People just go and they stay there.

JC Douglas  43:51  
Halifax is I was lucky to be born there, because I was born of two Niagara on the Lake parents, and my dad was in the Navy, so that was why Halifax. But what a great place to be born. What a great place to miss while I was away and to come back to. I had no idea what it would be like as a an adult and a broadcaster. But like I said, it punches above its weight as a broadcast city, because it's a hub. It's a hub for a huge area. It's kind of like, you know, on a smaller level, maybe a smaller scale, like a Toronto, the Toronto of Atlanta, Canada. So you're everything revolves around whether they like it or not, and really revolves around Halifax now, but it's getting very big now. You know, a lot of people complaining about its very, very fast growth and knocking down heritage, you know, homes and stuff like that. And I'm, yeah, it's kind of true. I don't go downtown as much as I used to, and every time I do, it feels like a whole new place. Like, holy moly, where did that building come from? And there are apartment buildings going up in, like, central Dartmouth that have never been there before, and condos everywhere. And it's like, where are all those people going to drive? You know. That kind of thing so and, you know, I went to work every day through covid for a while, for eight or nine months, and it was fantastic. There were so few cars on the road Matt and it was beautiful. But it didn't take long for it to spring back much worse than it was pre covid. Now, it's tough, because this city was old and built for, you know, two lane streets, and there's been some widening of major arteries over the years, but right now, it's a little bigger than the driving was made out for, although, I must say, even with that complaint, somehow still you can get from downtown Halifax to a beautiful seaside adventure or a fishing shanty like in 20 minutes. So even if you're complaining about the traffic, it doesn't take long to get out of town. And other than the drive times, you know, it's it's reasonable, it's getting busier. There's been, you know, a lot of people move into this city, but I wish that would slow down a little bit, but I think they need to work on the transit system a bit. I'd like to see some light rail here, but that's just me. And they've been talking about that for 2530 years, but they never made it happen. I think it's a perfect city for it now, at the point it's at,

Matt Cundill  46:15  
if you have to get out of the city for a day and go somewhere summery just to have a chill day, where do you go?

JC Douglas  46:24  
I love this province so much, and there's, that's the thing, there's so many different places to go, because you've got great beaches within a very short drive of Halifax, and so many of them, like from Lawrencetown and Conrad's beach on the coal harbor side and up to on the other side, you know, Crystal crescent and Queensland, and down the south shore, up the eastern shore. I mean, it's shoreline. It's, it's beautiful. If you love water, any kind of, you know, water activity, it's the province for you. And of course, I mean, we love visiting the valley. I mean, oh my god. And if you want whale watching, go down to Briar Island, you know, which is not that far away. It's a day trip Cape Breton in October, even though, I mean, driving the Cabot Trail in the middle of October is the most beautiful drive you will ever take in your life. I'm not kidding. I mean, I've done the big the Maui one that's supposed to rival Cape Breton or the Cabot Trail. And rival maybe, I don't know, Cabo trail in October is hard to beat, all right. Well, tomorrow's a big day for you. It is day four of your retirement, and I hope you find some things to do, go on a podcast, that sort of thing. It's really got in the way of my day. Matt, JC,

Matt Cundill  47:40  
Douglas, thank you so much for being on the podcast for a second time 10 years apart.

JC Douglas  47:45  
It is my pleasure, sir, my pleasure. And in people like you do great things for radio and keep it alive. And it's just it's wonderful to know that people like you really care about radio. That's the thing that's most important.

Tara Sands (Voiceover)  48:02  
A another sound off media company podcast

Speaker 1  48:05  
you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai