Jeff Vidler: "Retired"

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

Matt Cundill  0:13  
I have had Jeff Fiddler on this show four times, mostly to discuss the latest research as it pertains to radio or podcasting, but we've never done the whole story. Jeff recently retired, and I'm using air quotes here when I say retired. The former president of Signal Hill insights has now taken on an advisory role with the company he founded. Paul rismond is now president. Today, we're going to roll back to the 1980s talk about Jeff's time as a radio program director, the evolution of research, and where he thinks podcasting and radio are headed. And now Jeff Vidler joins me from Toronto, Jeff, if we roll it right back, right right back to the very first time you got involved with audio or radio. When was that? Where was that, and what were you doing?

Jeff Vidler  1:07  
Oh, wow. Well, it goes way back. When I was about five or six years old, my oldest brother, eldest brother, Chuck McCoy, otherwise known to me as MERV, was desperately trying to get a job at CKY in Winnipeg. So he was doing Air Checks. But he needed some help with queuing up the records. So we took the portable record player, put it up next to the console stereo, and he had me put my finger on the queue so that, you know, he could read the weather forecast. He taped up against the wall using our dad's dictaphone machine to get that job at ck, why? Which he got. So that was my indoctrination into radio, but it kind of gotten into my blood at that point. And then, you know, I did campus radio when I did, you know, a couple of years at university before I got a job at radio. And have to say, I am one among the luckiest people. I think number one, I was born a white male, which certainly doesn't hurt. But more than anything else, I had two older brothers, Chuck McCoy, and my other brother, Gary Russell, who by the time I got a start in the industry after campus radio, they'd already established themselves as successful program directors in Vancouver. So when I got note at the student manpower office in Victoria, BC, after my second year of university for a summer job as a copywriter at ckda, I rushed down, and sure enough, Jim Gibson, who was the creative director at the time, he just worked for Gary in Vancouver, and I told him who I was, and he said, Oh, you're Gary's brother. Okay, yeah, yeah, let's do this. Oh, I guess I better find out if you can write. So I raced back home, did some two finger typing of a quick 32nd spot race back in about is that back in an hour, had this 32nd spot? And he looked at and said, This will do this is good start. Monday. He never asked me if I could type, and that was a bit of a challenge. But, you know, getting into this industry, it wasn't like I was just born on third base. I just had to put my foot down on home plate to get a start in the industry. And that really helped me all along. And I had the good fortune, you know, to be a baby boomer as well. Those were different times. I mean, we had such cultural clout. You know, one year after I started CK day in Victoria, Ross Davies, the 23 year old program director, hired me as the 21 year old creative director to go to calgary when CJ launched as the first FM rock station in town. You know, the industry that time said, we don't really know what to do this FM thing. Give it to the kids. They know what to do with it. I don't think that

Matt Cundill  3:47  
would happen anymore, do you No, in fact, I was hearing, you know, people like, you know, Fred Jacobs were program directors of radio stations at incredibly young ages. And again, to that, I guess, with the clout of the boomers at that time, and, oh, this FM thing is new. You figure it out. It's, there's a lot of regulations. We don't know what foreground is. You figure it out. And it

Jeff Vidler  4:09  
doesn't mean that much anyhow. So just give to the kids. They won't screw it. There's nothing much to screw up at this point. So what did

Matt Cundill  4:15  
your dad make of having, you know, three boys all get into audio. I

Jeff Vidler  4:20  
think he liked it. I think, you know, he preferred that I was going to be a lawyer or something, but you know that I would not follow the path of my two older brothers. But he was proud of all three of us, I think, in his own way. But he was a businessman who, you know, been general manager of Winnipeg supply and fuel in Winnipeg. But he was also a performer. He performed in town at the beer and skits marketing group and things like that. So he, you know, he understood the whole performance thing that my brothers in particular,

Matt Cundill  4:45  
kind of followed up on. That's a very Winnipeg thing to perform. And, you know, you talked a little bit about ck, why at the outset. And you know, Randy Bachman sings about, this is what we did in Winnipeg, in Portage. And main 50 below, you. And, you know, Bachman, Turner, overdrive and The Guess Who, and you know, street heart and all the bands, queen city kids, that sort of emerged from this very creative space where it is many months of dark, windy and cold. How do you explain Winnipeg and the creativity and the performance aspect?

Jeff Vidler  5:18  
It's a great question. I don't know what it is. I think part of it is Winnipeg is, Winnipeg. Is this this kind of insular place? I mean, we're 500 miles from any city of any size, which is Minneapolis. 500 miles colder than Minneapolis is one way to put it up north. And you know, as a result, it kind of developed its own culture independently of a lot of the other cities. And, you know, there was live bands playing every weekend at the community clubs. There was 82 community clubs in Winnipeg, and you had live bands playing at almost all of them. So that's where Randy Backman and Burton Cummings and Neil Young, they all got their musical they got their chops out by doing that circuit for a couple or three years. And that really stayed alive in Winnipeg right up until the early 80s. I mean, you had the that was the big pubs. They had, you know, pubs that would seat 1000 1500 people. And you had this a circuit of bands like you talked about street, heart queen, city kids, all of that. But that sort of whole thing about live music and just developed its own kind of cultural thing. And it translated radio as well. You went to Victoria. You were doing copywriting. That's where I got started. Yes, and I moved my parents to Victoria. And then what came next after that, I was again lucky. I was in Squamish BC. I had been station manager of a new radio station that we launched in Squamish BC, and I was there for about six months before I realized that, much as I had, the mom and Papa owned the radio station, had sort of set something up where I could probably, over a course of 10 years, through sweat equity, have it as my own radio station. I just at that point, I worked in Victoria, worked in Calgary, and I, you know, said I just don't want to be stuck in Squamish BC for 10 years, that that's what it takes. So I called Dave, Charles and John, para call, and said, Do you know of any kind of good medium market, PD jobs? Because this is great, but I, you know, I do want to get into programming full time at a market that's competitive. They said, No, we don't have that opportunity, but we are looking for a junior consultant who could come and work with us, with the record reps, and help us recommend music to our chain of radio stations. Joint communications was really the big consultant in Canada at that and some extent in the US at that time. So So again, lucky, and that's where I that's where I went next. And spent six years there, actually, and got my post graduate education in the

Matt Cundill  7:40  
radio business. It was wonderful. How did you know to call those two?

Jeff Vidler  7:44  
They'd consulted CHFM, which I, where I've been working in Calgary at the time, and so they had met me, and they thought I was little bit outspoken and, you know, over my head in terms of what I was saying. But here's a guy who's got some passion, and heck, I think we'll give them a shot. So they did, and so grateful.

Matt Cundill  8:03  
So I've heard stories about joint communications. A lot of them did come out of the 80s and what they brought to radio, and there you are working inside of it. So specifically, what did they want you to do with the music like you're effectively it sounds like the music director at a radio consulting company. I was

Jeff Vidler  8:18  
the music director. Exactly what it was. I was the music director at the radio consulting company, so handling the promo reps, doing the music meeting every week, and then, you know, in those days, you know, banging up the Telex to send the recommended playlist to the radio stations on Friday afternoons, right after a music meeting.

Matt Cundill  8:35  
Okay, so as a music director, there's always hits and there's always misses. The hits are easier to pick than the misses. What's something that you might have recommended that you wish you hadn't? Or I'll give you a better question. What's one that you were completely wrong on and that you missed, I

Jeff Vidler  8:51  
think, to some extent, missed in the early days, some of them, you know, we were rock radio consultants, so we had that kind of modal rock thing of the late 70s where, you know, it had to have a guitar to be great. And as the music started to shift, and that was about the time that I started working there, 8283 it took us and but I would say me as well, a little bit of time to kind of adjust my ears to a whole new sensibility in terms of listening to music. And as a consultant, we kind of fell down on the job, a little bit on that, but still working well for some of the rock stations, city in Winnipeg, for example, we consulted and was still doing well, but yeah, we did have to kind of shift our, let's say, by, you know, a couple years we had it figured out, and we were kind of on track there. And again, it was a matter of not just depending on my own ears, but those of the other people the company and in music calls every week with the program directors. The music directors always getting their feedback as well. So it was a matter of just finding out where there was response to these records, feeding that story, spreading the word

Matt Cundill  9:47  
and making it happen. Okay, so this is a timing thing, because it starts around 1982 MTV comes in. There's more British music that's coming across the ocean. In, there's keyboards that I'm sure you got pushback on, you know, that are winding up in rock songs. And again, you go, Well, should have a guitar. So you've got progressive stations out east that might lean a little bit more into the keyboards, but then the ones out west love their guitar rock. 83 another great year. 84 known and, you know, agreed on by me and Sean Ross that it's the greatest year of top 40 radio ever. I mean,

Jeff Vidler  10:25  
what a time for music. It was, yeah, yeah. Fascinating time for music. There was so much going on. It was so exciting at that time. It was a challenge for the rock stations. But certainly top 40 very exciting times, right? I mean, you know, it was Mike Joseph had the hot hit radio, which was kind of kicked it off, where there was very tight rotations, which it hadn't been used for many years, but the music was there

Matt Cundill  10:47  
that made it happen as well. Oh, tell me about rotations.

Jeff Vidler  10:51  
Well, Mike Joseph's hot hits format was an hour and a half, which at that time sounded ridiculous. It was like everybody was playing like, Well, four every four hours. And sure enough, I mean, top 40 plays the hits, is most successful when it's playing the hits and again, had the music to play to make that happen same time.

Matt Cundill  11:09  
And you mentioned the struggles for rock radio, 1985 always sticks out to me. If anybody asked me, Can you do a retrospective of 1985 my heart would break inside. I couldn't really find a lot of stuff to play. Most of it was solo music. Eagles, Fleetwood, Mac Rolling Stones, everybody had solo records out. Phil Collins was big again, wore solo records from established artists from the 70s and early 80s. It was a strange, strange time 85

Jeff Vidler  11:38  
it was a strange time because the other thing that had happened to rock radio as the music started to change at top 40, a lot of the rock acts that were big in the late 70s started getting pulled back from the radio because they just weren't quite cool enough. So was actually hard to get ACDC played on a lot of rock stations. I mean, it's hard to imagine that now, but in 1985 it was very difficult. I mean, we were consulting stations in the US as well, and the same kind of thing was happening there. Now you can start to see a change, though, by what 8586 that's when rock sort of re emerged and and Aerosmith, ACDC came back on radio, and rock ruled again for that segment of the audience, but it was a different segment of the audience. That was when it started to move into classic rock as well. Classic Rock really kind of launched 8687 I was working with a station in Lincoln, Nebraska that was a classic rock station. I think it was 86 or 87 and we were playing Motown as well as we were playing a lot of the classic rock from the early 70s. It was kind of imagine farmers and their tractors grew into Motown, but they were in 1986 87 because it was part of that whole thing, of all these great songs that hadn't been heard and going in with that classic rock that had been the foundation for rock format, while current rock format was split between reflecting that more progressive or pop side or the

Matt Cundill  12:59  
harder edge. Rock, right? Remember the term yuppie? I know a lot of people have forgotten about it, yuppie, yup, younger urban professional, but I do recall that around that time, some of that rock had faded away, because don't bother with the ACDC and the Black Sabbath were really after young urban professionals and their BMWs.

Jeff Vidler  13:18  
That's right, that's right. And that caused some confusion. That caused confusion rock radio as well. Absolutely. What was your biggest, biggest highlights about working with John parriko and Dave Charles? What did I miss that you got to experience just two amazing mentors? I mean, again, so lucky to have both of those guys working with me and sort of guiding me forward in terms of my career, very different guys. I mean, if you know John, you know he's brilliant, and he was just intellectually challenging. Always pushed me harder and harder and harder to come up with those and as getting into research at that point, you know, to come up with insights from the research and challenge me with, you know, what we were finding in the focus groups we were doing, or in the other research we were doing to come up with that, that what really matters, not just what the data show. Meanwhile, Dave Charles, I mean, he still had it, Energizer Bunny. He just the most incredible work ethic and passion for the industry, and just loved it all. So it was okay. You gotta be smart. You gotta think hard, you gotta make your head hurt to kind of really come up with those things that matter, and you gotta work hard too to get there. So yeah, I was blessed to have the chance to work with both John and

Matt Cundill  14:32  
Dave. How did your role change within joint communications over the years?

Jeff Vidler  14:35  
Well, I started taking on more and more frontline consulting. I started in 82 would have been 8788 I was really most of the Canadian radio stations. I was sort of the front person on, not necessarily all of them, but even in Toronto, in ccfm at the time. But, you know, I just my son had just been born. It was a lot of travel, and I just thought, you know what? I think it's time to set. Settle down someplace for a while. And also, I had to prove to the industry that I could practice as well as preach. As Roy Hennessy said to me when he first met me in Winnipeg on my way through to Toronto when I got the job, he says, okay, so you're going to be an expert before you're a pro. Okay, but that I had to live with that, you know, what do you really know about programming a radio station? Yeah, sure, you were, you know, station manager in Squamish. That doesn't really give you the bona fides to tell people or advise people what they should be as programmers. So I was given the chance then, and at that time too, there was clearly nowhere else to grow in the company. I mean, John and Dave were established of what they were doing, and we're a small company, so I thought, Okay, let's see what I can find. And a couple of opportunities came up. But again, I'll give credit to Gary slate Rob braid, who gave me the opportunity to do just that, to prove I could practice as well as preach in Montreal at shome or at, pardon me, cgfm Show's competitor, as you would know, because that's where you were. That's why looking at you and thinking about Sean and CJD and I was there for six years, and had that chance to love Montreal, a wonderful city, and really had a chance to not only prove my bona fides, I guess, in the industry, but also to work with talent directly. And that was exciting people. Terry DeMonte, Ted bird,

Matt Cundill  16:21  
you kind of get thrown into the deep end, though, by going to this radio station, because it's Montreal. There's no other market like it in North America. You get to work with Rob braid, who will tell you that it's like no other he can write the book on that, and it's different. It's just different. There. Rob was my Sherpa, my

Jeff Vidler  16:38  
Montreal Sherpa, who kind of led me through that and understand that the market was different. And I was, I was challenged by that too, because it was different from everything else. It forced you to think and do things differently. So, yeah, it was, it was an exciting time. I was, again, lucky to have the right opportunity to try my hand at

Matt Cundill  16:54  
programming. You went through a few incarnations of the morning show, and then you think you got Terry and Ted around 1993

Jeff Vidler  17:03  
it's a bit of a game changer. It was a game changer, and Rob deserves the credit for that, because Rob's relationship with Terry, when Rob was program director and Terry was there, was really the what made the difference there, and it made a huge difference. We used the opportunity to also rebrand the radio station as mix from cgfm, and it really took us to the next level in terms of audience. I mean, the station was doing well. I mean, I my one thing I'm proud about there was 23 ratings book in a row that were all better than the three that were there before I got to the station. So even when we had some ups and downs, sometimes we were really doing well, and other times it was not as wet as well. We were still successful. And again, a good team working with me there as well.

Matt Cundill  17:44  
So I do recall a story from that time period. It involved research. And again, this is as told to me by Rob and Terry, I think, over too many drinks one night. So we'll find out, if you know how accurate it is, but we'll get your proper sober recount. It was the fashion centers and, you know, Cadillac Fairview, and they had dropped off the buy they weren't going to buy the radio station anymore. And you went and did some research and provided it to the sales people to re convince them to come back onto the radio station. And that was sort of the edge that they got in having you as a program director is having that research background in there as well.

Jeff Vidler  18:22  
Do you recall the story? I don't recall the specific story, but yes, we were doing research ourselves in house research. We had a big database that we used to talk to our listeners for music testing, but also we did pull out some data that we could pass on to the sales people. So that must have been one of those times, but I'd never heard that it was that instrumental in getting Cadillac Fairview back on the station. Certainly, Terry and Ted were part of that too.

Matt Cundill  18:48  
Yeah. I mean, you know what it's like at that level? You know, buying English, buying French, buying different sets of numbers and buying specific demographics as well. I mean, I think there's a good time for you to maybe talk about the value of and power of having research. This

Jeff Vidler  19:04  
is very simple. You just have to be in touch with the consumer. I mean, it's not that complicated. So good research knows how to get in touch with that consumer, appropriately, in the right way where you're, you know, eliminating any chance of bias, of that and your own confirmation bias, but also everything that you get from Melissa, every phone call, every conversation you have in the street, is research about the radio station. You just have to put that in context of where that's coming from and who it is and what they're saying to you, and try to figure it

Matt Cundill  19:33  
all out together. So how did you know that your time as a program director would be ending and you needed a change and would move on?

Jeff Vidler  19:40  
Well, the next step for me would be general manager. And I just wasn't that interested in being a general manager, you know, it just seemed too much business, too much administration for me. And I really wanted to put up my shingle as a researcher. You know, I dipped my toes into research when I was at joint communications, as I said, did research in house, research at CJ. FM, CJD, and the next step for me was to really, you know, throw my hat in that ring in terms of radio research. So I gave standard six months. I said I'm gonna leave. Gave you lots of time. Pat holiday came in and followed me in that role, took the station to an even higher level again, and had a brilliant programmer. I was lucky enough to hook up with Angus Reid, who was, at that time, the Angus Reid group was really one of the primary market research companies in the country and and he had, he liked radio, and he and he knew some of the people in radio he'd worked with, actually, CKY in Winnipeg, that's where Angus started. So he had that history as well. And when Pat bond actually happened sitting next to him on a plane, and Angus said, Well, I'm looking for someone in broadcasting to do research for us, you know, so we can, you know, work with some radio stations. So Pat Bond said, Oh, well, there's this guy in Montreal, and I think he's, he's really looking to get into research. So again, luck and the right people the right time, right so and grateful to Pat for that recommendation, and that's how Angus and I met, and I went there as his radio research manager and then VP of media there after we worked together for about Angus even another six years or so before he sold and I left and went to my own research company in partnership with another researcher at Kanye, get at solutions research group back in 2000

Matt Cundill  21:23  
so when we talk about radio research in the 90s, and I was lucky enough to work with you, because I was working at standard radio, and obviously the slates became your client. So, and you know, you got to do the cross Canada trip every once in a while, but I recall working on music testing and as well, you know, perceptions about your radio station and things like that, was, is that really, really the core of the research that you did was, you know, music testing and as well, perceptuals. That's right. I mean,

Jeff Vidler  21:51  
that was, that was kind of the radio research playbook back in the 90s. Honestly, it was pretty much the radio research playbook in the 80s. It's pretty much the same radio research playbook today, which you might say maybe that's one of the challenges that radio has, is it hasn't really evolved in terms of how it connects with the consumer. But, yeah, that's what we were doing. I mean, again, Gary slight, he gave me a shot at programming in Montreal. He also served as my biggest client in research, and we had the ability to work with standard radio. And I did really right through the time, until he sold that into astral, and obviously worked with other radio companies as well in Canada and the US. But yeah, music testing, that's when I first met you. We would we did an auditorium music test, I remember, and you couldn't get over what amazing band this, Our Lady piece was. And you couldn't wait to see what the results were going to be with the music test to see how the early peace tracks tested.

Matt Cundill  22:43  
Yeah, you know, and you reminded me of that. I thought to myself, why would I want to know that? And I thought to myself, this is the band that is number one on all the Canadian charts that were playing that is new. And the bear, which was the station I was at in Edmonton had started classic rock and was research for classic rock, but making a transition to new. And it's like, well, if this band is doing well, it will really give a good indication about how much people really do, like, you know, new music versus old, because I think finding the balance between old and new was really the key. And we're going to play a lot of Our Lady piece. So let's see what happens with this band. Turns out, they researched in the middle of the pack, didn't really give much of an answer, and the only song worth a damn, I think, at the time, to the audience, was clumsy. Wow,

Jeff Vidler  23:27  
that's good memory. Foo Fighters was the other band you were excited about in terms of one of those current rock bands that really could fit the classic rock that you were playing as well. Actually,

Matt Cundill  23:37  
that's the second time we met, because the first time was, I think, grumpies on Bishop street, but you are not obligated to remember that.

Jeff Vidler  23:44  
I don't remember that. There's a lot of nights at grumpies that I don't remember and probably shouldn't.

Matt Cundill  23:50  
Well, it was actually at between five and seven and happy hour. So and I met Lesley there too, and we were going to we were going to a show. It was going to be archangels and big sugar, and you might have just joined us for a drink, but I was going with Robbie.

Jeff Vidler  24:04  
Yeah, I think I didn't make the show, but I did make it to grumpies. Yeah,

Matt Cundill  24:10  
again, for those who've worked in Montreal, you will understand all of that, the San cassette, the grumpies, and you're right, by the way, about Foo Fighters, because it was all hands on deck for Foo Fighters. It was 9697 97 we were doing that research. And again, you know, how lucky was I to get Gary slate to do this research, and just to show us that we were, like, full of shit in the music meeting and getting it wrong on some things, but sometimes we were getting it right, and we didn't have to have the discussion anymore. It was quite wonderful. It's liberating. Yes, it

Jeff Vidler  24:44  
is. You know, some people are frightened by research because it will challenge their assumptions that they've built their ego on. But those are not usually the most successful programmers. Those are the ones that would maybe get lucky, do well for a little while, but if they just didn't get. It or accept the pulse of the audience, then they were not going to be successful.

Matt Cundill  25:06  
It went from Angus Reid, and then it went to solutions research group for the 2000s I want to also say just how happy I am that you're keeping your career completely organized within the decades. So starting in 2000 you did go to your partner in solutions research group, so thanks for keeping it organized by decade.

Jeff Vidler  25:26  
A lot of decades there. So yeah, but that was fun. We had con you get who is my partner, and I built a nice little research company, and right up until, think 2009 is when Angus came back calling. He'd started up a new research company, and he actually had some he gave me a little bit of equity get involved with his new company. Vision critical. So that's where I spent the next five years or so, until Angus moved away. I moved away and started my own company in 2013 so it's like almost 11 years ago.

Matt Cundill  25:56  
Are we changing the way that we do our music research? It used to be pen and paper. Is there a different way that it's done now, or are we still relying on pen and paper and 600 records

Jeff Vidler  26:05  
music testing, that auditorium music testing has gone away, library testing has really gone towards online. I mean, started doing it in the late 2000s but really kind of took over. The last auditorium music test I did would be back in 2010 2011 it was still that sense of, oh, I want to see the people who are taking the test. That was always fun, that was always an interesting to see who your audience was in the flesh, and then see them actually filling out the surveys. But the cost, as radio budgets tightened up, doing an online research test with a good quality sample, you can do that for half the price of what you could do an auditory music test for so that everything shifted in that direction at that point. And there are advantages to online music testing as well. You can randomize the order of the songs. When we did auditorium music tests, we used to have to we realized that the first 3035, songs were always scored higher than the rest, because people were so excited about this, and it was like they didn't realize that they were been recruited to test the music of the station that they listened to. So they would go, Oh man, another great rock song. Oh, another great rock song. And then finally, after about 30 songs, they go, Oh, okay, I get it. These are all rock songs, and the scores would drop down. So we'd actually have to weight the scores, and we used a method where we were able to, we'd done enough music tests that we could actually calibrate how much to bring down those scores for those first 3035, songs. But it was randomized much easier. Also, you don't, it's not the issue of, okay, was that song after that song? Maybe that's what affected that score for that song. I mean, so truly, you actually have, maybe, even though you don't see the people doing the survey, you actually have stronger data from online music testing they needed from auditorium music testing. So not only was there cost, but also just better quality data

Matt Cundill  27:52  
by going online. And I really did enjoy taking the test once. Obviously, you took the test and threw it in the garbage because, you know, I shouldn't be part of the survey, but we did discover afterwards, during our beer, that there's two songs within the 600 that repeat in order to test fatigue.

Jeff Vidler  28:11  
That's right, we did that. That was another way that was part of that same waiting process that we took is we knew that by the end of the music test, and we did sit in people down for two and a half hours to check off with pen and paper, 600 songs we have. We broke it up with a dinner, a quick little lasagna and Caesar salad buffet dinner that they begin about 20 minutes to half an hour to eat that in between, to sort of break it up a bit. But even still, by the time we got to that last set of music. And we made each one a little bit shorter. We started off the 125 songs. Think the last one was 75 songs.

Matt Cundill  28:47  
That's right. Went 125, 115, 9585 75 we did this again, I think in 2003 at Ruby Foos in Montreal, we test a lot of the show library. And again, Babe Ruth, the Mexican, scoring in the top 10. Okay,

Jeff Vidler  29:05  
only in Montreal. Transcription

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Matt Cundill  29:39  
apps. Tell me about a radio station where you just would do this for a group, a station, and just there was success every time with it. And why was there success every time with it?

Jeff Vidler  29:50  
Good question. I mean, sometimes there's other magic that's happening at the same time, or there's competition that's not doing the making the right moves at the right time. But. I mean, this is more on the AC side of the ledger. There was a brief moment in Toronto radio where chfi was not the big adult contemporary radio station. I mean, anything. As soon as ckfm changed format back in 8788 chfi was the monster in the market for animal contemporary music, and it stayed that way until the late 90s, Telemedia launched easy rock as a competitor. Because, hey, you know, if you've got a new radio station, where are you going to go? You're going to go for the top station to market and try to take some share. And they had sort of nibbled away a little bit at chfi. But, you know, we had the opportunity to start doing some research for easy rock. This would be around 2000 I guess Mike McVay, as a consultant, came on board as well. Brian De Poe was a program director, Mark Perry was the general manager, and just with a really disciplined approach to research and execution stations, started nibbled more and more away at chfi and and Julie Adam would be the first one to admit this. It was hurting a little bit. They fired Aaron Davis, who was had been handling mornings with Don danard, who had retired a couple of years earlier, and that opened up an opportunity for easy rock to actually go to number one. It was gaining anyhow. But then everything changed. Julie Adam, to her full credit, as program director, admitted the error of her ways, and even though easy rock, who had been trying to find their own morning show, had paired her with Mike Cooper for a while, and she brought Aaron back, and Aaron said, I want Mike Cooper so easy Rock's loss chfis gains, and chfi regained that number one position and never gave it up until easy rock became Boom Back in 2009 I think it was 2009 2010

Matt Cundill  31:48  
Why did vision critical end and then Audience Insights begin?

Jeff Vidler  31:52  
Vision critical became more and more as Angus backed away from it. It became less and less of a research company, more and more of a technology company with panels that you could use for online research. And we did, you know, CBC, iHeart in the States, radio, one in the US, chorus, all became clients of vision critical. And that panel and I helped to sort of get those things in place at each of those stations. But then at that point, I wasn't doing a lot of research anymore, and my rolodex had kind of, you know, that's back in these Rolodex and kind of out of potential panel clients for those panels. So it was time to move on. And by that time, I, you know, took the notion of thinking, Well, you know, maybe I can just keep life simple and do this on my own. And yeah, lucky enough to make that happen,

Matt Cundill  32:45  
you and I both attended the Podcast Movement in 2016 which was in Chicago. And yeah, there was, I think I could count about 3040, radio people who were there. And I went, you went, what did you see that week?

Jeff Vidler  33:03  
What I saw that week was a lot of what I remember from the early 80s radio and records conferences, or NAB radio show conferences, that excitement and energy and passion that I hadn't seen at Radio conferences in sort of the past 10 or 15 years you just had, you could tell there was something happening there, just from the people who were attending. A lot of them were independent creators who had dreams to be have the next This American Life. That was the number one podcast at the time. But you could just tell that there was something happening here. And podcast listening was starting to grow. It still was relatively small. I mean, it's, it's more than doubled its audience since 2016 in terms of penetration in the US and Canada. So, yeah, it sort of opened up new doors to me in terms of where some of the excitement was and where there was opportunity as well.

Matt Cundill  33:55  
So did you know was that the time you sort of knew that you would be making a bit of a pivot with the type of research you were going to do, and maybe do more Brand Lift than other traditional research that you were accustomed

Jeff Vidler  34:06  
to as a matter of really, as a researcher, seeing that podcasting was going to grow, and as it was growing, it needed to be monetized, and needed to be able to tell its story to advertisers. That the opportunity as a researcher in podcasting, and, you know, by doing studies that would help to prove to the advertisers, the Yes, podcasting is gaining an audience, but it's also really effective. So that's where we shifted, you know, gears, and that's, you know, going back now, five years ago, relaunched the company. I had my own small company was Audience Insights, Inc, which was kind of a dumb name, because it was like the worst for SEO in the world. So change it to Signal Hill insights and really double down on podcasting at a time. Still, you know, still doing some radio research, still do some radio research today, but vast majority of the work that we do at Signal Hill Insights is in the US, and vast majority of is with

Matt Cundill  34:59  
podcasting. Yeah. I mean, you did a lot of work in Canada. You started out with joint communications, dealing with a lot of Canadians. And you know, what point did you become just agnostic to the borders

Jeff Vidler  35:10  
where there was opportunity in the US, it wasn't there was an opportunity to plant a stake in an industry that few others had really planted their stake yet, and certainly had the experience working in the US. Days with joint communications. We worked very closely with Burkhard Abrams consultants in the States. I had, you know, exposure to the US at the time, and didn't see any reason why that couldn't work so and that, you know, podcast industry in Canada is growing and the audience is growing, but it isn't at the level of maturity still isn't level maturity where there's enough advertising there to justify a lot of cases, doing the Brand Lift research that in the larger market like the US is become almost mandatory as part of doing research from an advertiser point of view or agency point of view, when using the medium,

Matt Cundill  35:58  
do people tell you how cool Signal Hill Insights is for the name of a company. People

Jeff Vidler  36:04  
ask where it comes from, and there is a story there. I had hired a digital marketing consultant to sort of help me. I decided that, you know, Audience Insights was gonna have to change its name, and I have to find a new, you know, a new way forward. And I'd hired her, and she had an opportunity to talk to people that we've been working with, and some of the people we would like to work with understand more about what they were looking for in the way of a research company. And I did it was on holidays in Newfoundland, and she was delivering her final report to me, and did over the phone, and at the end of the thing, I said, so do I really need to change the name? And she said, yeah, no, you have to change the name. It's a terrible name. You need another name. So right after that, my wife and I got in the car, Leslie and I got in the car, and we did some sight seeing. And one of the really sights to see that maybe the number one site to see Newfoundland is single Hill. It's where Marconi received the first transcontinental radio message. And it was like, I looked at Lesley, she looked at me, and was like, Okay, I think we we have to change the name. I think we have the name Signal Hill. Actually initially tried Signal Hill research, but there was another company, really a morbid company, called Signal Hill research. So became Signal Hill insights, and it wasn't until later we realized there's other signal Hills all around like in California, that's oil and gas business Signal Hill, and there's Signal Hill research companies down there that are Oil and Gas Research. There's a Signal Hill that's become a skateboarding race Hill in California, also sometimes, especially in the US, when we say Signal Hill insights, they think, Oh, you're a California company, right? But definitely the connection to radio and the connection to audio and innovation was there is kind of a something that would help March us forward and give us a sense of mission.

Matt Cundill  37:51  
You touched on Canada, and Katie Lohr from pod the North has written about this extensively, and I think I'm beginning to sort of see and feel it too. There's a growing sort of sense of frustration around podcasting in Canada that you really do need to get your advertising from multiple sources. You're not going to be able to rely on, you know, agency, business or programmatic to pay all your bills. And we see French les ballet do French podcasts dipping last year because, you know, creating content is expensive, and there's not a lot of new content coming in. So what's a Canadian to do? What's a Canadian to ponder and think about the future of podcasting? It's

Jeff Vidler  38:30  
a great question, and it's, it is a real challenge we just don't have. I mean, it's kind of an old story, but Canada doesn't have the scale that you have in the US around podcasting in particular, still a new industry, really, in the US as well, but it has reached its maturity much faster than it has in Canada. Canada is arguably at least five years behind where that is and with smaller budgets overall. I mean, you know, this year podcast advertising in the US will probably end up somewhere close to $3 billion and I don't know if we're even hitting 80 million in Canada. So you apply that usual 10 times scale, we're actually population now is actually about eight times higher in the US and Canada. And the podcasting industry, in terms of the dollars, is well behind the US, and just the sheer amount of dollars aren't there. So if you really want to build podcasting is not easy, very low barrier to entry, very high barrier for success. You're competing against hundreds of 1000s of other podcasts. You have to be able to give your audience something that they can't get somewhere else, because the choices are all there, and increasingly easy to find those with recommendation agents at Spotify and YouTube. Easy to find those podcasts that you will also like. So it's very difficult to get that step forward, and certainly being Canadian can help you. But you know, Canadian true crime, very successful podcast, consistently a top 10 podcast in a Canadian podcast listener study. So. Speaking of SEO, great SEO. So the challenge is one of scale. It really is. We are not the US. We don't have that much volume and population, and that means we don't have as many podcast listeners. But also we are behind the US in terms of the maturity of the industry. And you know, how are we going to get to the next step. How can we feed the industry in such a way that Canadian podcasters do have a chance to get one step up? And one of those ways may be appealing to and there are appeals out there now to the Canadian media Fund, which has done a great job of being able to provide support for the screen based industries in Canada, which, again, is even more expensive to get into, so this point still closed off to audio only, and that would be an opportunity there seed money for those podcasts that do have that grand vision. It isn't just you or me trying to do a podcast, but an opportunity for a publisher to build, really a publishing business around podcasting in Canada that would reach Canadians, but also with opportunities to be successful in other English speaking countries, in the US, in the UK, in Australia, there's a large English market out there, and of course, in French language as well.

Matt Cundill  41:17  
You were one of the first to tell me about this through Signal Hill insights and the research, and that was people getting their podcasts from YouTube, and not you specifically. People would not call out Jeff Fiddler on this, but the study and the numbers would come out, and then the traditional podcasters who are really married to their RSS feeds would sort of poo poo it and say it's not a real podcast anyway. But this is the one thing I like about Jeff and his research is that he's bringing you the truth. And this is what people are doing, and it really doesn't matter how people are consuming this stuff. And so here we are today. This is on YouTube. We're on YouTube. We've made the switch because of research like yours. We're here largely for the SEO, but we're happy to be on YouTube as well. What did you see early and what do you see now, and how badly do we need to be a part of the YouTube ecosystem to have a successful podcast?

Jeff Vidler  42:06  
I think that's a good way to put it. To be part of the YouTube ecosystem doesn't mean you necessarily have to have a video podcast that's on YouTube, but YouTube has to be part of your marketing strategy. The very least, one thing that we see, even with people whose primary platform for consuming YouTube is is that there are podcasts that are popular, podcasts that are still popular among people who use YouTube, people who watch podcasts rather than listen to them. The Daily is a big podcast among people who watch podcasts, and they do have a presence. All it is is a static shot that shows a shot from whatever the topic of the day is that you can see there. But again, YouTube is for a lot of people, just a destination where they go for their entertainment. It has a wonderful recommendation. All those thumbnails that tell you what you might like to watch or listen to next are right there. You might watch it. But we also find that people may put podcasts on YouTube, but they're not necessarily looking at the screen the whole time. Maybe they're on their computer, they minimize the screen, and they just got the podcast in the background and they're listening to it. Maybe they're just casting glance at it from time to time, we do see people now are using smart TVs to watch podcasts. That makes sense if you want to watch that podcast live, but you don't have to have moving video to have a place on YouTube, even if it's just a matter of doing some shorts that have nothing to do with the actual content itself. But to promote the podcast, to talk about something that relates to the podcast, showing something that has visual appeal that then feeds back to the podcast. It is the number one form for discovery for new podcasts, is YouTube. If you have to have some presence there, if you're not there, then you're missing that opportunity. But it doesn't mean you have to invest in full scale video to make your podcast effective.

Matt Cundill  43:59  
Well, it's exciting, because I'm comparing both every day, and I'm trying out new stuff all the time. And for those who want to follow along, you can get the sounding off newsletter where I will be documenting all this stuff, and we'll find out if I can figure out the magic potion to get through.

Jeff Vidler  44:14  
I love the fact that you're being transparent about that, about hey, I'm trying video and podcasts, and here's what I'm learning, because nobody else is doing that. Speaking of research, that's first person research, but that's very valuable for the rest of the industry to see that experience and what that experience is all about.

Matt Cundill  44:31  
People ask me, Why should I hire you? And I say, because I've made all the mistakes. I'm going to save you from making all the

Jeff Vidler  44:36  
mistakes too. But I mean in terms of our presence to Signal Hill with video podcasts. I mean, we actually were the first ones to actually report that YouTube was a large platform. It wasn't the number one at that time, but going back to 2019 when we first started seeing it, that YouTube was a growing force for podcast consumption, and we continue to follow that chain, working with cumulus media and. States on their download is an area we've really focused on YouTube for social discovery and for consumption. And in fact, proud to say that yesterday, above the fold, New York Times was an article about watching podcasts, and they talked about the research we've done at the cumulus committee. And they actually cited Paul rismond, l who's the new president of Signal Hill insights for his thoughts based on the research that we've seen about what that's all about. And it's actually a great article where he spoke with people who do watch podcasts or understand what that's all about. So again, actually, this is not our research. That's the journalist research about what's happening with that, but it's, you know, coming to terms with YouTube is a really important thing for all podcasters to do one way or another, understand how they should fit it into their plans. That

Matt Cundill  45:46  
article, by the way, is going to be in the show notes of this episode, and I did give it a read yesterday, and it is very, very good. And really asking the question, Who is it that is watching all this material of two and a half hour podcasts on video

Jeff Vidler  45:59  
and Tom Webster, it sounds profitable too. Has done a great job of sort of looking at and providing advice and guidance on that, and he's the one who actually says, you don't necessarily have to be on YouTube. You don't have to have a video podcast on YouTube to be successful, but you have to include YouTube in your

Matt Cundill  46:15  
marketing plans. I don't want to leave out radio. What about the future of radio? Jeff,

Jeff Vidler  46:21  
I do like to think there is a future for radio. And I think it feels to me like it has something to do with reflecting the moment on a minute by minute basis in a way that you can't with on demand audio or On Demand Media. And I do as I move further and further away from actually, I mean, as I'm moving towards retirement, in general, I don't listen to as much razy, so I'm becoming more and more like a regular radio listener, and I find that I do drift towards those stations that do a great job of that one way or another. So, you know, I spent a lot of time listening to 680 news in Toronto, because I do get that minute by minute update of what's happening in news. And I'm a bit of a news junkie, so that's part of that, but I also hear it in some of the really well programmed radio stations. I'll use boom in Toronto as an example. This a radio station, the music radio station playing songs that are at least 20 years old or older, but they do an amazing job of reflecting the moment. Terrific talent that moves the station forward all the time. Music Mix is absolutely beautifully put together. Keeps you feeling like the station is moving forward, and they aren't afraid to throw out the rule book to come up with some great ideas to reflect that moment. I mean, Canada Day, playing all day, playing nothing but Canadian music. Now most programmers wouldn't do that because they think, oh my god, I can't do that. But you know what? For a listener, that's cool, that's like, oh, yeah, I love Canada. I love the fact that they're doing this on a pride parade day, all the gay anthems they'll devote the station to that. So that's a station that's really being successful doing that. Now, radio in Edmonton, with that sort of ongoing conversation they have with their listeners crash on Mars in mornings in particular sort of set the stage for that, but when you listen to that station, you feel you're part of an ongoing conversation. Even those that have tried to imitate what now just don't seem to be able to do that the same way. So is it that radio is linear in the moment, and if the station, if radio, can reflect the moment effectively, then it doesn't have to compete with streaming. It doesn't have to compete with podcasting. You know, the thing about

Matt Cundill  48:23  
boom that I like is I can listen to it, and some of the songs are 40 years old, and I don't feel old when I listen to it. The songs are from 40 years ago, but it doesn't make me feel old because they're playing old songs. It's incredible that way. And they've done very, very well for themselves.

Jeff Vidler  48:38  
They're also geared towards what is the current radio demographic, which

Matt Cundill  48:41  
is 35 plus. Have you started your piano lessons? Not yet. Thanks for reminding me of that, though. Well, you know, you said you were retiring, and I go, Are you really gonna retire? I mean, I can't see you like a time when you're not really thinking about, you know, audio and podcast and radio and YouTube and solving all of our problems like you have for so many years. And then he said, Well, I'm gonna, I'm gonna pick up the piano.

Jeff Vidler  49:05  
Okay, yeah, well, that is one of the things that's part of my plans going forward. I'm still, at this point, you know, involved a strategic advisor to Clint Paul rismond, has taken over as president last year, has been doing an amazing job of building our ad effectiveness practice in the US and Industry Profile, I mean, New York Times yesterday. What can I say Matt heard is our VP of research in Canada. He's going to take over a lot of what I was doing in the Canadian side. So come September this year, I'm going to be 70 years old, so it's time to take another big step back, and I will be out of the sort of day to day operations of Signal Hill, I've been there involved in the past year, sort of as part of the transition, but, and I will still do projects from time to time, those things where I can add real value to it. But I might just say I'm going to be away for a couple of months, traveling somewhere, and I'm not really going to do much of anything. But if you really need me. You can, you know, I'm happy to offer my advice, but to be truly a strategic advisor and let others and Paul, again, I mean, is doing things with Signal Hill that I could not do such a smart guy, terrific values. He was a client, and we got along so well as I sensed that he had the same value system, same moral compass as I had and the vision I had for the company. So when I said, Hey, I'm looking for someone to take over as president, his eyes lit up. And that was a conversation that was like three years ago now, and he's been with us for two and a half years, and officially took over that role back last September. But looking forward

Matt Cundill  50:36  
to having him on the show and as well. We'll have Matt heard on the show as well, and you know, we'll just continue with all the great stuff you guys shared Signal Hill insights and congratulations, Jeff, on an incredible career, and thanks for walking me through the decades and all of our time that we've worked together. It's fun to pull up the Foo Fighters and Our Lady peace again. Thank

Jeff Vidler  50:52  
you, Matt. Keep it on going. You're doing a great job as one of those really key pieces in moving the Canadian podcast industry forward. The sound

Tara Sands (Voiceover)  51:00  
off podcast is written and hosted by Matt Cundill, produced by Evan sirminsky, edited by Taylor McLean, social media by Aiden glassy, another great creation from the sound off media company. There's always more at sound off podcast.com you.