Humble And Fred: Fiercely Independent

Tara Sands (Voiceover)  0:01  
The sound off podcast. The podcast about broadcast with Matt Cundill starts now.

Matt Cundill  0:11  
This week, I speak with humble and Fred, pioneers of life after radio sometime back in 2011 after five years apart, humble and Fred committed to doing their show in podcast form. Over the years, their show was picked up on terrestrial radio in Kingston, then dropped shortly after by Sirius XM for five years, and in 2018 they were added to funny 8:20am in Hamilton, where they were recently scheduled for termination, but quit radio before they could be canceled. They're going to go into detail about that on our talk today. By the way, you can connect with humble and Fred through their podcasts and streaming and they join me from the studios of humble and fred.com in Toronto. How many times have you guys left radio?

Humble Howard  0:59  
Not that many times. What

Fred Patterson  1:00  
do you mean? Left radio. What do you mean by that? At

Matt Cundill  1:03  
one point, your show went to podcast and lived there for a while, and this show has morphed through platforms a few times over the last 10 years.

Fred Patterson  1:14  
Yes, when we first decided to do the podcast in 2011 to be honest, the idea was we'll do this podcast, and then that may lead to a radio job, which, in fact, it did, because we weren't doing it for that long, until Julie Adam got involved at Rogers. And next thing you know, we're the morning show in Kingston. Now we did the morning show in Kingston, and then after the morning show, did the podcast. And then that came to an end. And it was podcast alone for a short period of time. And then we were approached by Sirius XM that edition. The show was the podcast. We didn't do a radio show, and then a podcast.

Humble Howard  1:58  
The thing is, Matt and I know what you're asking all the way through the last 10 years, soon to be, 10 years of doing a podcast for the entire time, we've put out a podcast every day. Sometimes that podcast was after a radio show that only lasted maybe seven months, when we were doing the morning show in Kingston, then when we were doing the Sirius XM show. We were doing a radio show, but we were also packaging it as a podcast, and always did a little bit extra. So yes, it was a radio show, like a lot of these shows, now that, you know, package it as a podcast, but we just kept pumping out that podcast every day. This last incarnation, we had the show as a podcast, but repurposed for a few radio stations. Which brings us to this most recent we left radio, except this time we've kind of the reason we made this big pronouncement was we were no longer going to pursue any radio adjacent opportunities, as we said to our friend bingo, Bob and Bob's basement podcast the other day, we felt like we finally grew into sort of a standalone operation just as a podcast. Because as radio guys, we always felt we needed a radio Association, but as a lot of you all have found out, you don't need it. I'm

Matt Cundill  3:18  
going to take a guess here, and guess that the hardest part is doing a show where there's no live component. So when you did have a live component, whether it was on Sirius or you were live on the radio, was it hard not having a live audience to interact with?

Fred Patterson  3:35  
Not really. I mean, the whole time we were at 820 we did it live, and then that live show, listen, we were doing a podcast that was on the radio. We weren't doing a radio show that became a podcast. Let's establish that when you say interaction with the audience. We had some through social media, but we didn't use the phones. We had them. We didn't use them, you know. And I think you a lot of people in so called Talk Radio now they don't even like to use the phones. They don't like that interaction because often it's quite mindless. Now, through social media, you can see it, and then if it's anything profound or interesting, you can refer to it. So to answer that question, I'd say, No, I get why

Humble Howard  4:18  
you're asking it, because there really is something. And I remember when we finally got the gig at serious and it was a bit exciting, I think, for both of us to be on the air in the States. And we got a phone system when we had a one 800 number. And I remember Freddie and I getting, you know, thought it was cool when we would get a call from Georgia or somewhere in California. And these are all people that had never heard us before, but Freddie's right in terms of our day to day interactivity with the audience. It's, it's for as long as I can remember now, it's all just been through social media. You know, we we do our show streaming on Facebook, which is now our live element. And as Freddie was. Saying, you know, like, I don't look at it much during the show because I find it a bit distracting. Was distracting, but our producer, Phil, will sometimes check it after the show. What you'll see, Matt, we get tons of comments, and the audience is interacting. Unlike radio listeners, they're interacting with each other, which is kind of cool. And

Fred Patterson  5:20  
when we had access to a live audience and interact with listeners, it was a tiny, tiny fraction of the show, because half the time, you know, you get going riffing. And if we went to a call, it would actually interrupt the show a bit like it might be disjointed, or a question you didn't want to answer at that point, or whatever. So, I mean, from that standpoint, you know, personally, it never meant that

Matt Cundill  5:48  
much to me. When you meet your listeners, do you ask them how they consume the show? Because there's so many different ways that you can be consumed. It's almost like, Hey, I listen to your show. And then you have to ask them, oh, how do you listen to us?

Fred Patterson  6:00  
It's funny. When we were on funny 820 I mean, a live show, am signal, huge. Am signal in southern Ontario, that rarely come up. Most people subscribe to the show and download it and listen at their leisure. And, you know, and that gets you thinking that, number one, do we need to be live? Number two, you know, we're making concessions for radio, like breaking up the show and stopping down when they needed us to, and then actually putting the show together for best ofs on the weekend for them, where it's turn, it's actually costing us money. So when you get the reaction from listeners, that most of them are listening at their leisure After downloading the show, it really opens your eyes to where you're at nowadays.

Humble Howard  6:48  
Although that being said, it's interesting. The last couple of weeks, since we fired radio, after they fired us, that was our big statement. You fired us. We'll show you. We're gonna fire you first, you bastards. I did notice a few comments. I don't know if you've seen them, Freddie, but some comments from people, Hey, where'd you go? You're not on a 20 anymore, etc. But for the you know, as he said, the overwhelming interaction that we've had now for 10 years. But Howard,

Fred Patterson  7:24  
even on that point, those who listened to us on funny 820 were listening to us like radio people probably jumping in their cars or catching just maybe 20 minutes of the show per morning, and they missed that 20 minutes that they were getting. Did they eventually or later in the day, download it to hear the parts they they missed. I mean, it's a lot more valuable for us to have someone download the show. And you know, our downloads, did you see? You know, it shows actual consumption. A lot of people download the show and listen to a lot of it. The radio audience doesn't. Mattie

Humble Howard  7:58  
is a radio guy. You'll like this, because we would end the radio show, let's say, interviewing somebody like you. We say, Okay, we got Matt with us. We got to say goodbye to the radio audience. If you want to hear the end of this interview, go to we used to, rather than hooking hooking him through the stop set, we literally, I would hook them through the podcast and say, if you want, if you want to hear the real conversation, go to humble and friend radio.com whether that, you know, helped us or not, it was just kind of a little bit of a wink that what we're really doing is this podcast. You guys can hear it on the radio, but we, we had sort of made a conscious effort, I think, with the Sirius XM years, or at least I did, as the hosty guy, to kind of start putting the business aside and not be, you know, so conscious of the mechanics of the radio show. And as Fred said, We by the time we got to AM, 820 we had stopped basically doing the business of radio pretty much all together, other than, you know, the hey we coming up. Matt's going to talk about this and but in terms of the ins and outs and the breaks and such, I just sort of gave that up, you know, resetting the interview and things like that. We just,

Matt Cundill  9:07  
well, the one time that I came to visit you was, want to say it was like April, I can't remember the year. Maybe it was 2018 and that was the format. By the time nine o'clock, you signed off, and then all of a sudden, you invited me into the conversation. Got to go sideways.

Humble Howard  9:21  
That's right, well, and also, you know, not that we're big, you know, big on profanity anyway, during our podcast, you know, there you go. We did a couple hours of radio where you can't say anything, and then at nine o'clock, all of a sudden, we're saying shit and, you know, whatever. And, and it was, the conversation was just a little bit more relaxed, a little bit more like this. Look at

Fred Patterson  9:42  
our sponsors. I mean, if you took a radio listener that was listening in the 20 what's the average listener in the morning? What 20 minutes? Is that? 17 to 20 minutes? What are the chances that they're going to hear any particular sponsor? But you know, when you sell the thing based on. It's downloaded. Your commercial now lives forever, right? And chances are, based on how we know about the consumption, all these subscribers, all these people downloading it, there's a pretty, pretty good chance they're gonna hear your commercial every freaking day. We could never make that claim on radio, and that's a big difference.

Matt Cundill  10:20  
That's a sweet deal, by the way, to be to have an ad that is embedded forever into your podcast. I use dynamic ad insertion because, well, my stuff is a little more evergreen than your stuff, which is a little bit more current. And all that to say is the value that you give with your clients. And I think it was, I want to say the radio Sherpa, the retirement Sherpa. I remember, you know Howard, you turned to me and said, This is going to be a minute or two.

Humble Howard  10:48  
Well, we don't really have we sell them as 30s or I don't actually, it's not true. We don't really sell them as anything, but they tend to go on a while. But the thing

Fred Patterson  10:55  
is, about the way we do it, and I've noticed some pot like I I've listened to um smartless, that podcast, and, you know, those guys pre record the spots and then drop them into the show. But often it's the same read that can get pretty monotonous. One thing I about us, we never have the same read two days in a row. And I think that's key too. You know, you put a different spin on it, bring something current events into it, or whatever. But I think that's important. I

Matt Cundill  11:23  
also think there's a lot of value, aside from all that programmatic stuff that goes on. And, you know, whether it's YouTube or podcast, you have a relationship with these people. We trust you and you trust them. You can't put a CPM on that. You know, it is what it is. It's a relationship, and it's good business.

Humble Howard  11:41  
Well, it's funny. You bring that up because we've been having discussions. You know, every time a broadcaster retires, it's like, It's a Wonderful Life. It's every time a broadcaster retires, an angel gets their wings and they call us to talk about podcasts, not all of them, but some of them do, and we've been talking to a few of them recently about numbers and selling on numbers. And to be honest with you, Matt, you know, and Fred and I were just talking before we got on this podcast, we've been very lucky that people are buying our show because of the brand equity the association with us, the way we do a show, there's not enough numbers on most podcasts in Canada to make it profitable for those people. I don't know about you, but you know, a very popular podcast in Canada might have 1000 downloads, like 1% of all of them are getting around that amount. So if you're getting $35 per 1000 downloads per sponsor. It's not a lot of money. That

Matt Cundill  12:41  
might be a car payment at the end of the month.

Humble Howard  12:45  
Yeah, maybe.

Matt Cundill  12:46  
But the Canada thing may be very key. It's, you know, in terms of scale, next, sitting next to the US, it's likely going to be about 1/10 of what the downloads are in the US.

Fred Patterson  12:56  
You know, what's really interesting, too, with advertisers, they're pretty cagey, and I've been thinking a lot about this lately. You know, you get some of these big brand like, right now, manscape is out there. And, you know, the mattress people, I forget who that was. They were flogging their mattresses on on podcasts. You know, they, they go to all these 1000s of podcasts, and they say, you run our spots. And if we, you know, with the promo code, if you sell so many, we give you money. What a great deal. Because I bet they had to pay very little back yet, now as again, embedded commercials living forever on those podcasts, right? What a great deal for them, Matt.

Humble Howard  13:37  
We just, you know, manscape is in, you know, on our in our minds, because they they approached us, they said we'd like to do a test run with you. And initially, I because we basically sell our podcast three months at a time, a 12 week run, just like radio. And the reason we do is we don't think it'll make you know, any difference to anyone, unless you're on for a while. They said we'll give you $260 or 240 whatever it was, couple 100 bucks for to run one spot on your show. And if we get any traction, it'll lead to a big contract. And we thought about it, well, it's a lose, lose for us, because enough engagement, you know, whatever that engagement was going to be, sure we get a couple 100 bucks, but we don't get the contract. They get that spawn. And as Fred said, they do that 1000s of times. And whatever they wherever they get engagement from, it makes up for the ones that they got no engagement.

Fred Patterson  14:30  
And who sets the rules on what worked and what didn't work, right? You know, they can come back. You could look at it as pretty successful. Hey, we got a lot of reaction to this, or whatever. They can come back after they've sort of invaded your podcast forever, and say that's not really what we wanted, and then move on to another 1000. I know that's the sinister part in me coming out. But you know, business is business. What's great

Matt Cundill  14:54  
experience? Because 13 weeks is the minimum you should allow. I mean, it's the same. Thing in radio, you need frequency without frequency. It doesn't work. The ad has to, has to repeat a few times. And all that affiliate about remembering, you know, that affiliate stuff where you remember the promo code, somebody at a podcast conference says 70% of the time, you know, people will put the code in. The other 30% they don't. So what's the promo code? I don't know. I don't remember. It was only worth 15% I don't care. Yeah,

Humble Howard  15:23  
another good point, you know, unless you're one of the big, huge ones in the States, you know, and, and you've got Bombus and the mattress place and manscape, you know, you get a lot of those on your show, and you're getting 1000s of people going to it makes sense. Let's say that we're, we have a very successful podcast, but even our numbers wouldn't be enough to override and Freddie made the point this morning. We were talking about this deal that we're thinking of is it's taking up space where people who are paying us a lot more money would get in the way of that, because our rate card is a nice little it's a nice number. And we said this a long time ago, we're not taking per inquiry money. No, we just don't have, yeah, programmatic

Matt Cundill  16:06  
thing is just not going to work with

Fred Patterson  16:08  
you guys. And, you know, and Howard, that's another good point, the whole the Fairness Act, so to speak. So we have these clients that have been loyal to us, and, you know, buying this time and supporting us for, yeah, long time, like some of them, years, and now all of a sudden, we're giving the same amount of time to somebody who might pay us if everything lines up perfectly. So it's not really the way where we want to go in

Matt Cundill  16:36  
terms of growing. How has the streaming thing gone for you because there's more and more video of you now. So I'm going to ask a little bit about Twitch, because once you appeared on Twitch, that's when you started to become part of my video day. But

Humble Howard  16:48  
we left Twitch behind. We tried it. It was no good for us. Is streaming in general. We've resisted, mainly because, again, you know, we had enough. We had a live element with radio, but we were looking at these numbers this morning, you know, we were getting about, I don't know, 500 views of of our Facebook audio only stream. And then one day we were testing out this because, you know, you can go live on Facebook, on Zoom. And one day we on a Friday afternoon, around noon, uh, Toronto, Mike, our producer, and Fred and I got together, and I hit Facebook Live, you know, so I could learn how to do it. And then we talked for about, I don't know, 20 minutes, a half an hour, and I looked at the numbers, it was like 2000 views, just because they could see us. So in a weird way, like we can add that now to the number of people that download the podcast, because those are our listeners. And it was fascinating to me, at least, that just seeing us seem to be, you know, people liked it, I hate it, but people like it. And so in terms of growth, it was like an instant, instantly, our numbers grew, yeah.

Fred Patterson  18:00  
And the thing is, it's not as demanding as Twitch we've you know, Twitch is great. It's a certain it's a demographic thing. But what you need it, what we need to do, do on Twitch to generate more revenue was little contests and little stuff that our audience weren't interested in, like, what were some of the stuff? If you did this, you got a couple of coins, and then if you built up your coins, you could buy the right to ask us to do a stunt on the air. And it was like, Nah, yeah, all sort,

Humble Howard  18:30  
all sorts of Twitch specific stuff that was great for people that are into that. And if, if Twitch was your thing, I could see it being fantastic. But we were doing something else, and we added Twitch to it and listen. And we one of the things that's helped us over the 10 years, and maybe over the 30 years, is that we're always willing to try, you know, Don Collins approached us. We like Don we said, hey, let's give it a shot. I'm looking into a webcam because we bought a bunch of, you know, studio stuff, so that's great. It's not really our thing to go, Okay, it's time to cheer. And if you're a top tier super fan or whatever, just wasn't for us,

Fred Patterson  19:07  
because you know, you know your active audience is what percent, but you know what I'm saying. So you're doing the stunts for an active two or 3% or your audience, it's like, so 95 are sitting there going, what's this shit? Like we

Humble Howard  19:20  
had 75 the best we ever did. I think we had 75 views on Twitch. Well, this morning, we had 1400 views on Facebook.

Matt Cundill  19:31  
But even Facebook can suppress, you know, the algorithm and how much you go out. Is there anywhere else that we can reach you, other than Facebook?

Humble Howard  19:38  
What does that mean? What do you think Facebook the numbers are lower or higher?

Matt Cundill  19:43  
I think they can suppress how much they distribute your feed how so it's an algorithm. They push it out as much as they want, so I could follow you, and they may or may not give me the notice that humble and. Better live,

Humble Howard  20:00  
Oh, I see, I don't know, but it, we could just do the same thing and have it live on YouTube as well. I guess. Do you recommend that? Well,

Matt Cundill  20:10  
I think if it's one thing that you've proven is that being everywhere is a good thing, so long as it doesn't change your brand the way, you know, Twitch, I think one of the question that I really want to ask you is that there are people who are listening on demand through their headphones on a podcast. There are those who are watching you live, there are those who are listening to you live. I guess none of it changes your show, but not one platform is going to supersede another. Yes.

Humble Howard  20:35  
I mean, is there? Is there Twitter live? Do people go live on Twitter as well? Absolutely. Well, you know, we should look at all of it, I guess. I mean, we just started, we did something for the first time three weeks ago tomorrow, when we quit radio because they fired us, we we got a Patreon account, and it was crazy. Matt, like, just not the kind of guys that felt comfortable asking our audience. When we first started the podcast, we were talking to Steve Dahl in Chicago about his subscription, because he he was getting about 60,000 or so downloads Freddie, and then when he went to subscribing a pay wall, he only got, like 4000 Yes. So we explored all kinds of models, and we're always a bit reticent to ask the audience for money. That being said, they did crowdfund our shitter to the tune of $10,000 which was cool. So all of a sudden, we start this patreon account or and, you know, we've gotten money from the audience in a little a little bit overwhelming, actually,

Fred Patterson  21:41  
you know, maybe we should, what's the word? What am I saying? I have no idea, but we should explain. That is what I'm saying. With the when Howard said the shitter, you know, we got our new studio, and it needed a bathroom down, so we came up with the idea, let's everybody, if you donate towards our bathroom that we're gonna build downstairs, we'll put your name in a plaque on the wall outside the washroom. And we, and we got 10,000 bucks, like, within a couple of weeks, Howard and very quickly paid for it. So that explains that when he when he referred to the shitter

Humble Howard  22:15  
and so on the wall as you go down the hallway to this washroom that we had to build for the public. It has everyone's name on the wall. Yeah. So when we were still open for, you know, human beings to come in, very often, those people would show up the studio. They want to go down a piss or whatever in the washroom, just so they could see their name, their naming rights available on that thing. Matt, you should know one thing about the humble and Fred show. Everything's up for. Look, look what I got today. Fred,

Fred Patterson  22:43  
oh, did you Yes? How did you get that?

Humble Howard  22:46  
She sent one of our sponsors ever since we went on Facebook Live. She's very excited for so that will put this up. I guess I'll put this up somewhere. But preview, people who don't know it's a plaque, one of our audience, one of our sponsors, wants us to put up behind me. Sponsor placement, sponsor placement, product placement.

Matt Cundill  23:06  
So that's Canadian technologies. They are your IT department. And I think a lot of people are alarmed that when they leave radio, you don't get to bring the engineering department with you bingo. But I see you've, yeah, yeah, you've got a sponsor. Is that Contra? How does that work?

Humble Howard  23:23  
We have right now. We have 1234567898, or nine active sponsors. She's one of them. She's been with us for a couple of years. A couple of years this company, CDN technologies, has been giving us the money. But that's not even the longest. The longest one, I would say, is, what do you think it is? Gig, sky or the retirement Sherpa? Oh, chamber plans been around chamer plan. So four or five years, some of our sponsors have been giving us money. And you know what? It's not cheap. It's not we're not talking about a couple $100 a month. They've been giving us money to survive. No product placement, just us doing live reads every day,

Fred Patterson  24:03  
every month, I invoice them, and they pay US dollars. There's no promo codes. There's no slash humble and Fred, no, none of that.

Humble Howard  24:10  
Now we do do some contra with people. We have, we have a couple contra clients right now, but mostly it's a cash money business. One of our clients now is a combination of barter or Contra and cash

Matt Cundill  24:30  
and so much about what you do, you know, podcast and streaming and a show. Every day, more and more, it seems that this has little to do with radio, because radio has become such a giant pain in the ass to be able to, you know, sort of jam it, it feels like a square peg in a round hole. Now,

Humble Howard  24:46  
what are your thoughts? I mean, you're a radio guy. You've been around the business a long time, and now I don't want to put a number on it. How long have you been doing this podcast that you're doing, almost six years. Yeah. So you're well into this. Yeah. I mean, you must feel a big difference, and you've been in both, you know, dip your toes in both worlds. Well, what's your thoughts?

Matt Cundill  25:07  
I think there's less and less radio, you know, going on in general, because of, you know, morning shows that are not as popular as they used to be with this pandemic that's going on. People are learning to stream and acquire things in different ways on their own time. I mean, we already, I mean, I've got kids they don't have any interest in listening to the radio outside of when they're driving for Uber Eats or skip the dishes or,

Humble Howard  25:32  
well, I can tell you, like, our downloads are what blow your mind. Just blow your mind. How many people download the show. We've been in the top 150 on Apple iTunes comedy category for years, but when we left radio, we were inside the top 100 for a few days. Like it's crazy.

Matt Cundill  25:51  
All right, in just a moment, we're gonna go a little deeper into the business side of things. Talk about the money, the relationships, and what exactly would it take to go back to terrestrial radio? As always, there's lots more to this episode, and you can find it at sound off podcast.com So do you guys think you'll go back to radio in some capacity? And what would it take?

Fred Patterson  26:12  
Matt, I was just saying to Howard the other day, I don't have it in me to get up at three o'clock or 330 in the morning again, so a morning show. I don't know what that would take. You know, it's one of those things where I would have to actually sit there and then hear the offer, or hear the deal or whatever, and then make my mind up at that moment. But sitting here now, just being realistic, a guy who's turning 65 that's not gonna happen. Nobody's gonna make an offer of any real depth to us or me. So I would say, I think it's slim from my standpoint. But never, say never, never, say never. But I couldn't get up again at 330 in the morning. Too old. Done it, too much. Not in me. No,

Humble Howard  26:59  
I'm the same. I don't I mean, the answer, obviously, is, you know, what would it take? You know, somebody offered us, you know, some humble and Fred money. You know, we would certainly have to look at it. But where we sit now, like if somebody offered what we're making on our own, you know, while you were gone, there for a second Freddy, to re engage. I asked Matt, you know, you got 25 podcasts that you produce, that your company is in charge of. I'll ask you that question after being independent now, since 2018 what would it take for you to go back and, you know, have to answer to a bunch of other people and have somebody question what you're doing, what would it take for you?

Matt Cundill  27:42  
Nothing. I've got everything I need in my own home. I built it all. I just don't know what's inside a radio station that they could offer me, that I need. And to that point, when I turn on the radio, there's very little value that it offers me. When I get into the vehicle. I don't need the traffic. I've got ways, I've got a car play. Don't need the weather, all the things they offer me. I just don't need maybe that's because I turned 50

Humble Howard  28:15  
listen. My daughters are 23 and 26 they don't listen the radio, and they know and they know two radio guys. They have no interest in it. I'll tell you what it would take. For me, it may be, maybe, if it were, you know, in my case, if I were offered a job, the only radio job I think I would like is to be part of PGA Tour radio on Sirius XM. I would like a show on there, because the one radio station. I have two stations. I listen three Stern, this is all satellite. I don't listen to any local radio. So Stern, comedy, some comedy channels, CNN, patriot, POTUS and PGA Tour radio. I would like to work at PGA Tour radio. That would be cool, but that's the only radio job for me. As far as far as doing the humble and Fred show starting at 530 in the morning, playing seven songs an hour, not interested. It

Matt Cundill  29:06  
doesn't mean that I don't listen to radio, because at night, I will listen to the Colin Cowherd sports show probably 12 hours after it aired.

Fred Patterson  29:15  
We've been saying this since 2011 when we started the the future of terrestrial radio is the spoken word obvious or unfortunately, it's too expensive, and even those terrestrial stations still doing the spoken word are way off track as far as content goes. I mean, look at podcasts. The most popular podcasts are basic, down to earth, authentic conversation, and you'd not you're not getting that on the talk stations and terrestrial radio, they're so off the mark, it's almost laughable, and it's funny what you just said when you referred to your age being 50. Well, believe me, people under 50 aren't listening to the radio. My daughter, there wouldn't be a conventional radio in her home. The only access to radio in her home would be two. A Google, you know, Google Home, yeah. And how often do you think she asked for a radio station on a Google Home when there's everything else to ask for? It's just not happening. It's just not happening. And the thing is, the age, sort of access age, is getting older and older and older. Yeah, right. 10 years ago, a 50 year old had no idea what a podcast was or how do you stream anything now, a lot of 50 year olds do, and soon it's going to be 55 and soon it's going to be 60. That's

Humble Howard  30:25  
a great point. One of the things spoken about quite recently, because we were asked was, you know, when we started the mechanism for us introducing people to podcasts was literally Fred and I would take our friends phones, and here, this is how you can this is how you can listen to the show. And I remember one of my friends is like, wait a second, you're gonna do a radio show on the internet, like, like, everything else is on the internet. But now, as you just said, like we would talk to clients, maybe you had this experience when you started Matt, where you have to, you know, talk to them, explain it to them, get them to understand they didn't know, they didn't know what they were getting into. And one of the reasons that we hung on to radio, now that I remember, it was also for the sales part, because we would have a client, for instance, this woman that's from CDN technologies. She was quite excited that we were on the radio. She thought that was great. You know, it didn't matter that no one was listening to us really on the radio, but it was a way to get her engaged with us. But now, soon to be, 10 years of doing a podcast as a business, we don't have to explain it to people anymore. In fact, most of them, like you and I and Freddie have have got podcasts that we kind of listen to regularly. Look at

Fred Patterson  31:36  
an 18 to 34 year old that listen used to listen to Jesse and Jean or humble and Fred or whoever, those kids would maybe get up a little earlier to go to school, or, you know, make a point of being near the radio because they loved the fun and the wackiness and the madcap behavior. They had to get up. They had to listen in the morning to get that or they missed it. Now, there are so many podcasts, so many entertaining, funny podcasts, available at their convenience. So can you I can't listen. I know what's happened to a lot of the 18 to 34 year old radio stations. As far as listenership goes in the morning. I mean, it's fallen off a cliff, that's why. So I don't know. I don't and I don't know what the answer is for them, either than other than investing in people and trying to give it another shot that way. But there's no reason for a young person to get up now because they're going to miss their morning show, because there's morning shows all day long at their convenience.

Matt Cundill  32:38  
So the CRTC is looking at, you know, new waves, new regs, new whatever. After 20, nearly 25 years of doing nothing, and I proposed and suggested on this podcast that the spoken word be legislated back into radio in some like, four gram programming. Remember, yeah, and I know that's a nightmare for programmers, and I know it's a lot of work, etc, but if you can consider that musicians are monetizing their product on the radio and spoken word here, we all are monetizing our spoken word in many capacities. Why is it that we can't go get government grants for podcasts? Why is that not available to us? Why are the airwaves not available to us in that capacity, and they're just mindlessly playing music all day long. Meanwhile, the consumption of spoken word has gone from 80% it is now closer to 70% and that's going to keep growing with all the content that's out there. So radio stands to fall further behind with these new regs. I don't even know what the regs are. I don't know what they're going to be, but we know who the people are, so we know what's going to go backwards. Well, look

Humble Howard  33:43  
at what's already gone backwards. I mean, our situation, most recently, we gave our show to radio for free. We thought, Okay, we'll sell. You know, we got five minutes an hour, and they got five minutes an hour. And to be fair, early on in the Hamilton, Hamilton experience, we got a couple of small clients, but basically, we gave them a show for nothing with, you know, a pretty decent product, you know, pretty high profile guests, you know, you got everyone from Lisa Laflamme, you know, to musicians and actors and so forth, and we gave it to them for free, and they still didn't want it. They still thought it would be better to have 42nd clips of comedians from America on their radio station other than what you're saying, local content, authentic, speaking, people, engagement, etc. They turned that station. We were the only live voices on it. The TSN station in that market now is a BNN, or whatever they're calling it whatever number of employees they used to have. The guy that came to pick up the what was it? The comrades? Yeah, a piece of equipment. He came to pick up the comrades. He's an engineer for all of those. He's the only employee left on those two radio stations.

Fred Patterson  34:54  
But can you imagine Matt and Howard, if you know they were to try and legislate. The spoken word back on to terrestrial radio in some form, the lobbying. Because look who they're dealing with now, Bell chorus, Rogers, heavy hitters. Do you think they would allow it? I mean, they'd scream, they'd scream bloody murder, because they know what would be involved. They would actually have to hire people. That's the future of terrestrial radio, but they just don't want to go there, because, as we all know, it's about the next quarter. You know, I feel so bad for well, middle management has disappeared in radio too, because a lot of the people that have to deliver the bad news know it's wrong. They know it's bad for the business. They know it's bad overall, but they have to do it because of the other people above them, not what about the colleges? What about all those people teaching kids in colleges right now? How do they feel going in day to day, knowing that they're leading these kids off a cliff? There's no future, there's no jobs to speak of. I feel bad for all those people, so I don't want to piss on everybody. You know what I'm saying?

Humble Howard  35:56  
Well, the future for those young kids is the same as it would be whether they're putting up content on tick tock or on YouTube or whatever they future for them is, if they want to, they want to learn to broadcast, they can now broadcast themselves in this fashion, in a way that wasn't available to the three of us when we started. If you're an enterprising young kid now, you know, I'm sure you've already got a podcast and you're trying out, you know, stuff with your own buddies? Yeah,

Matt Cundill  36:21  
I don't think course, and Bell and Rogers would be too pleased with the fact that I suggested that 50% of all the spoken word come from, you know, originate within to where the transmitter was was, you know, a signal. Oh,

Fred Patterson  36:35  
no, because I guess their response would be to go out and buy up a bunch of cheap podcasts and just error them. And there we've met our promise of performance. And again, let's and listen. And we haven't even taught touched on developing young talent. I mean, right? Kids can come out of college and have their own podcast, but as we all learned, I mean, you know, you came up through the system, you learned along the way, it was the it was the farm system. There's none of that going on now, so,

Humble Howard  37:02  
well, there isn't in a different way. I mean, we came up because we were in the farm system. You know, I was out there in Saskatchewan, in Moffitt communications farm system. You know, there was a legendary station in Winnipeg city, FM. And so maybe the farm system is different now, because kids can sit in front of their own computer and do 1000s of hours of this until they get good at it.

Fred Patterson  37:25  
Yeah, but they don't have mentors the way we did. True, that's the one thing. But, you know, it's like anything else. It'll I guess ultimately, it will find its own way. What are you guys

Matt Cundill  37:35  
going to do after the show? Because I'm always curious about what happens after the show. Do I mean, Fred said that he's going to be doing some invoicing. Who's doing the selling, and then what other little things go on after the show ends.

Humble Howard  37:47  
On a typical day, I record everything. I sort of operate, I produce it. I send it off to our technical guy. He washes the file, normalizes, and I can do that too, but I just don't do it anymore. Fred, what do you do? What this is? Immediately, as soon as we say goodbye, I go into that mode, edit whatever. And you go into the XML,

Fred Patterson  38:10  
yes. And I, you know, I post the show and write the description and all that kind of thing. And then it's uploaded. And there's another edition of the humble and French show, but something you alluded to earlier, Matt about, you know, jocks or people in radio, just assuming, you know, engineers would look after that, and, you know, somebody else would look after this. It's like, you know, Howard's the sales department, and, yeah, I'm accounts receivable. It's like, you know, I have to do the HST, and I have to do the payroll, and I have to make sure the taxes are paid and buy insurance for us every year, and all those things that somebody else did for us. And I'm not complaining, because it's fun and it's a learning experience. And the size of this company, it's not overwhelming.

Humble Howard  38:57  
We realized how spoiled we were, and again, it's been 10 years. But early on, you know, we had just, kind of, I had been working at boom, so I was still in the humble Howard from the radio mode. And Fred had been at a program director, and had people doing him stuff, doing stuff for him. We were at Canadian Music Week in 2012 and we were setting up our little podcast, you know, area in front of it, we wanted to interview people as they came through and, and I remember setting some equipment up, and Freddie and I looked at each other and almost said at the same time, didn't we used to have people do and, and it's but that became true of everything. We used to have people like, I'm on phone calls with PR people and potential clients and client facing and all that stuff. And I enjoy it. It's in my wheelhouse, for sure. But, you know, never have to. I never used to have to do that. You know what he does on a day to day basis? I have no idea, but I we never used to have to do that for ourselves.

Fred Patterson  39:54  
You know why this has been pretty successful, too, since day one? And. Okay, we've been through 10 years and between us, never had a problem, have we? Howard, not one

Humble Howard  40:05  
in terms of, like, money and stuff. No,

Fred Patterson  40:08  
like, like, you and I have never had a disagreement or an argument over this company at all. But it all happened on day one when Howard looked at me and said, Listen, I'm not I'm not really into, like, the accounting and the money and stuff. Would, you know, if we could, could I do the selling and and you do the other stuff? And you know what? I'm sitting there going, Oh, I'm so glad he said that, because I don't want to sell and I don't mind doing that other stuff. In fact, I enjoy it on some level, watching the money come in and directing it here and there. That was a marriage made in heaven. From day one, we knew exactly what we were going to do going forward, and we've done it.

Humble Howard  40:48  
And you remember, you know, when we were humble, and Fred working for chorus and other companies, you know, we did, uh, we did our, our deal separate, and they were, they were usually for similar terms, but not always, and they were separate. But one thing we did was we made this company, was we were going to be the principals in it. He was going to do that. I was going to do this. We were going to split the other duties. But the other reason that it's been so successful, I know he's heard me say this before, but here's the thing, when you have a partner in business, if you can't trust them, then you shouldn't be in business with them. And much like a lot of the stuff that I do, you know, I don't tell them every client call that I'm on, or I just let them know when there's business coming in, or who you have to invoice or somebody's canceling. I have never in 10 years looked in our bank account he could be, you know, putting money away for the grandkids. I have no idea, but I trust him, and I trust him as a business person, because I know how we conduct our business as a company. We don't owe anybody any money. Anytime we've been invoiced to pay a bill, we do. And so that was one thing he brings to the table. The other thing that we decided as a group was we're going to do the show every day. And you know, from producing podcasts, everyone gets excited, and they think they're going to do a show, and then on the fourth or fifth one, they're like, this shit is hard, but we decided. We decided we were going to do it every god damn day. And you know, we still do that. We've done more shows in this last year of the pandemic than we have in years. We just do it every day.

Fred Patterson  42:27  
No. And Howard touched on one thing that I really proud of. We're really proud of we've been in this for 10 years. Not one person out there can say that humble and Fred owes them a cent. They can't even say that humble and Fred took longer than promised to pay. Never, ever. And I've often said to Howard, I said, you know, if we got to the point where we owed somebody money and there was nothing in the kitty, so to speak, I'd want to pay out of my own pocket, because I never want that on us. And it hasn't been, and it never will be. And I love that aspect of it.

Matt Cundill  43:02  
There's radio people listening. I know in their minds, they've got to be thinking, what's next. And I know that because I see, you know, morning radio hosts who are, you know, getting real estate licenses, you've got Rogers, who have decided that the TV on the radio is a good idea. I see

Fred Patterson  43:21  
it's Anne bell with the news here in Toronto, yeah, like they the news talk 1010. They fired all the news people, and now at six o'clock at night, they just plug into CTV News on. And

Matt Cundill  43:31  
the same thing going on in Montreal at CJD board stations are disappearing. Radio people are looking for what's next. So what would be your advice to them on what's next?

Humble Howard  43:43  
Well, I mean, I tell you the simple answer is, and I've had this question. He's had dozens of times from people we know well and people we don't know at all. I always say this, if you if the what next for a radio person is to do this, then you know, maybe you should also get your real estate license as well, only in that if you're going to do a podcast, it should be about something you really love, that you're really into, and that you would like to talk about with your friends and like minded individuals, whether you are making any money in it or not. But that being said, there's lots of talented radio people that are gonna catch on and have a very successful podcast, and there will be money to be made. But back to what I said about the way we approached it. You can't do three and then not do another one for three weeks. No that if you're going to do it, do it like a job. Do it. Matt did get good equipment. Get good microphones. Don't do it like, you know, we sound. That's another thing we said to each other, we're going to make it sound as professional as we can. Now it's a lot easier now for you young podcasters. Mattie, but when we started, you know, we went and got broadcast quality. Equipment, probably more than we needed, but that was the that. That was sort of our mandate. We wanted to sound good, and we wanted it to be something people would enjoy. So the what's next for radio people is what I would say, do something you love, and you never know. You might be able to make some money off it,

Fred Patterson  45:15  
but be prepared. Maybe you need some money behind you, because you got to work hard, and really, you've got to do the show with some strict regularity. That's key. And I think we've told you before, every time, maybe it was in this podcast, or maybe it was from yesterday's interview. Whenever anybody gets fired in the market here in Toronto, we always call them up and say, come on down, sit in when we could before the pandemic. How many people have we said to Howard, this studio is yours, doesn't you're without a job for absolutely nothing. We'll give you this studio to get you up and running to do a podcast. Some people took us up on it. Some people didn't, but those even, even those who took us up on it after three or four days, it's like, Oh, I thought so and so was coming in again today. Yeah, they just fall by the wayside. It takes real, real strict discipline to do this and be successful at it. And I don't know where we pulled that out of our bag of tricks, but we did it

Humble Howard  46:15  
well. We're very that's one thing you know, you and I are pretty conservative in terms of, you know, our work ethic. This morning I was, I was farting around with some equipment, and we, we've just one thing since we left the air, when we signed it serious, we had been doing the show, I think a little bit later in the day, we were recording the podcast. I can't remember, Freddy nine or 10. And then we want, they wanted us to come back on the radio, and they wanted us to start at 6am and we're like, I don't think so. Castern just signed and started at seven. So we said, oh, we'll start at seven. And then we did the same thing with bell. But since we left three weeks ago, one of the things we talked about was when we will start a little bit later, 730 and it's, you know, Morning, guys, it was like, wow. It's like, the weekend every day, but this morning, I was dicking around with some equipment, and it's about 725 and I was like, oh shit. I was gonna get a coffee. And Fred says to me, he goes, buddy, relax. You know, if we're not, if it's not there at 730 it'll be okay if it's 732 and I sort of thought about it, I was going downstairs get the coffee. I'm like, Why do I Why am I so tied to this? It's because we've all been doing this radio job all our lives.

Fred Patterson  47:26  
It's the old radio guy in you Yeah, it's

Humble Howard  47:28  
the old radio guy.

Fred Patterson  47:29  
You know, we've all had nightmares, you know, about missing your shift, or the door being locked, or, you know, with me, years as a sportscaster, I used to have, you know, nightmares about getting the booth and didn't have the copy and like, on and on and on. And I think that's where it comes from. Sure, that fear is just sort of inbred, you know? And, yeah, you don't have to worry whether we start at 731 or 732 or 726 really doesn't matter. Now,

Humble Howard  47:57  
I know. So that's what would be coming, you know for I don't, we don't want to leave you with the people the impression that, you know, here's humble and Fred shitting on radio again. But you know, it was all brand new when we started, and it's still brand new for most people. But what we've all seen, and I include you, Matt, because you've been doing a thing for six years, is a long time in podcast land. You know, it's evolving. But one thing that podcasts are that real radio isn't, is is authentic, because there's just no time in a 32nd break to be anything but, you know, sort of whatever that is. But

Fred Patterson  48:35  
talk stations here in Toronto, news, talk 1010, in 640, and I'm a 64 year old man. I'm the average guy most of the time. I punch into those stations. I don't care about what they're talking about, and I find myself watching listening to Joe Rogan or smartless or stern because they're talking about authentic things day to day, things that I can relate to and really care about, so to speak. And I mean, radio is missing that, you know, and again, that's not dumping on them. I mean, look at the popularity of podcasts. Look at the type of podcasts that are popular. I mean, the big ones. What is that content? Why isn't radio catching on to that? That's what it's about. Radio,

Matt Cundill  49:17  
more and more is talking at you, and podcasts are talking to you, yes.

Fred Patterson  49:21  
And just to be clear, did we tell exactly what came down with? We had a deal. Did you explain this off the beginning of the I can't remember. It was an hour ago. Well, we had a deal with bell at funny 820 it was due to expire April 9. And then back in what late January, Howard, maybe they contacted us and said, We will not be renewing, right? And they said, you can stay on till April 8, but after that, that's done. Thank you very much. And we thought, wow. And this is when all the heavy news was coming down from Bell and everybody being thrown out onto the streets. Over the phone, by the way, for. Um, during Bell, let's talk, by the

Humble Howard  50:03  
way, just after,

Matt Cundill  50:05  
let's talk in the boardroom with HR,

Fred Patterson  50:07  
yeah, so, so listen and again, because we were talking to a guy yesterday who was so afraid that, oh, humble and Fred are going to be the latest guys to piss all over radio, and I still got to work in it for 20 years. Please don't do that. What we did was more, more or less a bit they had fired us or they weren't going to renew our contract. So we thought, before that date arrives, let's just quit. It was just a goofy little Hummel and Fred bit, and it was fun. Even they got a kick out of it, I

Humble Howard  50:37  
think. So we were like, wanted to be like, you know, humble and Fred and we're like, we got fired, so we're quitting. I listen, well, I don't know what else there is for us to say to you, Matt, you know, I remember. I guess the story we always tell is, when you first met me, was in some airport. We were on vacation or something, weren't we

Matt Cundill  50:58  
no the restaurant in Boca, and you lost your evening. I

Humble Howard  51:03  
was I used to how prophetic that was, but I used to like roll it around in my hand, and I it went down, and I launched it in Matt's family. Did I lose it underneath your table? I you would come over to say hi, or I'd come over to say hi, or

Matt Cundill  51:18  
I went over to say hi. It was your mother in law at the time, right comment to him, I think my then five year old about his Montreal Canadiens jersey. And I think was she from coat St Louis? Yeah, she's from, yeah. So that's and then the next thing, though, oh, I know how I know you're in radio. I know somebody in radio. And then I walk over and outwards, under the table, looking for his wedding

Humble Howard  51:40  
ring. That's great. I love that. Mother in law. Oh, you know, my son in law is humble. Howard, anyway, Well, Matt, thank you for inviting us. I don't know, are you wrapping us up, or are we wrapping you up?

Matt Cundill  51:54  
No, I've got everything I need. Guys, thanks so much for doing this and taking the time today to to catch me up 10 years of this. Wow,

Fred Patterson  52:03  
anything for you, Matt, you're one of those guys. Anything for you, and

Humble Howard  52:07  
you sound great, by the way, like you're you really do. I mean, you're a very good broadcaster. Um, that's, I'm saying that you are good at this, but your sound is very good at you know, Fred said something to me the other day, I was whinging over some, you know, something was sounding a little distorted, or I didn't like the way this sounded, and we're having a little trouble with his mic, whatever. And he said to me, you know, if you listen to 99% of these things, they all sound like shit. We're quibbling because we're radio guys and we want it to sound good. But yeah, as soon as you came on this squad casting. I was like, Jesus, that sounds amazing,

Matt Cundill  52:42  
by the way, if you like the sound of this episode and you want to use squad cast for your video or podcast recording, go to the episode page at sound off podcast.com and I'll see if I can arrange for some sort of discount code for you. The sound

Tara Sands (Voiceover)  52:56  
off podcast is written and hosted by Matt Cundill produced by Evan Surminski, social media by Courtney krebsbach, another great creation from the sound off media company imaging, courtesy core image studios. There's always more at sound off podcast.com you.