Mike Farwell: Curious, Interested, Opinionated, Stubborn

Tara Sands (Voiceover)  0:02  
The sound off podcast, the show about podcast and broadcast starts now today.

Matt Cundill  0:12  
Mike Farwell, from 570 News Radio and Kitchener, joins me to talk about his stellar radio career. Mike has represented the area so well throughout the years. Now I got to know him through the OHL podcast, which was a part of our network for some of the formative years of that show's Development. Today, though, we're going to talk news, we'll talk sports, we're going to talk about being a morning show host as well. There is some real radio geekery in this episode, and now Mike Farwell joins me from Kitchener Ontario. I'm looking at, you know where you started. I don't have all the details, but I do know you took broadcasting at conestaga. Cones

Mike Farwell  0:52  
to go, yeah, sorry, no, it's, it's a little see. Now I'm just being the heck that I

Matt Cundill  0:57  
am. I was waiting for the correction, and you did it now, and then I got the joke.

Mike Farwell  1:02  
Yeah. So in the area where I live, not only is there a Conestoga College and a Conestoga river, but the Conestoga wagon is what all the Pennsylvania Dutch Mennonites brought to settle this region. And then we have a Conestoga village of in the region. My dad, when I was a kid, when we went out to the village of conestogo, always called it cones to go. So hence, my hickness shows through. You're

Matt Cundill  1:31  
not being a hick. You're just being local through and through, baby, through and through. That's going to come up a number of times today, because you're so well ingrained in the region. But why broadcasting? Why did you want to get into

Mike Farwell  1:45  
it? Because it's honestly the only thing I ever had any interest in. So I come from a family of teachers. My sister followed in the family footsteps. My father was an educator in this community for 30 plus years, and I just assumed I was, I was a reasonably good student through elementary and high school. I had the marks to get into university and pursue a bachelor's degree and get into teaching, and even as I did that, thinking, you know, that's kind of what you're supposed to do, right? That's what I saw my dad do every day. He'd come home with his briefcase, we'd sit down and have dinner, he'd take off his tie, very traditional, Leave It to Beaver kind of stuff, right? And all this time I'm watching this, but I am fascinated by this medium of radio. I listened to it constantly. I was the kid with the transistor radio in his bedroom at night listening to the chum FM. Well, not the FM at the time, but the chum top 30. And never really thought like, I couldn't make the connection between what I listened to and what excited me so much and an actual job. So I started out in teaching, and after a year, I was like, not a chance, like, this is just not what I want to do. And I switched gears and I went to broadcasting school, and the rest, as they say, is history, but it truly is the only thing that ever really lit a fire for me.

Matt Cundill  3:08  
So that chum 30, how incredible was that? Because that thing used to boom and listen, I know the nostalgia is there in the 60s. I know there's affinity for the 70s, but when those early 80s records came on 1050 chum, something like soft cell would just punch through the radio with these big voices. And it was going to change in 1986 with those mid 80s, those early 80s songs coming through. Yeah, I'd want to get in a radio too, absolutely.

Mike Farwell  3:38  
And I must confess, Matt, I was a top 30 countdown chum guy, but I was 680 CFTR, all day, every day, commercial free, Sundays, Tom rivers, you name it. I don't need to go through it all with Mike Cooper, everything else and but it was honestly a really formative part of my youth. You went to Waterloo as well, didn't you? I did that's where I got my bachelor's degree. That's what led me into teaching, and I got a degree in English, lit like that's really working out well for me today. And after I finished there and I did my year of teaching, it was off to Conestoga College and studied broadcasting there.

Matt Cundill  4:20  
Ask me how my poli sci degree is doing for me.

Mike Farwell  4:23  
I'll bet you that you make really good water cooler conversation. Does anybody still say that? But come on, in this day of Trump and Trudeau and everything else going on in the world, Poli Sci comes in handy, pal.

Matt Cundill  4:35  
I was always told by my professor at Acadia University. He said it was agar Adamson, and he said, you'll always have something great to talk about at a cocktail party, including Malta. Exactly. So once you graduated, where'd you go next?

Mike Farwell  4:51  
When I graduated from Conestoga, about four months later, I hopped on a big old jet airplane and made my. First ever visit to British Columbia. I got hired at a radio station. And I must confess, I had a little bit of an in at this radio station. And I am forever grateful to the guy who gave me the chance. His name's Paul Scott. He had worked at CFCA, which is now, oh oh, my gosh. What do we have here? It's the Virgin signal, 1053, in Waterloo. But CFCA was a big, booming chum owned box back in the day in Waterloo, and Paul had been the program director there. Ended up at Conestoga College as the program director. He was the first instructor I met when I started at Conestoga my very first day, and he was everything I needed to feel better about the decision I had just made, because I was taking a pretty sharp U turn, to say the least in my career. So Paul and I hit it off from day one, and it was a three year program at Conestoga, and at the end of my second year, Paul left the college to get back into radio, and he became the manager in salmon arm, British Columbia, small network of stations. We had three stations, a repeater and an FM transmitter that picked us up as well. But salmon arm, of all little places in British Columbia, was the headquarters of this network. And so a year later, when I graduated, and Paul and I, of course, had stayed in touch, he had an opening for a swing jock, and I was glad to take it so. August of 1996 I hopped on that plane in Toronto and flew out west to get things started. I

Matt Cundill  6:36  
kind of feel like you're one of the last ones to be able to get up and go and do a swing shift. And I think it was probably sort of towards the end of we're also going to get rid of overnight shortly digitization began to come in. So yeah, you got that small market experience.

Mike Farwell  6:54  
I think you nailed it. I feel like that. And I tell the stories to the kids, literally, that are half my age that I work with today that when I started out, but you're absolutely right. The year prior to my leaving for British Columbia and full time work, I was the overnight guy at ckpc in Brantford. I started that in June of 95 just doing weekends and then filling in whenever they asked me to fill in, because that's what you do when you're starting out. But I joke now that the station that I started at in Brantford, I'm so old, or it's so old, they've shut it down now. It went dark about a year ago, but it was the overnight shift, midnight to six, Saturday to Sunday on ckpc, Brant Ford, the old owner, Dick Bucha, and made us say it wasn't Brantford, Brant Ford, Ontario, anyway, and then from there out to do swing. So I was doing, what did I have? Monday, Tuesday, six to midnight, Saturday, Sunday, six to noon, and then Friday was kind of a general all around day in salmon arm. And looking back, what a great opportunity. I literally did everything Matt, from answering the phones to writing commercials to doing production, to hosting my show, to doing news, like you name the department. With the exception of music, I never really got into music. I tried a little bit. I had this old version of music selector that just confused the hell out of me. So probably the one department I didn't touch when I

Matt Cundill  8:13  
was out in DC. Why do you have to use f2 to save everything? Exactly, what does that even mean? It's like the first lesson. Now, hit f2 why? F2 why? Why we hitting f2 why f2 what is local in salmon arm what are the events that you would have to go out to? What would constitute local?

Mike Farwell  8:35  
The fountain in the main park, the name of which escapes me, which is terrible, Armstrong. No, it wasn't. Anyway, every spring, it's kind of like Groundhog Day, except it is literally spring, and when the fountain comes on, it's a sure sign that the nice weather is there. And the other big thing, and I'm so saddened by this, because looking back, I had no idea what I had when I had it. In so far as this area of British Columbia, kind of nestled in between Kamloops and Kelowna, is one of the most beautiful, breathtaking areas in the country. But I'm a young kid. I'm starting out. I want to get to Toronto and start doing morning radio or onto Hockey night in Canada or something. And so for me, it was just the idea that I'm in this little, itty bitty place, and the sooner I can build some skill and build some resume and get out of here, the better. But I would say the main calling card of salmon arm was that it was the houseboat capital of Canada. You should have seen it's called the shoe swap lakes. In the summertime, you could barely see the water for all the houseboats out there. Just incredible, and that's one of the things it's very well known for. How did you work your way back East? Persistence, you know, I haven't kept a lot. Sometimes I kick myself for that. For example, jumping ahead in the timeline. But there was a moment where I was at 640 and queue in Toronto when Howard. Stern was the syndicated morning show, and I got to do the news one morning, filling in for somebody who was sick. And even to this day, I'm like, that was that's pretty damn cool. I got to do the morning news updates on Q 107 in Toronto, when Stern was the morning guy. Do you think I saved the recording? No, but for some reason, over all of these years, I have carried with me, and I still have it in a file cabinet not far from where I'm sitting right now, a file folder full of my rejection letters. And this is, like, legit letters and envelopes. It's kind of cool to look at the stations and the logos and the call letters that rejected me over the years. But we would get, what was it? The Record magazine, I think it was called and anyway, there were a couple that would come into the station, and I'd always you, always, you know, when I was there, one of the beauties of my shifts was I was there by myself. So when I was, you know, having a little, uh, Song sweep, I could look at the ads and see which ones appealed to me. And I applied everywhere with hopes that I would eventually land at a place back east and and sure enough, that's eventually what happened when they hired me in Thunder Bay. Also

Matt Cundill  11:03  
remember, there was a publication that had a list of every person in every position at every radio station. And I can't remember that magazine, but it was like number eight would be program director, and it would be listed, and then the address would be there, and then you send your demo. You could cold call, essentially your demo to the person and just with the address it was. And then eventually, I think I know one PD who hit it, so we would stop sending our tapes out.

Mike Farwell  11:28  
But doesn't it feel like we're talking about a completely different universe right now, because these physical magazines and directories existed, and yes, it would be a demo tape, as in a cassette, you would physically write a letter and put it in the mail. I mean, it's just, it's crazy. I have physical copies, not emails, but copies of letters that PDS sent back to me, form or otherwise, in this file folder. It's bizarre to think how quickly that has changed. I mean, we're talking 30 years here.

Matt Cundill  12:00  
Yeah, and it's been forgotten, because the idea of getting up to move to a smaller market is completely vanished. Mobility has not, you know, disappeared. There's still mobility in the profession, even if you get to the top of your game, like Colin Cowherd is going to relocate from LA to Chicago, that happens. But the idea of, when you're starting out like, you know, moving across the country for a particular gig seems very foreign to the recent grads.

Mike Farwell  12:26  
I agree with that wholeheartedly, and I remember vividly, during my time at Conestoga College, one of my instructors saying to us that if you are serious about getting into the radio business, there are two things you should keep in mind. One is, don't expect to make a lot of money. And number two is, pack a suitcase. And I never forgot that. And he was, he was bang on. So

Matt Cundill  12:51  
how did you get back to Toronto to work? I think it'd be about 1997 or 1998 when Howard Stern was on the air. Then the station was, it was owned by wick.

Mike Farwell  13:02  
Yeah, the old Western. Something communications, right? But yeah. So first stop before that was in Thunder Bay. That was my first stop after salmon arm and again, looking back, what a great training ground. That was Vic. Kriski was my news director up there, and he was hard on me, but he was great for me. He really helped me, kind of find my way as a young news person. But it was also Thunder Bay. I was a younger person, and I've never been strong on geography. I say that to this day, it's the God's honest truth. I mentioned earlier boastfully that I was pretty good in school. I suck with geography. So yeah, Thunder Bay is Ontario. But if anybody's ever been, they realize it's like, not really Ontario, right? Like Thunder Bay is its own place, so far away, I would come home to Southern Ontario, to Waterloo Region to visit family. It was a 22 hour Greyhound bus ride. Yes, you're making stops, but 22 hours on the bus, and yes, I brought the Greyhound bus, which doesn't run anymore, because I didn't have a car, because I got in radio and they told me I wouldn't make much money, which I wasn't. So I hung out up there as long as I could, which was about a year. My first day was in March of 98 and it was minus 23 as I walked to work. And think about it coming from the interior of British Columbia to essentially spring in Thunder Bay, which felt like the worst winter I'd felt in several years. And I'm like, What the hell did I do? Why am I up here? But it was a great place to be. And then from there it was back into southern Ontario, and the opportunity presented itself, and you want to talk cold calls. So I still kick myself for this. I'm glad it worked out, but I left cold turkey in Thunder Bay. I'm like, I can't do it anymore. I'm home slash Ontario, but not close enough to home home. So I just packed it in, and I moved back in with mom and dad. And my parents are great, but that was the. Last time I ever wanted to be home. And while there, I picked up part time work at 570 in Kitchener where I am today, which is a story unto itself. There, gone, there, gone back for good kind of thing. But at the time I wanted to stay in radio, and so I got some part time work there. While I got part time work somewhere else just to make ends meet. And I started cold calling, and I called Dave Trafford. I hope Dave listens, because I know Dave is still kicking around doing cool stuff. In fact, my wife just took a seminar from him, helping out with her non profit in the last year or so anyway, and traff hired me to do, of all things, overnight news at am 640 which had just exited. We were just out of the Mojo days, if I'm not mistaken, because then we became talk 640 and people would joke, it's toxic 40. Talk 640 was the station. And funny story about that, Matt, so I'm hired from cold calling, leave my part time job in Kitchener move to Toronto and get a crappy I had to, I was think, should I edit myself here? Yes, I will. I get a lousy little basement apartment in Scarborough, which was so far into Scarborough, I was basically a neighbor of the zoo. But there I go. And at the time, 640 and Q were at young and Norton, so I hop on the 401, get off at Young, go to young and Norton. It was about a 15 minute commute anyway, so I supposed to do overnight news. And I never, not one time did an overnight newscast. I get in there. I start doing training during the day, obviously. And wouldn't you know, in that first two weeks with the training that I was doing, there was some sort of highway 401, catastrophe where whatever happened with the collision, it sent a cube van off the expressway, off the highway, down into, I believe it was, the Don Valley golf course. I'm not a golfer, but into the golf course down below, and we're trying to cover this as a radio station. And it's like, well, far well, you're around, go out there and report, like, get us some stuff and report back in for the afternoon talk show. So I did. And I mean, again, I'm fish out of water. I've had a little bit of news experience. Remember, I started in BC as a swing jock. I'm playing out in John and Celine Dion. I get my teeth cut in news in Thunder Bay thanks to Vic krasowski and some great experiences. But at this point, I've got about a year plus some college worth of news experience. Now I'm in the biggest market in the country, and I've never done anything like this before, but off you go and you just do it. And I go, plodding through it was winter time, plotting through this golf course, trying to get to the part the place where the truck had plunged from the 401 up above, I find that I use some reports, blah, blah, blah, end of that day, which turned out to be a pretty long one. Traff pulls me into his office, and he says, Listen, I I knew you had some reporting experience, but I didn't know you were that good at it, which I remember him saying that because I was so blown away by the compliment. And the next thing you know, I'm doing like a nine to five reporting gig for 640 never once did the overnight news. But just the way it happened is that's how it turned out. Yeah,

Matt Cundill  18:17  
a lot of people don't want to hear this, especially people from today's generation, that some people are just born with this, and some people have grown up around it like you grew up around radio in some capacity. It's not something that can be taught completely. You can teach and enhance the current skills you have, but to be able to tell a story and be on location and not just file it, is a special skill. I see more and more people who are in journalism today who are arriving. There's just more of the people who are just filing it, check the boxes, tell whatever story. But you know that ability to make it better, and I would say that because you didn't have any training, you had to learn on the job. You had to figure it out, and I know what you're thinking, and if you were thinking the way I was thinking, of, how do I get through this so I don't screw it up and embarrass myself at the highest level, right? And I think that's why today we don't have as many astute journalistic people out there telling the stories, because they haven't been able to succeed or fail at a high level,

Mike Farwell  19:22  
I think you absolutely nailed it. And that part about don't screw this up, Matt, I've got Evelyn Macco, I've got Marsha Lederman, I've got Kathleen Rankin and Larry silver and Tom rivers. Was doing the morning show at the time at 640 so he would have been gone. This was in the afternoon. But the point is, these are the luminaries of radio news in Toronto that are on the receiving end of my pipsqueak reports I was terrified of screwing it up, and they could not have been kinder better as mentors. And coaches. They were very complimentary for the day. That was they liked what I had done. But I also, to your point, I hadn't had enough experience yet to just think about checking boxes. I was kind of figuring it out as I went along, and that was probably it was probably the best thing. It all was just a pleasant, happy circumstance.

Matt Cundill  20:19  
I know it's not the best advice, and I know a lot of people wouldn't recommend it, but some people, I would throw them to the wolves. You're gonna go out there, you're gonna be on the street corner, you're gonna execute this particular contest, you're gonna go and report from here. And I look at them before they left, and I said, Hey, don't screw it up. And they're like, what's that supposed to mean? I go, just that and just keep it in the back of your mind. Don't screw it up. Can really mean, how's this gonna land here? How's this gonna land here? How's this gonna land here? And I think especially with politicians these days, they talk, they don't even know how anything's gonna land. It's funny.

Mike Farwell  20:52  
I say the exact same thing to every young broadcaster I work with today, when there are new people coming to the station, new people I'm working with, whatever it is. I've joked for years, the number one rule in radio and in life is don't screw up. And I'll let them figure out what that means to them. But we have fun with it.

Matt Cundill  21:12  
As you plotted on through the 2000s where'd you go? Back to Kitchener?

Mike Farwell  21:16  
So I found myself back. I've often referred to this story when I've had the chance to talk to folks about my career, the end of the line for me at 640 and I think that did they go Mojo after? I wish I remembered the timeline better. You probably do. Regardless, the writing was on the wall that the station was in a state of flux because, and look, I was still really young, like, this is four or five years into my career, and so I was pretty naive, but it didn't take me too long to figure out that people were just disappearing around me and they weren't being replaced. And the next thing you know, I'm pretty much the only guy. The funny thing is, I told that story earlier about getting that apartment in Scarborough because it was relatively close to the station at young and Norton. Well, when I had my reporting debut, and they liked it so much, eventually I ended up being the city hall or general assignment reporter, but I would cover City Hall as well. Mel Lastman was the mayor in Toronto at the time, and let me tell you, for anybody that wants to do news, get a character like Mel Lastman to be your city's mayor. Fantastic stuff. But all of a sudden I was being sent downtown to city hall in Toronto to do my job every day. So I'm now leaving my apartment in Scarborough and driving down the DVP like every other sucker in a commute. And if I tell you now that took me 90 minutes, you'd think that's nothing compared today. But again, this is 25 years ago anyway. So the point of this, I realized as time went on that people were disappearing, not being replaced. It was just me and I started a day covering it was an awful, awful murder trial, which was at the court building on university just near City Hall. So I check in at City Hall. We've got a little office there where I can file from I pop up to the courthouse. I've been going there every day to follow this case again, back when radio would send reporters to trials and sit there and they got the verdict that day, and there was this big, mad rush. It's just before three o'clock and like literally, reporters were running out of the courtroom and the courthouse to get outside, because you can't take your cell phone in with you or anything like that. So we want to file, and it was basically a race to be the first station to get the story on. So I remember getting that on for the three o'clock news that afternoon, and then I get paged, because that's how we kept in touch. By my news director, he's like, Hey, listen, there was the threat of a transit strike happening at the time in Toronto. So now we've got this story finished, the trial Allison parado, like I said, it was awful. It's always stuck with me. 11 year old girl lured, kidnapped, murdered body cut up and taken down in pieces to Lake Ontario was just terrible. So they get that verdict done. I file these stories. They say, get up to Queen's Park. There's going to be a media conference about the potential TTC strike. So I dutifully go about doing that, and I bugger off. And Queen's Park's not that far from City Hall. So I hoof it up there. Howard Hampton's the leader of the NDP at the time, he's holding this little media scrum outside his office. And you know, we're gonna make sure that the transit system doesn't shut down. But this strike threat is still looming over everybody's head. So I find out while I'm there that the two sides are meeting at a hotel downtown, and a lot of people were going there to kind of camp out on the talks because a negotiated settlement, an agreement is imminent. So off I go, and there I am now hanging out with a bunch of other schmuck reporters waiting for this imminent announcement of a deal that would keep the trains running. And it didn't come, and it didn't come and it didn't come, and much like my experience in the. Physical news room at 640 where people were leaving and not being replaced. I'm sitting there outside these talks so I've I came in that morning, started at nine, went to the court, covered it, got the verdict on the air, filed some stories, went to Queen's Park. Now I'm down at this hotel waiting for the imminent announcement of a TTC settlement. The other stations are freshening up. It's like a hockey shift, right? Your shift is over. Somebody else is in. I'm the only guy. I'm all we had the talks go through the night, Matt, I'm there all night, and the next thing you know, I'm reporting on rivers show the next morning, and I haven't gone home yet. So finally, and the deal came down about 520, something like that the next morning. So now I'm doing live hits on the morning show. I hoof it back to City Hall. I file some quick stories, and it's about 10 o'clock. Then the next morning, it's 25 hours after I started my shift, so to speak, and my news director said, you can go home now. Like, thanks. That'd be, that'd be, all right, I couldn't remember where I parked my car. I was just a little bit dazed at that point. And that that said to me, You know what? Like, good job. You gave it the old college try, and I put in my notes after them. Like, I can't, I can't keep doing this. And Pat Cardinal was the PD at the time. He did his best to he was good to me. He didn't, you know, take it poorly or anything. But I'm like, I just had a candy. Tried to offer some incentive, but it just I had written it off in my mind. So I've often told the story my famous 24 hour day. And so I popped back to Kitchener and got hired on a part time basis. And I filled my time making some real money in corporate communications, but I didn't. I just couldn't. I could not. And anybody that's ever done radio knows this, right? It's, it's a bit of an addiction. It's like an abusive relationship. But once you're in you just you can't. I don't know what it is, but you need it. I needed it. So I would, I dabbled part time at 570 news. I can't remember which incarnation it was then. I think it still was Tri Cities, information, superstation, but 570 am anyway, in Kitchener, I popped back there, got some part time work, and then really filled my time in my bank account with with a corporate job that paid incredibly well, and piddled around at that for a few years

Tara Sands (Voiceover)  27:20  
transcription of the sound off podcast is powered by the podcast Super Friends, five podcast producers who get together to discuss podcasting. Sharpen your podcast and creation skills by following the show on the sound off podcast, YouTube or Facebook page. This

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  27:38  
podcast supports podcasting 2.0 so feel free to send us a boost if you are listening on a new podcast app, find your new app now at podcasting two point org slash apps. That's podcasting two point org slash apps. I'll

Matt Cundill  27:54  
tell you what I love. It's how you explain the job. So this is something that you use to describe your time when you were co hosting at country 1067, I get up at the crack of stupid so that when you get up just a little bit later, you're informed and entertained as you get your day started. My life is my show prep, so beware of the guy on the bar stool beside you. Community first kids. Play nice. That's brilliant, because that's the job description for any successful local morning show. That's what you got to do. And if you explain that to the kids today, they're looking for the overtime, they're looking for punch in, punch out stuff. And I'm like, you know, that description that you put up there is really what's needed to go and to do a show and to really sort of have all the touch and feel and be part of the community. Yes, it's exhausting, but it's also quite rewarding.

Mike Farwell  28:57  
I couldn't agree more, and I owe a debt of gratitude to a fellow by the name of David Jones, who was my next stop after I piddled around at 570 am for a little while again. So as I said, I was I was making some decent money on the side, for the first time in my life, it made it hard to think about doing radio with any seriousness anymore. 570 tried to hire me, and I couldn't do it for the money. Then they tried a second time, and the money wasn't that much better. But in my heart, I'm like, You know what, writing news releases and helping executives prepare speeches and presentations. It's just not really filling my bucket. So I took the full time job again at 570 am for half price, like half the I took a 50% pay cut, but it's because I decided this is what I want to do. It's what I've always wanted to do. You're going to give this a serious shot in your hometown. And wouldn't you know, with them showing the faith in me like they keep me around part time, they try to hire me full time, I say no, they hire me again. Full Time, I say yes. And a year later, it's an ad in the newspaper, Matt, of all things. In my local newspaper, there's a new radio station launching in Kitchener 91 five the beat, and they had a bunch of positions open, including news director, of all things. And so I threw my hat into the ring. Next thing you know, one year after coming back into radio at 570 AM, I hop on board with this brand new kick ass startup in Kitchener, which was owned by can West global at the time, David Jones was our program director and mocha who I don't think I need to give any other information about the guy who's killing it in Toronto to this day and remains one of my dearest friends, one of the best humans I have ever met in my life, becomes a co host. And what started this was everything is show prep. That is what Jonesy, as we affectionately called him, David Jones our PD, drilled into our heads, and that's the way it went. It's real. It's authentic. Hey, I was at this place or that place, and this thing happened, or this person said that everything is show prep. And David drove that into our heads, and it hasn't left me since. And I started there in oh four, so 20 plus years ago now.

Matt Cundill  31:18  
Yeah, so you've been a jack of all trades, right? Going all the way back to salmon arm. Oh, look, you can spin records. Oh, look, you can do news. You can report. You're doing a talk show right now. I mean, you're like a Swiss Army knife of radio.

Mike Farwell  31:34  
It takes me back to, really, that first job in salmon arm, when I described it as literally, answering phones, writing commercial copy, working in production and recording and creating commercials, etc. So yeah, and I get antsy, like I like to do things. I like to challenge myself, and I've been so lucky, and these people that I've worked with have brought different things out of me when I was at the beat. I also as kind of, I don't know if you call it a side hustle, but I was always interested in what was going on. I had been doing news prior to joining the beat, and so I got this evening talk show on our local Rogers TV cable outlet. And just let that sink in for a moment. I mentioned that the beat was owned by can West global at the time. It's chorus station now, but imagine working full time for global and then kind of having a moon lighting on Rogers TV. That wasn't a lucrative Rogers TV thing. It was just local to Kitchener Waterloo. But I don't know that that would happen anymore. I'm

Matt Cundill  32:42  
surprised anybody would think that that's competition, because it's just, it's local public access, and there's no, there's no ad dollars attached to it. So if I were your program director, at, course, I would let you do it, which may explain why I stopped being a program director. At, course,

Mike Farwell  32:57  
you know what? David Jones let me do it too. And maybe that's why he's not a program director anymore either, I don't know, but it was an evening show three nights a week that was local issues based, and so I felt like I had fallen into just this perfect mix, right? So I'm I'm having fun cracking jokes on a top 40 station by day, and we're having a blast. And then at night, I make a teeny bit of extra money, but I'm deeply invested into what's going on in the community. And I would, I would joke all the time. I'm like the Mini Wheats of Kitchener Waterloo, right? I'm sweet side funny by day, and I'm the unsweetened, crusty, you know, issues based side at night. It was a beautiful marriage. It really was. And it kept my toe kind of in that, and it kept me involved in things. And then as time went on, that when I made the decision, ultimately, it will be eight years this June to do a talk show. That's when I left the country, show that you referenced a little while ago, all under the Rogers Kitchener umbrella. But the opportunity presented itself, and I thought, I'm ready for this challenge. I want this challenge. It's it's fun to spin records and do that kind of radio, but I'm ready to try this kind of radio. And to its credit, Rogers gave me the chance to do that.

Matt Cundill  34:14  
I watched the Tom Green documentary The other night, and I had forgotten that he got his start with Rogers public access cable, something that I wanted to sort of expand on for listeners who are listening globally, and that's the Kitchener Waterloo area and how it has grown throughout your you know, time from growing up at one point, it jumped into being one of Canada's top 10 markets, and may even be number nine. Now the area, there's a lot of tech. You add Kitchener and you add Waterloo together in the listing area, it's, it's just grown exponentially in the last number of years. You're

Mike Farwell  34:51  
absolutely right, and it, I think, is one of the advantages that I still have. To this day, because I was there when right and when you're doing talk radio, especially, we know the demographic. We're all a little bit longer in the tooth, and we like to reminisce about those things, but honestly, it kind of cheeses me off a little bit that according to every survey, we're still a small to medium market. I'm like, hang on a second as a region, as you just mentioned, we are top 10 in Canada. You can take your Toronto, you can take your Vancouver, your Montreal, your Edmonton, and you get to number 10 on that list, and you're going to find the Region of Waterloo, which encompasses Kitchener and Waterloo, Cambridge is the third city, and then four townships around it, North Dumfries Township, Wilmot, Wellesley and Woolwich. So four townships, three cities, population, about 700,000 people now. And yet, according to numerous and all these surveys, were still a small to medium market that notwithstanding, it's grown incredibly and another stroke of good fortune for me is that one of the other side hustles I had, because, did I mention radio doesn't pay a lot of money, so when I was putting things together early, a job I had picked up in college, I went back to at different times because the guys were great. I would be the beer delivery guy at night, so I knew every single street like I could rattle them off. I didn't need a map anymore. This is before GPS kids, you used physical map books to find your way around, but it gave me such an appreciation for it, and at the same time, I look around now I'll never forget. It's maybe two three years ago. It's a Saturday afternoon, granted, on one of our main streets in the city of Kitchener, Victoria Street, for anybody that ever comes into town, Main Street, lots going on, but it's a Saturday afternoon, and I think I waited three cycles to get through a light, and I looked to my wife sitting next to me, I'm like, Where the hell are we? Like, it's Saturday afternoon. Kitchener doesn't do this on Saturday afternoon. We've got farmers markets. We've still got in this region, businesses that you can go to that have hitch posts for horse and buggy. Why is this happening in Kitchener? But that just shows you how much it has grown. And you go downtown now, into the downtown that I would go into as a kid, because that's where the movie theaters were, that's where the video arcades were, that's the place we hung out. And I almost to be honest with you, feel a little bit claustrophobic because there are so many tall condos down there now, but such is life, such as growth, and yes, we have grown exponentially in my lifetime here.

Matt Cundill  37:31  
By the way, there's a lot more ad dollars that flow through that market than some of the bigger cities in Canada that may also be part of its you know, proximity to Toronto, and you know, more more economics out east. As you know, in Canada, the country is run out of the east, no matter what people out west say. And it's probably even higher than a number nine market, if you were to add up the ad dollars,

Mike Farwell  37:54  
you know what? And if you want to just take that a half step further, because we talk about it a lot when the numbers come in from you know, Rogers has four dozen radio stations, and our market, for whatever reason, tends to punch above its weight. There's something rather unique about it. We're not too close to London, we're not too close to Toronto, but we're close enough, I think that there's a lot, a lot that goes on within the region itself, and yes, it does very well from a revenue standpoint. And

Matt Cundill  38:22  
even to this day, you're still doing talk show. You're still doing hockey. When do you stop? I mean, your work day is endless.

Mike Farwell  38:33  
It is and again, if I'm just being honest, the older I get, the more difficult it becomes. But I do love it. I love it so much the talk show, I will say there have been multiple occasions over the last seven and a half years where I've thought back and wondered, why did I give up cracking jokes and going to country concerts for this because, man, oh, man, anybody that's done News Talk knows what a grind it is. I went through COVID on the air. We're into the second Presidency of Donald Trump. I mean, hell, I've made the joke that it's four more years of job security, because there will be no shortage of things to talk about. But it's heavy. It's a lot, and so you try to do things to keep it a little bit lighter. And I think for me, having the opportunity to do the hockey helps immeasurably in that regard, because it gives me a break from the heavy and it lets me have some fun. And yes, the hours are long. We go to precisely zero glamorous places. I'm not long removed from a trip up through Sault Marie and Saginaw and Flint, Michigan, but when the game starts, you're in a hockey arena, and it's pretty damn high level hockey. There are kids that come from this league right into the National Hockey League, definitely kids that come from this league that have got pro aspirations and end up there one way or another. It's high level game. I love the game, and who wouldn't want to broadcast it, and really it's. The same thing when I get to work every day and prepare to go on the air for my four hour talk show. As heavy as it is and as tiring as it can be, I get to push a little red button that says on every morning at nine o'clock, and to this day, the little kid in me still gets pretty damn excited about that.

Matt Cundill  40:20  
Who is the most famous Kitchener Ranger like ever? Name me two or three that I might know?

Mike Farwell  40:27  
Gabriel Landis cog John Gibson just won his 500th career game for the Anaheim Ducks. He was a goaltender here. I'm gonna get in a lot of trouble if I miss one of the big ones. Brian bellows is probably the the most famous now he goes back kids, ask your parents if you need to okay, but bellows was our captain when we won our first look at I hear what I just did. I did the we with the hockey team. I'm not even employed by the team. I'm employed by the station. But I grew up here watching these guys. They're we. Scott Stevens, Larry Robinson, Al McInnis, there's a pretty lengthy list. Bill Barber was here. Don Edwards, Don boprey NAZAM cadre, who's in the league still today with Calgary. Many, many, but yeah, most famous Landis cog right now. Johnny Gibbs, yeah, there's so many guys

Matt Cundill  41:13  
I ran into. Brian bellows once, no, really, yeah, eating chicken wings across from the forum in Montreal, and it was just weeks before they won the Stanley Cup in 93

Mike Farwell  41:25  
that's amazing. He was just back for a 40th anniversary of their memorial cup, and that was a pretty big deal, because he hasn't come back a whole lot. Brian bellows like when he was done with hockey, he went back to Minnesota, where he loved being, and he just lived in the woods somewhere. He became a hermit. But clearly he's still around. It was great to see him when he came back a couple of years ago, but yeah, definitely one of our bright lights. And unfortunately, he won that Stanley Cup with the wrong team. Matt, you know? Oh,

Matt Cundill  41:54  
we're not still here. Are we with it with the high stick and the Yes, yes, we are. We are still here with the high stick and Carrie Fraser. Okay, I thought so damn that

Mike Farwell  42:05  
Carrie Fraser caught like my whole life. Matt, I'm born in 71 I haven't even seen a Finals appearance. Come on. Carrie Fraser denied me that.

Matt Cundill  42:15  
Yeah, you haven't seen the least list, the Stanley Cup in color. You just recently saw them win their first playoff series in high definition.

Mike Farwell  42:24  
Yes, I did. And just so you know, I took the little mini cup that I keep by my TV when the leaf split, I held it up in the air like this. I'm like, Look at us. Look at

Matt Cundill  42:32  
us. Tell me about the podcast. And you know, full disclosure, you and I did work together to build your podcast. You're on the believe network now, but the OHL podcast, man, you have carved out a wonderful piece of podcasting here.

Mike Farwell  42:45  
Well, I owe you a tremendous debt of gratitude for that, because I'm still I think figuring it out as I go along, but I was completely blind in all of this until you gave me some really good pointers early on, for which I remain grateful. But yeah, I think carving out is a good way to look at it. I love doing it again. It just gives me that break from the daily stuff that I do. And I really do love the game of hockey and this level of hockey and what occurred to me, and I think this is why it's been able to grow into what it's grown into, because nobody was doing anything like this. And look, there are 20 markets in the league right now. They're talking about aggressively expanding. So I think in the next several years, we'll be up to 24 or more. But the reality is, there was nothing like this serving the game. And in fact, the coverage of the game outside of radio, which almost every market still has. The coverage comes from cable access, TV and volunteers. So it's not, I don't think the coverage is where it needs to be for the league. But I looked around and thought, well, 20 markets, and most markets are drawing 2500 plus fans. There are some that are lower, but in and around there, I'm thinking, Well, if this many people are invested enough to go to the rink, surely I can capture a percentage of them to listen to me talk about the league once a week. So the idea was born, and in fact, early on, the plan was to almost exclusively just interview former players and people that had been around the game and get some stories, etc, but it kind of evolved into this weekly, if I may just drop 32 thoughts, idea, something along those lines, where you've got your, you know, your coverage of what's going on in the league, a little bit of commentary and analysis around it, and then the occasional interview thrown in. So I think it was an untapped market to be

Matt Cundill  44:40  
honest with you, it's called the OHL podcast. We know exactly what's in it. I'm

Mike Farwell  44:46  
pretty clever that way. Matt, pretty not just a hat rack, buddy, not just a hat rack. 504

Matt Cundill  44:51  
episodes. And I think it's just another one of the more successful podcasts that's out there, that's that's really sort of found its audience. And I. My audience. I love looking the stats and seeing all the Scandinavian traffic, of people just trying to keep up with their with their sons from back home and and whatnot. So it's, yeah, it's exciting.

Mike Farwell  45:09  
You know, what's funny about that the Scandinavian audience, and there's always been an again, not knowing a whole lot, still don't know a whole lot coming into this and where I'm at today, but there was always this tick from Philippines. I'm like, What the hell like this has got to be a mistake. Or some guy living there used to live in Kitchener, and we have since connected. He sends the occasional email. He'll comment on some of our stuff on YouTube, etc. He lives in the Philippines now. He likes to joke about the great weather. But local guy from our region now living in the Philippines, but still follows his hometown hockey team.

Matt Cundill  45:44  
Mike, thanks so much for taking the time today to join us on the podcast and tell us your story,

Mike Farwell  45:50  
Matt, I am so grateful for the opportunity to do it, especially with you. So thank you very much for having me.

Tara Sands (Voiceover)  45:55  
The sound off podcast is written and hosted by Matt Kendall, produced by Evan serminsky, edited by Taylor MacLean, social media by Aiden glassy, another great creation from the sound off media company. There's always more at sound off podcast.com you.