Media Beat: November 08, 2019

By Sharon Taylor

Today, Sharon Taylor holds court as regular columnist David Farrell is down for the count with flu. This is the first of two reports she files from the Ontario Association of Broadcasters’ annual conference that is staged at the Airport Marriott in Toronto, a notoriously difficult location to access during peak traffic times.

I attended the OAB conference at the Airport Marriott Thursday (Nov. 7) with high anticipation but missed the first two speakers of the morning because of gridlock traffic that detained my exit from the downtown city core.  

Not to worry, I’m getting notes on the missed sessions and the rest that I was able to attend will be noted here in varying detail on Monday. 

In the meantime, congratulations to the OAB for a wonderful conference day and program, The Trews for the lunch performance, and afternoon sessions that were so good the whole day went super long, and we were OK with it. 

Congratulations as well to Paul Larche on his well-deserved induction and gracious acceptance speech into the Hall of Fame, and to the following award recipients:

Inspiring Women Award – Jamie Johnston Bayshore Broadcasting

Best in Class Sales – Large Market - Jordon Hennessey Indie88 “Georgina Bay Spirit Co”

Best in Class Sales – Medium Market – Cassandra Bonn Mix97/CJBQ/Rock “Need a Car Don’t Care”

Creative Large Market – Evanov Group “Game of Cones”

Creative Small Market – Blackburn Radio “BEE-thoven’s 5th”

Station Promotion Large Market – BOOM97.3 “Apollo 11 To the boom and Back”

Station Promotion Small Market – Country 93 “Amazing Adventures of Rick & Julia”

Community Service Large Market – Indie88 “A Day to Make Music Count”

Community Service Small Market – Classic Rock 94.5 “Run Phil Run”?

 In my report on Monday, I answer many questions that include:

 Is everything old, new again? 

What in the world was the digital panel talking about? 

Are we supposed to be replacing the word “radio” with “audio” and TV with “video”?

Are we really being told to relax, that everything’s going to be OK? 

Why was Mike McVay, who delivered perhaps the most entertaining and authentic presentations of the day, on last? 

Sharon Taylor reports for FYIMusicNews on radio and related stuff and is also currently writing a musical based on her radio career.  One of these two things is a lie, but such a cool idea. 

Sharon can always be reached by email at sharontaylorradio@gmail.com