It’s funny how many people think I live in their city. I’ve had conversations with people in Regina, St. John’s, Edmonton, Yellowknife, and Sudbury who are convinced that every Thursday morning I’m sitting in studio with the host of their morning show talking about technology. It’s easy to see why. It certainly sounds like I’m sitting next to their morning show host. But how is that possible? After all, I’m on the air live with 12 different morning shows across the country — all within just three hours.
     Here’s the secret.
     First, I pitch the story I want to do to my producer on Monday. Meanwhile, in Toronto, the folks at Radio Syndication line up morning shows who want me to be on their program. Usually there’s more shows than I can do, so for those overflow shows, they get a “pack” — a three- to four-minute piece about the same topic. Shows that get the pack one week get me live the following week. They kind of go in that alternating schedule week-to-week.
     On Tuesday, I research, collect tape, and write the pack and the “q-line” — the list of questions I suggest the host asks me.
     Then, very early Wednesday morning, I sit in a tiny broadcast booth in the basement of the CBC Broadcast Centre in Vancouver. The morning shows who signed up for my live hits are scheduled back-to-back in 15-minute blocks. They “dial up” master control in Vancouver and connect to my booth via a dedicated broadcast-quality line.
     It’s actually rather weird, sitting in this booth for three hours and every 15 minutes a voice pops into my headphones: “Hello Tod, this is Moncton.” Then it’s mostly the same questions each time (most hosts follow the q-line; some follow their own curiosity and I actually have more fun with the latter).
     This is where performance comes into play a bit. It’s hard to sound interested in DLP televisions the tenth time you’ve explained it in the last two hours. But strangely, I find the challenge of that fun. Much of radio is performance, after all.
     Usually the shows come at me from the east coast and move west, because they are recording the segment for air Thursday and the shows usually want to tape it right when their host comes off the air. We don’t even bother with the introduction. Usually, we start with me just saying “Hello!” and go from there. So when you hear the host introduce me, they’re reading that live. The second you hear me say “Hello” is the moment they secretly pressed Play on the tape recording. The host probably takes a bathroom break then. Sneaky, eh?
     At 10:00 a.m. I’m done and I head upstairs to produce the pack for the other group of shows. Thursday morning, it all goes to air.
     Now you know. Radio magic. I love it.

	Email This Post
	How Shows Work, Tod's Tech Beat