Radio & Podcast News – Pods on Broomgate, Bre-X highlight CBC Podcasts’ spring slate

CBC Podcasts’ spring slate is highlighted by shows on the “Broomgate” curling scandal, the Bre-X gold scam, and an exploration of the rise of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Upcoming summer offerings include CBC/NPR co-production Tested, an exploration of the 100-year history of sex testing in elite sports and who gets to compete in the women’s category. Read more here.

CBC’s Writers & Company, the longtime CBC Radio program that concluded last year after 33 seasons, is joining Simon Fraser University’s Digitized Collections. Featuring over 1,000 original interviews by Eleanor Wachtel, the project is being facilitated in collaboration with SFU’s Special Collections and Rare Books and the SpokenWeb project. Wachtel’s interviews have spanned writers, filmmakers, photographers and artists from around the world ranging from Mordecai Richler, John le Carré, and Saul Bellow to Toni Morrison, Alice Munro, and Michael Ondaatje, among many others.

Triton Digital has released its Canada Podcast Ranker for March, reflecting the reporting period of Feb. 26 to March 31. Three new sales networks have joined the Canada Podcast Ranker, including Cumulus Podcast Network, Beasley Media Group, and Focus On the Family. The top-ranked podcasts were unchanged this month, however top-ranked debuts included Three (SiriusXM Podcast Network), Shawn Ryan Show (Cumulus Podcast Network), SERIALously?! (Audioboom), Dave & Chuck the Freak: Full Show (Beasley Media Group), and Understood (CBC/Radio-Canada). 

The Globe and Mail has launched Machines Like Us, a new podcast exploring technological breakthroughs propelled by advances in artificial intelligence. It’s hosted by Taylor Owen, the Beaverbrook Chair in Media, Ethics and Communication, and Founding Director of the Centre for Media, Technology and Democracy at McGill University.

The Vancouver Canucks are the only team in the Stanley Cup Playoffs not travelling with a radio broadcast team. As reported by Daily Hive, Sportsnet 650 (CISL-AM) is calling games remotely from the CityTV studios in Vancouver, in line with a cost-saving measure instituted by Rogers Sports and Media during the pandemic to stop sending radio broadcasters on the road. That includes the Canucks, Calgary Flames, Toronto Maple Leafs, and Montreal Canadiens (English broadcast). Corus Entertainment, which has the radio broadcast rights for the Winnipeg Jets and Edmonton Oilers, still fund travel for their radio broadcast teams. While the Leafs broadcast team is on the road for the playoffs this year, the club is picking up the tab.

LISTEN: Stolen: Surviving St. Michael’s, the second season of Connie Walker’s podcast for Gimlet Media, delved into her own family’s history with residential school abuse, marking a breakthrough for the investigative journalist who has been recognized with a Pulitzer Prize and Peabody Award, among other accolades, including making the Time 100 list of most influential people of 2024. We welcome Walker to the podcast to talk about that breakthrough, what’s next as Stolen searches for a new home, and how media can better support Indigenous journalists.

LISTEN: Ken Connors is leaving his weekend morning job at Montreal’s CJAD 800 on his own terms. He joins the Sound Off Podcast to talk about his broadcast career that started at McGill Radio, and continued throughout Ontario, to Ottawa and back to Montreal, including stops at CHOM, Standard Broadcasting’s CJFM, 940 News, Q92 and then back to CJAD where he has been since 2016. 

FEATURE: Dave Charles is celebrating 60 years in radio. Virgin Radio International Chief Content Officer Ronnie Stanton interviews Charles on reaching that six-decade milestone. “From not so humble beginnings as a creative on-air rat bag to the international consultant and voice of reason he is today, it’s been quite the journey,” writes Stanton. “As a fellow dual citizen of Canada and Australia, as a fellow believer that radio’s best days are ahead of us not behind, and as his friend; I felt like the perfect candidate to sit down with Dave and ask him what’s what on this auspicious occasion.” Read more here.