The Greatest Interview with Brad Barker

I just had the greatest interview with Brad Barker, I ended up interviewing him for almost 12 minutes. He is one of my favorite radio hosts and he's also the Music Director for Jazz FM 91.

In his 30s he transferred from being a full-time musician to being a radio host when he went to Humber College for a mature applicant program so he could jump start his career in the radio field. Then right out of college he got an opportunity to be on Top 640 AM, which is now AM 640 in Toronto. Then he was able to get a job at Jazz FM in 2001 and he's been there ever since.

He really appreciates Chuck Camroux, who worked in some big commercial radio stations back in the 60s and 70s, was the CEO of Jazz FM and took a big leap of faith when he hired Brad in 2001. He also appreciates Marsha Lederman, who writes for the Globe and Mail now, because she gave him one of his first jobs in radio. Since he was an unknown at the time she took a chance shot on him and set him on his radio career path. As broadcasters he looks up to both of them very much.

Being around the music is probably one of the best things about being in radio he said. He also said the artists are a pleasure to be around, and because he loves “…listening to the music … it's a pretty good gig.” Then he said to stand out in radio especially in the jazz format is to always be looking at the quality of your programming, looking at how your hosts are serving that music and respecting that music and if you do it right day in and day out and if you consistently deliver when people turn on the radio station and they get what they want from it that's what makes us stand out. Especially because we don't have such big budgets as commercial radio stations do. “It's [all] about consistency and respect for the music that allows us to stand out.”

Even though he is Music Director he doesn't get to program all the music for the radio station. At Jazz FM a lot of the shows have music chosen by the hosts which is similar to how INDI 101-5 has its music selections chosen. But still a good portion of the music is selected by him including the morning show, Wake Up with Heather Bambrick, the afternoon show, The Afternoon Drive, and the early evening show, Dinner Jazz, all these shows are on every Monday to Friday so that's about 11 hours of music he has to program for every day.

He said that every day is a challenge especially over the last couple of years. He added to that, the daily challenges are serving the music and serving the artists by supporting them and getting their music on the air and have the artist feel like the station is supporting them. He also says it's a challenge to host a four hour show every day because “…you gotta keep it fresh and you wanna keep your energy up even though some days you may not feel that way …, but you got to find it to be on the air.”

When asked about whether he would rather be a host or a Music Director he had this to say. “For me [the] recognition that comes from the people listening to our radio station who know me as being on-air is very lovely, but it’s not something that necessarily, that feeds me that much, I wish I had more hours in the day to dedicate to the music direction part of it so that we are getting even more music into our universe and more sounds are coming out but it's a blend and I would hate to give up either one of them quite frankly.”

Jazz FM is a hybrid radio station, so they do run very limited commercials which is half their revenue, but the other half of their funds come from donations. The fund-raising campaigns happen both on and off the air. For the on-air portion of the campaign, they take a chunk of time be that four hours of four days or weeks where they open up the mics and ask for people to support the radio station and then they are thanked on-air. And then there's the portion that happens off the air where volunteers are interacting with the community and asking people to support the radio station. Then they look for a total and move up the “thermometer” and watch every day is it inches closer to their goal.

To wrap up the interview I asked him what advice would he give for someone just starting out in the business. He said “I get asked that question a lot, and I always answered that really basically because that seems to be the best answer and [it] provided me with success. I think it's nuts and bolts stuff Max, it's like showing up on time, it's about being willing to say yes and to do different kinds of jobs that maybe aren't always in your job description and not being abused by anyone but be willing to say, yeah sure I'll do that, or I'll give that a try. A real openness and willingness is a real big thing I think, and again be there on time, take notes, and answer emails in a timely fashion. All the things that you can take from any professional job they’re the same ones, that I think, give you success in radio. Be professional, be willing, be positive, understand as quickly as you can, the operational nature of the business that you’re in and where there might be places you can help and then start to present ideas to people who are always looking for ideas too maybe be a better business.”