Mary Anne Ivison: Three Years Later

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

Matt Cundill  0:13  
February 2021 Marianne Iveson was let go from her morning show. 11 months later, I had Marianne join me on the podcast to talk about it. Here she was nearly a year later, and she still wasn't sure what was next.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  0:27  
So the layoff happens again, coldest, darkest, like one of the darkest months in a pandemic, severe, I would say, like the darkest mental health space I have ever been in in my life. I will straight up say it was depression, anxiety, and I'm still like seeking help for that. I have no problem saying that at all. It takes a very severe hit to the confidence and the ego and the what happened? If anyone who's been laid off before knows that you get paperwork for months. There's constant reminders. Luckily, you know, I know I can say this, but you know, you get a severance when you're there for long enough so at least you have a little bit of stability for an X amount of time, right? I mean, like, what do I want to do? What am I good at? What am I going to do next? Looking

Matt Cundill  1:11  
back, I believe so many people could relate to that clip. In particular, that episode wound up being our most downloaded of 2022 today, Mary Ann is in a much different place, with a voiceover business featuring lots of E learning, corporate narration, podcast ads from my company and others, as well as radio imaging. She's also the host of an award winning podcast called let's take this outside, which is produced by the same people who bring you this podcast every week. Maryann and I speak weekly, but today we're gonna do it on a podcast. Do you remember when you first appeared on this podcast?

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  1:47  
Oh God, 80 years ago. That's what it feels like, if we're gonna be realistic, what two, three years ago? Pretty much ish. Was that pre let's take this outside. Oh, absolutely, yeah, because you were like, Yeah, I'm to the old podcast, and I'm like, leave me alone. And then I did a podcast. So this is the power of Matt Kendall, well,

Matt Cundill  2:08  
you were in a pretty tough space, because you were, I think, about a number of months removed from radio, and you were like, what's next? And I think you were dabbling with some stuff, but you didn't start voiceover in podcast right away. You were still doing radio. I think actually, you got rehired by your former employer, if I'm not mistaken, I

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  2:29  
was doing voiceover before that happened. So what happened is I lost my job in February 2021 and then I took about six months of extreme anxiety to figure out what I wanted to do next. So I was like, I don't want to do radio again for radio again full time. That sound like I want to try something else. So I want to try something by myself. I'd want to be my own boss. And then I started voiceover, which has been really great. It's also like, still really difficult, to be totally honest. Then I started the podcast, and then I have been covering off and on different shows for Bell Media. Once again, I'm doing covering move midday national right now for Ashley, like Ashley Greco moved to Ottawa to do mornings with my friend Gord say Dennis. So I've been covering off for Ashley until they find someone else. So yeah, I'm still, kind of like my foot's kind of still in radio, but it's contract, and it's just a super it's super fun when I'm still doing 50 other things. So,

Matt Cundill  3:24  
so you went from being married in radio now you're kind of, like, co parenting.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  3:30  
We don't live together, but like, I still, like, sometimes take the child, you know, I babysit. You know what I would say, I'm a radio babysitter. Is the best way to put it? Would you agree that's a good way to put it, yeah, in what markets can we hear you? Everywhere there's a move station, all of them. I know that that the sale, because they're amalgamating, right? They sold off a bunch of stations. So I think it'll be down to four. But as of right now, it's, uh, it's many stations across Canada. I should know how many it is, but I don't. It's a lot. You were the very first episode of 2022

Matt Cundill  4:03  
and January is a dark month. Yeah, yeah. And I think we were talking a little bit on the last episode about January being dark and depression. We talked a little bit about, you know, Bell and their let's talk initiatives. But I think at the end of the end of the conversation, we were like, What are you gonna do next, and you had some voiceover that you were dabbling with, but then I convinced you to do a podcast. You

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  4:27  
did. You bullied me into it, but that's what I say, that you bullied me into a podcast, but it's been one of the most rewarding things that I've done since. It's also one of those very like, tumultuous relationships, I think, too, that I think we can say openly and honestly, right? Sometimes you make money, sometimes you don't, but the end of the day, it has to be about really good conversations that you like having and sharing with your audience and putting out really good content for people to enjoy. I didn't have

Matt Cundill  4:56  
that on the score sheet that the podcast would be a. A bit easier than the voice work. So really, yeah, let's unpack both of them.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  5:05  
Okay, let's unpack it. Are you asking me, why you think Don't you hate interviewing someone who interviews people all the time because I end up taking over the conversation.

Matt Cundill  5:13  
That's fine. In fact, I find these things to be rather therapeutic.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  5:17  
I find okay. You know why I find podcasting so much easier is because I have your team editing my podcast, creating videos for me. I have, I don't call her assistant, someone who helps me with social my Her name is Rachel Henry. She helps me with social media, and she helps me with I just taught her the back end of megaphone, which is how we, you know, distribute our podcasts. So all I have to do is prep the podcast, find my guests and distribute and I still do some of the social media and stuff. I'm still creating content on on my own social media and stuff, but for the most part, it doesn't take up a lot of time for me at this moment, considering I'm not like actively seeking sponsors, which would be really nice. But I think also, people think that starting a podcast and getting sponsorship is so much easier than it is, right? People

Matt Cundill  6:03  
think it's a piece of cake. It's, I think it's the hardest thing out there. No disrespect to anybody who does middays, but doing a podcast is a lot harder than afternoon driver middays. It's not harder than live morning radio, but it's in terms of hard, it is up there. Well,

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  6:20  
like, I think I lean heavily on the interview. What's my podcast is, is, like, I don't care about me. I care about other people's stories, right? Like, I just released a podcast with Deanne Whelan, who was the first woman to do all of the, I think was the first person to do all of the Trans Canada Trail, both the, like, actual foot trails and the water, there's waterway trails too, right? I get to interview really cool people like that and put that into the universe, right? So, but I would say podcasting is easier than voiceover, but VoiceOver is my like bread and butter in terms of income versus podcasting. Podcasting is more. It can make me money, but it's more like a passion project on the side too. It's a form of marketing, yeah. And then I know people who do really well in podcasting, and then sometimes do voice work on the side, right? So I think the hardest thing is, the thing that is, the thing paying your bills. Did you want to talk about business as much? Yes, okay, good.

Matt Cundill  7:17  
The reason why is because there are a lot of people who are finding themselves, you know, sort of on the outs with their broadcast career, and there's a lot of what's next, and you were in that spot, and you have now nearly three years of experience. Yeah,

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  7:32  
yeah, I started voiceover three years ago, like in the fall. Hey,

Matt Cundill  7:36  
you've got three years experience having done this. And, you know, we always like to say it takes three years to build an audience. It takes three years to build a radio a radio station, heritage morning show, and anything along those lines, it's does take three years. So I figured out here you are three years in, and you know, what are your thoughts, feelings and impressions on the whole thing? And I think the podcast question is interesting, because you're an outdoorsy person. You're like, Yeah, let's take this outside.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  8:03  
Yeah, my, if you didn't know, my podcast is called, let's take this outside, which is athletes, outdoor professional, scientists, nature, really fun conversations. But yeah, no, it's, it's really, I don't say it's easy for me, but it's something that I'm passionate about that's easy for me to talk about for years with people, right? And consistently release episodes for two and a half years

Matt Cundill  8:24  
talk a little bit about the interview and interviewing people, because I think a lot of people get into it, and they do such a bad job at their podcast because they don't know how to interview, or people like you make it sound really easy.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  8:36  
Okay, well, I'll give a lot of credit to radio, the radio background on that in terms of interviewing and having that, you know, mic experience and that interactive experience, but in terms of interviewing, I think one of the biggest things is giving room to breathe for them to have great answers. I think a lot of podcasts are just like hearing themselves talk. So I think giving proper space asking questions they haven't been asked before, genuinely getting to know them. For example, Adam Schultz, I've interviewed twice my podcast. He's the biggest podcast episode that I've done. He does these crazy adventures and canoes across Canada, and I was asking him about he has two kids now, and is asking him about kids and how he's adapting them to the outdoors. And the answer was, kind of blew my mind. He's like, Oh, like, no one's really asked me about that yet, right? So I think it's a combination of actually doing your research and figuring out what does your audience genuinely want to know about this person, yeah, giving it room to breathe and genuinely listening to what they're saying instead of just waiting for the next question. What

Matt Cundill  9:42  
has surprised you about podcasting that you didn't think it was going to be

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  9:47  
blank, so hard. I know I said it was easy, but it is a long term relationship. If you want to do this, it takes work. If you told me that I'd want to take a break. From it, like I took the summer off from releasing episodes. I'm glad I did, but I'm still working on it throughout the summer too, despite me shopping out half the work, it still is this thing that needs to be watered. It's like a plant. It needs to be watered. It needs light. It constantly needs you know, it needs fertilizer. Sometimes it constantly needs attention. Unless you're someone like, call her daddy or Brene Brown, like they're working hard too. They have entire teams, right? It was really cool to see the call her daddy episode with Kamala Harris explode, right? I don't

Matt Cundill  10:34  
have you seen it yet? No. In fact, I just heard about it yesterday.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  10:37  
So this podcast that was originally started from Barstool Sports is now a is now the second most listened to podcasting in the world. And now she's able to access literally, the Vice President, possibly the future President of the United States, right? So seeing podcasts become so important in society, and like I've seen people call her episode with Kamala like one of the most important episodes of the entire election. Podcasts are, they're not going down. They're like, the big ones are just getting bigger. That's what I think I might be wrong than that. I don't know what your opinion is on it, but no,

Matt Cundill  11:15  
I think that is rather groundbreaking. Justin Trudeau, by the way, also did the rounds on some podcasts, some American ones. I think he went on Vox today, explained one of those ones we had Jordan Heath Rawlings on a few weeks ago, and he talked about the experience of him guesting on the big story. I think it stopped once they realized that it wasn't really going to move the needle for JT at this point. So that may be something that they revisit come election time. But when it comes to, you know, here's an opportunity for long form discussion in podcasting. Podcasting, by the way, is leans a little bit more blue than it does red. We have the data on that, by the way. So when I say that, I mean, you know, from an American audience, there are lots of Democratic leaning people who listen to podcasts more so than Republicans. If you do combine the Republicans in the independent thinker zone, you add all that up, it gets to be a little bit closer. But there are a lot of independent voters out there who could sway the needle, which is why it's good to make an appearances on podcasting.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  12:16  
Well, that's millions of people who are maybe probably not watching traditional media anymore, right? They're not watching CNN. They're not maybe listening to radio interviews, right? So, yeah, this is just like an entire new way to connect, especially with a younger audience.

Matt Cundill  12:29  
I used to advise people don't take a summer off, because you'll lose your momentum. I've seen two examples now where, okay, taking the summer off is a good idea. In fact, I'll throw in the third Terry O'Reilly from under the influence. He takes summers off, but like you mentioned, he's writing under the influence. Is also a radio show on the CBC. It does need a lot of writing. Cynthia and Josie. Cynthia Lois Josie dye, their podcast. They took the summer off, but it was like they never went away, because they were always posting on social media, saying, Listen to these episodes. I didn't even know they took the summer off. And I think in your case, you took the summer off, and you should take the summer off because you should go outside because it's summer, and the name of your show is, let's take this outside.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  13:12  
Well, I'm not as big as I'm by any means, but also I still promoted episodes on my social media like, Hey, listen to this. We'll be back. I still have a newsletter that went out every month. So I don't know exactly how big of a hit I took, by any means, but I'm back with a bunch of new episodes, so I'm not, honestly, I'm not too concerned. If only

Matt Cundill  13:30  
the executive producer of your show would actually get off his butt and go look at your numbers to see how much of a hit you really took. You don't have to.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  13:38  
We were just talking about how busy you were before you hit record. So

not a big deal. Okay, maybe you should, but, okay, yeah,

Matt Cundill  13:47  
what's next for the podcast? Let's take this outside for the winter months coming up. Like,

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  13:51  
what kind of episodes Am I releasing? Yeah.

Matt Cundill  13:54  
I mean, listen, you're a few years in on this. Now you're actually going into year three. So this is the year I always think when you're doing a podcast that this thing could like, you're really gonna ramp it up. So how you gonna ramp it up for this year? What do you got now? You're putting me on the spot. So absolutely you should be under pressure. You should be scared.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  14:14  
I'm not. So I'm not scared. This is not where I'm putting my scared energy into by any means. I don't know if this is a conversation to have even on the podcast, because I would admittedly say that I'm still just trying to release really great episodes and good guests. So I think consistency is the number one thing. But that's not what you want to hear. So you want to hear like, I'm getting like this person that, like, jumped out of space and landed on their feet. I don't know, I don't know what that means, but

Matt Cundill  14:42  
do you have a dream guest that's hard to say. I mean, if you got an astronaut on your show, I mean, that's really outside. That's somebody who's really taken it outside.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  14:51  
Okay, so I just interviewed some great people at the space and Aviation Museum here in Ottawa, and. And they've worked with astronauts, so that was pretty close, but I would love to interview an astronaut, because that's like, genuinely the most outside you could possibly get. That is severely outside, very outside, the most outside. You're

Matt Cundill  15:12  
talking about the team that works with you to create podcasts every week. But I know you've got a team who does voice work, because things have taken off you a little bit. I'm the team you got an agent. There's no I in team.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  15:25  
I am the team I don't have producer. Okay? I do have, I have a couple agents. Here's the thing, when I say this, I'm embarrassed to say this, because people think it's bigger than it actually is. I say I have an agent in LA here's the thing, he's wonderful. He's sent me a lot of auditions. I will say this openly, I have not booked my LA agent yet. It took me, you know what? This is going to be groundbreaking for some people, especially in voiceover, who want to get into voiceover. Okay, I booked a few times with my Toronto agent recently, and I'm very grateful. He's wonderful. He's consistent. He treats me really, really well. I've been with him for two years. It took me two years, and I've again, I've booked a few times recently, like, a couple times, but like, it took me two years to book something. Sure I was shortlisted. But like, that's how long it took. And people are, like, how many jobs are like, with agents? I'm like, 99% of the jobs that are booked in voiceover, and a lot of friends of mine who are also really who are successful. It's the same thing. It's their own personal relationships that they've built with, like production companies, or through their own email marketing or whatever, or like local companies, they're successful because of their own outreach. Agents are wonderful. I know that. Like, I don't know about you, but the days of booking 99% of your work through an agent are, like, very few and far between. I don't have an agent. You don't need one. That's the thing. Is, people are like, once I get an agent, I'm gonna make it that is not true. That's not true. It means that you're, maybe you're playing with the big boys now, but I know that some of the jobs I'm auditioning for through my age, I'm up against hundreds of people, hundreds Right? And how do you make yourself stand out from everyone else? Right? It's coaching. It's doing the work. But I think people like and I'm asked I would say a couple times a month by friends or friends of friends, like, how do I get into voiceover? I send them to a friend's website who's done an entire, like, tutorial on how to how to do voiceover. Because I'm like, I don't know how to answer this. I can try my best, but I've just started sending them there because I'm like, here's the thing, it's hard, and here's why it's hard, and here's maybe some stepping stones on what you can take to get there, but I promise you that you know just swinging out hard with and thinking you're going to agent out of the block is going to change your life. It's not like, it's not unless you're one of the very few lucky. You know, there's a few lucky ones. I want to know your thoughts on this too, who do book a lock through their agents, but like, I'm not there yet. I'm not there in my career, I book a lot through my own work.

Matt Cundill  18:05  
So yes, and I find it very, very difficult to outsource any part of me. So that includes, you know, an agent. So an agent going out there and telling people about me. I think the best person to talk about me is me. I have to be the one to do the selling. I've got to be the one to do the, you know, to do the deal, an agent doing it. Yes, can get me into some pretty big places. But, like you said, you get a big payday out of it, but you are up against a lot of other actors, voice actors and talent out there. So, I mean, those are, those are prime jobs.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  18:36  
Sure, those are prime jobs, but some of my biggest payouts this year have been from like a small production company. It's a big brand. I won't say what it is, but it's like a pretty big brand in Canada, but it's through like a small, a tiny little production company, a one man production company, who does these commercials. And I have a great relationship with him, and I've been doing these commercials for a couple years now, I get good pay because he fights for me to get a pay that is, that's market, right?

Matt Cundill  19:06  
Yeah, equitable and fair. And by that we mean not fiver and Upwork. Yeah,

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  19:10  
exactly. But there's also, there's also jobs that sometimes I take that are lower than equitable too, because there may be more consistent.

Matt Cundill  19:19  
So the spot you were talking about was that the one you recorded at pirate sound.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  19:24  
No, that was for my agent, because that looked like a good paying gig. I loved working with pirate sound. I'm not going to say what that was or anything, but it was cool to work in studio. I will say that because you don't have to worry about the sound. You have to worry about anything. Yeah, that was back in September. But, yeah, no, like, the highest paying gigs have been from smaller for the most part, and something that's more regular

Matt Cundill  19:45  
is that commercial, something we can see or hear on media right now, right? But you're not saying who it was and which one.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  19:55  
Yeah, lots of media. A friend of mine sent me. What was it? She sent me? Like. Like, Oh, I heard this, like, sleep Country Commercial you were on, for example. I'm like, Oh, that's great. And she's like, I love it. Because any guy you've ever dated, whether listening to podcasts, or Have I ever told you about this? No, I love here. I love voiceover, I love audio. I love radio. I love all the like, or I like doing radio. I love voice over. I love podcasting. But a friend of mine mentioned, she's like, You're everywhere, like your commercials or whatever. She's like, think of all like the men that you've dated and they can't escape you. I'm like, that's like, one of the top five reasons I do this is because I'm spiteful. Like, if you're watching TV, listening to the radio, if you're listening to podcasts, there's a chance that you might hear my stupid voice. It's in my top 10 reasons is because of spite.

Matt Cundill  20:43  
So basically, you just want to tell these ex boyfriends, I'm still here.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  20:48  
I'm still well, no, it's more like I'm sick, like I'm doing I'm doing okay, is what I mean. Is that, like I'm not failing at this thing, is kind of what I'm is that bad? Well,

Matt Cundill  20:59  
let me tell you what happens on the other end, because I have a friend that I was watching a hockey game with in Edmonton, and a McDonald's ad came on, and there was an actress in the ad, and he jumped up off the couch and goes, Oh, I fucked her. Are you gonna put this in the pocket for sure, haunting, haunting. So I don't know what reactions you think you're getting.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  21:22  
The thing about voicing, about voiceover, though, is like, it might not be obvious. It might just be the like, I recognize that voice from where? Why? I just want to haunt them. Like, slowly, over time, I

Matt Cundill  21:35  
can't tell you how many times I people are in the room, the commercial comes on and I say, wait, wait, wait. And I listen, and then I try to figure out if it's one of the, like, five or six people that I can identify immediately, you being one of them. Yeah,

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  21:49  
here's the thing is, like, I have friends who are doing so so well, like Andrew Collins, who I went for a hike with this past weekend, who's wonderful. She used to be in radio. Now she's, like, incredibly successful voice actress. She's on like, every Google ad you could possibly hear, like she's but she's been doing this for years, and I'm just like, so proud to to call her a friend and be able to, like, bounce stuff off of her. And so for me, it's like, I'm still like, very kind of like, in the beginning rumblings of it, but I'm interested to see where the industry is going, and with AI and everything too, that's kind of like, I don't know. Do you want to talk about that? Ai? Yeah, we

Matt Cundill  22:27  
can. I want to talk about Andrea a second, because I know her resume. It's like, ingrained in my head. Because 2006 she was working summer cruiser position at power 97

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  22:39  
Oh, you actually know?

Matt Cundill  22:41  
Oh, I know. I know the resume. And then after that, she went to work at chum in Winnipeg, then she went to standard or astral in Montreal. And I know that actually, because she got my old cell phone number. Oh, they gave her the old number. They gave her my old cell phone number, so I would call it and then just ask her. I said, any messages for me?

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  23:04  
Any pictures come through? Yeah,

Matt Cundill  23:05  
I don't know. There was too much in the pictures back then. It's like 2010 then she went to Toronto. Uh huh. Rocked it in Toronto, and it's good to hear that you wound up in Ottawa. Yeah, I

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  23:16  
think I could speak freely for her when I say I think she just wanted more nature. Her husband's family is from here. So that's how we connected. Was Tucker actually connected us, because I went to Barbados with Tucker. But wait, Bahamas, you know, it was like morning show, like everyone goes to, like, sandals situations, yeah, yeah. So

Matt Cundill  23:36  
you're talking about Scott Tucker. Scott Tucker, yeah, who's currently at the edge, yeah.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  23:42  
So we had gone together years ago when I used to work in Sudbury, and then he messaged me one day. He's like, hey, Marianne, I know you're in Ottawa, my friend Andrea, who's a voice actor, and she loves outside as much as you do. She's moving to Ottawa with her family. I would love for you guys to connect. And then when I met Andrea, it's like, oh, like, Yeah, we were meant to be friends. Like, this is like we have, first of all, we have so much in common, but she's also like, such a beautiful spirit, and just genuinely love her so much. But even cooler, that we can share so many things and be like, hey, like, voiceover, nature, whatever, right? We have a lot in common. So,

Matt Cundill  24:14  
yeah, the trajectories between the two of you are rather similar. She also has a podcast as well.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  24:19  
Yeah, she did have a podcast. Maybe we should push her to do another one. Just has two young kids, so I don't know how she has time, time for it.

Matt Cundill  24:27  
The third kid will kill the podcast. Two you can handle it. The third kid you can forget it. It's over

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  24:34  
question. How do people run businesses with entire families like I can barely, I'm barely mentally okay some days, so I can't imagine how you do it with kids and a family and

Matt Cundill  24:45  
time management, from those who I've spoken to, it is largely time management. And let's talk a little bit about that mental thing, because I think it plays into the where we were going to go. And let's talk a little bit about AI that. When you hear stories about things, it's hard to find work. It's hard to do this. It's very difficult to do that the robots are coming and AI we wind up spending time because we're by ourselves creating conspiracy theories about how we're going out of business. Yeah, it's not true, because you're still here. Still

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  25:21  
two reasons. I have two reasons for this. One. I don't think I've lost a job to AI yet, but I do think that the bottom end jobs are like the audiobooks, the like corporate narration, the, let's say, lower end but like the longer form e learning. I think that stuff is going to go out, right? I'm not against recreating my voice one day, but I have control. I want to have control over it. Be like, Hey, you can book real Marianne for blah, blah, blah, but you can book AI Marianne for, you know, a fraction of the price, which I believe Jodi kangal is doing, right?

Matt Cundill  25:55  
Yeah, she created it all herself and then just licenses it out. Yeah, I

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  25:59  
think that's brilliant. But my second reason is, why I don't think it's going to take over, is, if you've ever been in a commercial voiceover session, that's more than an hour. The amount I love working with directors. I've learned so much to this, but the amount of different and we are, at the end of the day, voice actors were just a tool in the commercial, right? Like, yes, they want our personalities, but at the end of the day, we're just a we're just a cog in the machine. We're just a piece of the puzzle that they're putting together, right? So the amount of different ways they want you to say it with different personality, and how many hours that can take, like, I've been in a four hour session for like, one commercial, okay, I am not worried about those kind of jobs right now because of the amount of variation that they need to put together one commercial which I don't think AI has the capability of doing yet at this point,

Matt Cundill  26:52  
I expect it will get a little bit better. But to your point, when you were talking about a lot of those low end things that have fallen away, I was doing a lot of that low end stuff. So I was doing a lot of, like, e learning grinding, where you just, you know, you're pounding out 1000s and 1000s of E learning things. I was doing a lot of, you know, quick reads that can really be done stuff for demo. There was just a lot of low stuff. And when AI came along, all that stuff just went away. So the remedy to that was to go to improv. Go do some theater. Go to something that's wacky. Go do something that will get you out of you know who you are, into different voices, practicing, trying, reflecting, getting people to reflect stuff back on you. You're a voice actor. Go act. Go do this stuff. It was, it was the best thing that could have happened. And I started to change my business. And then it sort of pivoted slightly over to some more higher paying stuff and more durable stuff. I do miss the low end stuff because it was quick and easy.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  27:55  
So I'm doing some of that. I'm still doing a lot of E learning stuff. I feel like I can talk about this, but I won't say what it is, what the client is, or anything. But I've been doing mass e learning lately, where I'm, like, saying numbers out loud. That is, my mind is fried after that. It's like the 348 minus the menu end of the subtrahend. And I'm that is, like, hard to wrap your head around. And yes, there's lots of corrections that come back on that.

Matt Cundill  28:24  
Do you think that there's a lot of like, aspiring mathematicians who are listening to your voice and thinking, this

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  28:30  
chick doesn't know what she's talking about. I want to marry her. No, I don't think about that. I don't think about that at all. I still do some e learning. For sure, you

Matt Cundill  28:39  
and I together, if we did a morning radio show, nobody would listen. No,

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  28:44  
it'd be terrible. What would it be called the morning Zoo? No, with Matt meatball, Kendall.

Matt Cundill  28:53  
By the way, you could always tell when radio management has no faith in the show, where they just put up the first names of the individuals,

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  29:02  
Marianne and mass,

Matt Cundill  29:05  
no last names. Never say your last name on the year. No last names on the radio anymore.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  29:10  
Did I express enough how hard everything is? Or do you need me to express it even more? Because here's the thing, I love it, like I love it and it's been wonderful. But like, I just want people, especially in the industry, to understand that it's not just something you can do to pick up for Christmas bunny. That's

Matt Cundill  29:29  
not what this is. Yeah. I mean, I have a an entire cemetery of broadcasters who thought they could get into either voiceover or podcast, and they don't make it. They're coming from environments and radio stations where they were like 910, other people doing 15 different things, and you are literally on your own. You are your own engineer, marketer, salesperson, accountant, performer. You gotta. It all producer.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  30:01  
I'm glad I was in the age of radio, though, that you there was, you know, 50 jobs in one because I didn't learn any business stuff by any means. But I know I was producing my own stuff. I was doing, producing my own shows. I only had one coast at any time, right? So Long gone are the days of one job now. So

Matt Cundill  30:22  
yeah, actually, the data came out a couple weeks ago, AQ six, which was done by Jacobs media. What are the minimum amount of hats that you wear at a radio station? I think the average came out to around three or 3.2

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  30:35  
compared to, like, what it was 20 or 30 years ago. Yeah, it

Matt Cundill  30:39  
used to be one, and now you can take on some music duties. You're now the assistant music director. You're now going to work in promotions.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  30:45  
I think radio pretends that this is the this is the only place that's happening. No, it's happening literally everywhere. It's happening everywhere. Radio is not special in that term, like it's happening TV, it's happening in tech, it's happening. It's happening everywhere. You're not special. This

Matt Cundill  31:01  
is the part of the show where we normally play your recorded ad, but you can rip off a live read right now.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  31:08  
I'm gonna make it. Not great. Okay, here we go. Do you need a voice for your radio station? I can do it for you. I'm currently the voice of Indy, 88 in Toronto. How cool is that?

Speaker 1  31:21  
The Morning Show with Carlin and Brett on Indy 88

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  31:26  
whether you start your day by working out,

Speaker 1  31:28  
eating a healthy breakfast, or just staring in a campus that is your ceiling for like, a little too long, we get it the morning show with Carlin and Brad on Indy 88 Okay,

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  31:42  
call me anytime. Please go to iwisonvoice.com I'm sure it's in the show notes or something. And I would love to work with you, because I'm very hard working, like Matt said, and I know how to get her done.

Matt Cundill  31:56  
Mary Ann will promise you a jump of four to five ratings points. It's a promise

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  32:02  
this 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. Radio

Matt Cundill  32:17  
is now like everything else you know, and we're really beginning to see it from actually, I saw it a Podcast Movement this year where there were a couple people on stage talking about how podcasting was not like radio. That was a myth that they need to debunk. Then they announced the next 10 things that were happening in podcast which made it sound exactly like radio, including all the cutbacks and the layoffs and we're out of money, and on and on and on and so forth.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  32:41  
I have some friends who have very successful podcasts, okay, like, some are actually, like, it sounds like they have their stuff together, but I have friends who are in podcast companies who are nightmares. They are nightmares, shit shows. I'm sorry, the performers, your management, the like, people running the podcast companies. I'm not talking about you, by the way. Oh, no. I'm talking about like, there's, it's like a startup, right? Yep, it's like a startup, and no one seems to know what they're doing.

Matt Cundill  33:11  
Yeah, exactly. So this was the VC money, the venture capital money came in. Everyone's got a great startup and a great idea. Year one goes by. They fritter a lot of money. Year two, well, I guess we better start showing some return. And by year three, everyone's a dick to one another, because now everyone's calling in the markers and they want to see something for the product, if you're if it's something that is, you know can be sold. I've seen the price go up on things. Streamyard went up 43% we're recording this on squad cast, which has already been sucked into descript. I'm going to hate to see what my renewal bill is going to be for that shortly.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  33:45  
Does that mean my bill goes up?

Matt Cundill  33:48  
Yeah, I think it does, actually. Or we might all be moving to Riverside who may up their bill. I mean, people are just on subscriptions. They're just raising the bill on everything, everywhere, and hoping for the best to zone, which is something that's been around since 2017 which is a streaming service for sports, started it. I think it was about 20 bucks. It's now $38 a month for this, and all you, all you get is the NFL. Anyway, people are rather shameless with this stuff and very aggressive. And the consumers are on Twitter. They're already stung by inflation, and decisions need to be made. So, yeah, listen, I love having every toy in the box here at a podcast Company, but you know, some of the stuff is going to go in the garbage, not your show. Oh, can I show you something? Yeah? So I got this framed, yeah. So I wanted to talk to you about this.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  34:38  
It's second place, not even first place, but

Matt Cundill  34:41  
you got second. It was great. We made a social media big deal about it. Thank you. I appreciate that. So tell everybody what you won.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  34:48  
I won second place at the travel Media Association of Canada's best emerging and broadcast media stories over 10 minutes. And here's the thing is, like it was really cool conferences in St John's Newfoundland. Got to go to Newfoundland. So this is the kind of stuff that my podcast is has been able to get me is being able to really cool opportunities like this and be part of the travel Media Association of Canada. What's cool about this is that the people I'm up against are all these amazing like YouTubers and podcasters who are creating content all the time, and some of the biggest ones in Canada. So I was pretty stoked about this, that we were able to do this. So thank you. You know

Matt Cundill  35:25  
when people ask me, So what's an example of a good podcast? And I don't go right to the download numbers, the most durable podcasts, the ones we have, things like, let's take this outside, which we know is about outside you do Woo, which is about human design writing class radio, which is literally a writing class, and they sell writing classes as well. So all these are really, really durable podcasts. And then I get some people who come by and say, Well, I just want to do a show about everything, everyone for everything. I'm like, it's not going to work. In fact, it's a waste of time. And it doesn't matter how popular you are, because it's still going to take three years to build that audience, to get it to where it needs to be. And even if you do get a great audience, advertisers are like, Yeah, I guess we can plunk a cheap ad on there for you. There's not a lot of money in it. Do

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  36:13  
you have $100,000 a month? Man, we don't think. We don't get like, yeah. So

Matt Cundill  36:19  
that's the biggest that's the most annoying thing that happened to Podcast Movement This year's the ad people who say you need $100,000 a month to buy ads. That tells me more about the people who want to buy ads on the podcast. That doesn't say anything about my podcast, because, let's say my podcast is called let's take this outside. I want to work with people who have outdoor wear things to sell to people who are going outdoors. And that's my audience, is people who like to go outside. It's very simple. That's not a complicated formula, and you don't need 100,000 downloads to be successful

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  36:49  
with it. I'd like to think so You know better than I do so well, you're still here, right? Because I'm persistent, damn it, and stubborn. That's why I'm still here. If I had to edit my own podcast, about a given up after Episode Two. I hate Long Form Editing. Hate it, spies it.

Matt Cundill  37:07  
Well, I finally found my calling.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  37:08  
It's you, you doing long form, no,

Matt Cundill  37:12  
just editing podcast, right? And producing and making them sound good. Yeah,

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  37:15  
you did. You did a pretty good job at that. We're saving time for people, right? Yeah, it works. I will say

Matt Cundill  37:23  
one of the things that I underestimated about the show, and that's where you live, because you live in the Ottawa area, and here you are. I mean, it is beautiful there. I lived there for two years, and I biked to work, and I cross country, ski to school every day, not every day, but you know, when it snowed in Ottawa, which it did a lot July, this guy's still cross country skiing. Who wants to tell him, right? There

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  37:48  
are roller skis, so it's possible anyway. What were you gonna say? Would you underestimate

Matt Cundill  37:52  
the Ottawa Gatineau area is just nobody talks about how great it is for outdoors. So this is the

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  37:58  
first time I'm talking about my boyfriend publicly, but I'm gonna talk about him anyway. So we both moved to Ottawa, like, about 10 years ago. He came from England, I came from Southern Ontario, and we just met, like this year, right? But we're both here still, because we both love the outdoors and the access to trails and the bike paths and how they shut down half the pathway, like the parkways, and got in a park the snow, which still like, thus winter sucked. But yeah, that's why we're both still here, is because it's such a mecca for outdoor activity. So,

Matt Cundill  38:33  
and I can think of two events that happen in Ottawa, like, for instance, you know, skating on the Rideau Canal, provided that actually freezes over when you said,

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  38:46  
Ooh, because it didn't freeze over. So last year, yeah, that global warming thing's not real. Didn't you know that they've just created these hurricanes the government made them. That's right. They control the weather, not the scientists who've been telling us for literally decades that this is going to happen, and now it's happening. Shocking, by the way, that was sarcasm, just for anyone who actually thinks, I think that the government makes storms they don't. That's not true. Well, let's hope. Just wanted to clarify that I just asterisks on that conversation that that was a joke.

Matt Cundill  39:19  
Let's hope the Google bots do that, and don't call this a conspiracy theory podcast. All of a sudden, the other one, by the way, is a Canadian Ski Marathon, which actually predominantly runs in Quebec, but it starts to shoot stops at Montebello for a day, and then the second half continues all the way to Ottawa. So another great outdoor event that takes place. I mean, you really are in a great spot for doing all year. I mean, cross country skiing, downhill skiing, cycling, it's great. Ted.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  39:46  
Kalil, your friend Ted, your friend Ted, does the Canadian skier marathon, that's right, and

Matt Cundill  39:51  
he was on the show. I want to talk about Ted too much, because he's going to want to be on this show. He's got all my radio secrets.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  39:58  
He should. He's a great he was. Great guest who listens to this podcast. That's an actual question. Is

Matt Cundill  40:04  
it more radio people, broadcasters, podcasters?

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  40:08  
Do you think we uncovered a lot today? Do you think we were a little extra honest today?

Matt Cundill  40:12  
Are you wrapping up my own show?

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  40:16  
Gotta go, Matt. Now's another episode of the sound now. Podcast,

Matt Cundill  40:21  
I think that anybody who is thinking about jumping into voiceover, podcast,

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  40:27  
I sound so negative. Okay, sorry, go finish your sentence. No, you're

Matt Cundill  40:31  
not negative. You're being honest. I think, I think you have to be honest about what it's like and how hard it is to get into this stuff. It takes three years to build an audience if you're going to do a podcast, it takes a long time to build a voiceover business that needs constant grinding every day, of which you do it. But you know, here we are a few years in, and it's like, yeah, it goes up, it goes down. We have the conversation all the time. You know, things are up, things are down, things are it's just the way it is. If it's one thing I've always relied on in radio, it's very cyclical. We do things at certain times of the year. In ratings, we're going to be very busy here. We're going to take vacation here. We know what's happening here. VoiceOver, it's unpredictable.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  41:11  
I haven't found much of a pattern. I know that fall is usually busy, but I will openly say I had a bit of a sad girl summer, because it was May, June, July. We're slow for voiceover, and I was like, I'm gonna apply to a real job. Like, I was like, again, three years in, I was like, I guess I gotta apply to a real job. I'm never gonna make money again. This is what happens if you're a freelancer, if you've been doing this for years. This is a very normal thing that happens in your head. And I'm not kidding, at the end of July, I booked six jobs in one day. It made no sense. And ever since, like, August was great. September was great, October's been okay, yeah, it doesn't make any sense to me at all, other than keep putting yourself out there, keep planting seeds, keep doing the work, keep getting better. But it is, it's hard. It's very hard on the mental health at some

Matt Cundill  42:01  
points. Yeah, well, it's because you're always creating conspiracy theories about yourself. Which part I gotta go get a job. I'm going out of business, right? You haven't done that. I do it all the time only i I tell people, I go, Ah, my business is shit. We're broke. We gotta go get some crap, macaroni and cheese to eat for the next week.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  42:20  
Not stuff's expensive now too. Like, I don't know what how much is the box, I don't know, I don't eat it, but I'm guessing it's expensive, especially at Loblaws. You shop at Loblaws, it's literally down the street. It's what else? Like, what else am I gonna do? No, you

Matt Cundill  42:36  
should totally do that. I just mentioned that so many people have boycotted things like that. I'm like, Oh, my God.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  42:41  
People have not boycotted Loblaws. They're having record but like, no that they haven't do I collect PC optimum points Absolutely. Yes, I do do. I hate Galen Weston, absolutely. Also that. Yeah, I

Matt Cundill  42:53  
find it funny because everybody boycotts everything, and none of them seem to work ever. It's all the conversation. I feel like, well, Marianne, thank you for sharing your story. Are

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  43:05  
people expecting this, like, bright, amazing, like positive podcast? And I'm like, don't do it.

Matt Cundill  43:12  
Stay out of our way. Get out. No, I

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  43:14  
was actually just gonna reveal a little secret. So I was talking to I won't say who they are. I want to protect them. I have a couple girlfriends in voiceover. They were also in radio. They're amazing. They're my support system. But we had talked about like, if we were to ever create a course together for voiceover or podcasting, it would start with like, Are you sure you want to do this? Go to the next page, and the next page is like, are you really sure? Because this is really hard, so I'm trying to be as open as possible that maybe you should keep your job, because also the job market sucks right now. So, yeah, do whatever you want. I know I do whatever you want. I'm not going to tell you what to do. I'm a little bit smug because

Matt Cundill  43:53  
I've overcome it, I think. And that's kind of why I got into the podcasting, because I found out how hard it was, and I just wanted to help other people get over the hump to tell their story. I can't really do that for you in voiceover. You've helped

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  44:05  
me with podcasting, but, yeah, voiceover, yeah, but I

Matt Cundill  44:08  
can't. I cannot help you with your voiceover business, because there's too much that goes into it. I don't know if you're a good performer. I don't know if you're any good at it. You don't even know if you're any good at it. You need to really be a voice actor. You need to be an actor now. You just can't be a voice. It doesn't work like

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  44:24  
that. I've heard I had a great voice that does not matter anymore. You know, the top read now is conversational. You have to sound as natural as humanly possible. Yeah.

Matt Cundill  44:34  
So I know that when somebody says, Can you make it more conversational? I've done a bad job. And I can tell you also that I'll do one or two reads. I will go back and listen to those one or two reads, And I will redo them. I have no more first take everything is take two, take three, take four, because I have got to get up, sounding more human every time, more vivacious, more lively. And that's the term that someone's going to use when. Say, Oh, could you make this sound more conversational? Yeah, you gotta tone it down. And I can't teach that to people. I can't help you from that. I can help you with your podcast. I can tell you where to go. I can Sherpa the whole thing, even then I still can't get you a million downloads. Yeah, you gotta do that yourself. But I can help you find your find your groove and find your space. This sounds like an ad now. Well, I mean, if anybody made it this far through the show, which reminds me of a whole program director, I was on the I think I was on your own. Well, if you're still listening, if you're still here, we thank you for it. Oh, I remember. It was a bad it was a bad interview. I think it was Matthew good. He was really boring. Didn't say anything at the end of it. I said, Well, if anyone's still listening, Matthew's going to be playing tonight downtown. It's so good. He was a complete goof during the interview. It was just terrible. And he didn't give any answers. And I said we wasted five or 10 minutes or something, kind of well, if anyone's still listening to this. Matthew will be playing, and I wish more. The mics went off, and then he stormed out and said, some F bombs to me.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  46:06  
Look at you now, Matt,

Matt Cundill  46:07  
look at me. Looking at you. Now.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  46:09  
Is this the worst interview you've ever done? No, not at all. Can do air interviews if they're bad. Have you ever done an interview and not

Matt Cundill  46:17  
aired it? Yeah, I'll say it was too it was Jeremy white. Jeremy white left 292 in Montreal, and he was on a heater, and he came on and talked. He just let go of every secret and spoke badly by the whole place, he was on fire. But he also posted it on Facebook, and they sent him a cease and desist. And so he calls me up and says, I think, don't think we should put this episode out and go, damn. It was good. I still have it still might happen. I

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  46:42  
meant because it was bad. I meant, have you ever not aired something because it was boring? No,

Matt Cundill  46:48  
I found a way to make things work. That doesn't mean I don't have some bad episodes. There are some difficult ones, but I think anything that you can edit, you can make better. And if you know, and there are tips and tricks you can do. I mean, listen, if it's a live radio interview, there's not much you can do. I've had a lot of bad ones, you know, in my time that have just not gone well. Had a lot of good ones, and went really, really well that I expected were way better than I could have anticipated. But when you anything, you can record, you can play with it, right? You can write around it. You can narrate into it. You can edit it, you can reshape it. There's lots you can do to make it better. So, yeah, everything pretty much gets out. Okay, just wanted to know, Are you worried that this will be the first that doesn't get out? No, I know this is going out. Okay, good. Marianne, thank you very much for taking time out of your busy workday where you're creating conspiracy theories about yourself to talk

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  47:42  
to us, my favorite pastime. Thank you Matt. And thank you for editing my podcast. Thank you for working with me. What else can I thank you for? I'm sure there's a few things, but love working with you. So thank you for having me

Matt Cundill  47:56  
on scoring you podcast voiceover gigs.

Mary Anne Ivison (Voiceover)  47:59  
Yeah, thank you for that, by the way. Oh, and thank you for letting me sponsor your podcast.

Matt Cundill  48:03  
Oh, that's right, I forgot you're a client. You're a client, a McLean in every way. Yeah, my God, you're you're actually sponsoring this podcast. The

Tara Sands (Voiceover)  48:13  
sound off podcast is written and hosted by Matt Cundill, produced by Evan serminsky, edited by Taylor McLean, social media by Aiden glassy, another great creation from the sound off media company. There's always more at sound off podcast.com, you.