Yep. There's one running on CKTB in St. Catharines for someone named Rob Golfi. Exactly the same pitch, word-for-word, with the exception of the name. 

grilled.cheese wrote:

I've heard the Frank Leo  pitch word for word on other stations in other markets by other agents.  It makes me question the accuracy and and credibility of Frank Leo's claims.
 

same with the spots on-air hosts voice for the Jiffy App handyman service, " I had a problem with my roof leaking" " My driveway needed shoveling." so I called Jiffy etc. Really? In the not so distant past, you've said you live in an apartment. 🤔🤨

Re Bill C. voicing Leo spots, he delivers them with a good cheery brisk read so I don't mind 'em, unlike one particular announcer whose gloomy Gus plodding through the copy makes me tune out til he's done.

g121 wrote:

Half a decade?  .. Isn't it over 10 years Carroll's been gone from living in Toronto as he moved to Los Angeles around 2010'ish?

I couldn't recall exactly, but based on this, you're right - 2010 he started doing the KFI work (although some of the "test shows" he did from Toronto I believe, before moving there), 2013 for Toronto's AM640 stuff, then 2016 leaving them both and joining CFRA Ottawa that year.

When Carroll was doing both his LA & AM640 Toronto shows while living in LA, it used to grate when he talked about the day-to-day Toronto traffic issues .. not much integrity when how can you really know when you don't live here?

I remember him boasting on KFI in his first few weeks there that KFI staffers were coming up to him in the hallways and "amazed" (perhaps a bit of exaggeration on his part, but no matter) that he was so, "already", tuned-in to Los Angeles and "You have a great grasp of the local issues". He went on to make his point about how "it's all pretty much the same anywhere, in any big city" - "fat cat" politicians nobody's pleased about, education budget cuts, stuck in hellish car commutes, etc.  At least he experienced Toronto traffic at one point I suppose.

In many ways Bill has never really left the airwaves in Toronto.  He also did advertising campaigns for years up until recently for the Home Improvement People.  I have heard him on for other clients with smaller campaigns over the years, always identifying himself.   Bill makes the ads personal and this is something that radio does well.

Up until mid October last year Bill was heard every Friday on 1010 with his own national talk show and he was featured regularly on various round tables on the station as well.  So he is still a high profile and well known personality in the GTA.  Advertisers like Frank Leo have used him in ads for years, and like the stability of having the same known and generally credible person voicing the ads.   The fact that Bill doesn't live full time in Toronto or not on the air live everyday locally is a side bar and not why he is being used by clients. 

I heard the latest version of Bill's spot for this client this morning.

He talked about "being there for clients who have suffered a loss" etc. and it was unusually freestyle and rambling, quite unlike the intense on target Mr.C. who usually sells so nimbly. I liked him fairly well on 1010, enough to still listen to him a couple of times a week on CFRA.

Last edited by betaylored (December 6, 2021 7:16 pm)

MJ Vancouver wrote:

This reminds me of the commercials airing on the west coast for a window company, featuring Ann Rohmer.

She introduces herself in the commercials as if we all know who she is. She’s well-known in Southern Ontario because of Citytv and CP24 and I remember her on Breakfast Television way back when it began, but I doubt many people in BC know who the heck she is. Unless they watched Canada AM at one point in the early 80s.

I was also surprised when I started seeing those commercials, but that was because they were being aired on CNN. I agree with what you're saying about the way she introduces herself, and it's that much more surprising given that were would be so many American viewers who also wouldn't know who she is.

RadioActive wrote:

Are you sure they aired on the full CNN feed across America? Cable companies in Canada are given a certain number of what's called "availabilities" to substitute their own commercials for those on U.S. cable networks once or twice every hour or so. I'm not saying you're wrong and Renewal by Andersen does exist in the U.S., but could you have been seeing one of those avails?

I had thought about availabilities as well, and wondered if that possibility would be raised. But while I'm no expert on them, my impression has been that they seem to just be used by my cable company (Rogers) to run commercials for themselves and other broadcasters. It's made me wonder if this is a legal requirement. I've also wondered if, even if it isn't a legal requirement, Rogers is using them to help promote Canadian programming and broadcasters and whether this is in some way helpful to them with the CRTC. I say this because I've seen so many of these commercials over and over again for extended periods ... I think in many cases they run in these availabilities every hour for a month at a time, and they end up being a real turn-off to me for whatever they're advertising. 
I've also noticed that those ads run during the second part of their commercial blocks, and I don't think that this was the case with Andersen -- so that's what has given me the impression that they were running on the full CNN feed, in addition to what you mention about Andersen operating in the US. But I would definitely be interested in knowing more about how these availabilities work, and more specifically how Rogers is using them.

The Onion, so many layers, so much truth.

https://twitter.com/jordanupdike/status/1467957449911152642?t=L6ZhLyvaeFTx2y5YAyxYFA&s=19

RadioActive wrote:

Not sure of the rules in Canada, but you can often tell when your local cable company is doing this, especially when they don't time it right. You sometimes see the tail end of what the network was running there as they flip back to regular programming. It's pretty sloppy but you know what you saw isn't what everyone else was watching in that brief moment. 

Yes, I used to see that quite often, and that also contributed to me figuring that the avails were during the second part of the ad block. It was indeed very sloppy, and I was glad when Rogers got better with their insertions and this stopped. More recently, however, I've occasionally seen the opposite ... a second or two at the start of a network ad that is then cut off for the local ads. I don't think that the Andersen ads are currently running on CNN, but if I see them again I'll make a point of noting when they occur, and whether they're preceded or followed by local ads.

RadioActive wrote:

Not sure of the rules in Canada

During the "avails" on an American service, they can insert promos for their own service (Bell Fibe, Rogers Ignite, Cogeco TV, etc), CBC or any Canadian specialty channel (TSN, CP24, HGTV, etc).  The insert is triggered by the American network.  Actual "commercials" for third party products are not allowed.
 

In Phase wrote:

During the "avails" on an American service, they can insert promos for their own service (Bell Fibe, Rogers Ignite, Cogeco TV, etc), CBC or any Canadian specialty channel (TSN, CP24, HGTV, etc).  The insert is triggered by the American network.  Actual "commercials" for third party products are not allowed.

That's right. The Ann Rohmer spot wouldn't come from the cablecos because third parties would jump at the
chance at some inexpensive exposure on the BDUs. Gotta be someone here who knows Ann, why not ask her
what the deal was?
When I was working at Wave 94.7, they bought avails on Cogeco (for sure) and probably Rogers, too. I'm not sure
what the roughly 40-bucks monthly got them. They could pick and choose the channels their stuff ran on and depending on who else was buying, they could luck into bonus spots. Good deal. We've got Cogeco and and they
do inserts in just about every set. Heavy play for their On Demand movies, same deal for a tight number of PSAs,
with infuriating repeats if you have MSNBC on. (At the Big 8, when RKO owned it, sponsors got *one* spot an hour at the most.)