“I’m just a natural gossip,” admits Bill Carroll, the talk radio legend celebrating ten years as the host of The Morning Rush on Newstalk 580 CFRA.
“At 18, I was already just like that 81-year-old talking to his neighbour over the fence, wanting to be the first to break the news about everything and everybody.”
He’s been doing just that, and more, for over forty years now, sharing major developments, dissecting their implications, and asking others to weigh in in major markets like Toronto and L.A. Ottawa’s been home for a while now, though, affording him and his family a nice break from the personal and professional pressure of life in bigger cities.
“When we moved to Ottawa,” Carroll reflects, “we were warned that we would find a closed community unwelcoming to strangers. That certainly wasn’t our experience. People were very welcoming—until they heard my first shows.” Their reaction? “They hated me!”
Not an uncommon experience. In almost every market Carroll’s found himself in, it’s taken listeners time to adjust to his style (“I’m definitely an ‘acquired’ taste,” he concedes). But on each occasion, the results have been the same: within months, he’s out of the death spiral that was giving his producers white-knuckle syndrome and soaring beyond the ratings barriers they bargained on breaking upon hiring him.
Carroll’s hardware includes an RTDNA (Radio Television Digital News Association) Lifetime Achievement Award and an equally prestigious distinction named after broadcasting deity Edward R. Murrow.
By Dan Lalande, Photography by Sean Sisk
Not bad for a shy kid (yes, you read that right) born in Scotland and raised in small-town Ontario who just wanted to share the pop tunes that he loved with fellow aficionados. After being rejected by every music station he approached, Carroll fell into a new, developing format: talk radio. Not only did this intimate, dialogue-based form of audience engagement force him out of his shell, but it also helped him develop a persona, kept him on top of politics and popular culture, and afforded him a first-person education in the tricky art of establishing and growing a following. Sounds like a facelift—but according to Carroll, it was more of a refinement than a reinvention. “With opinion-based talk radio,” he advises, “there’s one thing you always must do: Be authentic. People know a phony when they hear one.”
While Carroll has crossed swords with countless listeners, he’s rubbed shoulders just as many times with the rich and famous.
“I have met and interviewed so many incredible people,” he marvels. “I’ve talked to world leaders, renowned scientists, rock stars, movie stars, even people who have been to the moon.”
As for his favourite conversation…
“I had an opportunity to speak to an American truck driver when I worked in L.A.” (at station KFI, after a long stint at Toronto’s CFRB). “He was being held on bogus charges in a foreign prison. We managed to get a phone smuggled into his cell. I was terrified for his safety the entire time we spoke. He eventually got home, and I believe our interview helped facilitate that process. Or maybe it was the courageous Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto just before she was assassinated. Or that time with Phil Collins…or…”
Carroll could go on, of course—after all, that’s his stock in trade. “Actually,” he confesses, “I don’t have an opinion on everything. I’m just curious about everything and everyone. I will likely die while Googling about a new thing I just heard about a minute before. Otherwise, I’m very uncomfortable being the centre of attention—until someone puts a microphone or camera in my face.”
‘RA has been doing that for a decade now, connecting him with one of the most unique listening bases he’s ever had. “Every time I leave my house in Manotick or our studios in Ottawa, I’m approached by our listeners. They always apologize for intruding before sharing their views about the show. I love it!”
As for Carroll’s next ten years, they’re as filled with promise as his head is with knowledge.
“This decade hosting the morning show at News Talk 580 CFRA is the longest I have ever been in the same job. My kids are now young adults, and life is changing very quickly around me. I’m getting itchy feet. I am looking for a new challenge. I hope this amazing job will still be part of that future, but I need something more. If you aren’t growing, you’re shrinking. That’s not my idea of living.”
Hey, Bill—now you’re talking!
