A group of journalism students form The Starting Rotation on CJLO
If you’re a sports fan in Montreal, you know of TSN 690, the all-sports English talk-show. If you’re a sports fan at Concordia, you’re in luck, because there’s another all-sports English talk-show right at your doorstep.
The Starting Rotation is one of the newest additions to CJLO, Concordia’s community radio station. The sports-talk show airs on CJLO 1690am every Thursday from 12-1 p.m. and includes six co-hosts, all Concordia journalism students: Julian McKenzie, Robert Arzenshek, Daniele Iannarone, Justin Ferrara, Giordano Cescutti and Matthew Shanahan. The show also airs “tentatively Wednesday from 8-9 a.m., but that may change with the semester fast approaching to an end,” according to Shanahan.
From week to week, the six hosts rotate shifts, as not all of them can be on air at once, hence the name The Starting Rotation.
“We decide as a group which sports we will be discussing and the style of the segment, days before the show. Some segments take
callers, while others have guest interviews and generic sports banter,” said Shanahan. “Julian McKenzie generally produces the show and takes care of the technical side, while the rest of us take care of the content for the show.”
Some of the guests they’ve had include Sofiane Benzaza, founder of Mount Royal Soccer, a website that covers the Montreal Impact, Mitch Gallo of TSN radio and the founder of Exposnation.com, Matthew Ross.
Shanahan originally pitched the idea at the start of the fall semester to some of his friends in the journalism program.
“They all got on board relatively quickly and started the process to getting our show started which included sessions with Alex Massé, the station director, as well as sitting in on other shows at CJLO and completing our volunteer hours,” said Shanahan. “Being an intern at TSN radio here in Montreal, I wanted to host my own sports-talk show. It’s not only something that I plan on doing during my time at Concordia but also after as I plan to make a career out of it. I am very passionate about sports and I love to share that passion with others, which is why hosting a show is a no-brainer in my mind.”
As of March 25th, The Starting Rotation has had 12 shows so far this semester. Shanahan likes the direction the show is going, but thinks it’s still too early to say how successful the show is going to be in the long run.
“Many of our friends listen to the show and we definitely get callers from time to time,” he said. “We’ve only had nine shows thus far, so I think success will be measured better on how much we improve and how we are able to handle things regarding our show when we are put under pressure to perform.”
If you can’t catch the show live on Wednesdays or Thursdays you can listen to it on the CJLO iPhone app, or on the podcast version that you can find on their Twitter page at @TSR1690.
