Radio Shalom business show drawing listeners
DAVID LAZARUS, Staff Reporter, Thursday, January 20, 2011
Tags: News http://thecjn.ca/node/87070
MONTREAL — It is only one little show on one little radio station with very little money. Yet Money and Business, which airs live each Wednesday at 4 p.m. on the all-Jewish Montreal-based Radio Shalom (CJMS) – 1650 on the AM dial and radio-shalom.ca on the web – is managing to attract an increasing level of buzz.
Samuel Ezerzer
One of the reasons seems to be its host, financial consultant Samuel Ezerzer, who despite no previous broadcasting experience when the show went on the air in October 2009, has a style that’s been praised as smooth, polished and professional.
Maybe more important, Money and Business is being regarded as a program with real substance. Ezerzer’s questions and discussions with guests are sharp, incisive and conversational, and apparently because of that, he has managed to snare an impressive array of guests.
They include Gill Michael Bufman, chief economist of Israel’s Bank Leumi; Robert Pozen, chair of the huge MFS Investment Management; David Kaufman, president of Westcourt Capital Corporation; Mike Vinokur, vice-president of Portfolio Management at Trapeze Asset Management, and life insurance successions and charitable gift planning specialist Robin Behar.
The list goes on, and some of the interviews have gone “viral” on the web. One occasional guest has been well-known Toronto writer and comedian Carla Collins.
Ezerzer works with a team that he said in an interview he could not do without.
They include business commentator Maurice Cousineau of the National Bank; regulatory expert Jack Bensimon; business and trading specialist and commentator Gregory Lupu; real estate expert and commentator Joseph Winterstern.
Behar, Ezerzer said, has also provided valuable advice to the team.
For Ezerzer, who was born in Tangiers, grew up next to the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue, attended Hebrew Academy of Montreal, and went on to spend 12 years as an investment adviser at the National Bank of Canada, the new hat he wears as a broadcaster has translated into one of the most stimulating periods of his 46-year-long life – even though the radio station is all-volunteer.
“I still can’t believe I am doing this,” he said.
But it all came about by sheer happenstance. Ezerzer had “grabbed a mike” at a fundraiser for a synagogue Torah and sounded so good that he was approached at the event by Radio Shalom sales director Avi Kimchi to try his hand at radio.
Ezerzer’s initial nerves, however, were soon enough replaced by self-assurance.
“By nature, I’m not scared by the prospect of failure or by challenges,” Ezerzer said.
The format of the show – live “call-ins” and interviews – suits Ezerzer’s easygoing style. Ezerzer, who describes himself as “very pro-Israel and very pro-business,” said he spends six or seven hours preparing for each show.
“We are a true talk show,” he said. “The show really is about learning and understanding. We don’t want any infomercials. The guests are not there to promote their own products,” although an occasional reference is allowed. “I try to put myself in my guests’ shoes.”
It is as a result of this approach, said Ezerzer, that Money and Business has become the highest-rated Internet show on the Radio Shalom platform. “We’re very ‘global’ in our approach,” he said.
Still, finding new sponsors remains a continuing challenge for those involved with the show (not to mention the station), with Kimchi, founding Radio Shalom president Robert Levy and others, always on the lookout.
“We put a lot of work and a lot of heart into it,” Ezerzer said.
“I am always asking myself: ‘At the end of the day, what is the listener going to learn?’
“I’m not getting paid and the guest isn’t getting paid. So who benefits? The listener.”
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