Rob McConnell Interviews - JIM CHAPMAN - Author, Journalist, Former Broadcaster, NDE Survivor - The 'X' Zone Radio/TV Show

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Oh hnry, Welcome to the Exisode, a place where fact
is fiction and fiction is reality.

Speaker 2 (00:20):
Now here's your host, Rob konnell.

Speaker 3 (00:30):
You do in that thing YouTube, breaking my heart into
a million pieces like you always do. He don't need
to be cool in there.

Speaker 4 (00:50):
He can't about the body.

Speaker 3 (00:55):
I answers the child, chiss you again.

Speaker 5 (01:06):
Time.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
And welcome back to the X one every one. I
am Rob McConnell, and for the next two hours, I'm
your host and your guide as together we cross this
time space continuum, the place that I call the X Zone.
It's a place where people dare to believe and dare
to be heard. It's a place where fact is fiction
and fiction is reality. And the Xxzone comes to you
Monday through Friday from ten pm until midnight right here

(01:35):
on the X Zone Broadcast Network and on your hometown radio,
Classic twelve twenty. Stream me at Classic twelve twenty dot ca.
If you'd like to send me an email, Xzone at
Classic twelve twenty dot ca is the best email to
reach me at. And if you'd like to see the
other programming that is available for you with our compliments,

(01:56):
check out XBN dot net. My guest hours a gentleman
I had the pleasure of meeting several years ago when
I first started at CJBK in London, Ontario. He was
the morning talk show guy and everybody that I know
had the greatest respect for this gentleman. He is an author,

(02:17):
he is a journalist, a former broadcaster, nd survivor, and
a musician. Joining me now as a gentleman that I
had the pleasure working for and with in London, Ontario.
Jim Chapman and Jim always great having you. How are you,
my friend?

Speaker 6 (02:32):
Well, I'm very well Rob, although I alrready recognize myself
from that wonderful introduction. That's very kind to.

Speaker 7 (02:37):
You, Jim.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
For our listeners who may not have had the opportunity
of listening to you when you were at a CJBK
or the other areas of broadcasting that you were in.
Tell him a little bit about yourself.

Speaker 6 (02:50):
Well, I started my career, my professional career, as a musician,
and I earned my living as a musician until I
was in my forties. And at that point there's a
very strange set of circumstances that probably don't bear repeating,
But I was offered a talk show host a job
in London at a small station. I had not done

(03:11):
anything like that, but lord knows, I knew how to talk,
and I'd always kept myself very well informed about current affairs.
I was always interested in that. So I actually gave
a little speech one day to a group of people
that invited me to come and talk to them, and
a fellow in the audience worked at the station, and
he offered me a job, and I took the job,
and for the next fifteen years I was did talk

(03:35):
shows in London at several different stations, as it turned out,
and I had the most wonderful time of my professional
life that didn't involve a guitar.

Speaker 2 (03:45):
Jim, you and I were talking before we started on air,
and broadcasting has changed so much in the last couple
of years.

Speaker 6 (03:53):
How do you know?

Speaker 2 (03:54):
How do you make sense of what's happening, Jim, because
you've always had your fingers to the pulse when it
comes to broadcasting.

Speaker 6 (04:01):
I left. I left finally in two thousand and thirteen,
and I left of my own accord. I just couldn't
do it anymore. I couldn't do what they wanted to
be done. When I started in radio, it provided you
didn't you break the contended Association of Broadcasters rules. You

(04:21):
could say anything you wanted, and you couldn't be rude,
you couldn't swear on air, but you could express your
opinions freely and fully. By the time the more formal
part of my career ended, and that would have been
in two thousand and four. After that, I did two
more radio shows that they were just kind of part
time things. But my full time career ended in two

(04:43):
thousand and four, and I was let go largely because
they didn't like some of the things I was saying.
I was I was not a fan of political correctness.
I thought it was going to lead to some a
terrible social disruption. And it turns out I was one
hundred percent correct in that, and and I refused to
play by those rules. So I left mutually. It was

(05:08):
mutually agreed that they didn't want me anymore, and I
don't want to be here. But I watched very carefully
after that, because they said I still stayed sort of
in the business. I did a couple of part time
shows just I was doing a bunch of other stuff.
But I was approached to do an hour here and
hour there, and I always enjoyed it. My observation succinctly
is that the being counters took over the entire business.

(05:28):
Radio had was built and expanded and became as powerful
as it was because of radio people, people who owned
the stations and ran the stations, who loved radio, who
believed in the power of radio. And once they were gone.
And they were because there was a convergence back in
the late nineteen hundred, the late nineteen nineties, and they

(05:50):
into the early two thousands, and you went through that too,
where huge congarments just bought up in the radio station.
There was one time you could only own two stations
and one market, as you know, and now they are,
you know, changed on on hundreds of stations. So the
big money came out. These guys thought they were all
going to be rich, and they bought all these radio stations.
In fact, I don't think any of them are not

(06:11):
only are they're not getting rich. I don't think any
of them make any your own money anymore because it
being counters committed and they exist. How can I squeeze
another dollar out of this radious reporters? Well, we don't
need reporters. We'll get rid of them. Oh, we've got
a talk show or a host, morning show host who's
been there for thirty years. Has happened in London here
the most popular guy in the city. Well, I can
get somebody for half the price. They'll do that job.

(06:33):
And you know, and it was like it's like out
all over the country. So very very few older broadcasters
left anywhere anymore. And the young ones either don't have
the experience or don't have the don't have the skill,
and the management guys they're just sitting there counting beans.
They don't count human beings, they don't count feelings. They
don't count the impact that they have on their community

(06:54):
or could have. They don't count all the good works
that they could do that maybe don't turn into dollars
in your pocket, but are great for your community and
for your advertising das exactly all the accounts being allers
in that shit.

Speaker 2 (07:05):
One of the stations I was at as executive producer
and where the exzone was, one day we all got
called into the GM's office. You said, all right, you're
going to all be called one by one to go
to the boardroom. You go in there and see what happens.
And of course we were all the senior people in

(07:27):
the station at that time, And what happened was we
were let go because, like you said, being counters, and
it was referred to as the twenty twenty crowd was
coming in to take it over. That you're twenty years
old and would do anything for twenty thousand dollars a year.

Speaker 6 (07:44):
Yeah, and that's sadly. I've heard that before and people
have laughed at that. There's a lot more truth in
fiction in that phrase too, the twenty years old I'm
happy to get paid twenty grand. If you're a bean
counter and you don't care about radio, and you don't
really believe in radio, You believe in the numbers on
a piece of paper. All you care about is maximizing
your advertising dollars. And one way you maximize their values

(08:08):
by reducing the cost to make that air available to advertising.
The problem is as the product degrades, which it inevitably does,
you can't replace people with twenty thirty forty years of
experience on working a microphone with somebody just out of college.
I don't care how bright the kid might be and motivated,
it's not the same thing, and people know that recognize that.

(08:29):
So the advertising revenues start to drop, and rather than
address the real issue, which is that your product is
not your product, your radio product, people aren't listening to
it anymore because they don't care about it. Instead of
addressing that, well, well we we can say thirty grand,
we'll get rid of this care over air and we'll
bring in somebody out of school. It's a self defeating

(08:50):
strategy we're seeing. I think we're in the very end
days of it now. I think radio does not have
much longer to last. That all the radio stations, of
course are switching over to or trying to switch over
to the Internet, and good for them that do. But
the problem with the Internet, for the being counters is
that Internet for programming is driven entirely by appealing to

(09:11):
your audience. If you don't appeal to that audience, you're
not going to have one, and you can't pretend that
you do like you can in radio. You can pretend
to lot you reach a lot more people than you are.
You can't do that because all the metrics are there
for everybody to see on the Internet. So I think
you know the stations that make that make the transition.
That would be great. What I'd love to see. I
can't speak from stations not in Canada. I would like

(09:33):
to see. It will never happen because there's there's too
much money investment. The best thing could happen in radio
in Canada would be to cancel all the existing licenses,
issue all new licenses for small radio stations, and one
in almost every community, with an absolute mandate to community service.
That's why you're there that I believe that as much

(09:57):
as it's going on, I mean, one of the problems is,
aren't radio is a lot of new cars now, So
you know that's a problem, and it is probably too
late to do any of that. But had they done
that ten to fifteen years ago, I think they not
only would have saved radio, they would have made it
a vital and vibrant part of our communities like it
used to be and just isn't anymore. But too much
money involved. Cancel those Cancel those licenses. The licenses are

(10:20):
on paper worth hundreds of millions of dollars. They're not
really because they don't make any money, so what's that worth?
But anyhow, it's not going to happen. I wish it had.
You know, a bunch of us talked about it ten
fifteen years ago, old radio guys, and we kind of
decided that if there was anything that would say with
that was it. But none of that, it just wasn't

(10:41):
going to happen. It was never going to happen.

Speaker 2 (10:42):
Well, that's happening in the States right now because the
FCC is now issuing or what's it called LPFM licenses,
which are community licenses, and right now there are over
seven one seven hundred licenses that have been issued two
community radio stations within the United States and it's catching on.

Speaker 6 (11:05):
We hear on contributors to do you hear how they're doing,
because I'll bet if they're well run, if they're run
by radio people, I'll bet they're doing well.

Speaker 5 (11:13):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:14):
And the reason I know that, Jim, is because a
number of the LPFM stations are carrying the X zone.

Speaker 5 (11:22):
And you don't hear that.

Speaker 2 (11:24):
The first time this gentleman contacted me and I said, well,
what's in LPFM? He said, oh, you're in Canada. I
said yeah. He said you call them community stations. Wow,
he says, well, we're lucky. Go ahead, Jim.

Speaker 6 (11:41):
I was just to say that that I know there
are some small stations around a few hunt for them.
You can still find them in Canada, but there aren't
very many, and they have generally they're very specialized situations.
They have special licenses that were grandfathered in that have
been there for a long long time. But the idea
of having a community that kind of circumvented the whole

(12:03):
big station financial monopoly. Right what lets you guys keep
your license, You keep your one hundred million dollar license.
You do that, But we're going to let this guy
here and he's going to do all community programming. I
think those stations, I'm absolutely king if those stations properly
run would make money and serve their communities and everybody
be happy.

Speaker 2 (12:21):
I'll tell you what I'll do, Jim. I'll send you
the information on the LPFMs, and you and I have
to take our first break, my.

Speaker 6 (12:28):
Friend, So please, I'm ready to rest whenever you work.

Speaker 2 (12:32):
Okay, x oll nation. My guess this hour is Jim
Chapman and gentleman that I had the great pleasure of
working with at CJBKA in London, Ontario, where the XON
was for a number of months before we moved moved
to our Let me see, where do we go from London.
We went to c KTV here in Saint Catharine's good times,

(12:52):
hard work. That's what makes radio work, hard work and
hard hard and dedicated listeners will be back on the
other side of this breakhas the x ON continues with
hers truly from our broadcast center and studios in St. Catherine's, Ontario, Canada,
on the x ON Broadcast Network. And you're listening to
us on your hometown radio classic twelve twenty O't go Away.

Speaker 4 (13:46):
I'll see you, Tony and thenside then I say, pretty love,
I know this way.

Speaker 2 (14:09):
So and welcome back to the excellent Jim Chapman is
my very special guest, and Jim, as you know, we
had Skippy working with us at the f M side
of c j b K what was the FM side.

Speaker 6 (14:29):
The ninety three skipt pro cop from the Lighthouse who
used to hurt the band there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Skip
was a great guy. He and I became friends over
the years, and of course we had a lot of
mutual friends in the music business too, and he was
an incredible drummer and song singer, songwriter and super nice
guy too.

Speaker 2 (14:45):
The last time I saw lost him a few We
lost him a few years. Yes we did, Yes we did.
And the last time I saw Skip Hit was at
the Winona Peach Festival. Lighthouse was playing there and he
saw me in the crowd and he motioned me to
come onto the stage behind the curtain, and my little
daughter was with me, And after the show he came

(15:05):
over and she was thrilled. He gave her an autograph
and she still talks about meeting a man from Lighthouse
to this very day.

Speaker 6 (15:12):
And from Light.

Speaker 2 (15:15):
Jim, do you think the Internet is all it's made
out to be when it comes to broadcast media.

Speaker 6 (15:24):
Well, here's the thing, here's my observation. And I have
to tell you Rob that since I quote retired, although
I'm busier now than I had ever been, but I
retired from my more mundane business things I was doing.
I had a business consulting firm, a communications consulting firm
for the last ten years of what I considered my

(15:45):
broadcasting career, and it was very successful, but it was
it got to the front. I just I'd had enough.
So that was in twenty seventeen, at Christmas, I retired.
But since then I spent a lot of time every
day on the internet, two three, sometimes four hours a
day on the Internet for fun. But what I have

(16:08):
I won't say I discovered. I knew this's going in
I think, but certainly it has been reinforced. Is that
the value of the Internet is directly proportional to the
amount of effort you put into verifying your sources. And because,
as you know, if you believe A, you can or

(16:31):
B or C or D, you can find somebody on
the Internet somewhere who will agree with you. And if
that's the only person you listen to, you're not going
to learn much. So the broadcast element, the station radio
stations moving on to the Internet, I don't listen to
a lot of them. I do, on occasion listen to them.

(16:54):
My observation is that they have been unable to recreate
the kind of local connection that that really drove even
the biggest radio stations back in the day, you know,
the fifty thousand waters that reached out the country. They
did that, but they also had had a direct, kind
of direct line, direct connection to their listeners. I'm not

(17:16):
sure that's happening on the Internet on the broadcast side
of things, on the information side, it's just it is
the most amazing resource I've ever seen. I grew up
spending all my spare time at the library. When I
was a kid. I was a reader from when I
was just you know, I can't remember literally when I
couldn't read, and I spent all just thousands of hours

(17:37):
of libraries. Now I do the same thing from the
comfort of my home, on my you know, my favorite
comfy chair, and it's every the world is that your fingertips.
The problem is too many people only you know, the
worlds of their fingertips, but their two finger typists, and
they only get any slice of it. And I think
there are times when that's very dangerous. People go all

(17:58):
I've heard around the road on the internet, it must through. Yeah,
when we're talking about the kinds of topics that you
That's why I like your show. I listened to your show.
I like your show because you know, it's very straightforward.
Here are people telling their stories. Here's what's happened to them,
here's what they believe, and you know, you don't try
to push anything down people's sorts from either of to day,

(18:18):
and everybody gets a chance to make up their own mind,
which I think is wonderful. I think that's exactly where
everything should be.

Speaker 2 (18:24):
But that, Jim, these other shows that but Jim, that's
how you did your show. And I learned a lot
from you, very much.

Speaker 5 (18:31):
So I learned a lot.

Speaker 2 (18:33):
I learned a lot from you, and I learned a
lot from Bill Kelly.

Speaker 6 (18:37):
Well, you know, for me, the thing that the thing
that I always tried to do on on the radio show.
And maybe it was because I came to it late.
I was in my forties. I was already a fully
formed adult and with a lot of life experience because
I've done you know, I've been through.

Speaker 5 (18:55):
A lot of stuff.

Speaker 6 (18:57):
I believed a very wise man to me, this sound
named Peter Garland, who you'll remember was a talk show host,
or not a talk shows there was a morning radio host.
Pete Garland and Steve Garrison were the two big talk
show guys. You're in London for years and years, and
they were both good friends of mine and kind of
mentors of mine. And they both told me the same things.
Be yourself and tell the truth, and you never have
to remember what you said yesterday because it's the same

(19:19):
thing that you would say today. And I ran my
show that way. Here is here's what I understood. Here
are the facts as I understand them. Here's a guest
and they're going to share their view on it. Now
you go away and make up your own mind, and
that works very well for me. My show is very successful.
I'm very, very proud of what we accomplished with that show,

(19:41):
and I wish there were more of that today on
what essentially if you placed radio, which is he I
wish there were more. There is a lot of it though.
There's a lot of people that I watched that I
believe them, and I think that's what happened in radio
with the hosts. I'm not talking about DJs, but I'm
talking about talk show people. In radio, the ones who
are the most successful were the ones who were either

(20:02):
so outrageous that you had to tune in to see
what they were going to say next, like your Howard Stern,
which never appealed to me, but yeah, lots of people
love that, or people you believed somebody said this, as
far as I know, this is the truth, and you went, well, okay,
as far as he knows a lot farther than I know,
and you know, I believe he cares about the truth it,
so I'll listen to him. Unfortunately, there are so many

(20:23):
people out there today who you know, it's all clickbait stuff.
You know, they say almost anything to get an audience,
to build an audience. And I don't think there's any
way to fix it. I don't even know that it
needs to be fixed. But I just I encourage you know,
my kids and their kids, and just be a discriminating
consumer of information that you know, take everything in, make

(20:47):
the sense of it that you can with the with
the good sets God gave you. Don't believe anything that
doesn't sound reason. My dad once said, it doesn't sound true,
it probably isn't. And I've found that's been fairly fairly accurate. Though.
You know, somebody tells you something, you don't believe them,
and be careful about, you know, believing what they're telling

(21:08):
you anyway. That that's kind of that's kind of my
overd I think there's that the Internet is a wonderful,
wonderful resource. It's the world is literally air fingertips. I
spend at least two hours a day on top of
the Internet stuffing. I just do it for front. It's
not that I have to, but I have the time.
I do it for fun on YouTube, and you can
you can travel the world through time and through space

(21:29):
on YouTube. You could sit well, you could sit there
twenty four hours a day and never run out of
interesting things to see. And I think that that's incredible. Again,
in the old days, you'd have to go down to
the library, which I would do on Saturdays. You gotta
spend all day in the library reading books, looking at books.
To travel again through time and space like you can now, well,
I can do it at home in front of my
TV because the YouTube's or in front of my TV,

(21:50):
and the whole world is curated, you know. They the
comedy and drama and history and news and weathers for
all of that stuff for the last over many years,
it's right in front of you, plus all the sci
fi stuff that they know, the future stuff and the stuff.
The kind of stuff that you deal with is you
know very well, there's lots of it out there. It's

(22:10):
an absolutely Corney coope. I had a young fellow say
to me the other day. I was talking to the
young fellow. I was actually out doing a musical gig
and he come up and want to talk to me
because he just started to play guitar. And this is
my sixtieth year this year, since I had my first
a job as.

Speaker 2 (22:24):
On this year.

Speaker 6 (22:25):
And he said, I know you've been playing for a
long time. It's just Chapman, and I just want to
tell you, you know, i'd really like to do what
you do. And I said, well that's great. And so
you're you're learning your learning instrument. Well yeah, yeah, I said,
but I get kind of bored doing it. And I said, there,
you get bored. He answered, what else bores you? Well,
I don't know. I just find life kind of boring.

(22:46):
And I said, well, good luck to your son. I
cannot imagine somebody, ever, I can't imagine me ever saying,
you know, I'm bored. Those two were I've never said
him in my life. I can't imagine ever saying there's
so much stuff out there, Robin. You know, because you're
the same way. You're like I am. You're always looking
for information. You're looking for new experiences and new new

(23:07):
thoughts and new attitudes and you know, new new theories
and whatever. So as I say, I tell my kids,
just keep keep your minds open and uh fill them
with everything you can find, and then you figure out
what works for you.

Speaker 2 (23:20):
Excell Nation, my guess this hour is Jim Chapman. Now,
if you'd like to find out more about Jim, he
has a Facebook page. It is Facebook dot com forward
slash Jim dot Chapman dot nine two three seven. That's
Jim dot Chapman dot nine two three seven.

Speaker 8 (23:39):
Jim.

Speaker 2 (23:39):
What was your most uh, what's the word? I'm looking
for your most significant story that you did as a
talk show host that that will always be with you.

Speaker 6 (23:52):
Oh, I can tell you that for sure. Just before
I do that, Rob, if I can mention to I
also have a website, Jim Chapman with a P dot
ca A. There's lots of stuff there about what we're
going to talk about, lots of other stuff. Without a doubt,
the most amazing day of my career was nine to eleven,
and not just because it was nine to eleven. I'll
tell you what happened. I was just about to go

(24:14):
on the air I started at nine o'clock. One of
the kids from the newsroom ran in instead a plane
and just hit the World Trade Center in New York.
And my first thought went back to nineteen forty two,
when an American bomber a B twenty five Hicky Empire
State Building and you know, it's a famous, famous event,
maybe not famous today, but famous event. And I thought, well,

(24:36):
you know, some poor guys turn left when he should
have turned right and hit a building, and so let's
let's get on the air and see what's happening. So
I went into the studio and they did a news
announcement and then, as I recalled, didn't do the newscast.
I immediately went on the air and said, here's what
we know. And I had a TV in the studio

(24:58):
where I was, so we're watching the video feed. And
at that point, nobody knew anything. This was before the
second plane hit. And I told the story about the
bomber running into the Empire State Building. I said, the
crew of the bomber was killed. I don't think anybody
else was, and it didn't hurt the building any So
let's hope that something like that. And while I am

(25:19):
talking literally, and you're familiar with this, and your listeners will,
we too, here's the video of the second plane flying
out of the building. And at that point we knew
right away that something was grievously wrong. This was not
an accident. And over the next ten or fifteen till
about the bottom of the hour, I was given backstory.

(25:41):
I was talking about the layout. I've been to New York,
I have family in New York, and about the layout
where the World Trade Center was, where the airports were
relative to that, you know what might have happened. Who knows, YadA, YadA, YadA.
And at the bottom of the hour, one of the
station guys committed said, well, we're going to switch to
the network now you're done for the day, and the
news director something at Wilmot and I, oh, yeah, we're

(26:03):
in the room. It said, that's absolutely the wrong thing
to do. They don't know any more than we do
right now, and anything that they're learning, they're putting up
on the screen so we could see that. But if
we cut away now, there's no reason for anybody to
stay with our radio station. They'll just go to the
nearest TV station, or they'll get the CBC, or they

(26:24):
don't need us.

Speaker 2 (26:25):
Jim, stand by. I've got to take Jim, I've got
to take my break at the battle there. Please stand
by it. Xcell Nation. Our guest this hour is Jim Chapman,
and Jim, I believe your website is Jim Chapman dot com,
dot Ca dot c Jim Chapman dot CA, and Jim
and I will be back on the other side as
we continue hearing the Xzone from our broadcast center and
studios in Saint Catharine's, Ontario, Canada, on the Xzone Broadcast

(26:47):
Network and on your hometown radio Classic twelve twenty dot
CA is the stream don't go away.

Speaker 8 (27:17):
I heard you want more while it was back in
fifteen two lying awaken and the tuning in on you.
If I was young, it didn't stop you come and.

Speaker 5 (27:29):
Listen.

Speaker 7 (27:31):
If we took the credit for your second symphony. We
read my machine on your technology and now.

Speaker 8 (27:39):
I understand the problems you can see.

Speaker 1 (27:44):
And then you child, what did you tell them?

Speaker 8 (27:50):
Media Start?

Speaker 2 (27:53):
Media Start Chapman is my special guest explanation w ww
dot Jim Chapman dot Ca and on Facebook, Facebook dot com,
forward slash Jim dot Chapman dot nine two three seven. Jim,
we were talking about nine to eleven and you're right.

(28:13):
You know radio plays a very important part in every community.
And please continue with what you were saying.

Speaker 6 (28:21):
Well, that story, Robin, you said exactly the right thing.
The reason I'm telling that story is what happened is
the result of us staying on the air and not
going to just cut it, and we we because of
our affiliations, we want to cut in with the ABC network. Well,
as the day went on and we had we're watching
ABC on television, so we're getting all the stuff they had.

(28:43):
I also had my staff. I was lucky to have
a wonderful producer named Kathleen Keating, who you I'm sure
you remember you had staff that worked for her. She
had some volunteers from the journalism school regularly, so I
got them on the phone. They contacted my fans, some
of my family members in New York, one of whom
had just moments before seeing the second plane go over
her head and into the building. Uh, and several of

(29:07):
other of my relatives down there. So we're getting first
hand reports from the streets of New York. One of
our one of our regular advertisers, or a lawyer, Mike Peerless,
called in. He had just got into the city, had
flown into New York on business and was downtown watching
the dust settle, you know, on everything. He was just

(29:30):
remarkable and he was a very well spoken. Here he's
a lawyer. So we're getting, you know, moment by moment
description of what's happening in downtown New York from him.
I had people by, had all kinds of people, just
get them on the airplane people and building structural people.
I was on the air for most of the day,
and with some of the other guys who shows, I

(29:50):
kind of crashed over. We would go work together on something,
but I was I was on the air from nine
till six basically that day, and everybody at the station
just worked there, just worked their head. I can't tell you,
Rob how many times, because I've run out of the
number I need, I can safely say hundreds of times.
Over the years I've run into people who have mentioned

(30:11):
nine to eleven, and they've all said basically the same thing.
It was so comforting because we didn't know what was
the world coming to an end, We didn't know. It
was so comforting to hear voices on the radio that
we knew local people, that we knew you, and Andy
Hudman and Mike Stubbs and Steve Garrison, all of us
who worked that whole thing. And so to me, that

(30:34):
was the proof was in the putting right there that
that proved me yet again, the power of that local connection,
and I'm very proud of what that station did that day.
I've listened to the tapes of that day, and I
have also been all listened to the tapes and seen
the videos of the network coverage. And I'm telling you,
I'm not going to say that we were as polished

(30:56):
or we had the depth of reporting the day that
but i will tell you, at the end of the day,
our listeners do every bit about as much about what
went on as as they were getting from the big networks,
and we weren't just regurgitating their stuff. We were creating
a lot of new information ourselves. So I'm very proud
of that, and I'm very my biggest day in broadcasting,

(31:17):
I can't imagine nothing ever came close to that. It
was just it was so remarkable. But it was the
aftermath where people said, We're so glad we could still
listen to you, and listen to Andy, and listen to
Mike and listen to Steve. It meant so much to
us to have people we knew talking to us about
what was happening.

Speaker 2 (31:34):
You know, I believe there's there's two there's two legs
to the entity that we call radio. There's the AM
stations and there's the FM. Both play an important part
within the community. But when it comes to news, when
it comes to weather, when it comes to traffic, when
it comes to human interest stories, when it comes to
what you need to know community events, AM radio is

(31:58):
where it is and empty people just don't understand the
importance of AM and I'm for one, I'm very sad
to see auto manufacturers getting rid of the AM radio
on the radio dial in cars because I think they're
making a big mistake.

Speaker 6 (32:16):
I think they are in the sense that they're cutting
off a potential new resurgence on that radio form. Now,
you know, and I know the chechy guys, Well, the
quality is bad, and you know the FM's are much
cleaner quality and it's cheaper to pump out and blah
blah blah blah. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, But those stations
and the access that you have on the AM band,

(32:38):
the local access that you have if you're listening to
people talking on AM or talking on FM, I don't
believe that anybody can really tell the difference in quality. Well,
you know, the guys with the massive stereo radio system, sure,
he doesn't care what's AM, FM, CDM or you know
X y ZM. He doesn't care. They care what it
sounds like and what's on my pickup. I drive my

(33:02):
pickup around and I discovered two or three years ago,
quite by accident, because I usually keep it on the
same local station here. I hit the search fund in
the middle of the day in London, Ontario, Canada. It
went to the top of the dial, to the bottom
of the dial and came back up to my local
station and never stopped once. That's how few stations are

(33:26):
left that here would have had a strong enough signal
three during the day. Back in the day, that would
have stopped fifteen or twenty times.

Speaker 2 (33:33):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (33:34):
Now some of those stations are still there, but they're
farther away, less power, and they won't trigger the machine
to stop at them. To me, that's the saddest thing.
It just it breaks my heart.

Speaker 2 (33:47):
What do you think about these people who are FM
cronies who come to an AM station and try to
convert the AM into a I'm sorry, convert an AAM
into an FM format.

Speaker 6 (34:00):
You can do it, But my question is why, Yeah,
why bother? I mean, FM's not making money today. I
know there are I have friends in the business side
of the radio industry everything I'm gonna say that, or
you know, I spell a case, I go and do
speaking gags and whatnot. People off and ask me about
just as you're doing, you know what, what's the deal
with radio? And and it's got back to a few

(34:21):
of them, and I've heard from some of them and say,
you know, radio is agreed, it's firebrands something else. So
learn to read a spreadsheet. Jack, You know, all these
these are all public companies, are most of the republic companies.
Go and look at the spreadsheets. They're not making money.
They're moving money around, like Jack the Bear in the
old days, Rob and you remember you were there in
those days. A guy with a local and station who

(34:43):
ran it properly would he'd be a millionaire in a
matter of a few years. And just from doing that,
just from doing that, And that happened all over this
country to all kinds of people. And the reason that
worked was because they could actually make money. You know,
it casted this much money for your license, this much
money to run the station, this much money to hire

(35:05):
the staff. And this is how much money you bring in.
And if it's there's enough over everything else, and they'll
bring in part you're gonna do well, and they did well.
That's just not happening anymore. And I mean I've seen
I've been to presentations by broadcast people talking about all,
how what a vibrant and exciting industry it is. Well,
if it's so vibrant and exciting, why is the government
paying millions and millions of dollars to newsrooms across the

(35:28):
country just to get them to cover the news? But
what's that all about? Millions and millions of tax dollars
being funneled to radio stations so they can quote, you know,
keep them vibrant and keep them relevant. Well, they're not.
People don't want to listen to them. That's it's not
that there's a shortage of money per se. They can
create their own money if they, you know, broadcast stuff

(35:51):
people want to listen to. But it again, as we
said earlier, it's it's almost like beating a dead horse.
I don't want to give up on it. I think
there's still room strongly believe in the local content and
what you were talking earlier about the FM's in the States,
I think that's a fabulous idea. They don't have to
compete necessarily with the big stations, the fms, you know,
or what's left of the ams. Let them come on

(36:12):
and do just community programming and they will do well.
I'm absolutely convinced of that.

Speaker 2 (36:21):
Radio has changed so much, and just recently, what was
it four eight hundred people let go by Bell Media
and then they've cut certain areas out of their local
noontime newscasts like.

Speaker 6 (36:34):
What yeah, even city like London, the London News here
is a pale imitation of what it used to be.
There are days when they're well, I don't watch local TV,
so I can't speak to this authoritatively. People have told
me that what little news is there is a pale
imitation of what it used to be. And I guess
there are days, maybe on the weekends or whatever, when

(36:54):
we used to expect to get a newscast and there
just aren't any anymore. They're not there. Well, they're not
there becau because they're expensive to produce and they don't
generate money, and so it's weird. They said talk before
about that there's a circle that once you start chasing
the almighty dollar and everything else, all you can see
is the dollar, And you know, how many can I
get at the end of the day, you stop thinking

(37:14):
about what it actually takes to create those dollars, and
you just think about how can I make it cheaper
to cheaper to cheaper to get them and you end
up like we are in Canada, where this massively subsidized
radio industry and they're still losing money. It's just it's
it's ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (37:30):
The minute a radio station, whether it be AM or FM,
puts the dollar in front of the listener, it's doomed.

Speaker 6 (37:38):
Oh, it is absolutely And you talk to any of
the old time guys, almost all of them who are
dead now, by the way, the guy that Don Chamberlain,
the Philip and I work for it is a wonderful,
wonderful guy. And living breathed radio guys like Dawn. They
understood what the medium was. It wasn't just about signals
going out into the air. It was what those signals

(38:00):
told the people at the other end, what went into
their ears. And understood that they cared about what was
going on locally. They cared about their what we used
to call them the business, their talent on air people.
They cared about them. They became their friends. And when
has happened, well, then happened in London over the last

(38:20):
I guess ten years. Basically all of the old guys
are gone. Nobody's left, and they got these kind of
plug and play The young kids committed. Some of them
are quite talented, but it's just they don't have the
opportunity to build. And in some states this amazed me story.
I can't repeat her house too long, but a story.
But station had a guy who was quite popular and
they fired him, not only because he was too expensive

(38:45):
for what they said, but he was too popular and
they were concerned that he was more popular than the
station was. Well back in the old day, Don Chamberlain
would have said, that person is the station as far
as the listener's concerned. Yeah, he is the station.

Speaker 2 (39:00):
However, there you go, Hi, good friend, Please stand by
when we come by back from this break. I'd like
to talk to you about your ND.

Speaker 6 (39:09):
I'm happy to do that anytime, all.

Speaker 2 (39:11):
Right, Please stand by, Jim, and thank you so much
for joining us tonight. It's great talking to a good
old friend. X O Nation. I'll be back with Jim
on the other side of this break now. If you'd
like to find out more about Jim Chapman, please visit.
His website is Jim Chapman dot ca A and that's
j I M C h A P M A N
dot ca A and on Facebook, Facebook, dot com, forward

(39:35):
slash Jim chap Jim Period Chapman Period nine two three seven.
I'm Rob McConnell. This is the X Zone, Jim Chapman,
and I return on the other side of this break
as we wrap up this hour here in the X Zone,
coming to you on the xone Broadcast Network and your
hometown radio Classic twelve twenty streaming around the world at
Classic twelve twenty dot ca A Dolt Goo away.

Speaker 8 (40:02):
I heard you want more while it was back in
fifteen two lying away, get the tuning in on you.
If I was young, it didn't stop you coming through.

Speaker 7 (40:17):
I don't the credit for your second symphony. We read
my machine on your technology, and.

Speaker 8 (40:24):
Now I understand the problems you can see, Je.

Speaker 1 (40:52):
Said, don't almost that.

Speaker 7 (40:56):
All my HAPPIA.

Speaker 2 (40:59):
Said with explanation. Jim Chapman is my special guest. His
website is Jim Chapman dot ca and on Facebook, Facebook,
dot com, Forward slash Jim Period Chapman Period nine two

(41:23):
three seven. First of all, Jim, thanks very much for
joining us here on the X Owner. It's great talking
about the golden days of radio with one of the
one of the most. Well, you were the king of
the morning shows in London, Ontario, and I highly respect
you in the way that you've you conducted yourself. And
like I said, you know, it's because of people like
you and Bill Kelly that I do what I do today.

(41:45):
So thanks Jim for everything you've done over the years.

Speaker 6 (41:48):
Well, you're very kind to say that. I appreciate it
very much.

Speaker 2 (41:50):
Wrong, Jim, you had a near death experience in nineteen
ninety nine, I believe. Can you tell us about that?

Speaker 6 (41:57):
I did? And I will tell you, I want to
say for your listen, because you and I shoot up
this hour pretty quickly. Anything that I'm going to mention
from here on in if you want more information about it,
I have written a couple of books, one of which
is currently still being sold. It's called Come Back to Life,
and you can get all the information about that book
at Jim Chapman dot ca. So if you're interested in

(42:18):
more of what Rob and I are talking about now
about the ND, please do check that out. I'm going
to do the very thumbnail sketch heer rop. In nineteen
ninety nine, I died of a heart attack in a
local fitness center of all pros, and they rushed me
to the I didn't die at the heart attack. They

(42:39):
rushed me to the hospital er where I very quickly
expired and was gone for some time while they frantically
tried to bring me back to life. And I know
all the details of what happened there. They're all in
my book because I went back afterwards and researched it all.
At the same time I was doing the radio program.
I was a columnist for the London Free Press, so
I was in experience writer, and I'd written for many years,

(43:01):
and I'd actually uh written two books before before this one,
so it was all natural for me to do this,
to put this down in book form, and uh the
what happened when I left this world it was very
It was very to me, very vivid and very dramatic.
I was talking to the doctor h in the er

(43:23):
and and he looked at me kind of quizzically and said,
are you all right? And he shaid, I don't feel well,
and I closed my eyes and I was gone. At
that point, my heart stopped and but I I didn't stop.
My consciousness continued, and and I moved into another another realm.
I'm not sure. I guess realm covers it pretty well,
another level or kind of existence. And it was very

(43:47):
real to me, uh, you know, very physically real, tactile.
I was outside, someone shining, I could feel the sun,
I could fill wind blowing on my face. And a
number of things happened to me. But and again they're
all They're all in the book. But I think the
key takeaway for me these days, it seems when I
wrote this book and started to lecture, and I've lectured
everywhere from New York to Seattle in the United States

(44:08):
and Canada about my book. Back in the two thousand
and sixty seven, eight and nine, when it first came out,
I did a lot of traveling and speaking in those days.
Even then, there was a lot of reluctance on the
part of people to talk about having had a near
death experience. Now, fifteen years later, everybody's taught, everybody's heaving them,

(44:29):
everybody's talking about them. Somebody said to me not long ago, well,
do you think that people are just getting on the bandwagon?
You know, Oh, this is a cool thing to talk about.
Oh yes, my heart stopped. And I don't think that's
it at all. I think the reality is. And if
you look at the historical record, there have always been
people having news experiences, going to a new reality, leaving
this world, and then one way or another, coming back

(44:50):
to it almost always changed generally for the better. For me,
I certainly was. It absolutely changed my life, very positive way.
So for me, the big question that I get most
often now when I go and talk about this is, well, yeah,
but you know, I read this article where it says

(45:11):
it's just chemicals breaking down in your brain. That's all
in NDE is. You can't argue with that. So well,
I'm not a scientist. I can't argue the science of that.
But I will tell you this. When I closed my
eyes said to the doctor, I don't feel well, and
then went through this period, it seemed to me to
be fifteen or twenty minutes, and reality it was only
four or five minutes. It seemed to me about that long.
When I was brought back, I just snapped back. I

(45:35):
literally in this other reality. I blinked at something that happened.
I blinked, and I was back in the er and
the doctor was looking over me, and the nurses were
scrambling around, and they've been zapping me several times. They
gave up at one point and said, all let's try
one more and fortune. I'm glad they did, because that's
the one that brought me back. But I was totally cogent,
and I had a long conversation with that doctor, and

(45:57):
he told me later he came to see one of
my speeches, one of my talks, and came up to
afterwards and said, well, I really enjoyed that. And he
said the thing I remember most about you, the only
patient I ever had this happened to any cardiac patient.
He said, when you came back, you were completely totally lucid,
and we picked up right where we left off. When
we were talking. He said, I've never seen that happen before. Well,
since then, I've read reports of that happening to lots

(46:21):
of people. To me, when somebody says to me, well,
it was just all the chemicals breaking down. Okay, fair enough.
So they all broke down and I had this experience,
and then they zapped me that last time and brought
me back together. Those chemicals all magically go back together,
bring my consciousness back. Is that what happened? I don't think.
So I'm not a scientist. I don't claim I don't
explain what happened to me. I just say what happened.

(46:44):
So I believe very very very strongly that there is
a life beyond this one. What it's like for different people,
I don't know, because people have different experiences. But to
people who are worried about it, who are concerned about it,
my messages do not be afraid of it. There's nothing
to be afraid of. And that is that. That's kind
of the driving impetus in my book too. I have

(47:04):
all kinds of people who bought it and written me
and said, you know, you took my fear away. It's
so wonderful. I was so concerned. I didn't know what
would happen. I lost and loved when I was worried
about what happened to them, and so on. So again,
I don't make judgments in the book. I don't try
to explain in any scientific way, and there's no religious,
you know, explanation for what this is. What happened to me.

(47:25):
This is what I believe, and the work has done
very very well because so many people have said it
really spoke to them and gave them a lot of peace.
And if that's the only thing I ever do in
my life, that you know, that for me is enough
to have written that book and been able to share
that perspective with people.

Speaker 2 (47:40):
I think because of people like you, Jim, who will
go out and talk about these near death experiences that
they've had and that they do and you do bring
comfort to people who have questions about, well, what happens
when I die? Do I just turn into you know,
worm meat? That a lot of people who kept these

(48:01):
these cases to themselves are now opening up because they
know they're not alone.

Speaker 6 (48:07):
Well, there was such a stigma. How much time do
we have record? I'm a tell quot story.

Speaker 2 (48:11):
If we have we have four and a half minutes.

Speaker 6 (48:15):
Oh lots of time, Okay. One of the speeches that
I did a lot of them in churches. I traveled
mid conferences and things, but I did a lot of
them in churches and one of the churches of the
minister come up to me afterwards. I knew him vaguely.
He was from the London area, said I'd like to
talk to you. Could you come into my office in windows. Obviously,
he says, I'm going to tell you something I've never
told another living soul. And he said, I just listened

(48:36):
to your to your speeches, I read your book, but
I had to tell you. He said, I had a
very similar thing happened to me when I was a
young man, and you know, I died and they brought
me back and so he would hit ben in a
car action or something that it doesn't matter, and he said,
I was so I didn't know what to make of it,
and people that I sort of asked without saying, you know,

(48:56):
this is what happened to me. Everybody kind of pooh pooed,
And he said, I'd little research and there was a
lot of writing about it was all hallucinations, and you know,
people were not still these crazy people saying this stuff.
He said, I have never told another looming soul that
that's what happened. But after hearing reading your book and
hearing you talk, I know I have to do this.

(49:16):
And he called me a few weeks later and said,
I need to tell you that. The next number of
weeks ago, in my sermon, I shared the story. I
talked about your experience having been there because people were
talking about how you know, uplifting it was and whatnot.
He said, I shared that it had happened to me,
and he said, not a single person said anything negative.

(49:37):
And dozens of people in my big congregation, dozens of
people come up and shook my hand and said, I'm
so pleased you said that. Many of them said I
had a similar experience too, and I was also afraid
to talk about it. So I think that's a huge
and very positive change in public adity. Nonether one of
the reasons why there so many more people talking about it.
So many more people are recovering. Our cardiac care in

(49:58):
the last twenty years has just improved measurably, so so
many more people that would not have made it twenty
or thirty years ago are being brought back now, and
they're coming back with these wonderful stories.

Speaker 2 (50:10):
You know, we're hearing the same thing from people who
are putting one on one together. When it comes to reincarnation, Jim,
we're hearing a lot more stories about reincarnation.

Speaker 6 (50:21):
And reincarnation, reincarnation in the NDEs, and you know, that
whole spectrum of another existence that we have kind of
pooh pooed as a society, right, the rational the Renaissance society,
and the rationality of modern man and all that sort
of stuff, where the humanist element of philosophy, all of
that stuff where we said, well, you know, if you

(50:42):
can't prove it empirically, then it doesn't exist. To me,
the most interesting development scientifically in the last X number
of years is what we're learning about quantum physics. And
quantum physics tells us very simply that what we think
we know is just a fraction of it, exactly, just
a fraction the things that we took for granted. You
know this, this table is solid, and this is how

(51:04):
the universe is built, and this is what atomic. It's
thrown it all into the wastebasket. It's absolutely astounding. It's
very tough to follow. I try to keep up with it,
but I cannot smart enough. But I know, drifting around
the edge as you pick up enough about it, things
that we absolutely thought were true and or things that
which absolutely could not happen. Quantum physics has thrown that

(51:24):
all into the waste basket, saying you guys haven't got
a clue. So to me, the idea then that are
there other realities that we can't you know, access readily
or don't access readily. I think only a fool would
say no. I think the wise man today says yes.
I said to say yes, I know for sure, but
said yes, I know. There's more out there, and it

(51:45):
covers this whole range of experiences that for years were
written off as people being crazy as or wacko is
or all of that stuff. And it's just wrong. You know,
society was wrong. And this time goes by, we're learning
more and more, more and more people coming forward more
and more. So we say credible people get to use
that word, but you know, people with some credentials who
are experienced these these things and coming forward and saying, hey,

(52:08):
guess what. So I think it's wonderful. I think it's
tremendously liberating for for the human soul and the human spirit.
I know this experience released me from so much baggage.
I always carried to carry it around for the first
few years of my life. And I see it, you know,
and my friends and people I talk to, and I

(52:29):
belong to a church that takes this seriously, and you know,
they they sell my book in the library, the book
story there, and so on. And so on. So for me,
it's just it's been what happened to me was the
singular the greatest thing of my life and continues to
impact my life positively every single day, and that message
that don't be afraid can make such changes to your life.

(52:54):
So again, I don't I'm doing tradition to a commercial
because the book is not. It's not a commercial venture,
but it's one and no more. Please just check out
my website Jim Chapman dot Ca. You can reach me
there and I'll send you the inference about the book
and how you can order it, and so on and
so on and so on and so on.

Speaker 2 (53:08):
Jim, the time is come on you, and I must
say so long for now, my friend. Please take care
of yourself, keep up the great work, and love to
have you back here in the future.

Speaker 6 (53:16):
My friend, Rob. All you have to do is send
me an email and I'm there anytime you need me.
Thank you so much, and I'm so pleased at your success.
You certainly deserve it. You've worked so hard and you've
got a product that people people need to hear in,
that they can depend on, you can believe in, and
that's hard to find these days. My friend.

Speaker 2 (53:34):
Thanks lot, Jim, take care of your self. Regards to
your family, You too in the same tiers. Bye Bye, Jim,
Jim Chapman, It's been my guest, Jim Chapman dot CA.
I'll be back on the other side of this break
as our number two of the XO continues right here
on your hometown radio, Classic twelve twenty streaming at Classic
twelfth twenty dot.

Speaker 5 (53:51):
Can't be wrong. This up

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Rob McConnell Interviews - JIM CHAPMAN - Author, Journalist, Former Broadcaster, NDE Survivor

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Rob McConnell Interviews - JIM CHAPMAN - Author, Journalist, Former Broadcaster, NDE Survivor