Via Montreal Allouettes

Marissa Hodgson
Sports Editor

For decades, sports radio has revolved around voices, callers delivering heated takes, hosts debating stats and strategy, and breaking news reaching fans before they even saw a headline. But today, that familiar formula is shifting. Younger audiences are not waiting by the dial. They are scrolling, streaming, and reacting in real time on their phones.

Inside Montreal’s sports radio landscape, three voices represent two different generations navigating that change on TSN 690: Sean Campbell and Simon Tsalikis, two veteran broadcasters with decades of experience, and Luca Scott, one of the youngest personalities currently on air. Together, their perspectives reveal how sports radio is adapting to a digital era, all while trying to preserve its identity.

Sean Campbell remembers when sports radio was often the first place fans found out all the breaking news. If a player was traded or a coach was fired, listeners found out by tuning in. The station functioned as both a newsroom and a community forum.

“If a player gets traded, you used to find out on sports radio,” Campbell said. “Now you find out with an instant notification. But that’s just the headline. If you want the story, then you’ll flip the sports station on.”

“Radio no longer competes to be first; it competes to be deeper.”

The headline may reach fans instantly through their phones, but context, reaction, and sustained debate still belong to long-form conversation.

Campbell has also watched audience habits change. “Fans don’t care about listening now,” he said. “They want to listen on their time.”

The rise of podcasts and streaming has reshaped expectations. Younger listeners want flexibility. They want to pause, replay, and choose topics that interest them. The idea of planning a day around a broadcast schedule feels outdated to many.

Still, Campbell believes something essential about radio remains irreplaceable. Live programming unfolds in real time. It reacts instantly to overtime goals, last-second trades, and breaking press conferences. Sports are unpredictable, and radio thrives on that unpredictability.

“Sports radio is lucky,” he said. “Sports changes hourly when it comes to whatever your favourite team is.”

Local passion continues to fuel engagement. “The station flies when the Canadiens do well,” Campbell said. Winning seasons energize callers, spark debates, and drive ratings. “When you get a passionate fan base, you get passionate answers.”

At the same time, Campbell worries about economic pressures shaping the industry. “You live in a world driven by profit, which means there might not be local sports radio,” he said. “The business part of me worries, but the sports fan in me doesn’t understand how radio could go out of business.”

Between long-standing tradition and digital acceleration stands Simon Tsalikis. Experienced but still adapting, he has seen firsthand how technology reshapes production.

One of the clearest changes, he said, is staffing. “We’ve started hiring younger hosts and co-hosts to help connect to the younger generation,” Tsalikis explained. “We’ve also included more social media posts on platforms we haven’t used much before.”

“Reaching younger audiences requires familiarity with their platforms and language. Social media is no longer separate from radio. It is embedded within it.”

“It helps prepare for shows,” Tsalikis said. “Social media provides great content to use, lists, top tens, and pre-cut highlights. I can scroll through socials the night before and the morning of and mark down ideas.”

Segment ideas increasingly emerge from online trends. Viral debates, ranking formats, and trivia challenges often begin as short clips on digital platforms before evolving into radio discussions. “I use great podcast reels and how they do trivia questions all the time,” he said. “I ask, can I turn this style into a radio segment?”

Generational differences appear most clearly in interaction. “Older generations call radio stations still. Younger generations use the text board,” Tsalikis said. “There is a clear-cut difference. Rarely do we get a 20-year-old that calls a radio station. It’s an old-school way of interacting.”

The shift from voice to keyboard changes the sound of a broadcast. Instead of one caller dominating a segment, hosts now weave in rapid-fire comments from multiple listeners typing simultaneously. The energy remains high, but it moves faster.

“Younger fans want quick, fast info,” Tsalikis added. “They want their attention grabbed early. But, both generations want to be entertained.”

At the youngest end of the spectrum is Luca Scott, who entered sports radio in a world already shaped by digital immediacy. For him, the blending of platforms feels natural rather than disruptive.

“I hope they hear someone they can relate to,” Scott said. “Being one of the younger people at 690, I want to be able to connect to that next generation.”

Before he could shape his own voice, he had to study those who built the format. “There’s definitely a ton that I’ve learned from them,” he said. “The first is preparation, seeing how much work the veteran hosts put in before the show is so vital. The second is listening back to your shows and segments to evaluate yourself.”

Behind every spontaneous debate lies hours of research. That discipline surprised him less than the mentorship he encountered. “I was surprised by how patient people are,” Scott said. “In the media world with how fast paced everything is you would think that there’s not much room for patience, but the people that were mentors to me were very patient and knew it was a process.”

Unlike previous generations, Scott grew up consuming sports content across multiple platforms at once. Highlights on social media, postgame reactions on YouTube, and podcasts during commutes. For him, radio is not competing with those formats; it exists alongside them. “I don’t think it’s about replacing anything,” Scott said. “It’s about being part of the conversation wherever that conversation is happening.”

That generational shift is not just about technology, but about expectations. Younger fans are used to customization. Algorithms curate their timelines. Feeds refresh endlessly. Sports radio, by contrast, is linear. It unfolds whether you are listening or not. For Scott, that difference is not a weakness but a challenge. The goal is to make live radio feel just like engaging with a personalized feed, interactive and worth staying for. “You have to give people a reason not to scroll away,” he said. “That’s the reality now.” 

Scott is acutely aware of how online culture shapes sports discourse. “I think online sports culture certainly has that clickbait element to it,” he said. “But I think it’s important not to get too caught up in that. There’s so much misinformation out there and people trying to get ahead of things while forsaking accuracy.”

That concern echoes across generations. Campbell noted that accuracy carries more weight than ever. With statistics and updates available instantly to listeners, mistakes are quickly identified. The pressure to be correct is constant.

Across all three voices, the story of sports radio is not one of decline but evolution. Campbell values live immediacy and communal passion. Tsalikis bridges tradition and innovation, integrating social media into daily production. Scott represents a generation fluent in both digital and broadcast spaces.

The technology may shift. Platforms could multiply. Interaction may continue moving away from phone lines toward keyboards and comment sections. Yet the foundation remains unchanged: sports generate emotion. Emotion drives conversation. Conversation sustains radio.

What ultimately connects all three broadcasters is not nostalgia or technology, but adaptation. None of them suggest that sports radio should resist change. Instead, they describe an industry learning to coexist with digital culture, rather than compete against it. The medium is no longer defined by exclusivity of information, but by interpretation, personality, and trust. In a landscape flooded with hot takes and algorithm-driven outrage, credibility becomes currency. Listeners may discover news on social media, but they return to familiar voices for clarity and perspective. That loyalty, built over years of consistent presence, remains one of radio’s strongest assets.

All three broadcasters, in their own ways, show that sports radio isn’t about resisting change; it’s about weaving it into the core of the medium. Campbell’s reverence for live immediacy, Tsalikis’s blending of social media with tradition, and Scott’s fluency in digital culture all point to one truth: the heart of radio is still conversation, connection, and passion. Platforms may multiply, audiences may scroll, and calls may turn into text-board comments, but the essential thrill remains. Fans want voices they can trust, debates that make them feel included, and a sense that the game is bigger than any single app or feed.

Inside the studio, the monitors will continue to glow. The textboard will keep updating. The microphones will still turn on each morning. And whether through a phone call or a typed message, a fan will respond.

Sports radio is not fading quietly into the background. It is adjusting its volume, its pace, and its platforms. But it is still speaking. And listeners, in whatever form they choose, are still listening.