Connie Thiessen
Connie Thiessen covers the intersection of music and broadcast media, with a focus on how radio, streaming and industry institutions shape careers and audiences. Her reporting follows the business decisions, regulatory moves and award circuits that define the music ecosystem inside broadcasting, rather than artist coverage alone.
Broadcast industry and music-focused trade coverage
Connie is editor of Broadcast Dialogue, the trade publication of record for the broadcast industry, and brings a long career as a reporter, editor, anchor and host in radio newsrooms across major Canadian markets to that role. She has worked coast-to-coast in radio, including stints in Vancouver, Halifax and Edmonton, which informs her familiarity with how music programming and news operations function inside stations. At Broadcast Dialogue she writes extensively on radio’s business environment, covering topics such as acquisitions, corporate restructurings and strategic pivots that directly affect music formats and talent.
Her archive includes stories on issues like a major audio platform’s acquisition and what it means for radio, personnel changes and cutbacks at TV and radio groups, and broader ownership and consolidation trends. She places these developments in the context of listener habits, advertising, and the role of stations as music discovery platforms, giving communications teams a trade-level view of how music lives inside broadcast strategy.
Music awards, recognition and industry institutions
Connie regularly covers awards and honours that matter to music and radio professionals, including the Canadian Radio Awards and other industry distinctions that spotlight on-air talent, programming and station performance. Her pieces enumerate winners and categories in detail, highlighting how music programming, specialty shows and station branding are recognized within the broadcast sector. She also reports on conference coverage and industry gatherings where programmers, music directors and executives discuss formats, audience research and the future of music in radio and streaming. That work situates music stories within the infrastructure of associations, conferences and award shows that shape reputations and opportunities.
Beyond her reporting, she has been nominated for Music Journalist of the Year by the Canadian Music and Broadcast Industry Awards, a recognition that underlines how closely her journalism engages with the music side of broadcasting. Her coverage of award seasons and institutional decisions tends to balance straightforward results reporting with context about what those outcomes mean for stations, performers and the broader industry.
Profiles, obituaries and career narratives in radio and music
Connie often writes pieces that trace the careers of radio figures whose work is tied to music programming and presentation. In her obituary for radio veteran Tom Jeffries, for example, she documents his path through multiple stations and roles, emphasizing his impact on listeners and colleagues and the place of his shows in station identity. She uses these stories to capture how individual broadcasters carry music formats, local scenes and sonic identities over decades, framing careers as part of the fabric of the music-broadcast landscape.
Similar profile-style articles and tributes in her archive focus on programmers, on-air hosts and executives who have shaped formats, guided stations through changes or championed particular genres. She gives attention to roles such as music directors and specialty show hosts, explaining their influence on playlists, emerging artists and audience loyalty within the constraints of commercial radio. These pieces are character-driven but grounded in station history, providing narrative detail that complements her more structural reporting on business and policy.
Podcast and multi-platform conversations about media and music
Connie hosts Broadcast Dialogue – The Podcast, where she interviews people shaping Canadian broadcasting, including guests from radio, TV, streaming, technology and media policy. Episodes frequently touch on music-related topics such as the future of radio formats, the relationship between streaming services and broadcasters, and how regulation and business decisions affect music discovery and Canadian content. Her role as host extends her journalism into long-form conversation, offering deeper exploration of themes that appear in her written work.
Across these platforms she consistently engages with film, TV, radio and music, reflecting a broad cultural beat with a strong emphasis on how music is programmed, monetized and governed within the broadcast system. Her work is less about artist profiles and more about the structures, decisions and people that determine how music reaches audiences through radio and allied media.
4 more music journalists.
Aisling Murphy
Aisling Murphy is the theatre reporter and critic at The Globe and Mail. She stands out for writing about theatre as both art and infrastructure, with coverage that links new Canadian stage work, awards culture, and pop-inflected criticism. She covers theatre, music, and pop culture in a detailed, conversational style, moving between reviews, reported features, and analysis of the systems that shape what gets produced. Her beat includes the Dora Awards, Toronto stages, new writing, intimate productions, and smaller venues, as well as controversy where artistic decisions meet politics and community response. Before The Globe, she was senior editor of Intermission Magazine, and her bylines include The New York Times, Toronto Star, CBC Arts, and the Baltimore Sun.
Alex Hudson
Alex Hudson is Editor-in-Chief of Exclaim! and leads coverage of music’s links to sports, literature, and technology, with a strong focus on Canadian artists. Hudson reports on how music intersects with other fields, not as a separate industry. Recent coverage has included Blue Jays pitcher Max Scherzer on how playing piano saved his career, Ottawa Bluesfest’s Canada-wide soccer watch party, Lakes of Canada’s Margaret Atwood-inspired album Transgressions, Hannah Mary McKinnon on The Beaches influencing her rock-themed novel, and Alexander Nilsson’s 1001 Albums Generator as a tool for broadening music discovery beyond algorithmic recommendations.
Alexis Mikulski Ruiz
Alexis Mikulski Ruiz is a commerce writer whose distinct focus is the buying and streaming side of music, entertainment and lifestyle, helping readers decide how to watch major events and what to purchase around them. She is an e-commerce specialist at Rolling Stone, covering products, platforms and deals tied to award shows, festivals, sports and everyday culture. Her beat blends music streaming guides with shopping and product recommendations across fashion, beauty, tech, food, wellness and drinks. She reports through experience-focused service journalism, using lists, comparison roundups and step-by-step guides to answer concrete questions about how to stream major cultural moments, where to shop and which products to choose. Her background includes commerce and lifestyle writing for consumer publications such as Esquire, Men’s Health, Good Housekeeping, Oprah Daily, Women’s Wear Daily and Billboard.
Allie Gregory
Allie Gregory maps how audiences encounter new music by tracking the practical pathways of releases, tours, festivals, platforms and projects. She is a managing editor and news writer at Exclaim!, where she is a primary editorial contact for forthcoming releases and news tips and helps shape the outlet’s daily agenda around new music and its broader entertainment context. Her reporting centres on timely album and tour announcements, live logistics and festival programming across indie, metal, country, pop and adjacent film and streaming news. She writes direct, information-heavy pieces that foreground calendars, support acts, set times and programming structures, while also producing longer-form interviews, cultural stories and staff-pick recommendations that connect artists’ work, controversy and creative campaigns to how audiences encounter music and entertainment on the road, at festivals and on screens.