Robin Adair and John Juricic are treading a new path with their Victoria Rumble Room vodcast
VICTORIA – Robin Adair and John Juricic looked at each other one day in 2001 and decided: “Let’s Get Ready To Rumble!”
And just like that, Victoria’s top online vodcast – video podcast – was born. Tuning in to their Rumble Room has become must-watch viewing, as it tackles important issues with their gloves off that affect the Capital Region, Vancouver Island, British Columbia and Ottawa, with respected local, provincial and national guests joining the chorus.
Juricic and Adair are not exactly the odd couple, and both have been well known in the Victoria business community for many years. Juricic has been involved in the technology sector and social media and manages the company he founded, Harbour Digital Media. Both men are former Chairs of the Greater Victoria Chamber of Commerce. Adair attended the University of Victoria on a theatre scholarship and switched his major to history and political science, studied broadcast journalism at BCIT, and is a former radio and television broadcaster and newspaper columnist who once ran for the provincial BC Liberals. Neither are afraid to speak their mind, and they enjoy lively banter with personalities from all political stripes.
“Some folks play golf, some become alcoholics and we became vodcasters,” laughs Juricic. “It’s the end of the beginning, and there are some fascinating places where this can go.”
Adair agrees, declaring “We go all over the map. We don’t want to get known as just a political show. We’ve had political scientists looking into the U.S. election and campaigning in Canada. We’ve had David Schneider on, talking about the economy, and we’ve discussed the impact of short-term rentals on the marketplace, and a host of other topics.
“I love the learning that we do and the interaction with people from all different walks of life,” he adds. “Since we’ve been doing this show I’ve been able to tap into that. We’ve been exposed to all kinds of ideas.”
Rumble Room has had over 2.25 million hits, and Adair and Juricic are constantly working on driving up the number of likes and views. The strength of their following has surprised them.
“For the last two and a half years, it’s been a legitimate show,” says Adair. “We’re now averaging 80,000 to 100,000 views per month.”
Adair has a very long trap-line of colourful characters from which to draw from as guests from his broadcasting career.
“It’s trial and error to a degree, as we need to get people on who are animated and interesting,” he explains. “We can have a so-so topic with a great personality that will carry the show. If you can’t sell it, nobody is going to watch it.”
Adds Juricic: “We love to get people on with big personalities who are really interesting and passionate, and yet aren’t objectionable.”
After they were on the Rumble Room format for about six months the creators were approached by the local cable outlet to do a 30 minute version of their show on community television. But when they met, it became immediately apparent that partnership would never take flight.
“We realized that when you work with a big player like that, there will likely be concerns about some of our editorial content,” notes Juricic. “We were told that cable had a policy not to carry any stories about Covid 19 as they didn’t want any misinformation being spread via their broadcast. We recognized that people were tuning into our show because we provided different points of view although we never criticized the vaccination program or the other health mandates.”
Adair adds: “the pandemic was one of the biggest stories I’d ever covered and I was pretty frosty about cable’s stance. So, we said thanks and goodbye. We learned an important lesson of what could happen if a sponsor took exception to our tone or content, and we were determined to stay away from that type of interference.”
Juricic believes Rumble Room is a prototype of what successful media can be in the digital age.
“Other vodcasts have started within the last 6-9 months,” he adds. “People are recognizing that if they want to distribute a message, they have to use this template. There’s some consistent amount of work and technical expertise that is required to do this properly, and Robin and I have just fallen into a place in life where we have the time to do it.”
The question of monetizing their format is answered through the huge number of online views, and advertisements – not generated by them personally – tag along because of the viewership, and royalty payments follow.
“We believe this is a sustainable model, but I’ve never been worried about making money on it,” says Adair. “But it wouldn’t be terrible thing to get some local advertising for the program.”
Adair exited the broadcasting sphere in the early 2000s and got involved in government relations work where he bumped into Juricic.
“Basically, we’d entertain each other at Chamber retreats,” Adair chuckles. “It’s great to find people you really enjoy and like, and we really got on.”
It took a few years to reconnect, however. Adair and his wife, television personality Marisa Antinucci, moved to Vancouver then moved back to Victoria again, she continuing her position as Vice President of Communications for the Doctors of BC, and he as a consultant.
“Almost immediately after we came back, the pandemic everything slowed down. Marissa was working from our dining room for three years, and I was kicking around, wondering what I going to do with my time. There had to be something I could do that was fun.
“I came across some video podcasts that John was doing and we reconnected and wondered if we should try do to one together. I said we’d figure it out.”
Timing, they say, is everything.
“We were witnessing, collectively, the gradual demise of traditional media, so we thought we better get a handle on what a podcast is all about,” Juricic recalls. “Together with a local Social Media celebrity and prior to the launch of the VRR, I had already produced close to 300 podcasts and thought that was really fun. As broadband and the internet became stronger and technically more robust, video quickly started to replace the audio piece.”
As a tandem, Juricic is the technical producer, while Adair creates the content and editorial direction.
“It’s fascinating to see how this format and template and personality set has resonated with such a large audience,” Juricic observes. “We’re going to continue to go with it. We have no expectations of quitting any time soon.”
Business Examiner Staff
