Sinan Sbahi - Alumni Spotlight

Sinan’s career path was more unconventional than most grads. At the moment, Sinan is an associate radio producer at CBC Windsor. In addition to mixing a live radio show, Sinan calls and connects phone guests, plays audio clips and music, and make judgment calls when necessary. Sinan also delivers on-air traffic reports.

The show consists of four people: host, producer, associate producer, and newsreader. The producer envisions how the show will go every day. Sinan’s job as an associate producer is to sit behind the console and run the show accordingly.



Sinan attended OIART after finishing a Bachelor of Music at the University of Windsor in 2012. After graduating, Sinan applied for various AV jobs at hotels and installation companies. Facing a struggle to secure employment, Sinan decided to go freelance. Freelancing had Sinan working briefly with production companies in Windsor – sometimes mixing monitors and sometimes setting up a stage.

From Sinan’s perspective, the problem with having a freelance career is that there is no defined line between being successful and not. After a year, Sinan came to terms with his financial reality and decided to take a typical day job in a call centre.

For about 2 months, it seemed like Sinan was going to make a career in call centres, until he saw something in his Facebook inbox…

Sinan had received a message from one of the producers at CBC Windsor. The producer had seen video blogs that Sinan had been producing in his spare time and was interested in having him become part of a biweekly discussion panel on the morning radio show. These panels have been going on since September of 2015, here’s one of our recent discussions: http://www.cbc.ca/player/play/854118979720

The panel was everything and more than Sinan could have hoped for and he thought, “Why stop there?”

This is where career management came in handy. Every time Sinan went in to do a panel, Sinan would chat up the associate producer and show curiosity about his job. Sinan once spent a day hanging out for the whole show. There was a charity show at a local college where the panel was invited to speak. Instead of going home right after, Sinan decided to hang out and help them pack up their rig and wrap cables.

Sinan’s eager attitude eventually paid off and he was asked if he’d be interested in being a backup associate producer for times when the regular associate producer would be away.

That’s where Sinan is now. It’s not too different from being a supply teacher waiting/looking for a full time opportunity. It’s never a boring job, no such thing as a typical day.