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As we lead up to “Floydian Slip” Show #1,000 the week of June 8, we’re digging into the archives to share relics from the show’s past.

“Floydian Slip” was at a crossroads in Summer 2009: After nearly 14 years of producing the show as an employee of WCPV “Champ 101.3” in Burlington, Vt., the show was dropped when Champ switched formats.

There were three ways to proceed: Retire the show, find another station to hire me, or begin producing “Floydian Slip” independently and try to syndicate to multiple stations.

The first option was the easiest, and I considered it, briefly. After 701 shows and 20 years, maybe it was time.

The second option would take a little more effort, but leave me in the same position I’d been in at Champ: No way to substantially grow the audience and limited revenue possibilities.

The third option would take loads of effort, but offered the greatest benefits if I succeeded.

I’d explored the possibility of syndication 20 years earlier, but it didn’t make sense. Without an instant and cheap way to market and distribute the show to stations — in other words, without the Internet — it seemed like a great way to lose a lot of money: Burning programs onto CD at about a buck a piece, snail mailing them to stations, overnighting copies that got lost or damaged in the mail … it just wasn’t practical.

But now it was different. Everyone and their mother was online. With floydianslip.com as a hub to market and distribute the show — it helps when your show’s host is a full-time web developer — why not?

The cost to entry was pretty low. I needed a broadcast-quality mic, an interface to get my voice onto harddrive, a little soundproofing and I was in business.

It was a little more involved than that, actually. I needed to build a network of stations interested in carrying the show.

We signed the first station — a netcaster in Burlington — to our Random Precision Radio Network in mid-September 2009. Our first FM affiliate followed a month later when Burlington’s WIZN 106.7 FM “The Wizard” came aboard.

The Wizard’s support meant a lot to me. As a broadcasting student in the ’80s, WIZN was the station I aspired to be a part of.

Still, syndication didn’t feel “real” until Jan. 21, 2010, when a station a thousand miles away, with no prior knowledge of the show, signed on: WRBA “Arrow 95.9” in Panama City Beach, Fla.

WIZN and WRBA (now “Classic Rock 95.9”) are still part of our network — along with more than 60 other stations.

Here’s the opening of our first syndicated show: #702 from Sept. 19, 2009:

As we lead up to “Floydian Slip” Show #1,000 the week of June 8, we’re digging into the archives to share relics from the show’s past.

The longest time “Floydian Slip” spent on any single stand-alone station was the nearly 14 years we spent on Champ 101.3 (WCPV) in Burlington, Vt.

Champ was the third station to carry the show, and the second commercial station out in the “real world” to play host to “Floydian Slip.”

We came on-board when Rich Haskell was the station’s program director. Rich is a huge progressive rock fan — though we’ll forgive his putting Genesis above Floyd on his favorites list — as well as a great all-around guy, and his enthusiasm for the show was integral to its evolution.

He responded the same day he received our pitch in the mail, and we were up and running a couple months later after the station found a sponsor for the show.

We started out on Champ Thursday nights at 10, before being moved to 9 p.m., and eventually getting moved to Sunday nights at 7, where we aired the vast majority of our shows.

Our time with Champ marked one of our most important steps forward: Netcasting. Starting with our time at WEXP in 1995, we began promoting the show heavily on the Internet. Ironically, the vast majority of people who heard about the show, couldn’t tune in to listen. But that changed when Champ eventually started netcasting 24/7.

Near the end

Amazingly, “Floydian Slip” survived several ownership and personnel changes at the station, the likes of which are notorious for ending quirky little endeavors like “Slip.”

The end finally came in spring 2009, shortly after the station changed hands yet again, and the new owners shifted focus away from classic rock before switching gears entirely when they flipped to an all-sports format.

We were grateful for the chance to come into the studio one more time to record a farewell show after getting the pink slip. (Pink slip. Get it?) It’s pretty uncommon for management at any station to allow a jock in front of an open mic after they’ve been let go.

Champ continues today as 101.3 ESPN. Rich co-hosts the station’s afternoon drive show.

The final “Floydian Slip” on Champ was show #701, which aired Sunday, June 7, 2009.

I have a listener to thank for capturing the audio and sending it to me, since I didn’t roll tape on that final show. Unfortunately, his name is lost to me now.