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Buffalo WBNY

People are not born talented. Professional athletes may have physical skills that are genetic, but most still have to practice at their craft. Talent, Drive, and Ambition are all components. A newborn cannot perform brain surgery because of talent. The premise that learning, knowledge, and degrees are a waste of time is disturbing. Some people are totally dependent on a GPS. They have virtually no knowledge of North, South, East, & West. They are unable to read a map.

Not everyone is motivated solely by money. Most people want to be paid a living wage for honest work. Many folks have left Radio (voluntarily or not) because much of the joy has been sucked out of the industry. Radio always had many solid pros and mediocre hacks. The opportunities for younger people to hone their craft have mostly disappeared on Radio. Those people are now using Social Media to become "influencers". Fame & Fortune awaits...šŸ˜‘
 
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My take on Buddy's post is that one's individual talents have to be a specific "skill set" to be successful. On that basis, BigA is correct: For any business that has opening that "anyone" can fill (either because it's a simple task or someone can be easily trained to perform it) then I would indeed expect the hiring process to be simplified because the employer can be less discerning.

OTOH, my old friend Chuck Southcott once said during one of our conversations that you cannot teach someone how to program a radio station ... it is instinctive. Or, as I call it, a God-given talent. Jhani Kaye (another long-time friend) describes that talent as being able to "hear the station in your head before you set out to put it on the air".

Let's face it: The history of radio is littered with people who thought they could be a PD, but turned out not to have those instincts. Far more people ended up on the wayside because they lacked even the talent to be good on the air. And there are lots who gave radio a shot who then decided there were more stable careers to be had.

And very few of those who have had successful careers went to broadcast schools. I went to Don Martin back in the 1970s, not to learn how to be on the air (I was between my second and third station at the time) but to learn the engineering basics for the First Phone, which I was going to need for station #3. I always had the programming instinct, but it wasn't until my fourth station that it was realized by station ownership ... and I have somehow managed to get close to another 50 years out of that chance to program.

Being 69 and still in this business, still using that God-given gift is amazing. Sometimes I marvel at that, and now I doubt I'll retire any sooner than 30 seconds before I die.
 
K.M. Richards said:
OTOH, my old friend Chuck Southcott once said during one of our conversations that you cannot teach someone how to program a radio station ... it is instinctive. Or, as I call it, a God-given talent. Jhani Kaye (another long-time friend) describes that talent as being able to "hear the station in your head before you set out to put it on the air".
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All great comments for the era when they worked. How does that translate to a time when people can get all the music they want on demand from their phone? My take is that the music element is becoming less of an attraction today. Even the way the music is presented is less of an attraction. People want what they want when they want it for free. That's it. So if it's based on instinct or talent, it's harder to determine. If you're programming to people like you, it's easy to describe what that is. Try programming to people half your age.
 
TheBigA said:
If you're programming to people like you, it's easy to describe what that is. Try programming to people half your age.
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In my not-so-humble-opinion, someone who has been in the business as long as I have shouldn't be trying to program to younger audiences.

But as long as there's still audience interest in the formats I am qualified to program, and there are stations who want me to, I'll keep doing it. At least if and when I do retire, I'll be able to say I had a nice long run.
 
Buddy Shula said:
You are correct ā€œGod given talentā€ . Each of us get our talents from The Lord.

Itā€™s all in His plan
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And this particular talent has the potential to make a lot of people happy when used ... listeners, advertisers, station owners ...

You can't convince me that He doesn't put us in these positions in order to spread joy.
 
TheBigA said:
How do you quantify that? You own three stations out of 16,000. Everyone does things their own way.
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Yes, I own three stations.

If I hire a real person, the person better love the excitement of working in radio. It is also most important to me that they ā€œcareā€.

Their attitude is also big for me. They must be positive.

Raw talent means a lot. Itā€™s gotta be in their belly. I can tell right away

I NEVER ask for a resume or credentials. I couldnā€™t care less about their past, I look for what they are capable of in the future.

Remember too, there are different skill-sets for on-air, sales, business, traffic, engineering, promotions.

It is also important to appreciate the different generations. The 30 year old is not looking for what the 40 year old, or 60 year old is looking for. I try to accommodate their work-life balance
 
tbolt909 said:
People are not born talented. Professional athletes may have physical skills that are genetic, but most still have to practice at their craft. Talent, Drive, and Ambition are all components. A newborn cannot perform brain surgery because of talent. The premise that learning, knowledge, and degrees are a waste of time is disturbing. Some people are totally dependent on a GPS. They have virtually no knowledge of North, South, East, & West. They are unable to read a map.

Not everyone is motivated solely by money. Most people want to be paid a living wage for honest work. Many folks have left Radio (voluntarily or not) because much of the joy has been sucked out of the industry. Radio always had many solid pros and mediocre hacks. The opportunities for younger people to hone their craft have mostly disappeared on Radio. Those people are now using Social Media to become "influencers". Fame & Fortune awaits...šŸ˜‘
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YOUR not born talented. People are. We are able to detect what a baby will want to do in life or their skill sets very early in life.

We are not talking about brain surgeons here. This is a RADIO discussion, so I am focusing on broadcasting.

Any broadcaster would tell you they know they wanted to be in the industry from a very age.
 
Buddy Shula said:
Internships are the way to go, when youā€™re in high school, not college

My guidance counselor at Lancaster High got me the High School internship at WPHD in 1983. I fed off the talent that surrounded me. Brian J. Walker, JP, Wayne Summers, and course my idols, Taylor and Moore .
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In Junior High, I started hanging out at the only station I could get to on my bicycle. It was an R&B station, with a horrible group owner. So I offered to get coffee, run out to buy bathroom supplies (no budget) and clean the bathrooms and offices. I created my own internship, and after about six months they had taught me enough to do some board work and other paid tasks.

When I went to Mexico I was 17 and managed to be allowed by the union to be an extra-official intern. It was a 5-station group that had the highest rated stations in Mexico City.


In both case, I kind of slipped my way into a position where I learned a lot and even got paid a little. Today, it seems that graduates think they have a right to a job. They think they know so much, but none of it is practical knowledge.
Buddy Shula said:
That let to me being on air at WPHD, which led me to being on the air at WZIR/WRXT, which gave me the biggest break in 1986 at WYRK.
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It's about not just seizing the opportunity, it is about making the opportunity happen by showing that you can add value to the station or business.
 
DavidEduardo said:
Talent can be trained, but it is not teachable.
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Someone who is illiterate can be TAUGHT how to read. Children aren't born with the talent to read. They learn.
Many skills are teachable. Even in Radio, people have to learn how use the equipment if they do production, engineering, or an air shift. The greatest actors with natural ability still learn and hone their craft. Some even went to acting schools...
 
tbolt909 said:
Someone who is illiterate can be TAUGHT how to read. Children aren't born with the talent to read. They learn.
Many skills are teachable. Even in Radio, people have to learn how use the equipment if they do production, engineering, or an air shift. The greatest actors with natural ability still learn and hone their craft. Some even went to acting schools...
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I guess I need to reiterate my earlier point. Everyone else can skip over this.

Yes, there is a learning curve in radio when one starts in the business. I had to sit in on a shift with someone else every time I started at a station to learn the board, and the hot clock, and (in the early days, before music scheduling software) the methodology for song category rotations. And engineering is a constant learning process because the technology changes. And production is something that one constantly improves at ... you start with the simple voiceover copy with a music bed and eventually get more complex and creative.

But if you do not have the basic instincts, there is no broadcast school that can teach you. And I have yet to see any successful programmers who didn't operate on instinct ... and you cannot teach instinct to anyone.

Trying to equate radio with the problem of illiteracy or the learning process of children during their years of elementary school is akin to comparing apples to bologna (not even to oranges). And even then, some do not have the pre-wired instinct to read beyond a certain level of comprehension.

The only thing I agree with is that skills are teachable ... but only if someone has the basic abilities to use those skills. In junior high school, a required course was wood shop. I got a D, because I don't have the basic abilities or instinct for it. Not that I cared; I knew going in that it was going to be a "push the rope uphill" situation, because I had no desire for learning that craft.

But radio came to me naturally. And that, my friend, is instinct.
 
K.M. Richards said:
But radio came to me naturally. And that, my friend, is instinct.
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You don't know you have that instinct until you do it.

That brings us back to the topic of this thread. We're talking about a student-run college station. These students are getting a chance to see if they have the instinct. To discover if they have any talent. To find out the consequences of making decisions in an un-pressured non-commercial environment. That's what college radio is supposed to be. Some college administrators think you can get the same experience by doing online radio. I disagree. Online radio is it's own thing. The pressures are different. The goalposts are different. You don't have Nielsen judging your every move. That's why I support college radio.
 
KM --Most of what you described is Radio from 40 or 50.years ago. Programmers use much more than just instinct. They use market research, music tests, and consultants...
 
tbolt909 said:
KM --Most of what you described is Radio from 40 or 50.years ago. Programmers use much more than just instinct. They use market research, music tests, and consultants...
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You think I program entirely by instinct? FYI, I use a lot of research. And I am a consultant!

But it takes someone with programming instincts to use all those tools successfully. Everything you have said appears to say that doesn't matter ... BUT IT DOES.
 
TheBigA said:
You don't know you have that instinct until you do it.
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I agree, but that still doesn't mean you can teach someone without that instinct to do the job as well as someone who has it.

If I hadn't had the instinct, it would have been evident when I was working weekends in 1973-74. Instead, I went full-time in 1975 and was able to successfully handle my first PD gig in 1978. I would have never gotten there -- and over the years, to here -- without the instinct.
 
tbolt909 said:
Someone who is illiterate can be TAUGHT how to read. Children aren't born with the talent to read.
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"Reading" is a skill, not a talent.
tbolt909 said:
They learn.
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Then, please, learn the difference between talent and skills.
tbolt909 said:
Many skills are teachable.
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Talent is not a "skill" that can be taught. Nobody taught Monet or Shakespeare or Holst or McCartney how to use their talents to create inspired works.
tbolt909 said:
Even in Radio, people have to learn how use the equipment if they do production, engineering, or an air shift. The greatest actors with natural ability still learn and hone their craft. Some even went to acting schools...
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Again, you are confusing what most of us define as a "gift" with a trainable skill.

You could spend years teaching me music theory and practice, but I will never, ever become a good... or even tolerable..... musician. I do not have have the talent to engage in that field, not matter how much I train, practice and try.

In radio, I have worked with hundreds of people with motivation, the "right" voice, adequate education and training. But only a few are real talents, able to make every time they open the mike, even for just a few seconds, a link with listeners.

I've worked with three different persons who had #1 morning shows in Los Angeles. I taught them how our format worked, how to operate the board, how to record contest winners and the like. But I did not teach them to be talented. They came with that and nobody had taught it to them.

My wife worked for years not just as an air personality, TV news anchor and PD in LA, but also as a SAG-AFTRA voice talent. There were hundreds of others who tried to do the same thing, but she got called for everything from the in-flight announcements of a major airline to voicing for major brands. That is because she not only has the skills to work in the style, inflection and feel required by the project but also because she has some kind of special feeling that makes her message felt by listeners. That is talent.
 
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