I too wanted to get into broadcasting in some shape, form, or fashion but I am really glad I did not end up working in TV or radio. I would probably find some way out of it by now if I had. They are both dying out sadly.
I'm kind of lucky in that regard. I got into radio in 1973 and had my first PD gig five years later, all in my hometown market (Oxnard-Ventura CA, next market north of where I have lived for the past 32 years).
By the time I did my last on-air and hands-on programming work, at the end of 1989, I already was consulting a couple of stations, but my entire client list disappeared after the 1996 Telecom Act and I went to work in telecom for several years.
I did start to get a little consulting business back after about seven years, and I had already started to replenish the investment and savings accounts that I had depleted during the lean years ... then my mother went into managed care and we put everything into a living trust, only to have her pass away of natural causes only a few years later, literally two weeks shy of her 91st birthday. The trust converted largely to lifetime annuities, and while they have decreased in spending power (not being adjusted for inflation) I learned from the experience of the late 1990s how to live more frugally, and now I can afford the ups and downs of the business.
I turned 70 myself a couple of months ago, and am pleasantly surprised that I'm still doing this
and have money in the bank, so to speak. By the time the business does die off, it won't matter to me as much as it has for people who have already been cast aside.
It helped that I made staying on top of changes in the business a priority and adjusting to those changes. While a lot of what I do is still using the same programming basics as I was almost 50 years ago at that first PD gig, it's still a different business in many ways. Not enough of us were fortunate enough to have the ability to survive.
www.elko.tv
