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Broadcast schools

I can not believe what I am reading. As though law school makes you a lawyer, or med school makes you a doctor. The school is just the beginning. It gives you a broad taste of the industry and a small taste of each of the components. You'll be taught to be an announcer, pergaps a news person. Perhaps a weather person (with some added education) Broadcast schools are not rip offs unless you have a speech impediment and someone says you're on your way to a career on air. THat WILL NOT happen. You'll learn some of everything.
good broadcast schools have a placement service. Today you don't need an incredible voice, today you just need presence. Whether it's music or talk or news, or weather or sales, you need presence.
Plan on spending time in the minors, imitate an individual for whom you have respect. If it's a disc jockey, imitate him. if it's a newsperson imitate him or her. Do what they do, say what they say. Read the newspaper aloud every day. tape yourself and correcvt your own mistakes. ASk a local news director or air personality to critique your tape. tape yourself and listen and correct. imitate, imitate.

I shan't go on, this could be hours. Those of you who have denigrated the career and schools that prepare you for a beginning in the career should be ashamed of yourselves.

DO IT. Find the school, follow my advice and you will have a career that provides fun, ego satisfaction, a good living and best of all, you'll actually be part of making somone elses life a little better a little happier.


Good luck


Jay Lawrence
 
Jayaz said; Broadcast schools are not rip offs unless you have a speech impediment and someone says you're on your way to a career on air. THat WILL NOT happen.

LOLOLOLOL and HA! I can cite numerous examples of Specs in Detroit (the biggest ripoff) and other BC school taking some poor schlubs money, telling them they are good...when in FACT they couldn't even READ! Placement service, HA HA! I hope you have a map of Nevada or Montana or South Dakota.

As the station manager, I had to be the one to "break the news. "Why don't you try butcher school?" I'd like a quarter pound of HAM, please.


Jayaz said; Those of you who have denigrated the career and schools that prepare you for a beginning in the career should be ashamed of yourselves.

Better yet, why not buy fuireworks with the money you'd spen in BC School. It's like you arer setting it on FIRE, anyway!
 
I'll just deal with one aspect of your line. "I hope you have a map of Nevada, Montana, or South Dakota"

THAT"S JUST FINE. that's where you perfect your art. Those are the markets, along with about 500 others, where you find out who you are. Those are the markets where you start making tapes to send to all the other markets. Those are the markets where you decide "maybe this isn't what I want".

I can't believe you don't understand. A Broadcast school is just a beginning, and there are no bad ones.
Any education in any career field is wonderful. If enough Montana's turn you down maybe you can figure it out.

"Hey mister, can you tell me how to get to New York from here" "yep, Practice"


Jay
 
Broadcast schools are truly a waste of money. All it did for me was give me several boyfriends! The best way to get into radio is do as the others have stated: by a promotions flunkie, wash the van etc and eventually your turn will come IE: Kevin Lewis- 99.9 KEZ. IE: run the Sunday morning PSA shows and then get an on air gig like KUPD's John Holmberg. Bug the on air jock to be his/her intern and eventually something will open up too. Wasting your money on broadcast school will not do you any good. You can learn a lot more simply by being an intern or a flunkie at a station.
 
Robin

Great idea, I don't disagree. That's a route to promotion and sales for sure. Those routes may not be the best way to get "on the air" and there aren't hundreds of those jobs available. There's just room for one or two per station. Anything that gets you near broadcasting is good. I remember being a continuity editor at WBBM in Chicago then driving at night to WEAW in Evanston for my show.

It all depends on how bad you want it. I still say broadcast school is one of the good avenues to a wonderous career field.


Jay
 
Or, you could go to the Mike North School of Broadcasting, which consists of exactly one lesson: Buy time on a small shared-time brokered station for a year or so (I forget exactly how long) and take it from there.

The station's owner apparently thought he was good enough, so he hired North fulltime for his brand new all-sports station (WSCR Chicago), and now he's the morning guy on one of the top sports stations in the whole country.

I'm sure KFNX has some openings if you can afford it and can sell the time to cover your costs.

North is also living proof that a "classic" radio voice is no longer required for success in broadcasting, although sports stations tend to be more lenient as far as voice quality is concerned (See: Bruce Jacobs and John Gambadoro).
 
I would tend to agree with Jay. To be sure broadcast schools don't assure or guarentee a career in radio, but it can be a good starting point. I attended the Academy of Radio broadcasting, and it definately got my foot in the door. The skills learned can easily be acquired by working in the field, but the people I met proved invaluable. Broadcasting schools are the same as anything in life. You get out of it just what you put into it. A lot of the people that attended at the same time as I did were younger and used the school as a chance to hang out and party. I took it seriously and followed through. I've been working in radio on and off for 6 years now with no regrets. Sure, radio isn't what it once was. What is though? I still love it and always will. I'm not saying that a broadcasting school is the only way to go and it is more expensive than other avenues, but that doesn't mean that it's a scam either. As for myself, I am not rich and famous, nor will I probably ever be, but I am working in the field that I love and I'm very happy. If you love radio, I say follow the dream one way or another. So if bugging PDs and hanging out at remotes doesn't work, and you can't afford the Walter Cronkite program at ASU, maybe a broadcasting school will be your foot in the door. No matter the approach you take, I wish you luck.

Ron
 
I prefer the Ted Baxter school of broadcasting......


"It all started on a tiny radio station outside of Fresno, California....."
 
I attended the Academy of Radio as well...(yes Holmberg was the exact same schmuck he is today when he attended the academy) But like some earlier posts have pointed out in this thread, it is all about what you put into it. The people I met at the academy, and just being around Radio people in general taught me alot about the biz. The course itself wasnt great, but the did what they promised me and helped land me a gig in Phoenix, straight out of school. Granted it was only part time..but with a little dedication and working alot of crap shifts , I have been doing full time, drive time radio for coming up on 5 years now. And even though I have watched things change quite a bit in radio...it sure beats a REAL JOB!
 
Jay, I almost agree with you... we're making progress!

Broadcast schools, as I stated much earlier, can certainly give you technical skills such as editing a sound file or fundamental understanding of automation systems. In addition a few schools will give you some helpful pointers on 'dos and donts' as well as FCC guidelines and such. So, I don't think they're a total waste, just mostly a waste.

Jay, you're thinking of how radio was when you started or even how it was 15 years ago, but it's not that way anymore. People don't necessarily have to "pay their dues" anymore by going to small markets and 'perfecting their style', because in today's homogenized/let's throw creativity out the window music radio biz there's not a lot of "talent" necessary. If you have a marginal delivery, don't curse on the air, hit the post and do 15 second bits... oh and WORK REAL CHEAP, you're good.

I know at least a dozen people that work in this business that are not (or were not) even 20 years old and are in top 30 markets in decent, if not good, positions and never worked in any other market. It's not about paying your dues anymore, it's about right place, right time, period. Talent is sacrificed for a good liner card reader these days.
 
One of the programs I'm considering is a mentor program (Broadcast Connection), from what I've read, they set up you with someone who is established in the industry as a mentor. The mentor gets paid from your tuition. The website boasts a very high placement rate upon completing the mentoring. Does anyone have any experience with or knowledge of this program?

p.s. Thanks again for ALL of the replies and input. It has been very helpfull.
 
bojangles

Early on in the discussion I mentioned having your work critiqued by someone in the industry, The mentor program sounds like what I was suggesting. It all depends on the individual who does the commentary on your work, but I think it's a good idea.

Good luck


Jay
 
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