Getting students interested in today's broadcasting

[tall_guy1]

This is why it is *so* important to get a second degree in another field while you're at college like David Eduardo did (see above). Broadcasting is losing people, not gaining them. While getting those additional degrees assisted Mr. Eduardo in staying in the field, they could have assisted him very well if he found himself after graduation being unable to find work in radio or television. (I know you're already out of college so this post is really intended for those who are currently looking for careers in the broadcasting field and considering their options.)

Might go back to school sometime. Tried to get an addiction counseling license a few years ago, but realized that kind of work isn't for me, so didn't finish that program, but might go back again for something else. For now, enjoy my warehouse job well enough.

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

Funny you should say that right now. Don Davis, who owns the stations in New Mexico that I consult and/or program, just told me a couple of days ago that he's a terrible programmer (which is why he keeps me around).

But he is well-known in Albuquerque as a broadcast engineer, and has been for decades.

I know one engineer in central IL who couldnt give any less craps then he already does about being on air or being involved in programming or whats on air at any of the stations he fixes up.

 

[K.M. Richards]

The fact is that we live in a time when you don't need a degree to get a job, and you don't need a job to do the work.

In our business, a degree has pretty much been meaningless all along.

I got hired for my first radio job (a Saturday late-afternoon/evening shift) two months before I started my senior year of high school, back in 1973, a small FM in my home market that had only been on the air for about a year at that time. I kept that shift all through that year and then pursued a degree in Communication Arts at Loyola Marymount University, which was only an hour away from home ... so I kept that Saturday shift during the lone semester I attended there before realizing that they wanted to teach me television and film and I felt more comfortable with my two weekly shows on KXLU. So I left.

As soon as I told the owner of the station I had been working that shift at for close to 18 months at that point, he hired me full-time. I stayed there for another 2½ years (and got my First Phone during that time) before an opportunity to move up to a larger FM station in the market which was about to change hands and become the sister station to a 50kW top-40 flamethrower. Alas, only about six months into the new ownership the entire former FM staff was released.

Fortunately, a small AM/FM simulcast, owned by a husband and wife, had noticed me and asked my original boss if he thought I had any programming skills (they were in bad shape, running an automated MOR format after the demise of NIS) and, to make a long story short, I got my first PD gig only five years after I had started working that Saturday shift two stations previous.

We went full-AC -- a couple of years before that became a popular format -- and went from not showing in the Arbitrons to #5 in 12+ the first book.

I've never looked back, and I am still in radio, and still a programmer. Never regretted dropping out of LMU.