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Looking for info on WMWM Salem State College Radio

N

NSPUNX

Guest
Hi everyone, this is my first post here. I have always wanted to be in radio since I was like nine years old. I never pursued it because I felt I had no talent. I recently lost my long time career and then got picked to be the "WBCN Guest DJ" for the "Guest DJ Lunch" after spending an hour in the studio with Adam 12 it lit a fire under my rear. I know this is a bad time to try to start out, and please spare me the lectures on how radio is dying and I wont be able to find work. I am planning to start CSB in june but am thinking about trying to get a leg up. I am from Salem and someone told me that you do not need to be a student or alumni to do a show on WMWM. I don't know if they have one but I was thinking about trying to start a punk rock/local music type of show, or at least maybe volunteer there just to be around radio. Does anyone know who I should contact, or know anyone involved down there? Thank You!
 
Try to get in contact with Bob Nelson a/k/a "raccoonradio", he posts here all the time... I believe he has been involved with the station for over 25 years, if nothing else he could at least point you in the right direction as to how to get your foot in the door over there.

No need for Bob's contact info, I suspect that he will be replying to this thread very soon!

Punk rock/ local music is something that would fit in real nice over there, however I believe that they already have at least one local music show... Don't know about the punk rock though...

Lots of luck! 8)
 
OK off topic, here is a nickels worth of free advice. FORGET CSB

Take the tuition money, go to a real college, take courses towards a degree where you can make a living. Play at the "student" radio station. WUML is an option, as is WMWM.

There is NO future in radio at the moment, I can tell you a zillion stories about good guys who are now out with no chance of getting back in.

Email Ed Perry at WATD, go take a tour (he loves to give them!) listen to his advice.

You'd learn more interning at WATD for 6 weeks than you'd learn in a hundred years at a "broadcasting" school.

The radio business makes use car sales seem respectable.

I was lucky, my Dad saw my love for radio and gave me some great advice. "Radio is a bunch of people stabbing each other in the back for a 7000 dollar a year job" That was in 1976, and the money is not much better now.

I did a ton of radio at my college. I was the CE, I did air shifts, I produced stuff for the old WSSH, I got an education and a life outside of radio and did quite well for myself in other fields, but I did stay at my college station well past my graduation, doing an occasional air shift. A couple of years ago someone on this board offered to hire me as a board op, and I did it weekends for a year, and have done fill ins here and there since. It allowed me to catch up on some things, have a good time, and make enough money to buy a chrome do-dad or two for my Harley, but I don't ever regret getting out of the business, especially when I see the carnage that is going on in the industry, especially with the engineering positions. Engineers were the first group to get the shaft, when the requirement to have a CE on staff was changed to allow consulting engineers and chief operators.

I would really advise you against investing time and money towards a career in professional radio at this time. Unless you have a trust fund you can live off of, because you are not going to get into the business on the bottom rung in this economy and make enough money to live on.
 
I do understand that the industry is really struggling right now, and I have no delusions of being the next Howard Stern or whoever. I also feel very badly for the engineers that lost thier jobs I got laid off from an engineering job myself. I also know that there are a lot of very very talented people out there that are out of work. When I was fifteen years old I was told by my boss at my first job which was in a movie theatre that I would never be able to operate a 35mm motion picture projector because I was too stupid. Well, not only did I end up managing some of the busiest theatres in the Boston area I then became a technician installing, maintaining and repairing motion picture projection and sound equipment, and I hold a certificate from Dolby Laboratories as a sound technician. My point is that I am one if those people that when someone tells me I can't do something that I won't quit until I can. I know that you are not telling me that I "can't" do radio just that it is extremely hard to get a job and even if you do that it doesnt pay. I don't care if I have to drive a cab, or deliver pizzas, or work at McDonalds on the side I have wanted to do this since I was nine years old, and I will someday, even if it kills me :) Maybe you're right about CSB though it is awfully expensive. No matter what they like to say I know that starting a course in november and being on the air in January is just at the least... unrealistic.
 
I agree with everything hat has been posted except for the belief that radio is made up of people stabbing each other in the back. I have come across some very competitive people during my 25 years in the business, but for the most part 90% of the people I have worked with have been some of the most enjoyable and interesting people I have had the pleasure to be around.

Please don't waste your time and money at CSB. Some good people teach there but it is very expensive and you will learn more and have a better chance at a job by interning at a staion like WATD. Make calls be positive and persistent and if you have some talent the volunteer job will turn into a paid gig and you won't be out the hugh sum of money you would have paid CSB.
 
OK you have some technical skills, you already know enough to do radio trust me. If you can run a sound board you can do radio.

Look up Ed Perry, see if he has one of his work for free overnight gigs open, MarshVegas is a great place. Even if he doesn't go see the station, get the tour, get some advice. Maybe you could intern on Bob Hedlunds show on Monday night, Bob's a nice guy and a former DJ himself.. someone who did it as a side gig for the fun and not the money down at 95.9, he can be heard filling in on WRKO occasionally.

There are a few WATD people on this board.. I won't out them, but there are a few people who have passed thru the doors on Enterprise Drive that have gone on to bigger and better things, including people who are at WBZ radio, ABC Radio news, one of the traffic places, and a few other spots I can't recall at the moment ( It's been the day from hell sorry)
 
To me, radio is alot like driving: it is easy to learn the mechanics of it,
it is difficult to do it well. To me, radio is alot like skiing (my other passion in life):
it is easy to learn the mechanics of it, it is difficult to do it well. Both skiing
and radio, however, can get under your skin - it is an itch that you just gotta scratch!
If you get into radio, do it only because it fires you up. Do not think you will be rich or famous -
you probably won't be either one. Do it for fun - not to make a living at it. You probably won't.
That said, go for it!

I have met people in the radio (and TV as well...) business who are exactly like their public persona. I have met people who are the exact opposite of the person you see/hear. Like any other business, it is a mixed bag.
DO NOT even think of going to a quickie "broadcasting school" however. Volunteer, intern, pay your dues
for many years in thankless jobs, and maybe someday it will start to pan out as a career. Just don't quit your day job, whatever it may be... Good luck! ;D
 
Why would you want to start on Salem State or other signals where the students come and go and could really care less about the day to day operation of the station?

Find a college station that is truly open to the community and doesn't use up the volunteers because the students want their cake and to abuse the community members at the same time.

Many of these colleges are going to lose their licenses at some point in time and the new crop of freshmen won't even realize what they are missing. Too many students believe the computer IS broadcasting. They podcast, they You Tube, and they think they are "on the air".
 
Salem State College Radio

As most college radio stations are paid for by student fees, and the college
trustees usually hold the license, it is unusual that any station would allow
non-students on the air in the first place...
 
from what I've heard on WUML, besides the TIC, there are all sorts of non students on that station, and there has always been... Rich "Rocky" Bono, Jack "Jackson" Baldwin, among others were not students there when I was CE but were on the air.

WUML sounds like leased time ethnic most of Sunday, and some other times of the week.
 
Well... I get to do my first airshift tonight (wed) from 9-midnight on 91.7 FM WMWM Salem. I have to play thier "Core" music for the first four weeks after that I am going to be premiering a punk rock and local band show in the same time slot.
 
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