Newbie to the Broadcasting Industry

[carlpolson]

So I've been involved in broadcasting almost 4 years working part time at this radio station here in my town doing a mix of On-Air, Production, Promotions, Website, and Engineering. Looking for someone that could help me in the right direction. Maybe offer some suggestions on what I can work on to work my way up in this industry.

Thanks

Carl Polson
[email protected]
www.carlpolson.com

 

[nycdavey]

Hey! Seems you're wearing a lot of hats right now, which is not a bad thing. It shows that you are a hard worker and team player and willing to make something of yourself. Have you expressed an interest in moving up to full-time at your present company? What department do you want to work for specifically? Define your goals and then design a plan of attack.

 

[ricoontheradio]

So I've been involved in broadcasting almost 4 years working part time at this radio station here in my town doing a mix of On-Air, Production, Promotions, Website, and Engineering. Looking for someone that could help me in the right direction. Maybe offer some suggestions on what I can work on to work my way up in this industry.

For a self-proclaimed "newbie" you're doing well. You're on your way. You have the fundamentals down. Only two things I'd suggest to work on is slowing down a little bit. Sometimes you fly right by those call letters when really you want those to stand out more than anything. Also, make sure you are planning the "out" of your break. Heard a couple breaks where you repeated yourself. "Try and stay cool. Warm day. Getting warmer. So try and stay cool."

Overall, you're off to a good start. The rest will come naturally with time as you gain more experience.

Keep it up!

 

[carlpolson]

Well first of all thank you so much for the help!
I currently work under programming. I have tried to work my way up at the company I'm at and they say there just isn't enough in the budget for anything at this time. I've tried applying at other stations in town. But the other stations in my town are getting bought out and forcing alot of downsizing within that station. I'm thinking about returning to college and getting a degree and continuing to work on my air checks and what not. Just wanted advice and what not to make sure I'm not going about this the wrong way.
Thanks again!

 

[nycdavey]

Hey, don't give up just because you can't get a full-time gig in your town! Have you looked in other places? Put together a demo of all your best breaks and send it out everywhere that you think would be a good fit. Then make sure to follow up. I was part-time for 3 years after graduating from college and FINALLY landed full-time gig doing nights at a CHR. I thought about different avenues during that time, but never really lost the drive to land FT and ended up doing so!

 

[SirRoxalot]

School is an Excellent Choice

I'm thinking about returning to college and getting a degree and continuing to work on my air checks and what not.

Go back to college and finish a degree. If you want to move up the ladder and be taken seriously, that's a must. Major is something that you like, but take as many writing courses as you can fit, with the concentration on journalism courses. Being able to distill information and write succinctly is a skill that is very valuable, and much too rare these days. It's key to virtually every aspect of broadcasting - on air, production, sales, and/or management reports.

 

[ruger22com]

I agree with Sir, except for differant reasons.
Get a degree in something OTHER than radio.
A communications degree is not worth the paper it is written on unless you want to go into sales and sales management, BUT a degree in another field (business, teaching, science, etc.) WILL give you something to fall back on if your career in radio blows up.

over 95% of the people who go to school (college, broadcast school, etc) either never get a job in broadcasting, or move on to something else in less than a few years.

 

[hammondo]

ruger22,

Your college may have been ok for academics, but for marketing YOU (also an important part of their job for graduates), they probably didn't know squat. Here's why;

You said, "A communications degree is not worth the paper it is written on unless you want to go into sales and sales management."

Don't be angry, but I wholeheartedly disagree with your bogus ("95%") statistic as well as the rest of your post.

You seemed to GLOSS OVER a very important FACT; There is a difference between a RADIO degree (HA! glorified broadcasting school where you "play radio" while your mommy and daddy PAY) and a COMMUNICATIONS degree (read on).

Maybe the degreed person (below) now in sales (and presumeably unhappy) had a Bozo for a guidance counselor, or wasn't very creative to begin with.

My 1971 BA in Communications degree (from a small college) served me well and has helped me be very successful in several business deals.

That piece of paper you dissed could be useful in acting or directing (please Google Mark LaMura in my graduating class). Then please Google Ted Novak at WGN Radio).

We have other people in media relations (promoting a business in the media), public relations (proper useage of media for events/npo's or government) elective office, NEWS reporting, and LOTS of great marketing positions out there (1 friend earns over 100k annually in a marketing job), even health care PR, copywriting, and tv commercial production.

MINE helped alot in Ministry, too (a long after thought and a great second job). My sermons are always RAVED about - and short, too.

I've also owned 2 very successful funeral homes (sold for a great offer) and 4 radio stations (also sold for a great offer), and sold 4 radio construction permits).

If I were YOU, I'd remember all this when they send you an appeal for funds.

Sir said; "able to distill information and write succinctly is a skill that is very valuable, and much too rare these days." Agreed.

O, one more thing; You said "over 95% of the people who go to school (college, broadcast school, etc) either never get a job in broadcasting, or move on to something else in less than a few years."

WHERE did you get that from?

It is MY opinion that the goofballs you referred to above "never got a job" because they probably presented themselves as "Howard Stern Wannabees" (in my ownershp era they were Larry Lujack wannabees) and the people hiring said, OMG, not another one of THOSE morons!"

You'd be surprised at the "degreed people" THAT COULDN'T EVEN READ, let alone write or spell WELL. (sorry for all the shouting. THIS CRAP PISSES ME OFF).

I sincerely hope this helps you. I'm 57 years old and have been around the block a few times. Thanks.

 

[hammondo]

Carl,
(didn't mean to pull this whole deal off topic)

Went to your site and heard your stuff.

Find yourself a mentor and PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE.
You have alot of potential and you sound like your having fun.

It's GREAT to get paid for what you love.

Success to you!

 

[ruger22com]

I too am not a kid, I am now 53 and recently retired from radio after working 20 of 25 years in major markets. (I still do voice-overs and commercials and run a large gun parts business I started a few years back.)
I have a liberal arts degree with a major in psych...and I also went to one of those 6 month "quicky" broadcast schools (specs howard) which I will agree, most broadcast schools are worthless, with specs being one of the few decent schools (at least in my hiring experience).

As for 95% of people with degrees in communications OR boradcast schools going onto another business? This is true, and the reason is simple. The REAL business of radio is not taught in college of vocational school....nor are the financial realities. With any luck, you might learn to do basic board operations. and learn a little theory.
Then when you discover you are going to make $8 an hour in some dinky market for several years until you really learn the business and progress to the point where you can perform in a midsize market and make half of what you think that degree should bring you. Add a wife and kid and you start looking for a better paying field, or go into sales.

I cannot tell you how many people I interviewed for an on-air gig who were not ready for any COMPETITIVE market situation, but thought that degree was all they needed. And god knows the evolution of the business where large clusters have killed off most of the air gigs, It used to be 1 in 1,000 people could make it to a major market and good money, now it is only about 1 in 10,000 who make it.

Howard Stern is a good example. He finally made it to the big time, but is was a struggle all the way (I kicked his behind in Detroit doing easy listening at WCZY-FM while he was at WWWW-FM getting his killed in the ratings.) And if he had not gotten an offer from boston, he too was about ready to call it quits. and this was BEFORE clusters took so many jobs away.

I say again (while it may have been good for you), but to the MAJORITY of kids who get a communications degree with hopes of being a radio star.....that degree ain't worth diddly. and to an EMPLOYEER, either a small market board op experience or a donald duck school of broadcasting degree is worth about the same. I never looked at education in a major when hiring a jock, I LISTENED to an aircheck and looked at past ratings and experience.
So get a business or teaching degree instead. Then when the radio career goes belly up as it does eventually to 9999 of every 10,000 kids with stars in there eyes, they will have something to fall back on.

 

[hammondo]

What you say in the "I say again" paragraph may be true, but any college kid who LOVES radio will always think "NOT ME!" I surely did, but I was very blessed.

You also said; "Specs (Howard) being one of the few decent schools (at least in my hiring experience)." WOW - we really disagree there too.

From 1974-1985 Specs provided us with a continuous flow (at least 5) of marijuana and porn addicted, lazy, liars. One "genius" told me "his mother died so he needed to go back to Hammtrammack for her funeral." We tried to send flowers to the funeral home he mentioned, but found out according to the florist, "Mrs. Alexander didn't die, we saw her in our store this morning!"

I was overjoyed to fire this scumbag when he returned for work.

We finally got most of our "talent" (for lack of a better word) from Midwest in Chicago or Broadcast Center in St. Louis.

If the Police Chief in one town where I owned the station was NOT a good friend of mine, the penalty those guys faced would have made headlines in Detroit.

 

[carlpolson]

Hey thanky you everybody for all your advice! It is greatly appreciated! I feel honored to be able to chat with radio professionals as yourself. I've loved radio for as long as I can remember and that's all I wanta do. I have also enrolled to go back to college and classes are going great. I'd idealy like to get a degree in Business and Broadcasting. Someday get a job in Broadcast Management someday. Anyways thanks again everybody!

Carl

 

[hammondo]

Ruger,
Wih all that radio experience, it's likely NOT in news.

YOU said, "As for 95% of people with degrees in communications OR boradcast schools going onto another business?

In an earlier post I asked you to provide a SOURCE for that number and you still haven't. I DID NOT attend Spec's - (so) I'm STILL WAITING for your answer.

Thanks

 

[davideduardo]

Hey thanky you everybody for all your advice! It is greatly appreciated! I feel honored to be able to chat with radio professionals as yourself. I've loved radio for as long as I can remember and that's all I wanta do. I have also enrolled to go back to college and classes are going great. I'd idealy like to get a degree in Business and Broadcasting. Someday get a job in Broadcast Management someday. Anyways thanks again everybody!

I had the opportunity to finally enroll in college after about 10 years in broadcasting. Fortunately, I was emplyeed and no use for the degree itself... just the trasining and knowledge.

So I stayed really far away from the communications school (more on that later) and did social sciences like psychology, anthropology, etc. In other words, radio programming. I did statistics and English and lots of business courses like finance, accounting, marketing and law.

I took one course in my last year in "broadcast management" and in a "case study" got a low grade. A year latere, in market 13 as General Manager, I implemented my case study solution, and in 90 days had the #1 18-49 women station in the market, and the #2 station overall. So I recommend, from this and the experience of the last 40 years, staying away from broadcast and communications deparments and selecting a balance curriculum of socal sciences, math, statistics, business. etc. The rest you learn on the job without having to unlearn the college drivel.

 

[SirRoxalot]

Broadcasting Education

What David is saying is "Beware of Communications Departments run and staffed by people with little or no experience in the communications industry".

There are lots of "ivory tower" educators with lots of theory, but little experience. Generally, theories attempt to explain why things happen the way they do in the real world. Formulating a theory requires a degree of basic understanding of an industry or phenomenon that comes from lots of real-world experience. In the communications world, many theories revolve around audience response, and audiences change over time. Just as technology changes the way that information and entertainment is delivered, communications theory that goes beyond the basics (source-transmitter-communications channel-transmission media-receiver)(one-to-one/one-to-many/many-to-many) needs to be re-evaluated from time to time. Be careful of the people doing that re-evaluation.

 

[davideduardo]

Re: Broadcasting Education

What David is saying is "Beware of Communications Departments run and staffed by people with little or no experience in the communications industry".

Good way of paraphrasing it! Very few communications departments are up to date and impart anything useful in a station today. It's nice to have the perspective of the great newspaper battles during the Roosevelt administration (Teddy, not Franklin) as a perspective, but so few schools do anything but pay lip service to radio... it is all about TV and new media.

There are lots of "ivory tower" educators with lots of theory, but little experience. Generally, theories attempt to explain why things happen the way they do in the real world. Formulating a theory requires a degree of basic understanding of an industry or phenomenon that comes from lots of real-world experience. In the communications world, many theories revolve around audience response, and audiences change over time. Just as technology changes the way that information and entertainment is delivered, communications theory that goes beyond the basics (source-transmitter-communications channel-transmission media-receiver)(one-to-one/one-to-many/many-to-many) needs to be re-evaluated from time to time. Be careful of the people doing that re-evaluation.

It's interesting that the schools that have better than average communications departments are not generally the big name ones. And even then, an exposure to business courses, math, statistics and social sciences is not emphasized when these are skills and knowledge bases needed in radio today. Heck, how many people in radio can explain coherently why an AM stations seeks a low, flat transmitter site and an FM seeks a high one?

 

[hammondo]

David,
I concur, though (BIG names like) Notre Dame in South Bend, and Northwestern in Evanston,IL, would certainly be on the "good list."

 

[Tom Wells]

David,
I concur, though (BIG names like) Notre Dame in South Bend, and Northwestern in Evanston,IL, would certainly be on the "good list."

But where is the replacement for Valparaiso Technical Instiute for radio engineering?
Don't suggest that De Vry or any of the modern tech schools give a rigorous RF theory treatment of use in RF engineering.
Where are new engineers coming from these days?

 

[hammondo]

You asked; Where is the replacement for Valparaiso Technical Instiute for radio engineering?

Good question.