• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Pittsburgh's Young Radio Talents

F

FightingIrishman

I might be treading on thin ice here, but I think this would make a good thread, as well I want to hear your opinions. After all, it can be a new topic.

I am starting to get a little frazzled by the on air personalities here in Pittsburgh. While I have great respect for veterans who have been in the Pittsburgh radio business for the past 10+ years, some of the new talent we have now on our airwaves isn’t impressive especially in a market that is supposed to be so competitive.

Recently, I was told by a CBS Radio Pittsburgh supervisor (omitting the name) that you need an agent or a talent firm and five years of experience to snag a job in the market to even be on air in Pittsburgh.

However, between you and me, I doubt that some of these jocks on B94 and Kiss-FM, have been broadcasting for five years, let alone three. In fact, one B94 jock misspelled the word ‘speech’ by spelling it ‘speach’ on his video link of Barack Obama on his blog linked to the station website. Maybe he needs to finish high school first!

Granted, not all of these young jocks are bad, I am sure they are nice people in real life. But it errks me that there are people who have been board operators for 10 years in this city and have a college degrees or work at small independent stations and are waiting to get on the big stations but are passed over by a 20 year old kid who got a certificate in radio broadcasting from an internet website and he (or she) gets the job because they have an agent/ talent agency that makes the deal for them.

I know a lot of you station managers, program directors say that people don’t want to work up the ladders and learn, but there are a lot of people who do want to learn but there is no way to compete against imported radio talent that is brought into the Pittsburgh market and all your years working the board or passing out bumper stickers for that internship are wasted….

Again, I am venting here, but I think its ashame local individuals from Pittsburgh cannot work up the ladder anymore nor have a love for broadcasting without having an agent or being some child prodigy star…

Your Frustrated Friend,
FightingIrishman
 
>>>Recently, I was told by a CBS Radio Pittsburgh supervisor (omitting the name) that you need an agent or a talent firm and five years of experience to snag a job in the market to even be on air in Pittsburgh. <<<

Clearly not true. It wasn't even true when Pittsburgh was a Top 10 market 30 years ago.
 
On the subject of spelling:  speach=speech   errks=irks

Back to high school!  Just kidding, we all make misteaks!
 
HAHA. But yeah, I was told you had to have an agent/ talent organization to be considered on a Pittsburgh CBS Radio station....

See what I am saying? That doesn't seem right. Maybe they were just telling me this because they didn't want me to apply! HAHA. And to be honest, I wouldn't blame them! :D Back to the sound board....
 
Parttimer said:
There might be 5 people in the entire market who have agents.
Click to expand...

From what I understand, it's not so much as getting an agent, but catching the eye of the various consultants that the companies use. If the consultant likes you, you'll have a head start over anyone else.
 
Fighting Irishman:

A lot of it is, sad to say, just pure luck. Being in the right place at the right time. When I first got to Pittsburgh, I only spent 2 1/2 years in small market radio. Joe Fenn promoted me from a board-op to announcer overnights on the former Easy 104.7. But I was NOT READY for it. I needed more time. Joe even took the time to review my airchecks with me and help bring me along. You name a PD in major market radio today (never mind back then) that will do that.

The problem is, most of the stations that surround the Pittsburgh market are not peopled with live jocks who do their shifts in real time as they did years ago. The radio people coming into the business are not being trained as jocks, but rather as staff announcers who can multitask. Production, copywriting, sports PBP/color, news writing, promotions assistance and board-opping, just to name a few.

However, we do have a lot of professional-grade weekend talent in this market already who have gained experience, and should be given a chance to show management what they're made of. This is not happening because the powers that be are looking for strength in numbers so to speak, and if that requires hiring someone from say St. Louis or Detroit, and their numbers were strong there, so be it. It doesn't matter if the markets are like night and day or not.

Plus, PDs and GMs are still stuck in that mindset of hiring established has-beens that have been in this market for years, simply because they have name recognition, and thus easier to promote because you don't have to spend as much money to market them. The end result is their tired banter which may start a station off strong, but because their way of doing radio hasn't changed in 20+ years, the numbers start to dip after awhile.

My advice to young people is, get about five years of solid small-market radio experience under your belt. Apply for a board-op job while in high school. Once you're in, do the best you can at the job they hired you for. Then offer to take on more responsibility (don't say you'll do it for more money, because they'll lose interest in you very quickly!) a little at a time. If you're hired as a junior in high school, you'll be ready in five years, and more than that, if you go to college, you'll be WAY ahead of your classmates.
 
Thanks Kenhawk, very helpful and well written.

It is frustrating though at how the business has changed, and not just radio broadcasting, but television has well. I think what is the shame of it all is that you cannot break into the business anymore, or at least its becoming more difficult to do, especially in our market. From what I heard that the best way to break into the market is go to a really really small market and just work your way up and then its luck from that point on. I think there are plenty of novices in the business (such as myself) who would not mind doing jobs that are not on air but rather jobs where they are observing others and learning the trade,then moving up, but the problem is that its harder to move up in the world when there is more syndicated programming than ever before. It makes more sense to broadcast a program of Carson Daly on Kiss-FM then it is to broadcast an average Joe's Top 40 because we aren't household names. Look at stations such as KDKA or WPTT, there isn't really any local talent left. It's all political talkers out of NYC. Another factor that disturbs me about breaking into radio is the style you have to have now days in order for a station to hire you for an audience. You don't see too many Jack Boguts or other individuals who did radio (especially in Pittsburgh) who have that polite gentlemen personality and love using the medium to reach to people.Rather, nowdays, you have to have an itch to be a shock jock in order to bring in ratings and dollars. But that is something that isn't new and something that is happening everywhere, not just Pittsburgh.

Again, thank you Kenhawk for your advice, but I do have to say that I am wayyyy passed my high school years though I like to hope I still look like a 16 year old. :D
 
FightingIrishman said:
Thanks Kenhawk, very helpful and well written.

It is frustrating though at how the business has changed, and not just radio broadcasting, but television has well. I think what is the shame of it all is that you cannot break into the business anymore, or at least its becoming more difficult to do, especially in our market. From what I heard that the best way to break into the market is go to a really really small market and just work your way up and then its luck from that point on. I think there are plenty of novices in the business (such as myself) who would not mind doing jobs that are not on air but rather jobs where they are observing others and learning the trade,then moving up, but the problem is that its harder to move up in the world when there is more syndicated programming than ever before. It makes more sense to broadcast a program of Carson Daly on Kiss-FM then it is to broadcast an average Joe's Top 40 because we aren't household names. Look at stations such as KDKA or WPTT, there isn't really any local talent left. It's all political talkers out of NYC. Another factor that disturbs me about breaking into radio is the style you have to have now days in order for a station to hire you for an audience. You don't see too many Jack Boguts or other individuals who did radio (especially in Pittsburgh) who have that polite gentlemen personality and love using the medium to reach to people.Rather, nowdays, you have to have an itch to be a shock jock in order to bring in ratings and dollars. But that is something that isn't new and something that is happening everywhere, not just Pittsburgh.

Again, thank you Kenhawk for your advice, but I do have to say that I am wayyyy passed my high school years though I like to hope I still look like a 16 year old. :D
Click to expand...

Actually, the way the Pittsburgh market is made up these days, I don't want any part of it. I had my day there, and in Toledo, and in Detroit. I had more fun doing small market radio and that's why I went back. The only way I'd ever go back to the major market slaughterhouse is if somebody waved a buttload of cash in my face with a lifetime contract. And we know that's never gonna happen! :D
 
"My advice to young people is, get about five years of solid small-market radio experience under your belt."

I would say three years, assuming you're working full-time. By then you'll have a solid knowledge of the basics, or else you'll probably never get it.

"...most of the stations that surround the Pittsburgh market are not peopled with live jocks who do their shifts in real time as they did years ago. The radio people coming into the business are not being trained as jocks, but rather as staff announcers who can multitask. Production, copywriting, sports PBP/color, news writing, promotions assistance and board-opping, just to name a few."

But I don't know that represents a big change, Mr. kenhawk. It's always been that way. One of the benefits of working in small town radio is no matter what job you were hired to do, you'll probably wind up doing a little bit of everything. And that's good. For one thing, it adds to your versatility. There's no reason why a jock shouldn't be able to deliver a competent newscast or write and produce a spot in an afternoon. I don't see versatility as a problem at all. It just makes a person more valuable to a prospective employer.

Unless someone is the next Dan Ingram, most small town DJing was time, temp and plug the request line anyway.
 
Boss Radio said:
"My advice to young people is, get about five years of solid small-market radio experience under your belt."

Unless someone is the next Dan Ingram, most small town DJing was time, temp and plug the request line anyway.
Click to expand...

My advice to young people is don't look at radio as a career. It's been devalued by station owners now it's a job, nothing more.

Let's face it even in the good old days most jocks even the greats only worked for one station for 3 or 4 years. Not much time to pay into a 401K or get even minimal vesting in the company pension plan if there was one. Most of us old guys who traveled up and down the dial will have a rude awakening when we retire. Sure hope Walmart is hiring!

As for the small town DJ's they are a lot fewer these days. A live morning show and on the bird the rest of the day and night. I think there should always be one person on duty at your radio station if it's on the air but owners don't agree. A station owner in Texas said if the goverment mandated 24 hour staffing his station would have to go off the air at midnight. Maybe he should turn in his station license?
 
My advice to young people is don't look at radio as a career.

That's sound, because the business is getting more precarious every day. Even 10 or 15 years ago, people were hedging their bets. Goose Goslin was selling real estate when he was working at KDKA and Susie Barbour was working as a paralegal while she was affiliated with KDKA, too.
 
Boss Radio said:
My advice to young people is don't look at radio as a career.

That's sound, because the business is getting more precarious every day. Even 10 or 15 years ago, people were hedging their bets. Goose Goslin was selling real estate when he was working at KDKA and Susie Barbour was working as a paralegal while she was affiliated with KDKA, too.
Click to expand...

Very good point, Boss. Think of the musicians still around here who are very talented but don't seem to be doing much these days. Donnie Iris has a finance company, and Johnny Angel of Johnny Angel and the Halos is one of the owner principals of the Atria restaurant chain. I heard that Goose was making more money selling real estate than he was at KD. Some of the few 'lucky ones' who were fortunate to remain at the same station for many years had the foresight to invest their money well and not go hog-wild with their spending, and were able to retire comfortably.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom