I'm sitting here reading this thread and thinking "Damn..... wish I could've read this 35 years ago when I took that first Sunday morning part-time gig."!
LOL!
Michael
LOL!
Michael
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So You Want A Career In Radio Huh?
- Thread starter The Voice of Reason
- Start date
MichaelWilliams said:
How could have we known 35 years ago that broadcasting would end up the way it has?
Mark_Giardina said:
And 35 years from now, the next generation will be text messaging one another about the good ol' days back in 2008 when radio was a really great gig.
Is that a scary thought or what?
In the Year 2525
"Radio? What's that? Some 20th Century form of streaming?"
Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:
"Radio? What's that? Some 20th Century form of streaming?"
And for our Jewish friends: it's In The Year 5857. Shalom!
A wise g....I mean, wise person once said: the best predictor of the future, is the past.
Experience has taught me that's a pretty astute observation. So I'd bet on radio adapting yet again and still being around, entertaining and informing just like it has since 1920.
Windows-based systems will still be screwing up, though.... :
A wise g....I mean, wise person once said: the best predictor of the future, is the past.
Experience has taught me that's a pretty astute observation. So I'd bet on radio adapting yet again and still being around, entertaining and informing just like it has since 1920.
Windows-based systems will still be screwing up, though.... :
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bub
Guest
Nick: I echo Mike. I'm sure if we've been in this racket long enough, it would have been a matter of time before we would have made a move or 2 we wished we could have back. I've been there. Remember, Nick, in the overall scheme of things, there was only one perfect person in the history of this world...and look what his critics did to him.Nick Seneca said:
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bub
Guest
Re: Beating the Odds?
And believe me, I'm one of them. I looked at it like professional baseball. So many players in the minors, only a select few ever get to The Show.SirRoxalot said:
I didn't really have a plan for climbing to a bigger market. I wanted to work in Buffalo where my interest in radio began as a listener. WKBW, WGR and WBEN all got my tapes and passed. No doubt I sucked compared to the greats of Buffalo radio. From what I've heard here about Jeff Kay he would have laughed me out of the building. I like to think I was close on WBEN and WGR. WBEN went with Larry King and at WGR Jerry Reo was nice enough to call me long distance no less to say he filled the spot from within.
I did get to ride the 50,000 watt signal of WBT overnight playing my handpicked oldies it was a dream come true till Larry King bumped me to weekends and vacation fill. I did oldies, regular A/C and Standards. The weekend Standards was all hand picked by the jock too. I don't remember why he said it but Tony Renaud our GM said that I belonged at WBT and I was very touched by that.
So I had a great time but there comes a time when you need to move on and see if you can make some money to support the family.
I did get to ride the 50,000 watt signal of WBT overnight playing my handpicked oldies it was a dream come true till Larry King bumped me to weekends and vacation fill. I did oldies, regular A/C and Standards. The weekend Standards was all hand picked by the jock too. I don't remember why he said it but Tony Renaud our GM said that I belonged at WBT and I was very touched by that.
So I had a great time but there comes a time when you need to move on and see if you can make some money to support the family.
Speaking of PDs, I worked for a PD who told me I had to change my name. He jokingly called me Mike Rad-lous-ski and said I had a choice of three names: Duke Chance, Randy Beggar or Justin Case. I used Justin Case and added "In Your Face" (and a few variations that you can figure out by changing the preposition.) It was one of those hot rockin' AM CHR's that was a year or two away from getting smoked by a Class A FM. But it was fun while it lasted. The PD was a major assnugget who wrote grammatically poor memos about everything and anything trivial, would front sell songs always ending with the words "one called + title" and nearly electrocuted himself a half dozen times sticking his nose into the ass end of a Gates (Harris) 5/1 kW Tx and phasor. The worst was when he was doing base current readings and fell into the ATU at the base of tower 3. The poor bastard should've called himself RF Burns! The job paid OK and it was a good time while it lasted. I used to hang wallpaper and do sound systems on weekends which helped pay for my souped up AMC Gremlin with an over-sized six a three on the column and zero traction in the winter. Yeesh! What a POS and laugh riot that ride was. Might have looked better these days with a set of 20s. Maybe not so much.
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How could have we known 35 years ago that broadcasting would end up the way it has?
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Hell, who'd have known it would come to this even 15-20 years ago?
How could have we known 35 years ago that broadcasting would end up the way it has?
[/quote]
Hell, who'd have known it would come to this even 15-20 years ago?
In fairness, I don't think anyone pre-1996 could honestly predict it would get quite like this. And arguably 1998 was the watershed year, when consolidation ratched up to insane speed and the internet started really showing the glimmer of promise of what could (and would) happen...with the advent of high-speed internet (in 1998 it wasn't common in the house, but you could find it at many businesses) and the MP3 codec (which first sneaked out around late 1996, early 1997).
Yeah, even going back to the 1980's people could predict that things would get worse. That's an easy prediction to make. But 1996 took the worst-case sc
On the flip side, anyone who DIDN'T see where things were going by 2000 must've had their head firmly in the sand. :
Of course, over the past week the seniors at WEOS have reached warp-speed freakout about what they're going to do come graduation in May. I don't envy them...
I can't speak to 35 years ago, but it was probably something around 30 years ago when I started to come into contact with Geniune Radio Personalities in the New York area, including a DJ from WABC who came to our high school Career Day (!).
Even then I was getting the impression that, to quote a favorite line from the TV series Kate and Allie: "The hours are long, but the pay is lousy." And the chances of being the next Casey Kasem were pretty far to the right of the decimal point.
By the time I'd completed my first year of college I acknowledged that this wouldn't be my career choice. There is the occassional time that I wish I'd chased the dream, but on balance I'm pretty happy with the way life has turned out so far despite switching to a different path.
Even then I was getting the impression that, to quote a favorite line from the TV series Kate and Allie: "The hours are long, but the pay is lousy." And the chances of being the next Casey Kasem were pretty far to the right of the decimal point.
By the time I'd completed my first year of college I acknowledged that this wouldn't be my career choice. There is the occassional time that I wish I'd chased the dream, but on balance I'm pretty happy with the way life has turned out so far despite switching to a different path.
How could have we known 35 years ago that broadcasting would end up the way it has?
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Hell, who'd have known it would come to this even 15-20 years ago?
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DE Wiggins at Valpo Tech, that's who knew. In transmitters class, 3rd semester, about 1980-1, told us that the FCC first class ticket was likely to be discontinued.... and any of us who were attending in hopes of a good radio engineering job had better make some different plans.
The school itself only lasted about 7 years after that. As an independent institution ( read "poverty stricken") the school did not want
to knuckle under to the the Federal government having any input into the curiculum they had developed, and without the $$ from the Feds that
most other schools received, they were just doomed. On the other hand, the education was pure electronics, radio, TV and computers.
No fluff courses, just 20-odd hours of classes per week, all aimed at technology. No courses about being on-air or other "supporting" jobs in broadcast.
I was nineteen and had planned on being in radio for at least 10 years then.
I reluctantly went into computer/electronics/troubleshooting but kept radio as a hobby.
While I suspect there may have been some opportunity for me to get into broadcast tech, I am happy with the choice I made, given the
testimony in this thread. I've not had to move for work, have only held 3 jobs since 1980, and changed those at my own choice.
I cannot adequately describe just how much fun I had in 1991 putting that shortwave pirate station on the air with 1930's technology.
I wonder where that old 250w RCA modulation transformer is these days...?
It was the most fun I ever had for a thousand dollars, even considering the "sick feeling" one gets from receiving a personal
Notice of Apparent Liabilty from the FCC.
Steven21 said:
Sadly you are right..radio can be a very insulting business. True there are many other types of jobs out there that are full of nasty people and whatnot, but there is a difference between that and radio. Most businesses have rules in place as to how employees should act in the workplace, in radio it seems ( at least in the markets I worked in ), that rule doesn't exist. Like an incident that happened a few years back at a radio station in my market. A group of cub scouts were in the station to take a tour. Management OK'ed it. But the engineer wasn't informed. So what happens...the engineer threw out the scouts, started to spit at them in the parking lot and called them "sons of bitches". Yet the engineer was NOT fired for his actions. Had this been any other type of business chances are he would have been fired on the spot.
About ten years ago the radio station I worked for hired this consultant from Broadcast Programming out of Seattle. In the report he made for our station, he made such comments like "..I feel Susan your midday jock sounds like a [EDIT]...I bet the only thing she knows how to do is to give [EDIT] !!" or this comment he made about one of our part-timers..."...I heard Jim's show last Saturday night....it sucks !!...he sounded like he had a [EDIT] !!". When we read his comments all of us including our GM were shocked !!. Those comments were so uncalled for. Now had this consultant from BP said similar things in another business ( say he was a retail consultant ) well not only would he be fired for making comments like that plus perhaps he could be sued too. Needless to say, we dropped him as our consultant very very soon after he did his "report". And as far our "slut"..she went on to work at a station in Washington DC and about that part-timer? For years he was on XM. So much for his comments but still....
Then there was this sales chick at the country station I used to work at in Virginia. Damn good sales chick !! But she had this "little problem" of using the "N" word quite often in the office ( and sometimes in front of the client too ). Oh whenever we did a spot for her that she didn't like she would send up memos saying such nice things like "..I have heard throat cancer patients who sound better than you !!" and sometimes she would add the "f" word to her memos too. Me, I just look the other way but some of the other jocks they did take it personal. Then again had she worked in other type of business this sort of thing would be totally unacceptable. But because she brought in a ton of money to our station, despite all of this she never was fired or even warned.
Radio can be a fun business even if the pay may not be the greatest but still its a shame some feel they must ruin it for others.
[EDIT-vulgar content]
From what a friend of mine tells me TV is even worse! He is the Engineer in Charge (EIC) of a TV remote production truck. He's had freelancers give him all kinds of lip then break an expensive camera lense because they did something totally stupid (station that hired the truck gets a big fat bill about 9K, freelancer will never work near the truck again). Others have blown out amps by patching things the wrong way even though there are big signs saying do not use this patch bay to patch....... I have seen the sign myself, there is no way you could miss it unless you are blind!
He also told a tale about a TV station that got employees angry enough to threaten management when they were dismissed. That way the station could deny them unemployment by saying the employee threatened them with violence. Compoaired to TV radio seems quite tame!
He also told a tale about a TV station that got employees angry enough to threaten management when they were dismissed. That way the station could deny them unemployment by saying the employee threatened them with violence. Compoaired to TV radio seems quite tame!
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