Where will they come from?

[littlejohn]

Where are the new engineers for broadcast coming from? I don't see young faces much anymore, at S.B.E. meetings, or at conventions. Much like air talent (?), there isn't a kid at the station in the small town, cleaning tape heads or CD players. Fact is, there isn't ANYbody at the smaller ones. So, where are we to get the next generation of folks to keep them on the air? Are they threre? I don't see them.

 

[am_directional]

I was working at a large broadcaster in the mid 90's when several from our engineering staff bailed into the world of -dot-coms. All three of them were out of work within a year (and had suitcases full of worthless stock options). One or two found their way back into the world of (in this case TV) broadcasting bacause it was more stable than other areas. That's the lesson here: Broadcast engineering is a pretty stable business and actually pays pretty well. We have to market the field to develop this talent, really recruit like many other professions do. Look at how hard hospitals have to recruit to get people to fill really excellent jobs.On the local level stations should start by mentoring young folks who show an interest in radio / tv (they are still out there).Nationally, the shrinking talent pool for broadacst engineers should be a priority for SBE.Regards,Joe

 

[AKLes]

I don't see young faces much anymore, at S.B.E. meetings, or at conventions.

Multi-faceted problem.If you want to become depressed, go to an amateur radio club meeting in most any sizeable place. I'm 64 and tried it in two widely separated places. In both instances I was the new kid, with the emphasis on KID. Average age in the room was well above 75.It isn't just broadcast; there is very little interest, on the part of younger people, in any kind of radio. Why?It sure isn't TV; I don't think I've ever heard any young person aspire to a career in TV engineering. Those who DO enter the business kind of slid in sideways from radio or some other industry. What I'm saying badly here is that there is nothing about TV to entice young people....most younger folks think that TV is sorta like meat. Y'know; meat doesn't come from animals; it's manufactured somewhere far away (maybe China?) and arrives magically in the supermarket in a little plastic tray. Well, TV magically flows out of a cable that connects to someplace else, nowhere nearby. And nobody works there; it's all done by some kind of machine.I think part of it's the instant gratification of things like cell phones. The first symptom, decades ago, was when "hams" stopped building their own rigs and store-bought. The decline in interest in RF got started there. But...in addition...try to buy a Heathkit today. Why can't you? Because nobody's interested in building their own anything. They'd rather yawp on the cell.More....computers. The Internet is a wonderland. Why mess with radio, something that is one-way, not inter-active. If a kid has a serious technical interest it's an itch that's gonna be scratched more quickly and vigorously by turning to hacking than by cleaning heads on reel to reel tape machines......if you can even find any in broadcats.Consolidation. The great job-killer, rivaled only by self-checkouts in stores. What kid can FIND a local station, let alone hang out in one doing the dirty little jobs? If he DOES find one how does he get past security. And that brings us to.....Lawsuit Mania. Liability! Let a young person into the facility and you're a sitting duck for a slick TV-advertising lawyer. Nope, gotta keep them out. And God Forbid any engineer let a kid into a transmitter building! First comes the accusation of sexual abuse for being alone with a minor. Then the lawsuit over exposure to Cancer Risk.Why parent today probably would rather break both legs of their kid rather than let it be exposed to any of THAT stuff! I mean, at least breaking their legs would keep them at home and outta harms way!Where will they come from? I don't think anybody is at risk of being crushed by a stampede of wannabe broadcast engineers......

 

[PTBoardOp94]

<stampedes Les>Around here the two amature radio operators are I know are in their fifties (one is my boss, and is just working on his ham license).But anyway, there are at least two of us wannabe broadcast engineers here in central Indiana under 20. I'm one. The other actually has some guy named Marty who he follows. Not quite enough for a stampede perhaps, but at least we both have "steady" "jobs" in Radio.Every person I've talked to says I have the coolest summer job ever, despite the occasional 5am morning or SVR WX until midnight. Because you get those kind of hours at McBurgers too. But you don't get paid to go to track meets.I've always been a computer person. But then I became interested in journalism. So I got this job at the radio station. Of course, some things went wrong with the equipment while I was on duty, so I tried to fix or patch them. And that seemed more interesting than just fiddling with a keyboard. So I'm thinking I'll end up as a contract engineer with a camera and fybush's email address. But we need to wait for life to happen first.

 

[techie2]

I'm still interested in engineering, but I figured I would make more money elsewhere and that consolidation meant there were no jobs.Still keeping up my SBE membership at the moment (joined as a student member in college) and might test for some sort of certification at some point.

 

[ChiefEngineer]

Non commercial stations have a whole host of issues and opportunities.Find one and volunteer. Got my first Engineering job at 13 when I fixed the am transmitter of an unlicensed station.My "hobby" was learning about equipment. While my ideas weren't always accepted I was listened to. The "paid" engineer used me to wire consoles, remotes, etc. They used to call this paying your dues.None of the larger stations have much in the way of engineering staff. Bad for radio, yes. Same with the talent pool though.If you are willing to "volunteer" you will always find a place to learn.73

 

[BillP]

...try to buy a Heathkit today. Why can't you? Because nobody's interested in building their own anything. They'd rather yawp on the cell.

I suspect that the cost of preparing and packaging a kit for sale is greater than the cost of having the finished product assembled (likely an automated process) and packaged for sale.Back in the day, a lot of us bought the kits to save money.------------------- Bill

 

[Andy_Brown]

Where are the new engineers for broadcast coming from?

Broadcast engineering positions have been in decline (in numbers) ever since the first ownership limits were relaxed in the 80's.You can't expect kids to take interest in a niche profession. RF engineering will continue to thrive on the manufacturing level because that sector must provide hardware for new emerging services. Truly gifted engineers of the RF variety have a future, but it's not in broadcast. Not only has ownership consolidation reduced manpower needs, but the huge increase in automation for content development and delivery has skewed the skills needed in day to day operations. Computer technicians have a better chance of getting so called "broadcast engineering" positions these days, especially entry level stuff. Solid state transmitters and microwave equipment have definitely reduced maintenance hours at the RF end of a broadcast business, and that's been happening for 20 years. Broadcast engineering is no longer stable for veterans of radio or T.V. It does not pay well, and benefits continue to shrink.Anyone who thinks otherwise is not keeping up with events in the industry. It only makes sense that if one owner owns 6 stations in relative proximity of one another he doesn't need 6 highly skilled engineers, and in T.V. new automation equipment has resulted in huge amounts of layoffs. One local network affiliate recently layed off more than half of its operation and technical staff, another let everyone go and hired a few back at reduced wages ... Soon all of the signals in the market will be all digital, and eventually will all be delivered from one or two transmitting systems owned by one or two huge companies that will become "delivery" oriented, and content, which is already becoming increasingly centralized and networked, will require little local treatment and "radio station" staffs will be further minimized down to sales and a few local "voices." The writing has been on the wall for some time now. Every part of the telecommunications industry goes through changes and broadcast is not immune. The best consulting firms will survive, the best independent broadcast technology engineers will survive, but the notion that young people would aspire to becoming a broadcast engineer is obsolete. The signs are everywhere. And young folk see them, which is why you don't see them pursuing broadcast technical positions.

 

[jammerdave]

:-Jeff, is that you?With all we put up with in this industry, I don't know why anyone would want to do this stuff. A new, young engineer is a rare thing. I keep wondering when the industry will wake up and start treating us right.I'd start with decent pay, and enough help to get the jobs done. Long hours on a low fixed salary is no encouragment, either. There are a lot of things a talented technical person can do for more money, less hours, and no on-call time. What's the attraction? If we do find someone interested, by all means encourage them to pursue it. We are getting older. We are running away from this end of the business, or getting out of the business entirely. In the 23 plus years under my belt, I have only seen conditions worsen. Just within the last couple of weeks, the local clearchannel group lost both engineers, due to being fed up with what I mentioned earlier. Not a bit surprised, and I don't blame them for walking. These were good guys, who, like many of us are talented people.I keep asking myself why I stay in this business. It's in my blood, I guess, but I'm plenty fed up too.Getting new people will require making the job attractive again. Might be difficult, with the long downhill slide it's been on for awhile.... my 2 bits worth, anyway...Dave Fortenberry, Sacramento

 

[CW]

<stampedes Les>Around here the two amature radio operators are I know are in their fifties (one is my boss, and is just working on his ham license).But anyway, there are at least two of us wannabe broadcast engineers here in central Indiana under 20. I'm one. The other actually has some guy named Marty who he follows. Not quite enough for a stampede perhaps, but at least we both have "steady" "jobs" in Radio.Every person I've talked to says I have the coolest summer job ever, despite the occasional 5am morning or SVR WX until midnight. Because you get those kind of hours at McBurgers too. But you don't get paid to go to track meets.I've always been a computer person. But then I became interested in journalism. So I got this job at the radio station. Of course, some things went wrong with the equipment while I was on duty, so I tried to fix or patch them. And that seemed more interesting than just fiddling with a keyboard. So I'm thinking I'll end up as a contract engineer with a camera and fybush's email address. But we need to wait for life to happen first.

When I got my ham ticket 30+ years ago, I was the kid...and even now I feel like I am when I go to hamfest, etc...most NEW hams are older EX CB type farts in my area.....BUT that has changed recently...one 12 yr old just passed his Tech and is on the air...(If I can get him OFF 2mtrs and look at other bands, he might not be turned to the dark side yet! But for BC engineers, there are two younger ones than me and thats it....all the others are close to retirement or getting there fast.....Now with WiMAX and other long range wireless options coming along that may cover a good chunk of the country, think of this...Wireless streaming....who needs terrestrial radio anymore?? Heck ANYONE will be able to play music over the Internet (well almost...RIAA MAY still shut that down...and the SIRA bill in Congress may kill it too!)..Times change....not for the better?

 

[ElCheapo]

I guess I'm a bit more optimistic than most of the guys here.I'm in my early 30s and as an engineer, I earn over twice what many (if not most) of the DJs I know earn - and I predict things will steadily improve for me and the rest of the younger engineers in the business.Many veteran radio engineers are rapidly approaching retirement age and radio is doing a terrible job of recruiting their replacements. Pay is a big part of it. The simple fact is electronics technicians can earn more money working in many other fields - particularly medical. I'm comfortable with what I make, but some friends I went to school with earn 3X what I do servicing hospital equipment.I predict 10 years from now I'll be working my butt off, but I'll be able to pretty much name my price.

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

Yes... It's all supply and demand. When there's little supply of techs dries up thanks to the greedy jerks at the top that have squeezed the last penny out of radio stations for themelves over the years, the techs that stuck with it and are young enough will be able to clean up. Today we are your "go plunge the toilet and change move that desk for the nice salesman" chop-chop boys, but in the future you'll find it cheaper to call a plummer and moving man..much cheaper. So keep squeezing the hell out us little guys Mr. big corporate suit. Your day is coming when I'm going to extract lots of $$$$ out of your wallet if you want to keep broadcasting those 100 dollar a throw spots of yours. The DICKies and the Mays of the world will get a good dose in about 10 years when they wake up and realize the screwed up royaly on this subject. I hope I'm still around to watch and enjoy the fun!

 

[Leona]

Here-Here! People in the broadcast industry are already predicting the "Talent Drought" that will be the result from voice-tracking and simulcasting. Nobody wants to consider the Engineering Drought that is imminent as well. I know I sure got into engineering by accident. The only reason I got my first job was because the PD wanted Eye-Candy at remotes and appearances. Imagine that, Me, the techno-radio-computer-geek girl hired to be the station hottie! That's too much! Anyway, that perv got fired. I went to work for a different station. This one caters to older women, so I figured I was safe. Their talent didn't know how to set up the remote gear, so I gave it a try. I had seen the engineer at my old station do it a million times. I even helped carry stuff for him. Now I find that they have me doing little technical odds and ends at the radio stations. I am by no-means an engineer, but I keep busy doing the stuff that you guys describe, well at least they don't make me plunge the toilet I don't know anything about RF but just about everything else is fair game. I change lightbulbs, maintain computers, swap out broken phones for good ones, etc. I also do the setups for remotes and maintain all of the remote/promotions equipment for both stations. That even includes gassing up the vans. Sometimes they have me try to do stuff I don't know anything about at all. They had me looking at the air conditioning last week! ??? Like I have any clue how that works! I hit reset buttons and flipped circuit breakers until something happened. Eventually the fans came on, but the cooling unit never kicked in. I fixed it by calling the local HVAC company in the OM's name to come look at it. ;D Anyway, I'm not technically the engineer. I'm still listed as Production/Promotions staff. Why? Because the cluster already has an engineer. So where is he? -> Spends most of his time floating around at the transmitters and at the main cluster location over 45 minutes away from here. I've only had to work with the man twice, and quite frankly he kind of scares me. :-[ From what I hear most of the engineers around here went to work for the phone companies as the big push was to install and maintain cellular sites. I understand there is a lot more money and stability in that industry. I honestly don't know how much longer I can put up with making $6.25 an hour to do this kind of work. It's fun and all, sometimes, but I can't see making a career out of this. I was originally going to be a teacher before I got bit by the radio bug in college. I am seriously considering getting certified to be a teacher. Heck, I could be a school janitor and get more respect for what I do than where I currently am. :-Someone here was talking about broadcasting on the internet. That's where everything is moving. Someone from another station was talking about these new digital consoles that actually send and receive audio over IP somehow. They said that XM is currently using it. Anyway, webcasting is getting more and more popular. Its only a matter of time until long-range broadband wireless internet access is as widespread and common as cellular phones. People will be listening to webradio on their BlueTooth enabled pocket PCs and PDAs and cell phones the way that most of us used to listen to AM and FM on walkmans. Broadcasting as we know it is going to be completely different. Broadcast engineering is moving from the RF world to the virtual world. I think anyone who wants to be a broadcast engineer in the future should learn about computers rather than stuff like tape heads and transmitters. So that is how things look from my perspective. Its fun for now, but the pay sucks. Even worse is the lack of respect for the amount of work we put in. Seriously, I have a college degree and I could be making more money as a manager at McDonalds. Sometin seriously wrong wit dat! -Leona :-*

 

[djtg]

Though I think we're probably done talking about this, just thought I'd throw in my 20 yen. While in college for IT, I started as a club DJ and also took care of the two college stations' physical plants, mostly because the administration really had no interest in keeping the stations in operating form. The local CHR PD asked me to come on for weekends, and while I found that on-air wasn't my thing, helping with studio buildouts and the like were a pretty good time. When I was getting ready to do my required internship for my degree, I got a waiver to allow me to pursue it in a radio realm. However, I found that there weren't really any engineers, contract or employed, that had the time for an apprentice. So I went the production route, got my internship, and got out of school. I'm now working in Creative and basically being the part-time engineer that helps our already-strained engineering department keep our stations in working order.I'm still a gearhead. I just found that the current field doesn't have the time to train. I still haven't fully explored RF, and SBE is probably not something I'd be able to do (my math skills, while good, probably aren't what they should be). I'm not sure that with my current workload I'll be able to do either. That seems to be the bigger problem. I might not be a great indicator, but I had to go into a different aspect to get my foot in the door. Now I don't have time to develop into the engineer of tomorrow I probably should have been. Seems like the industry right now really wants jacks-of-all-trades, instead of masters of one.