-
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
Why do you like being on the air?
- Thread starter Nick Gerard
- Start date
here's s classic talking up color my world
It's still too much like sex and drugs to me. In 2004 I left the business to go co-found an advertising agency and make some "real money", only to find I was working longer and harder than ever while never getting ahead, although I did help my business partner move up from a $100,000 house with a Camry, into a $350,000 house with a Cadillac and Land Rover. However I just got more stressed, so I sold my interests and went back to my old station. I occasionally do some VO for my old agency which is cool, and I've resigned myself to never being rich...
After Jack Armstrong died and I started searching out tribute websites, I discovered much of my on-air mindset came from listening to the old 'KB as a teenager. I'd long forgotten just how influential they were. I was also fortunate that my first radio jobs came in New England, working for people who more often than not ended up in Boston or Hartford...or sometimes I got to work with jocks from Hartford/Springfield who read liner cards during the week and came up I-91 to small-town Vermont/New Hampshire on the weekends to utilize the creativity they weren't allowed to show at their full-time gig. I asked one of them to critique an aircheck...that was in 1982...I have yet to work for a PD who contradicted what I learned from that critique.
I still love the challenge of connecting with the listener over a ten-second intro. Of course like any jock I'd rather have :20 or :30...but connecting in :10 requires being on-point and simple. In Country Music the listener always loves hearing about the music, their favorite artists...so it doesn't require a focus group to figure out what to talk about. Listening to Don Berns and Jack Armstrong in particular showed the way. Berns on artist content...Armstrong on the lyrics or arrangement.
One thing the PPM has taught: The listener doesn't care about all the benefits of listening at work/in the car, etc. They think it's all hype and all crap. What they DO want is their favorite music presented by a jock who conveys passion for that music and the artists. They love it when we share content with them that they care about. And we now take care to promote the station in a way that relates to the listener. We balance brevity with being natural. We don't hype but neither do we restrain genuine enthusiasm.
That said, there's still plenty of showmanship...from a tight segue (our station does 3-4 an hour now) to airing a funny phoner...to promoting and playing a new Taylor Swift or Kenny Chesney out-of-the-box...we just make it about the listener. We don't put ourselves above them. I want to be that good friend riding shotgun in the car...the kind of friend someone would seek out the next time they need to spend three minutes or three hours driving somewhere.
After Jack Armstrong died and I started searching out tribute websites, I discovered much of my on-air mindset came from listening to the old 'KB as a teenager. I'd long forgotten just how influential they were. I was also fortunate that my first radio jobs came in New England, working for people who more often than not ended up in Boston or Hartford...or sometimes I got to work with jocks from Hartford/Springfield who read liner cards during the week and came up I-91 to small-town Vermont/New Hampshire on the weekends to utilize the creativity they weren't allowed to show at their full-time gig. I asked one of them to critique an aircheck...that was in 1982...I have yet to work for a PD who contradicted what I learned from that critique.
I still love the challenge of connecting with the listener over a ten-second intro. Of course like any jock I'd rather have :20 or :30...but connecting in :10 requires being on-point and simple. In Country Music the listener always loves hearing about the music, their favorite artists...so it doesn't require a focus group to figure out what to talk about. Listening to Don Berns and Jack Armstrong in particular showed the way. Berns on artist content...Armstrong on the lyrics or arrangement.
One thing the PPM has taught: The listener doesn't care about all the benefits of listening at work/in the car, etc. They think it's all hype and all crap. What they DO want is their favorite music presented by a jock who conveys passion for that music and the artists. They love it when we share content with them that they care about. And we now take care to promote the station in a way that relates to the listener. We balance brevity with being natural. We don't hype but neither do we restrain genuine enthusiasm.
That said, there's still plenty of showmanship...from a tight segue (our station does 3-4 an hour now) to airing a funny phoner...to promoting and playing a new Taylor Swift or Kenny Chesney out-of-the-box...we just make it about the listener. We don't put ourselves above them. I want to be that good friend riding shotgun in the car...the kind of friend someone would seek out the next time they need to spend three minutes or three hours driving somewhere.
Forget hitting the post...wasn't this a network fill.....ROFLMAO!! Good tune though...my high school junior prom theme!!!
JimPastrick said:Oh, one more thing. A pro never talks up to the vocal to Papa Was A Rolling Stone or Go All The Way.
In the early 70s I worked at a station where the PD wrote a note on the shuck to "Black Magic Woman" something to the effect of "if you can hit the post on this you're talking too much".
J
jfc40ts
Guest
Sorry to interrupt the tangent this thread has taken, but it seems that without going into a lot of detail, the original poster answered his own question...
The key word here is avocation, which is a hobby as opposed to vocation, which oftentimes is merely a job. Maybe the guy hasn't made a killing doing radio for 40 years, but he was doing something he truly loved. What more could you ask for?
The key word here is avocation, which is a hobby as opposed to vocation, which oftentimes is merely a job. Maybe the guy hasn't made a killing doing radio for 40 years, but he was doing something he truly loved. What more could you ask for?
Which could explain why some of us bailed. We LOVED it, but it became more of a job than a passion. (And HATED leaving it - BTW)
That is all.
I used to love programming the automation at george kimbels station wflc in canandaigua it had a grid clock four revox's that grid was so tight they used the drake chanult country format the sec tones were set real tight on their jingles it was hit perfect every time anybody remember this ....... wayne finger lakes country wflceeeeeeeeeeee click
gary adams said:
Gary funny you mentioned automation, that's how I got into radio. I worked for one of the RKO stations taking care of the beast. I could read and have a decent voice so I also did news, not live but on cart. When I got my first DJ job it was working for a station that had a sister FM that I programed before I went home.
I enjoyed the people I worked with, news guys, fellow jocks etc. Lots of interesting people from all walks of life, but we had a common bond and that was radio. The interesting thing was the ego problems were more frequent in the smaller markets. The big guys were always a pleasure to work with. Part of being a pro I guess.
For me, it was about being part of a real-time connection between an isolated listener and whatever information resources I had at my disposal. That could be a newswire, Joel Whitburn, or a police scanner. Voicetracking never appealed to me for that reason.
As for the timing and audio mixing that goes into a good intro talk-up, I'm pretty sure that's nothing but self-indulgence, but no apologies.
Oh...and does doing Wyoming County school closings over the intro of Paloma Blanca and hitting the post count? ;^)
As for the timing and audio mixing that goes into a good intro talk-up, I'm pretty sure that's nothing but self-indulgence, but no apologies.
Oh...and does doing Wyoming County school closings over the intro of Paloma Blanca and hitting the post count? ;^)
I also found that to be the case. Buffalo and Rochester are the biggest markets I worked in, but I did work with people with Top 5 market experience and they were real pros. Most of the folks I worked with in Buf-Roc were pretty cool too(with a few notable exceptions). It's those smaller market, big fish in a small pond types I found the most irritating. Or, Les Nesman types - working at a mom and pop rat hole in a bigger market. Either way they are stuck there and I think they often are resentful of real talent.
- Status