Career in radio?

Hi all,


So I am thinking about a career in the radio. I was thinking of volunteering in a local radio station, or taking some communication classes.
Does anyone have any advice?

What schools are good for this ? Perhaps to take a certificate course or something like that?

Any advice would be appreciated.

If you're thinking about a career in radio, there are a few personal things you should consider.

1) Are you passionate about the business and cannot imagine working in any other profession?
2) Are you adaptable? Radio is never predictable and frequently things come at you from left field. The radio 'survivor' can adapt by a combination of knowledge and flexibility
3) Radio means there are times of feast and famine. Can you deal with a sudden move to a new community and realizing no gig lasts forever?

Radio paid off for me. I wound up in a top ten market managing a radio station but along the road to that point I learned to survive on minimum wage and in one move actually rented a storage space to live in until I had the cash to get in to an apartment. I worked for great people and people that were far from great. I dealt with egos and more. In the end I learned to be a chameleon, adapting to whatever was laid before me realizing it was just a step along the way.

Quite frankly, this reality of radio means only the truly passionate stay in the business. And those that do have to learn to do for themselves. You might not have health insurance where you work. You might not have retirement or any other benefit. So, taking personal responsibility versus relying on employers to do that for you is essential just like an emergency fund because there will always be an emergency at some point.

My advice is reach out to as many folks as you can. Build friendships. More often than not, your next job will come because of who you know. There is some truth to the statement that if a station must advertise a job opening, they might not be a great place to work. Most of my jobs came from connections I made. In fact, in my last job, my boss asked if I was the guy a certain employee had suggested. When I said I was, the interview ended and I was hired.

Learn everything you can inside a radio station. Knowing more gets you more options and gives you more reasons for a station to hire you. Sales is a big deal. See if you can tag along with a salesperson or the General Manager seeing how it is done. Take the worst of the worst to prove you are passionate. One guy I know was asked to work overnight Christmas Eve for his first day. He never hesitated. He moved to full time and took over middays on the air in a matter of a month or so.

I have been fortunate. I am one of the few GMs that started as a jock, moved to programming, then sales and finally management. I credit this to my curious mind asking questions, observing and understanding the reasoning of why this or that is done. All of this brought me a fairly well balanced understanding of each position. I'm no superstar by any means, just a guy that loves radio and does what my owner wants me to do. I still wake up to play all day...it's not work to me.

This is just one opinion, just like rear ends, everybody has one and (most) stink in comparison...

1) Not discouraging going to school for broadcasting. However, in today's world you may be better off getting a minor or take a few broadcast/recording arts classes and focus on a different major. A lot of folks who see you fresh-faced with a newly printed degree in broadcasting will tell you "You wasted your money" as they feel the time spent in classes could have been spent doing entry-level radio work. They're not right, but they're not wrong, either.

2) Start off at a community radio or college radio station. If you can, avoid using a computer to play your songs...try to get them on CDs so you can get used to seguing between pieces. It helps you develop your style of broadcasting, gives you a crash course in basic FCC regs (profanity, legal ID, transmitter readings) and primarily helps you feel comfortable with the pace of radio. On top of this, learning how to properly run a station "manually" (that is, without the help of a computer) will earn you a little extra respect amongst the old grizzled radio-types.

3) Learn as much as you can about the station where you "work" (or volunteer). Be prepared to work extra hours to do this properly. Even if you're, say, production director (person who makes commercials and some imaging), see if you can talk with the sales/underwriting folks. Learn how they do their craft. Above all else, get to know the engineer or some of the technical folks. These are the folks you call at 11:30pm when the automation computer locks up or the transmitter mysteriously shuts off. While you may not learn all of their job, learning enough to help yourself out of a sticky situation technically can help you earn the respect of the engineering staff and on-air folks (who will probably recruit you to do as much engineering work as possible). On-air folks and engineers rarely interact beyond what is professionally neccessary...not always true, but more often than not the case. Basically, you want to know enough information to make you more valuable than the next guy/gal. Enough info to be "dangerous".

4) Have fun! Realize that in order to make a career out of radio, you gotta take the good with the bad. You may move to three different cities in less than a year, may get fired for no other reason than the station is flipping formats and you were a warm body to occupy a seat for a few months. There may be several months where you are out of radio work...hopefully, that's when your other skills come into play. While other jocks will eat into savings or take an entry-level hourly job to pay the rent and car bill, you will have a second career as a backup.

My situation put me into a position where I was out of paying radio work my senior year in college after 8 years of working radio for a job. I picked up a job in hotels and didn't go back into professional broadcasting. However, fast forward 10 years, I have an awesome job and I'm doing radio as a hobby: Right now I'm lending my assistance to the engineering commitee of a LPFM out here that's starting up. As a tech geek like myself, there is nothing more fun than building your "own" radio station!

Lastly, you will find many bitter people who used to or still do work in this industry in some way, shape, or form. Take what advice you can from these folks, but filter it. Most people become bitter due to poor life choices they made that now come back to haunt them.

Good luck, and welcome aboard!

Radio-X

I don't have anything else to add, but many years ago I saw this sign in the control room of a station I worked at:

"Radio is a long plastic hallway where pimps and thieves run free, and weak men die like dogs."

Okay I'll bite David; what is the hallway made of then?

DavidEduardo said:

Porcelain. Easier to clean to blood off of.

Click to expand...

I believe you're confused with a long hallway for TV. Porcelain is more than radio can afford, that's why I believe plastic is the preferred material.

Thanks a lot everyone!
My minor is in communications, and I am planning to volunteer in a radio station to get a better idea of it!
Thanks again