I don't know if this is exactly the right forum for this topic so forgive me if it isn't. Anyway, I was thinking about this for awhile and I'm sure most of you folks that work at collegiate stations are wondering this as well. I am a program director for an internet broadcast college station but am finding myself running out of years left in college. I wish to make the transition from college radio to the commercial world but am really not sure how. I know many things are the same. The basics between a commercial station and a college non-comm are virtually the same but how do I get out of here(meaning college) and get a job in broadcasting in the professional world? Any advice? Is being a station lacky(otherwise known as an internship) the only way to break into the world of commercial radio broadcasting? How does one make the leap?
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The World Beyond College
- Thread starter stratace05
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Doing an internship or two before you leave college is advisable. One of the biggest differences between College radio and the professional sphere is the need to generate and increase ratings and revenue. Therefore you need to focus on super-serving the audience that the station is trying to reach. If you happen to be one of the unlucky souls who work at a college station that does not have a format and where you get to play what ever you want, you have not been working in the best learning environment.
Sales is one of the most lucrative areas. So, if you major in broadcasting, it's a good idea to minor in business/sales. Also note that there are more on-air employees needed at new/talk/sports stations. It is advisable to have a working knowledge of what's going on in the world, the country, and locally. Whatever station you intern for or work for, it's a good idea to dive head first into whatever it is that is talked about on the station and is of primary interest to the that station's audience.
Sales is one of the most lucrative areas. So, if you major in broadcasting, it's a good idea to minor in business/sales. Also note that there are more on-air employees needed at new/talk/sports stations. It is advisable to have a working knowledge of what's going on in the world, the country, and locally. Whatever station you intern for or work for, it's a good idea to dive head first into whatever it is that is talked about on the station and is of primary interest to the that station's audience.
J
justplaythehits
Guest
College radio and commercial radio can be very different.
First, commercial radio will have format rules that are non-existent in college.
An internship is a great way to get started. Many stations still need part-time help on weekends to run the board for ballgames, talk shows etc.
Do whatever it takes to get in the door. Work any shift and expect to work overnight, weekends and holidays.
Radio requires you pay your dues.
Don't expect to start at the top. Take a job where you can learn and expand your knowledge of the business beyond being a DJ.
Do as many internships as you can. Network with as many people in commercial radio as possible.
Don't wait until your senior year to do it.
Good luck
Alan Furst
blog
http://alanfurst.wordpress.com/
First, commercial radio will have format rules that are non-existent in college.
An internship is a great way to get started. Many stations still need part-time help on weekends to run the board for ballgames, talk shows etc.
Do whatever it takes to get in the door. Work any shift and expect to work overnight, weekends and holidays.
Radio requires you pay your dues.
Don't expect to start at the top. Take a job where you can learn and expand your knowledge of the business beyond being a DJ.
Do as many internships as you can. Network with as many people in commercial radio as possible.
Don't wait until your senior year to do it.
Good luck
Alan Furst
blog
http://alanfurst.wordpress.com/
There are no hard and fast rules about getting into commercial radio. Basically, just go get yourself a job!
Put together a strong aircheck highlighting your best on-air work, along with a resume focusing on your communications skills. If you are in a smaller market and sound good on the air, you can probably get part-time work fairly easily. You can learn things on the job. In a larger market stations are always looking for weekend board ops and promotions assistants. Once you get a gig, make the effort to learn every job in the station. As shorthanded as everyone is these days, your efforts will be appreciated.
Internships are great, but a part-time job is better. So don't be shy. Consider yourself a professional broadcaster and start applying for jobs.
Put together a strong aircheck highlighting your best on-air work, along with a resume focusing on your communications skills. If you are in a smaller market and sound good on the air, you can probably get part-time work fairly easily. You can learn things on the job. In a larger market stations are always looking for weekend board ops and promotions assistants. Once you get a gig, make the effort to learn every job in the station. As shorthanded as everyone is these days, your efforts will be appreciated.
Internships are great, but a part-time job is better. So don't be shy. Consider yourself a professional broadcaster and start applying for jobs.
I know this topic is late, but as a guy once in your position (like many of us) I understand your situation. Like others have said, there are some very big differences between college and "that real world", mainly, sales. If you are keeping all your air checks while in college, that is fine, but I have found that with less and less real radio owners, and more and more "businessmen", I have found that the professional side of submitting an aircheck might be fading. Still good to have one though.
I agree that you may have to apprentice yourself but not before you get a paying job...be careful, lots of radio stations will use that "apprentice" tag on you to get free labor, and drag you for months...take it from one that was almost there. But if you are willing to show a station that you can bring charisma, energy and sales, most times they would be at least willing to give you a shot...and often times that is all you need to get in the room. Best of luck to you, you can do it.
I agree that you may have to apprentice yourself but not before you get a paying job...be careful, lots of radio stations will use that "apprentice" tag on you to get free labor, and drag you for months...take it from one that was almost there. But if you are willing to show a station that you can bring charisma, energy and sales, most times they would be at least willing to give you a shot...and often times that is all you need to get in the room. Best of luck to you, you can do it.
Look at the alternative.
If for some reason you were to decide you would come out of college into something OTHER than broadcasting, what would it be? Have you entered into the recruiting process to test the waters for alternate work choices?
Then ask yourself: Do I really want to spend my life broadcasting, or is there something else that is equally appealing or even MORE appealing?
I sat where you are sitting.... 50 years ago.
There are days I wish I had stayed with radio straight on through.
There are days I wonder why I stayed with radio as long as I did.
Find a mentor or two who will be tough and honest with you. I was way, way, too late in life finding mentors I could talk to, mentors worthy of listening to.
If for some reason you were to decide you would come out of college into something OTHER than broadcasting, what would it be? Have you entered into the recruiting process to test the waters for alternate work choices?
Then ask yourself: Do I really want to spend my life broadcasting, or is there something else that is equally appealing or even MORE appealing?
I sat where you are sitting.... 50 years ago.
There are days I wish I had stayed with radio straight on through.
There are days I wonder why I stayed with radio as long as I did.
Find a mentor or two who will be tough and honest with you. I was way, way, too late in life finding mentors I could talk to, mentors worthy of listening to.
There is no "established" way to get a RADIO job, but it's not really any different than getting ANY job after college...you gotta network, network, network! The easily way to do that is to do multiple internships, do a lot of the sh*t work at the station during the internship, and be prepared to hang around after your internship and volunteer a lot...and pray that after two or three years of that, a lousy job at minimum wage opens up and maybe you'll beat out 200 other applicants for it.
Sound harsh? It's 100% honest. That's what I went through and I exited college in 1998...i.e. the boom-time years. I can't imagine trying to do it now, when most outfits are dumping staff left and right, and what few openings there are tend to have 1000 applicants, at least 50% of which have 10+ years experience.
The only jobs that consistently seem available for radio people are sales and engineering. Engineering pays so-so but guarantees long and odd hours, and zero respect. Not to mention you have to have a pretty diverse range of knowledge of all things technical and computer-ish. Sales pays well in theory, but you really have to sell your soul to make that quota...and frequently you won't (no matter how hard you work) so you'll get fired a lot...there's a reason why radio stations are ALWAYS looking for new "account executives", it's because the turnover in the sales force is obscenely high. 100% over six months is not uncommon in some places.
I personally went the engineering route, even though I'm not an engineer by training...I just tend to think like one and I'm pretty good with tech stuff. Even so, I bounced back and forth from radio to streaming media (back when webcasting was an "it" thing to do) and slaved away as a volunteer at a lot of college radio stations for seven years after I graduated. That's in addition to four years at my college radio station, plus two years at the college's NPR station and two internships at commercial radio stations.
The takeaway from my experience is that you're better off finding something that might be vaguely radio-related (working in a computer or other high-tech field never hurts, or some form of sales, or some form of marketing) and spend a lot of time volunteering at stations. Otheriwse you're going to starve waiting for that FT gig in radio!
Eventually you'll build up enough of a relationship with the station that they'll think of you first when a job opens up...although that probably will take 5 or 10 years to get to that point. Remember: most radio jobs, like with most jobs in general, are already filled before the job is ever posted; the guy the hiring manager already knows (and presumably likes) will almost always beat out the guy with an impressive resume.
Sound harsh? It's 100% honest. That's what I went through and I exited college in 1998...i.e. the boom-time years. I can't imagine trying to do it now, when most outfits are dumping staff left and right, and what few openings there are tend to have 1000 applicants, at least 50% of which have 10+ years experience.
The only jobs that consistently seem available for radio people are sales and engineering. Engineering pays so-so but guarantees long and odd hours, and zero respect. Not to mention you have to have a pretty diverse range of knowledge of all things technical and computer-ish. Sales pays well in theory, but you really have to sell your soul to make that quota...and frequently you won't (no matter how hard you work) so you'll get fired a lot...there's a reason why radio stations are ALWAYS looking for new "account executives", it's because the turnover in the sales force is obscenely high. 100% over six months is not uncommon in some places.
I personally went the engineering route, even though I'm not an engineer by training...I just tend to think like one and I'm pretty good with tech stuff. Even so, I bounced back and forth from radio to streaming media (back when webcasting was an "it" thing to do) and slaved away as a volunteer at a lot of college radio stations for seven years after I graduated. That's in addition to four years at my college radio station, plus two years at the college's NPR station and two internships at commercial radio stations.
The takeaway from my experience is that you're better off finding something that might be vaguely radio-related (working in a computer or other high-tech field never hurts, or some form of sales, or some form of marketing) and spend a lot of time volunteering at stations. Otheriwse you're going to starve waiting for that FT gig in radio!
Eventually you'll build up enough of a relationship with the station that they'll think of you first when a job opens up...although that probably will take 5 or 10 years to get to that point. Remember: most radio jobs, like with most jobs in general, are already filled before the job is ever posted; the guy the hiring manager already knows (and presumably likes) will almost always beat out the guy with an impressive resume.
There is so much negativity out there about the business. What I tell people, in general, is this. While it is true that companies are downsizing and there are less jobs out there, that doesn't mean there are no jobs and no chance for advancement and a meaningful career. No station (or company) can run things with no employees. They've got to have someone, and if your serious about radio, it might as well be you! So, while in college, spend more time on-the-air, getting the experience (and less time in the bar partying hard) so that you can be the best-of-the-best of newbies looking for that first gig. Many stations actually will like the young 20-something person. They tend to have good new technology skills which make them quicker at learning the computer-based equipment, and being perfectly frank, they work cheap. On the downside is if you get stuck in the situations where after a few years, and a few pay increases, they let you go so that they can hire the next newbie who will work cheap.
johnbasalla said:
I don't thrive on negativity so it pains me to daily read the "negativity" that gets expressed by people discussing radio.
Many of us got into the business while radio was still "The Winder Child"... one of the few industries in a home town that offered a young person with a technical bent, a love for bells-and-whistles... a place to learn and stretch. And it was a growing business so even those with only a limited skillset could find a place to be. And though the high-mobility of the workforce has always been seen as a negative, the good news was that it let some of us move up the ladder in small steps if that was a capability, rather than leaps and bounds.
Apparently the radio "market" has become a MATURE business. New industries have their wild heydays of growth and then they reach maturity. (Computers? Cellphone base station equipment?) Many young people choose careers in mature businesses. Barber shops and beauty shops? Automobile repairs? Septic tank pumpers? Farming? Fixed Base Operators at airports? College professors? A career does not have to be in a BOOMING, SKY-IS-THE-LIMIT field.
Downside: Though the radio "market" has matured, we might argue that the radio "business model" has not matured. Neither management nor the worker bees seem ready to accept that broadcasting is no longer the whiz-bang leading-edge-of-technology world that set our dreams from say 1935 to 1975?
When the Federal system set about to execute Timothy McVey for the Oklahoma City bombing, all the reporters showed up in quiet, quaint, non-spectacular Terre Haute, Indiana to cover the event. The reporters began grabbing people on the street for local observations and one interview I heard was very profound to me. Wish i had heard the concept years earlier. The person being interviewed said: "This is great town to grow up in. A great town to raise a family. We have a strong economy. The catch is: We have a plentiful supply of JOBS, but virtually no CAREERS." Let that one soak in a while. You can get out of college, get a job at the bank and maybe rise as high as Branch Manager. Great JOB. Want to move up and make banking your career? You will have to go to Indianapolis and then on to Chicago or somewhere if a CAREER is what you want.
So. Here is my muted, slight amount of negativity for today: If you really want to be in the radio business, as of today you have to be Smarter Than The Average Bear to make it a career rather than a serial collection of jobs. Find yourself some mentors and beat that topic to death: How do I make this a Career?
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