Now that I can look back on some 53 to 56 years on local radio stations in a number of cities and towns, I am often asked by younger people, in effect, “How to be me”.
So for any aspiring young potential air talent, here’s a few ideas:
In High School and/or College, learn about acting.
Many people don’t realize that many of us with assumed names and characters are actually playing a role which is ourselves.
Acting in high school and/or college theater teaches you stage presence (which you will need at concerts and events), how to speak in front of an audience, how to deliver a good speech (in case radio doesn’t work you, you can become a politician! Just kidding…), comedic timing, how to deliver a “punch line”. ALL of those things helped me.
One of my jobs was at WING in Dayton, Ohio. About ten or so years before I got there, a young lady worked there who was very talented at doing “voices”. She had this “bratty kid” voice that was used in numerous commercials.
Her name is Nancy Cartwright. If you’ve ever watched “The Simpsons”, you KNOW who she is.
Another friend of mine had a parent given name of Bill Purser. He grew up in Memphis. And, after getting out of the Army, decided to go to radio school. In his first radio job in Lake Providence, Louisiana (KLPL-AM), he did a morning show where he did character voices, just like Nancy did.
Bill perfected that talent on the air in cities like Jackson, Mississippi, Memphis, and eventually went to work at WAKY-AM in Louisville where PD Johnny Randolph gave him a new name because he sounded like a character on the TV show “Laugh-In” which did sketches about “beautiful downtown Burbank”. One actor on the show, Gary Owens, was well known for using that phrase. In Louisville, Bill Purser became “Gary Burbank”, and would become a multiple Marconi winner for shows which featured all the characters in his head – Thelma Hooch, Reverend Deuteronomy Scaggs, Earl Pitts (Umerican), Gilbert Gnarley and many others on stations like WNOE/New Orleans, CKLW in Windsor (Detroit), WHAS and (among others) WLW/Cincinnati doing at first, mornings and then afternoons for well over 20 years.
He even appeared in public as Earl Pitts and I can tell you just from sitting down with the guy at lunch once, that he could make anyone laugh.
You see, you don’t always need a “comedy service” or a “prep sheet” if you can do that kind of stuff. You write it yourself.
I’ve learned as well from some of the best radio consultants in the business. Sometimes, I think they get a bad rap. (“Oh, here we go again, how dare this guy praise consultants?”)
Don’t get me wrong, I know one or two who were doofuses.
Like the guy who told an entire staff you could save an AM station by getting rid of almost all of the news and information elements and playing “ten great oldies in a row after 9 am”. That made the station vulnerable to an upstart on FM and it happened in just six months.
Or the guy who told the staff of an oldies station it should “sound like a light rock” station. No. That is NOT what one of those stations should sound like.
However, it was a consultant who taught me:
How to effectively program a large music library by rotating the real hits, and sprinkling in the other recognizable hits during the week, on weekends and in features. Thank you to the late Joel Lind of Critical Mass Media. Joel also taught me…
How to counter-program a competitor’s concert promotion and come out at the show with your station looking like, well, maybe you “stole it from under them”.
This happened at WCOL-FM in Columbus, Ohio in the 1990’s. Our competition, WBNS-FM had paid for The Beach Boys to perform in concert at the local minor league baseball stadium.
I thought we were toast. But no. You see WCOL had the cume audience advantage over WBNS. So, we “muddied the water”. Said it was OUR concert and WE were doing it! Yeah, we were lying. But here’s how we reinforced it:
Back in those days, you could take a backpack into a stadium. We hired 4 OSU students for a day, gave them tickets for the show (yeah, we bought 4 tickets, you’re welcome, WBNS!) and each had a backpack. Inside the backpacks were beach balls with the WCOL logo on them all and gave the students instructions to blow them up and start hitting them onto the field and into the stands when the group took the stage.
You should have been there. The WBNS people were furious and demanded the grounds crew take the balls off the field. The grounds crew told the WBNS people to “take them away yourselves!” The crowd kept playing with them the rest of the show.
And we were there, even if we weren’t there.
Thank you, Joel. AND, Randy Michaels. That was one of HIS guerilla radio tactics.
Another wise consultant was the late Rusty Walker, known for his programming of country stations. He told us to operate by 2 rules: “respect the music” and “respect the audience”.
That advice has made me a winner on a superpower Class B FM for over 20 years.
Now, in 1998, I got involved with my first PD’s job at a suburban Columbus radio station whose General Manager brought me an unusual idea suggested to him by another programmer. Push the “oldies format” ahead 20 years. Oldies for a new generation.
We called it “All 80’s”. Some tried to say it was a failure. I disagree.
That station took a little over 4 million dollars out the Columbus radio market in about 3 years on the FM station with the worst signal IN the market. 15 people put food on their tables in that time because the commercial time we sold. It was “Star 107.9 – The Best Of The 80’s and More!”
Today, that format is called “Classic Hits”.
You want to call it “a failure” now? I dare you.
I have lived in a time where the music was great, the music was so-so and at times, the music was rotten.
What broke through all of that and kept the audience…was the TALENT.
That was me…that was and is YOU.
You want be me? Well, in the words of comedian Harvey Korman (in a movie that shall remain nameless), “Now go do…that voodoo…that you do…SO WELL!”
Be fearless, but be careful. Sometimes, it’s ok to break the rules.
Especially when it works.
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