Sometimes Life Can Be So Uncomfortable

Recently, I was blessed to have an opportunity to speak to several students at the Howard University John H. Johnson School of Communications Annual Career Fair. I have been invited to participate at the career fair many times and the gist of the panel is helping to prepare the students for a future in radio.

Over the years, I have always tried to present a "hold on to your dream and learn everything" perspective. This year was really different because I know that several of the corporate companies are in a hiring freeze on talent. I wasn't much of a panelist because I don't like misleading students so I did not have much to say. The professional panelist did an outstanding job of talking about the great things that they have done personally in their respective career. While listening to the other panelists, I decided to just come out and say I don't know why anyone would want to be in "radio" today.

The job opportunities for talent are slim to none. An individual with that "special" gift of being an air personality has to really shine and be exceptional beyond measure just to get a fill-in board operator position. Maybe the best route is to learn the "sales" side. Radio belongs to the market and the advertisers. If anyone says different you are being mislead. The buzz word in radio is "branding." How many brands do you have? Talent behind the microphone means ZERO. Radio announcer positions/host positions are manned by people with an already established "brand." You can go down the list of persons on radio and find comedians, writers, singers, and musicians on the microphone.

Radio is in a "no risk" mode. The companies are dealing only with talent from other entertainment genres who already have a brand. The advertisers are comfortable with established names. The farm system that use to be college, small market and medium market radio stations are gone. I told the student on air staff at Howard. This is your last opportunity at personality radio. Make the best of it and do every show as if it were your last.

It use to be that a talent could graduate college or some broadcasting school and start a career and make a decent buck in a small market. And once that talent made a name for him/her the next step would be a larger market. That doesn't happen anymore. Especially in what is called "Urban Radio." Small and medium market stations air syndicated programs to stay alive in the market.

As I sat on the panel I wondered how long would it be before those folk on the panel would be kicked out of the game because of their age? The reality is "radio is a young man/woman's game. The present folk manning the stations today have a "limited" shelf life. There won't be another Hal Jackson 65 years and Herb Kent 60 years on the radio again. It's so bad for radio talent today that many seasoned professionals will volunteer at a non commercial station. When a station(corporation) replaces a number 1 rated show host for a syndicated program the business is no longer about local talent. Locally produced shows cost the corporate company too much or they are just too greedy.

So I did the wrong thing and tried to tell students about changing communications policy and seeking to own radio stations. Of course that did not go over to well. Most of the students thought that I was just a bitter old man and wanted to talk to the "professionals." And I understand but just remember I told you what the professional will not tell you because you are not a threat to me.