Eight Things I Wish I Knew Before Getting Into Radio

1.       Don’t get into radio because you “love music”….

This would be akin to becoming an auto mechanic because you love oil.  Even if you’re working in a format where you enjoy the music, there will come a time when you have played your favorite song 163,918 times…and it will no longer be your favorite song. 

Remember, you’ve been hired to communicate and entertain…not sit in the control room and listen to music.  In fact, if you’re doing your job correctly and setting up for your next break, you’re NOT listening to the song on the air (other than to tell when it’s winding down…and that’s what countdown timers are for).  Unless you’re doing a Casey Kasem trivia style delivery you’ll probably do better at a format that’s not your favorite music.  You’ll pay less attention to the music and more on your delivery.

2.       The Morning Drive Team Are The Station Stars

The crew working morning drive is going to be the center of attention at the station.  If you’re working another shift…get over it.  They’re going to get the billboards and promotional dollars.  They’ll also probably get preferential treatment (like not having to work a weekend shift).  The mentality for years has been if you get people to listen in the morning they will stay with the station all day.  I’ve called BS on this since the first iPod came out.

I’ve worked morning drive, as well as every other shift.  I didn’t care for it at all…probably something to do with getting up at 3:30AM.  I was a 7P-Midnight guy…always enjoyed that shift because I had the station to myself pretty much. 

If your delicate ego is bruised because you’re not getting the attention the morning drive team is…then work your way up to that slot.  This leads us to….

3.       You’ve Got To Move To Move Up

If you’re hired to do a certain slot at a station, you’re likely going to be there until someone leaves.  And even then, you’ll always be the (fill in your shift here) guy.  Same thing with money.  You might get a bonus every now and then, but if you want a real raise, you have to move to a better shift or larger market.

Some folks would say that you can take on more responsibility at a station and earn more.  Funny thing…I’ve had a lot of titles (PD, MD, Production Director, etc…), and there was never any dollars tied to that.  The only time I ever got a raise (other than minimum wage increasing) was to go to a different station.

4.       You Will Be Fired At Some Point

In 15 years of radio I was fired three times.  The first time was my screw up.  The second time was a station buy-out (the entire staff was fired one week before Christmas, and I had a 3 month old child at the time).  The last time, I was set up by another jock.  No honor among thieves.  Just expect it to happen.  And if you don’t have parents to move home to, you’d better have an emergency fund or some good friends that will let you crash on their couch.

5.       The Sales Staff Rules The Roost

They’re the ones that are actually bringing money into the operation, so don’t bother getting into an argument with them…you have almost no chance of winning.  How much interaction you have with them depends on your position and the station structure/process.  Most stations I worked at had a dedicated copywriter to script the commercials, so other than remote broadcasts I didn’t have a lot of contact with the sales team.
  

But there was one station that didn’t have a copywriter.  The on-air staff was responsible for writing and producing their own spots.  We all had clipboards with our names on them in the production room.  The sales people would put a copy of the sales order and copy info on the clipboard and expect you to turn it into a commercial.

Typically, they would just put the newspaper ad from the client on the clipboard with a note to “be creative”.  And most times, we didn’t get a start/stop date or even a length.  As I was on the air from 6PM-10PM at that station and did my production after my shift, there was many a night a sales person was woken up just to answer the question “is this a :30 or a :60”.  When I complained about this, I was chewed out by the station owner because “I didn’t understand the pressure they were under”.  Last time I checked, we were all under about 14 pounds per square inch at sea level, but apparently there’s an exemption if you’re in sales.

6.       The Chief Engineer Will Not Like You

Unless they were former jocks, most Chief Engineers will view the air staff as idiots whose sole purpose in life is to break their equipment and play bad music.  Sometimes, it’s worse than that.  I had one Chief corner me in front of the General Manager and accused me of running drugs at the station because I “looked” like a drug addict.  I accused him of selling counterfeit Preparation H because he was an a$$hole.  Thankfully the G.M. blew him off because the Sales Manager (who was the G.M.’s  son) liked me and thought I was good on the air.

That said, I have to say that there have also been some wonderful Chiefs I got to work with.  I always knew I wanted to work on the technical side of the business, and I had some great mentors along the way.  I was a Chief for the last 8 years I was in radio, and I was most successful in that position.   I like to think that was because I had been on the air, and understood how a malfunctioning piece of gear could negatively impact a jock’s show.

7.       5% Of The People Will Make 95% Of The Money

When I got into radio (at age 15), I wasn’t thinking about money.   Later on (like when I got married), it became a little more important.  Radio is a lot like the music industry that it’s tied to.  For every millionaire in the business, there are thousands of struggling players out there trying to get a break.

 That’s not to say that you can’t make a comfortable living doing afternoons at a medium market station.  But I’m afraid the days of the real radio superstars are long gone, thanks to satellite and Internet radio as well as the proliferation of personal music devices.  I very seriously doubt we’ll ever see anymore Wolfman Jacks, Bill Macks,  Larry Lujacks, or John Records Landeckers…at least in my lifetime.  Likewise, there will probably never be any more legendary stations to work towards….no more WLS’s, KHJ’s, K-EARTH’s, KLIF’s, or WNBC’s.

8.       You Will Never Completely Get It Out Of Your System

I started in radio in 1975, and got out in 1991.  I returned to school full time for a couple of years and have a couple of degrees to show for that.  I went in medical electronics after that, and have been working in R&D since 1996.

Twenty-five years later, I still miss radio.  In spite of the psychopath Program Directors and abusive business owners at remote broadcasts I endured as a jock.  Regardless of having to drive to a remote transmitter site in snow and ice at 3:00AM to reset a breaker as a Chief Engineer.  In spite of making $6 an hour and all the records I could steal for a large part of my career.

To this day, I still wish it could have worked out.  But allow me to close with saying that I believe my life has turned out exactly the way it was meant to.  I met my wife through radio (she called me up on the air…I still joke that she was the 3^rd caller and look what she won).  We were married in 1981 and have an amazing and successful son to show for it.

Ken Carver worked as a air personality, Program Director, Music Director, and finally Chief Engineer for a number of Texas radio stations from 1975 to 1991.  As an engineer, he constructed dozens of studios and several transmitter sites, and was a nominee to the Texas Radio Hall Of Fame for his technical work.  He currently heads up an R&D Hardware Technician Team for National Instruments in Austin, Tx during the week.  On the weekends, he gets his performance therapy playing guitar and bass in area bands.