How Not To Get A Job In Radio: Tell People You’ll Change The Format

As I start preparing for my next edition of “How Not To Get A Job In Radio”, I thought I’d give you a little teaser. If you haven’t had a chance to see it, last February I put together a 6 minute presentation (found here), using examples from the website Milkman Unlimited (the top site in Canada for radio professionals looking for work, basically the Monster.com of Radio). People post that they’re looking for work in one section called “Talent 4 Hire”, and often times they’re so awful, I wonder if PDs ever e-mail them to say “go back to school, there’s still time to try something else”. The presentation got me a lot of exposure, for better or worse (a little of both), and I’ve decided to do a second one, which will be released in the next month or two. In the mean time…

This posting, which I won’t be using in my next video, is actually a better example of WHY you shouldn’t attempt to get a job in radio (if you have the same attitude as this guy), though it’s still a pretty good example of how not to get a job in radio:

The text:

I love radio, but I’m way more about the music than getting famous. I can stand some pop, some country, some Indi, but quite frankly, those genres usually end up boring me and I feel let down.

But a revolution is coming – it’s just a matter of time. Electronic music (the real stuff mean) is coming, and nobody will know what hit them. If you’re a station manager who agrees with my prophecy, I would really like to hear from you – traditional broadcast, online or both. I would be honored to assist with the metamorphosis. Don’t kid yourself. A new format is on the way.

Cheers,
“Acadianboy”

When I first went back to school to take radio, everyone had to stand up and give a short introduction, and explain why they wanted to be in radio. Three losers stood up and said “because I don’t like the music on the radio, and I want to change it”. Every person that said that made the teachers cringe, and every person that said that also was out halfway through first semester. Why? Because you’re taught in school VERY quickly that commercial radio plays commercial music. Of course it does, that’s the only chance it has left of being viable.

Imagine this scenario: a niche genre, liked by 5% of the population of a city (at best), is chosen as the format of a new local radio station. Of course, that 5% of the population doesn’t currently listen to the radio, and they won’t, because a) their genre was not very well represented to begin with, and b) because radio stations have ads, people talking, weather updates, and all the stuff that gets in the way of the music, which is all the fans of this niche genre care about, they don’t care about the other stuff. What happens to the local radio station? They fold immediately, or start playing more mainstream music which annoys the few listeners that were tuning in, new listeners come along but turn off the radio anytime something that’s not mainstream comes on, and the station still folds. When this guy refers to “Electronic Music”, he’s not referring to Black Eyed Peas, Lady Gaga, or the huge number of pop artists that don’t use a single proper instrument in any of their recordings. He’s even most likely not referring to the Chemical Brothers or Darude, artists who have SOME popularity but are more dance than “Electronica”. No, when he says “the real stuff mean” (what?), he’s probably talking about a bunch of underground club DJ nonsense that no one cares about aside from a few ravers too drugged up to realize the same loop has been playing for 45 minutes.

Of course, there’s the people that think “well, if it played on the radio, it’d be popular”. It doesn’t work like that though. Mainstream music is just that because of the “it” factor, as well as a lot of marketing dollars that go into promoting people to make them famous, putting them and their songs on TV and in advertisements so that you’re being bombarded by that artist, and not liking that artist or their music is pretty much the same thing as not liking sex. You don’t like sex? What’s wrong with you? On the other hand, liking anything that’s not mainstream makes you some sort of nerd that wastes all his or her time looking up obscure music instead of getting laid. Why? You don’t like sex? What’s wrong with you?

The other part that I enjoy… who is this guy? Why would a station program director need “Acadian Boy”? If I was a station owner, and was on the same glue as this kid, and believed this “prophecy” that a “revolution” is coming, why wouldn’t I just create the station? Why do I need this kid? There’s lots of resources and ways to determine what songs you should have on your radio station if you are going to go with some sort of niche format. Hell, just search “Electronica” in iTunes. Done, station created. Thanks for letting us know about the “revolution”, Acadian Boy, you can listen to the station on your way to your job stocking shelves at Wal-mart.

This is great, free, advice for any of you looking to get into the radio business because you think you can “change it”: You can’t. Radio is run by the same old white guys in suits who only care about the bottom line as the music industry. Start a podcast if you really want to try and get people to listen to this stuff, but don’t think you’re going to go to a commercial radio station and tell someone who’s been in the industry since you were born how to run their business. You’ll just be laughed out the door.

As for Acadian Boy? We’ll see who’s “kidding themselves” when I’m still working and he’s still unemployed. The only place this format MIGHT work in Canada is in Toronto, Montreal, or Vancouver, and even then it’s doubtful with the dance stations that already exist. It’s not a format (let alone a new one), it’s a two hour show on Campus Radio, at best.

A Dose of Buckley 34 – Coupons

Who doesn’t enjoy a good deal right? Buy one get one free, get a free something when you purchase something else… it’s great! Problem is… I’ve been running into WAY too many people who either can’t read, or don’t care what a coupon says and just want to try and get a better deal. It’s very irritating. This week’s Dose of Buckley, I share some of my recent experiences dealing with coupon bartering:

A Dose of Buckley 34 – Coupons Uncensored (CLICK TO LISTEN – 2 minutes, 58 seconds)

You know the drill by now, all my material and censored versions for the children (fun for the whole family!) can be found at my actual site, A Dose of Buckley.

A Written Dose of Buckley – Microsoft Kinect

I’ve been thinking about writing more entries as opposed to voicing all of them (if you’re new to this “blog”, all of my content is in the form of 2 – 4 minute long audio segments), which, along with my regular Monday updates and the occasional supplement, means more content for everyone to ignore.

Allow me to nerd out for a moment. I recently read this article at IGN titled “Microsoft Addresses Kinect Concerns“. Microsoft’s “Kinect” is essentially it’s competitive answer to the Wii, however instead of using a controller, it maps your body with cameras and you become the controller. It remains to see how gimmicky it is, as they’ve claimed it will be used for all sorts of games but all the demos so far have looked like high res Wii games; casual games that the hardcore crowd (Microsoft’s main install base) scoff at. I figured THIS would be the concern eluded to by the article’s title. No, INSTEAD the concern is that people are afraid they won’t be able to sit down while using Microsoft’s “Kinect”, because the device has a difficult time mapping a person while they’re on a couch or in a chair. WOW. Good work gamers, you just proved how fat you are, that you can’t stand for any length of time to play a video game, that the concept of exercise, beyond running your mouth into a microphone while playing online, frightens you. This is the sad state of the world we live in, that something new and potentially innovative comes out, and people say “well… can I sit down while using it? If that’s going to be a problem, I’m going have to re-think that purchase…”

Other questions that I assume gamers have about the Microsoft Kinect:
– “Will it malfunction if I’m trying to stuff half a family-sized bag of Doritos down my throat while playing? What if it thinks the bag is actually a second head growing out of me?”
– “Will it automatically pause every 3 minutes so that I don’t have a heart attack from the incredibly strenuous activity of standing and slightly moving my arms?”
– “What if, hypothetically, I’m a highly uncoordinated 22 year old with the body of a 45 year old alcoholic? Will it negatively effect the on-screen movements of the ridiculously over-muscled army man I’m pretending to be in my 3D fantasy world where women aren’t completely repulsed by the mere sight of me?”

This might be the most ridiculous concern about ANYTHING that I’ve ever read… you’re worried that a motion detecting system designed to make games more interactive than ever by detecting your every movement and mapping it into the game won’t work while you’re being a pathetic lump on a couch? If this is a legitimate concern that has run through your bacon-soaked mind, you should seriously consider neutering yourself with anything sharp within reach of your blubbery fingers so that you don’t accidentally produce any future offspring that could end up being as lazy as you are, eventually being the slow, fat, incredibly stupid people that I get stuck behind at the grocery store because they take up the whole aisle trying to decide whether they should buy 6 cases of Diet Pepsi or Coke Zero. I say “accidentally” because there’s no chance anyone would intentionally procreate with these losers anyway, but alcohol makes people make bad decisions.