Fellow Travelers

Last night I sent out the first edition of my newsletter for jocks, Radio Voices. As whenever you do something new, I had some apprehensions about how air talent - different experience levels, different markets, different formats, different ages - would receive it.

I'm happy to say that none of the responses was negative, and I seem to have struck a chord with jocks new and old alike.

One very experienced, very good fellow, from an Eastern large market, is interested in my talent-development services because he's finding PDs nowadays are too busy, too distracted and too overloaded to give him guidance and feedback - not to mention "too unqualified."

Another jock, an up-and-comer in his third or fourth job, doing mornings at a small Midwestern station, e-mailed that he picked up a useful tip or two, and that he'd forwarded the thing to a bunch of his friends.

Actually, I did get one negative-ish response, from a manager, who responded to a comment about there being plenty of sales consultants while radio's future lies in better talent: "What I think the world needs even more than air people is salespeople. We are always looking for sales reps." Having managed stations, I agree about always looking for sales reps ... and really good ones are rare ... but so much of the industry is focused on finding, training and keeping sales people, I think we need to balance the scales a bit.

I was corresponding with my friend Tom Taylor, a veteran radio journalist who does a daily e-mail called Taylor on Radio-Info (http://www.radio-info.com/newsletter/register.php), and gave this apologia for what I'm doing:

We who love radio see that the most unfortunate effect of today's consolidated industry is fewer opportunities for jocks to grow; there is simply no farm-team system any more. But the only way we can remain a vital medium and stop - maybe even reverse - listener erosion is for our air talent to be the best ever. The only way I can see to bridge the gap is to help talent get better - not by "teaching" them not to say "outside" when they give the weather, but guiding them in the intangibles of one-to-one communication and connection.

And that's what it's all about.