My Radio Anniversary
I never intended to be a radio guy. It just sort of happened.
Last week was the anniversary of when I filled out my first-ever job application. It was way back in prehistoric times. June 30, 1980. I know, I know.
It was the summer before my senior year of high school, and my dad was making me get a job. A friend of mine worked at the local radio station, WSWN AM & FM in Belle Glade, Florida, and that sounded a whole lot better to my lazy bones than unloading stock at the drug store.
Within a week, I had my first shift, babysitting the FM while we carried the overnight Larry King show. My duties were simple: hit the Mutual newscast at the top of the hour after the legal ID, and plug in a couple of PSAs to fill the local breaks.
But I wound up becoming a DJ almost immediately because the guy who was supposed to come in for mornings never showed up.
We played country music, which I hated at the time, but I didn’t really care. Talking on the radio and spinning records was just too much fun.
By the time school started again, I had the afternoon shift. I’d race over to the station as soon as the last bell rang. We didn’t have much of a format back then. It was basically, “Play from this stack of records.”
After graduation, I moved to mornings. My alarm went off at 4:30. I’d watch CNN Headline News, grab a coffee and a copy of USA Today from the convenience store—assuming it had been delivered—and make the less-than-two-mile drive to the station.
By then, the FM signed off overnight, so I had to warm up the transmitter in time to hit the air at 5:30.
Those were also the days of my first groupies, who distracted me with phone calls. Imagine that. This nerdy kid suddenly had girls calling him. Of course, who knows what they looked like, but some of them had sexy voices. My girlfriend didn’t like it one bit. (Not that I minded thinking my radio gig impressed her.)
Somehow I made it through unscathed, learning the fundamentals of radio that stayed with me for the rest of my career. I went from country to full-service AC, to AC, to rock, to alternative, back to AC... and then, somehow, to news, where my former boss, the great Jhani Kaye, told me, “THAT is what you were born to do.”
Who knew?
God knows, I love talking. That’s always been the whole thing for me.
Talking into a microphone and knowing someone is out there listening.
I’m still doing it today, even if I’m not on the radio right now.
Hit the comments and tell me about your first job, radio or otherwise.
I was 15-years old and, through a high school teacher who worked in radio part time, landed a gig at a Beautiful Music station on the Jersey Shore. 1973. It was an automated station, employing Schafer mechanical automation with huge, 12-inch reel-to-reel tapes. Each tape was filled with music from a different category: uptempo, medium tempo, down tempo and vocals. We could alter the programming based on the time of day. We could also add or remove commercial breaks depending on what was needed. But the top- and bottom-of-the-hour breaks were all live. Like you, the basics of broadcasting that would serve me for the remainder of my career were learned at that station. But, man, was I nervous through those early months!
I can’t remember my first job… Though I’m sure I was in high school. I had all jobs and volunteering in junior high, but I think the only actual responsible pay job that would count as my first was working at my dad‘s optical. He was an ophthalmologist and he ran an optical. I loved giving people my opinion on what looked good on them. I was a kid! 16 telling people how to walk around in the world and what face to put on. Eventually got odd jobs at Busch Gardens in Tampa, Florida, doing research at some kind of business. I don’t even remember what it was… And then my very first broadcasting job, was literally going to the newspaper and writing news “blurbs” and printing them for the honor anchor. It was an FM station. I also then got an unpaid internship at WF LA in Tampa and that’s when the News bug hit me. I eventually got hired as an assignment desk assistant at the abc affiliate , which was nothing more than answering phones, but it was exciting. To be in that environment.