Thursday,
April 20, 2000
The
hard climb up the radio dial
There's
no sure way to break the genre,
but school helps
|
David Guralnick / The Detroit
News
Jon Harrison, right, of Southfield
and Timothy Downing, second
from right, of Rockwood work
with other students on the
video board during a Scene
and Drama Production class
at the Specs Howard school.
|
Money
on the radio
How
much can you expect to earn in radio?
Not much, at first anyway, according
to a 1998 survey:
* A morning drive-time host
in a top-10 market averaged
$194,483.
* A late-night deejay
in a small market averaged $17,353.
* News reporter, market
16-30, averaged $38,568.
* News reporter, market
76-100, averaged $15,918.
* Afternoon drive
host, market 51-75, averaged $31,648.
Source: Radio &
Records survey
By
Tim Kiska / Detroit News Radio Writer
Dying is easy, radio is hard. Just ask
anybody who's been behind a microphone,
like Linda Lee.
A few years ago, Lee
was building brakes on the assembly
line at Ford Motor's Wayne plant. After
an injury, she took her job-retraining
money and decided to turn from radials
to radio. While working as an unpaid
intern for a year at Detroit's WWWW-FM
(106.7), she also went to the Specs
Howard School of Broadcast Arts in Southfield.
Within a week of graduation,
she was working as an overnight fill-in
host at WWWW.
She's now the afternoon host at WYCD-FM
(99.5). "I was nervous, but I felt
at least I knew what I was doing when
I walked into the station," she
says.
Radio is a tough business:
Job stability is rare, moves from city
to city are common, the pay can be good
but often not. But still, people clamor
to get in.
So how do you get
a job in radio? Work for nothing, get
a bachelor's and start work for virtually
nothing, or go to Specs Howard, the
only pure broadcasting school in town,
which is marking its 30th year of cranking
out would-be radio stars.
Some 340 students
currently attend Specs Howard, paying
between $8,000 and $12,000 to learn
the craft of broadcasting.
Literally hundreds
of the school's grads are working in
Detroit radio and elsewhere. Grads include
WWJ-AM's (950) Pat Sweeting and WNIC-FM
(100.3) producer Mike Bradley of Jim
Harper & the Breakfast Club, Detroit's
most popular morning show; as well as
Linda Lee, whose drivetime shift is
one of the most important shifts in
radio.
In 1998, the last
year for which figures are available,
the school placed 254 students -- or
84 percent of its graduates -- in broadcasting
jobs.
"What's unusual
about the school compared to others
is not only that it has survived, but
it has thrived," says Erica Farber,
publisher of Radio & Records, a
national industry trade publication.
"One of the great
successes they've had is placing their
students. That has separated Specs Howard
from the rest and given the school credibility,"
she says.
And yes, there really
is a Specs Howard (the Specs name started
as a nickname for his glasses and stuck).
When he started the
school, Howard was an out-of-work, 43-year-old
rock deejay with four children under
the age of 15, a mortgage and a questionable
future in a business that favors youth.
For 13 years, Howard
and his partner, Harry Martin, had been
popular at Cleveland's NBC-owned radio
station. Detroit's WXYZ-AM wooed the
pair to the Motor City, where they promptly
bombed and eventually were replaced
by Dick Purtan.
"I needed to
find a job," recalls Howard. "I
investigated the school business, said
why not give it a try? For the first
year, I didn't know if I made the right
decision."
There were four broadcasting
schools in Detroit in 1970. Howard bought
a small school from WXYZ disc jockey
Lee Alan. It had just two students --
neither of whom, to this day, has paid
their tuition, Howard jokes.
An ad campaign raised
the number of students to 15, but it
still wasn't clear if Howard would be
able to compete with the other broadcasting
schools.
"We were the
smallest," he recalls. "I
had to find a niche: I'd invest in complete
studios, with hands-on instructors."
Today, Specs Howard
is the only broadcasting school in Detroit,
if you don't count college communications
departments.
The school has extensive
studios and staff. Students have a choice
of an eight-month or 12-month curriculum.
The first four months is spent learning
general broadcast concepts applicable
to both radio and television. The next
four are spent specializing in either
radio or television -- or radio and
TV both if you go the full 12 months.
The majority of students go into radio
careers, however.
Specs Howard credits
can be transferred to a dozen Michigan
colleges and universities if a student
chooses to get a more formal education.
There is no typical
student at Specs Howard.
Scott Neuhardt, 36,
a former professional wrestler from
Garden City, is going to Specs in hopes
of getting into TV production. Hillary
Motes, 20, of Flint has "always
wanted to be in radio -- ever since
I was a kid. And even if that means
I'll end up in a small city somewhere,
that's OK. That's a great place to learn."
Most people agree
that the school doesn't whitewash the
difficult nature of the business.
"They definitely
prepare you for the real world -- as
far as how the business is shaped like
it is," says Larry Howard, promotions
director at WJLB-FM (97.9). "They
tell you it's a cutthroat business,
that it's hard, but that you'll do OK
if you're optimistic and you're driven.
Everything they said about this business
was true. It's been hard, but it's an
incredible ride."
Adds Brian O'Donnell,
21, who goes by the name "OD"
on WRIF-FM (101.1) on weekends: "I
had no idea about the business whatsoever
when I started. And they told me how
it is. They basically prepare you for
failure and how you overcome it."
But do you need a
Specs Howard degree -- or a diploma
in communications from some college
-- to get on the radio?
Mike Novak, a lawyer
who represents radio personalities,
thinks that "working someplace
for free and doing whatever they tell
you to do" is a dandy way to get
in the door.
But Teresa
Tomeo, a longtime radio newswoman
who has also worked at Channel 7 TV
(WXYZ), thinks that getting a traditional
B.A. while studying broadcasting is
important. "That's
the first question they always ask,"
she says. "Do you have a college
degree? Specs Howard is a great place,
but I think the B.A. is important, too."
|
David Guralnick / The Detroit
News
There's a real Specs Howard
at the head of the Specs Howard
School of Broadcast Arts.
Howard, center, is the school's
chairman. Other administrators
include Dick Kernen, left,
vice-president of industry
relations, and Jonathan Liebman,
president and CEO. |
Or you can go
the route of Michael Hayes, a Metro
Detroit native who has hosted a morning
radio show in La Crosse, Wisc., for
15 years.
Hayes, 45, was studying
mass communication at Western Michigan
University when radio got into his blood.
"I discovered it was too mass'
and too expensive," says Hayes.
"I just wanted to go into radio.
I wasn't interested in paying for classes
in western civilization and geometry."
He dropped out of
WMU, graduated from Specs Howard and
bounced around stations in Minnesota
and northern Michigan before landing
his current job -- where he is very
happy. He feels that Specs Howard trained
him well for the real world.
For instance, Specs
students who are more than two minutes
late for a class must bring a note from
the front desk.
"Two minutes
may not seem like a long time, but if
you're two minutes late for an air shift,"
says Jonathan Liebman, Howard's son,
who is now president of the school,
"it's like the end of the world."
Howard says the radio
business has changed a lot over the
years. "Now these guys run the
control board, press the buttons. It's
a rapid-paced business. ... The technological
advances are meteoric. And it's not
finished yet."
Is it worth the trouble?
Tom Ryan, an afternoon
host at WOMC-FM (104.3), thinks so.
"If you don't
mind starting someplace small and working
your way up, it's a terrific life."
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