Thoughts About My Radio Career (Part 1)

Just got finished reading posts on the blog http://randomramblingsofaradiochick.blogspot.com. Can I tell you she is writing almost exactly how I feel? Except for she is more candid because she is anonymous.

It got me to thinking about my radio career. About how at age 32 I quit my job as a graphic design assistant in the Visual Communications department at a world-class law firm, took three part-time jobs just so I could pursue my dream of being in commercial radio.

About how I only made $22,000 for 3 years as local producer of a nationally syndicated morning show because I was so determined to make it in radio.

How I worked the morning show and did middays for 8 months because that was the only way I was going to get consistent on-air time. Still only making $22,000, so I needed to continue working as a director of a record pool, and DJ in clubs 3 nights a week.

About those three nights a week in the club. Everybody at Hot 97.7 can tell you stories about how I would leave the club, go to the station at 3am, sleep for 2 1/2 hours, then get up to produce the morning show. I did that at least 1 day a week from 2000 through 2004.

How about the time I woke up at 8:30am when I was supposed to be at the station at 5:30am? That was during the time I was doing morning show/midday double duty. Yes, I did get written up, but I also got a bonus! Everyone, including the syndicated morning show host, knew how hard I was working, and he went to bat for me. He knew how much I was making (and Boston ain't cheap), and he knew all the things I was doing to make ends meet. I wasn't only burning the candle at both ends… all the candle wax was gone; I was nothing but wick! But I was able to give up the morning show and concentrate solely on the midday show.

I'm thinking back on how I felt when, after 13 months of holding down middays (5 months of doing middays only), I lost my job… actually, technically that's not correct. Middays wasn't mine, I was only filling in that whole time. Why? Because they were still looking for a female to fill the position. Now this is not a diatribe about equal opportunity employment, because I love my female announcers (one of my radio heroes is Irene Mojica of V103 in Chicago). But imagine how I felt when middays went to a girl who was 3 weeks shy of 21 years old, who was interning 4 months before, who only had 3 months of part-time experience on mixshows? I guess you can say it was an inspired pick, because she currently co-hosts a national TV show. But I suck it up and go back to the morning show.

Gotta take a quick break, but I'll fast forward to October 2007 in a moment.