The Archive of American Television has so many amazing interviews of performers who have truly fascinating stories that you really can’t hear anywhere else. Most of the interviews are uncut and I’ve really enjoyed that.

Well on a You Tube fly around I found this great series featuring the legendary Don Pardo from 2006. They are long segments but they are amazing.

I hope you enjoy.

If a guy does a radio show across the country for 25 YEARS – do you think maybe you could let him say goodbye to his listeners if his tenure on the show comes to an end?

Especially if the show is pre-recorded?

The story from ALL ACCESS reported that Bill didn’t get to say that “goodbye” and that Matt Pinfield will take over St. James’ show “Flashback” (OK, he was the host, not the producer – but he was host for 25 years!)

I don’t know Bill St. James and I was not an addict of the show but I certainly knew of the show and know of his fine voice work.

I don’t really care what kind of political BS maybe involved in any of this…there’s a respectful and dignified way to end something like this. But it didn’t happen that way…again!

I think way St. James was treated here, as described, unnecessarily sucks.

Doesn’t it just seem wrong to you, or should I just stop caring?

I was supposed to be producing a video featuring my new commercial demo but while I was brainstorming this I came up with this video idea based on a design I created for my audio’connell Voice Over Talent business card.

So I made this video first. And no I have no earthly idea what to do with it except post it on YouTube. Maybe I can integrate it into a trade show display. Oh well, it’s not art but it’s harmless enough. Wonder if it’s too late to buy a spot in the Super Bowl?

On a windy, damp and foggy evening in Bahsten, I had the good fortune to meet up with my friend and fellow SunSetter Awning voice over talent Lee Gordon for a little dinner and a bunch of voice over talk.

Lee is smart as a whip on the regional radio scene and when you get a couple of old radio guys chatting it up, well you better have the waitress bring another bread basket cause we’re going to be here awhile!

It was a great treat to see Lee who I will see again in September at Faffcon 3.

So word came down on Twitter today (isn’t that where all news comes from that isn’t already on Facebook…what newspaper?!!) that heritage AM station WBEN/Buffalo was going to be simulcast on another station in the Entercom cluster, WLKK-FM (107.7). The Lake, as the station was known, hadn’t really moved the needle among listeners or advertisers.

So now WBEN will be heard on AM 930 and FM 107.7 – with this news came what seems to be a new logo. Variations of the old WBEN logo have been around for a decade or more.

The new logo – if it is indeed the final version – is bad. Vague city scapes and big call letters (meant to infer how the station covers or engulfs the city with its coverage) never work. They also reproduce badly in newspaper ads and on the web.

I listen to the station and I don’t have to look at the logo so I suppose I shouldn’t care – except it’s a logo and I notice these things. You’d hope a station group as big as Entercom would have a bit more graphic moxie to produce (or even steal from another one of their stations in another market) a logo better than this one.

Maybe this new logo is just a draft.

Kinda like this one I whipped up pretty fast:

WVUD-FM, Kettering/Dayton Ohio_1983

To be fair, it was my airshift DECADES ago and the call letters were WVUD-FM then, now they are WLQT, but still!

All Access announced that Kent and his Saturday night “The Ultimate Party” will replace “Saturday Night Solid Gold” —which really hasn’t been on the air in decades on WVUD ‘er WLQT and certainly hasn’t been worth listening to since Peter K. O’Connell hosted it all those years ago.

Just sayin’….

Peter K. O'Connell delivering WDCR Paddy O'Grams circa 1983

Based the tremendous response to yesterday’s post (crickets: chirp, chirp), many of you asked “OK, what DOES a sad ass radio jock look like in 1982?”

Again, I believe now we’ve satisfactorily answered that question too, haven’t we?

This picture may require a bit more explanation.

You see, as a fund raising tool, the University of Dayton’s campus radio station, WDCR, would create seasonal message deliveries with staff dressed up in costumes of the season. We did them for Christmas (Santa), Thanksgiving (Pilgrims) or in this case “St. Patrick’s Day”.

Yes that IS me dressed as a Leprechaun delivering a silly (possibly naughty) message to some campus house while using my famous Irish brogue (which would likely get me thrown out of any pub in Dublin).

On the plus side, many women thought it extremely good luck to smooch a Leprechaun.

So I had that going for me, which was nice.

Peter K. O'Connell, on the air at WDCR in Dayton, OH circa 1982

Many of you have been asking yourselves lately “what DID a bad ass radio jock look like in 1982?”

I think now we’ve satisfactorily answered that question, haven’t we?

Glad I could help.

Tomorrow, I’ll show you what a sad ass radio jock looked like.

WDCR in 1982 FRONT Row Tracy Hurd, Ron Alexander MIDDLE Row Clare Bracken, Gary Sandy, Jim Secunde BACK Row Peter K. O'Connell, Scott Rolle, Mike Savino, Unknown (sorry) and Mark Kraus

My longtime friend Ron Alexander is a fun person for many reasons not the least of which is he likes to collect things. He just doesn’t seem to throw anything out…it’s all very organized, mind you, but he seems to keep everything. Like that photo you see up there.

What you’re looking at (besides an embarrassingly silly mustache on the guy in the upper left corner slurping his Pepsi, again) is probably a group of some of the most creative college radio folks there ever were. I don’t mean that in an egotistical, “hey aren’t we great” way…I mean it in the best possible sense.

I will grant you that my opinion is likely jaded because I was a part of it but really, what the student staff at WDCR (now called Flyer Radio and incredibly higher tech then when I was there) pulled off as regular broadcasters was quite amazing.

BTW, the big deal for the picture was that Gary Sandy (who I want to say was from Dayton) was somehow cajoled to stop by WDCR while I think he was still starring on WKRP in Cincinnati. It was big doings at the time.

Anyway, at UD, it worked this way: if you really wanted to work in radio at the University of Dayton, you started at AM-64 WDCR (which was a carrier current station that only broadcast to the dorms and student union). Then you tried to work your way up to WVUD-FM, the University-owned 50,000 watt station that had a full time professional management team (GM, PD, sales, promotion etc.) and gave a few students regular air shifts.

Having the combination of those two opportunities for a radio ho like me was Nirvana. WVUD was the real deal but the creativity and ingenuity that WDCR offered to all of us was almost magical by comparison.

It helps to have had a real promotional talent like Ron Alexander who was the only person who ever got me to dress up like a leprechaun. I think I delivered leprechaun-o-grams or something to student houses and dorm rooms as a fund raisier….but that was the kind of crazy stuff that got the station attention.

Of that group, I still keep in touch with Ron (who was in my wedding), Clare, Tracy, Mark and just caught up with Scott on Facebook (Ron pointed out to me Scott’s got a new show on the History Channel so congrats on that).

Not in that picture are other great folks like John Luttrell, Bill Slamon, Jeff Wagner, Dan Suffoletto, Ginny Judge, Liz Benz, Lisa Curie, Joe Lombardi and more (who I am unforgivably forgetting) who made WDCR an amazing station during my years at UD.

That one picture absolute takes me back to a simpler time where I thought I knew how good I had it. But I now know you can’t know how really good you have it until you take a moment to look back down the road a spell.

That to me is a really special gift.

Like all things gadget and quasi-technical, I think it was Dave Courvoisier who first posted something about the new i-phone application called iAudition which promises: “You can record, edit and send your auditions from wherever you are, without the need for a recording studio or computer!”

It dices, it slices it even make julienne fries! But wait, there’s more!

Well then George Washington, III chimed in with his experience on the device. As I am not nor really ever been a pioneer on technical items, I figured now that these two fellas had tried it, maybe for a penny under $5 I could try it for my iphone.

So I pinged in Facebook that I had done just that and one of the comments I got in response to that post got me to thinking.

Facebook friend and voice talent Don Capone opined “bottom line… it maybe ok for a quick edit or to… but lets be real…the audio recording quality is hideous… but i guess if its a must have situation and u need to do a quick audition…“

I love comments like Don’s because they start me thinking and in this case three thoughts popped into my head.

1. The technology boat will leave with or without us
It is pathetically obvious to even the most unengaged user of technology that as soon as you buy the newest computer at the store, it’s outdated in some aspect of its internal technology. Beyond computers, it the tech sectors business model – always be improving so customers will buy your newer stuff.

This is, to my knowledge, one of the first apps of its kind for iPhone and it’s very specifically targeted my area of business. Obviously my biggest concern with something like iAudition is audio fidelity and quality…so will Don be proven right? Will I hate it?

I won’t know unless I try it and at under $5, I can roll the dice on this technology.

2. As technology changes, so do people’s expectations
As an example: black and white TV’s died when a successful color TV model was invented. HDTV is having the same effect on analog. People expect better.

BUT sometimes people’s expectations for quality can be lowered and those lower expectations become acceptable. One example I site is this: I remember, growing up, that people always dressed up when one flew on an airplane; jackets and ties were the norm. Now it’s just nice if people keep their flip flops on during the whole flight.

In voiceover, the same thing has happened whether we like it or not. Recording studios and their amazing acoustics have given way to home studios where voice talents manage their acoustics with bed foam and moving van blankets…the clients know not the the recording room difference most times when they listen to the finished file.

Remember when voice over agencies ruled the business? Most professional voice talents signed with an agency and the agency did all the marketing for the talent (one might even go to the agent or the client’s office to audition). Now the Voices.com and Voice123’s of the world have changed that dynamic. And while some of their clients offer fine quality audio recordings and performances, some are pathetic in both those measures. But because those lesser talents will work for pennies on the dollar, they get work.

Sacrificing quality for lower cost is an American retail tradition. Which led me to think…

3. What is the tipping point for “acceptable” audio fidelity on auditions?
Whatever it is today, I think it will be different tomorrow. In much the same way America had recording studio quality standards years ago, today radio stations will seemingly broadcast almost anything for ad dollars and I can’t blame them. And video not audio has always been a prime focus for television ads as anyone who has ever watched a local cable ad can attest.

So what about when auditioning? Will clients and production houses sacrifice pristine audio quality on auditions since they are only auditions? Shouldn’t the audio quality of the audio represent the level of the finished product should that voice talent get the job? Or will the client assume that can all be fixed in post?

It’s an evolving answer but as our national consciousness seems to be focusing on faster and easier more so than better and quality, I think this debate in the voiceover industry isn’t but a year or so away from getting a clearer answer.