If one is to believe the hype from the National Association of Broadcasters, the proposed merger of XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio may lead a kind of broadcasting apocalypse. I’ve no doubt there are those who have studied the deep financial impact for both sides of the argument. The FCC is their usually failing wisdom initially showed their hand to be against it but may have softened that stance a bit.

If you’ll allow me, I’ll make it easy for everyone involved.

Let XM and Sirius merge. Do it. Do it now.

I do not have a satellite receiver, I am not currently a subscriber nor do I expect to be one in the near future. I don’t dislike satellite radio but I am also not drawn to it. So why am I so adamantly in favor of the merger?

It makes sense, that’s why.

Simple, I know, but the best answers usually are. We don’t need competing services and anyone with half a brain (thus leaving out the NAB, FCC and a voice over talent like me, for example) could see this merger coming as soon as the two services came out. Two satellite radio services is one too many. There is not and never will be enough customers to threaten terrestrial radio and its advertising pot.

And most importantly, if terrestrial radio stays true to its local roots, it will never seriously be threatened by satellite radio in any form.

Let me take you back a bit to the 80’s when we had two comedy cable channels: The Comedy Channel and HA! They merged. You know why?

It made sense, that’s why.

Tags: advertising, commentary, commercials, marketing, media, radio, technology, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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I’ve always felt two of the toughest jobs in all of broadcasting were that of a news reporter/anchor and a play-by-play announcer/sportscaster.

While anchors and reports have their slow news days when they can phone it in, they always have to be prepared to report credible, accurately and succinctly on a breaking story as it happens. As soon as they “say it” the audience hears it. That’s pressure!

Play-by-play announcers are like news reporters on speed. They have to follow the action right in front of everyone and be immediately insightful in their analysis before the next play begins. And fans are never shy about their opinions.

One of the finest examples I ever witnessed of a news anchor/sports reporter was during the 1989 World Series and the earthquake that took place there. Al Michaels, who spent three years in San Francisco as an announcer for the San Francisco Giants, was nominated for an Emmy Award for news broadcasting after giving an eyewitness account of the aftermath of the earthquake at Candlestick Park. I think he should have won.

But as a pure sportscaster, someone who turned play-by-play into an art form, I don’t know if I like anybody as much as Vin Scully. I think he’s been the voice of the Los Angeles Dodgers since baseball was created and he’s awesome at it.

This week, the Dodger’s play their arch rivals the San Francisco Giants…note worthy because it may be the location where Barry Bonds ties and or breaks Hank Aaron’s all time home run record.

The controversy regarding Bonds aside, for the purposes of this blog, Scully’s opportunity to possibly call the swing that ties or breaks the record is uniquely important because it was Scully who broadcast the homerun call when Aaron broke the record 33 years ago.

Kudos to the New York Times’ reporter Lee Jenkins for this timely and interesting article about Vin Scully

Tags: blogs, commentary, narrations, radio, tv, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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I received a completely unexpected and stunning honor/thank you gift in Tuesday’s mail. With no disrespect intended to those who’ve been so kind throughout my career to bestow honors on me (deserving of none and grateful for all), Tuesday’s recognition may have topped them all.

From the Armed Forces Network, based in Baghdad, Iraq (you may have read about some of the goings on there in your local paper) TSgt. Chris Eder (Kasbah to his listeners on Freedom Radio) sent a thank you note, a certificate of appreciation signed by all the Freedom Radio personalities and an AFN medallion (pictured above) for my efforts to support their station with voice imaging and production.

To me, I was so stunned (not nearly a powerful enough description) because these folks are in the middle of fighting a war (the radio station’s base incurred a direct hit not so long ago). They are living under very difficult conditions yet in the midst of all that crap (much of which most of us cannot fathom I am sure) they took time to say thank you to ME!

My initial thought was: are you kidding?!

Regardless of your position on the war and its consequences, the men and women in America’s Armed Forces all answered the call of their country and are executing the orders they are given on a daily basis. They sacrifice their families, their futures and yes their lives. So if they call me and say hey, could you help out our stations so that the troops can listen to more professional sounding radio…not yes but HELL YES I’m going to gladly help out (as did the score of professional voice talent who joined me in these voice imaging productions free of charge). I do not have their courage; I am not as selfless as they are. But I have a voice.

Darkness has come to my neighborhood as I write this blog during the 2007 edition of July 4th and with that darkness has come the familiar popping and cracking of fireworks from citizens celebrating the independence of the United States of America 231 years ago. Not only in Iraq tonight (or tomorrow) but in locales around the world, United States military personnel may hear those same popping and cracking sounds…but it is live ammunition, not a Roman candle firework. I’ve not the talent of Francis Scott Key but he is on my mind this evening:

“And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there.”

No branch of the United States Armed Forces anywhere in the world needs to thank me for my meager efforts…but we all need to thank them for defending us everyday, everywhere. Thank you!

Tags: commentary, peter o'connell, radio, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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The Armed Forces Network in Iraq recruited audio’connell Voice Over Talent to help with their July 4th weekend production of “The Firecracker 500” countdown. You may recall we were enlisted originally via the VO-BB for their Memorial Day countdown…so I guess we all did such a good job we got invited back.

Appreciating the enormous response from the voice talents of VO-BB but realizing such a large team was becoming unmanageable, AFN kept the team small using five voice talents (audio’connell’s DB, Diane Maggipinto, Bill Elder, Frank Frederick and Bob Souer) and two producers (Todd Ellis and your gentle author). Pairing up producers and voice talents made the production work flow smoother and it was great from my prospective cause it was one less job for me. I was paired with Deirdre and Frank.

It was during this process I had an idea (always a bad thing because my ideas are always complicated to execute and usually involve bothering others). Since the efforts in the Middle East are international in nature, why not craft a more international station promo (one that could be used all the time, not just during the “500”). So I chatted with Frank Frederick via Skype about my idea, he had some great ideas, and I put the call out on VO-BB for multi-lingual voice talents.

The response was overwhelming and amazing (thank you all) and final product sounds pretty good if I do say so myself (oh, the client liked it too).

Tags: blogs, commentary, media, radio, voice actors, voice casting, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Although we’ve got something like 500+ days left before the next United States Presidential election, candidates from the Republican and Democratic parties are already having debates on CNN, MSNBC and Fox News. The debates are summarily ignored by the majority of the voting public even though they are covered ad-nauseum by the networks. It’s a vicious cycle.

This Presidential election has gotten the earliest campaign start in history I have been told and yet I’m convinced more people vote for singers on American Idol than for a President. I’ve nothing to back this up, research-wise, it’s more of a “gut” thing. Yet what choice do candidates have, especially those running for president?

The branding and marketing of a political candidate, public referendum or issue has become a real art or a fascinating battle depending on your perspective. How would YOU create a brand (and hopefully buzz…positive buzz) about a candidate or policy while competing for the attention of an ever more diversified and distracted voting public? Oh yeah, and you have to do it on a budget based solely on how well your candidate can fund raise…assuming he/she can get enough people who know him/her as well as who thehave money to even contribute to a campaign. That is why I guess we’re starting so early on each party’s “horse race” for the presidential brass ring. In politics as in life: follow the money.

And with the election season comes the political ads…some good, some questionable (again, trying to gain attention) but always thought provoking. Political consultants will again do their level best to map out a salient strategy for their candidate clients. These strategies will include a “theme” or “message” that consultants and candidates hope will resonate with the voters. Likely, TV and radio political ad campaigns will remain the mediums of choice to spread that political message to the widest audience.

Voice over scripts for political commercials are a great deal of fun for most voice talents (for me I refer to some of these political spots as requiring “vocal summersaults“). But overall today’s political spots are really not that different than commercials for any other brand. Political advertisers need to gain the public’s attention, summarize a key message and elicit an emotion in anywhere from thirty to sixty seconds. Sometimes the audience is uplifted by the message (“It’s morning, again, in America,)” and sometimes some mud is slung (politics didn’t invent attack ads; a quick example: wasn’t “The Pepsi Challenge” mud slinging at some of its most famous?).

I’m looking forward to the coming political advertising season whether from a presidential, congressional, state, regional or local election level. It gets citizens more involved in the democratic process for a while and I just don’t see how that can ever be a bad thing.

Tags: advertising, commentary, commercials, marketing, media, narrations, radio, tv, voice actors, voice casting, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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I try to avoid the “holiday-themed” blogs just cause they seem trite to me (people often mean well enough but…). This is a unique Memorial Day, however, for two reasons, the first of which is the United States is at war (though we also have standing at the ready military personnel all around the world even when we’re not involved at war, whom we should also not forgot).

The second reason this is a unique Memorial Day is because an international voice over effort was undertaken a few weeks ago to support our troops in the Middle East via the Armed Forces Network and their group of music radio stations in Baghdad, Balad, Mosul, Ali Base, Kirkuk, Sinjar and Tikrit.

Like many commercial radio stations in the U.S., Freedom Radio was planning to run a Memorial Day Countdown of the greatest rock songs of all time. Through his network of voice over friends (which is plentiful) voice talent and blogger extraordinaire Bob Souer was asked to lend his voice. Bob then asked Air Force Sergeant Chris Eder, who oversees these stations, if he needed other professional voiceover help to support the station’s announcers, providing, sweepers, bumpers and ID’s for the channel and its network. Maybe, they’d also wanted some voices to provide intros for songs on the countdown? Chris said sure but he’d asked for help like this before and usually if four people said they’d help, maybe one actually sent something. Chris had not yet heard of VO-BB.

Bob Souer posted the notice of what they needed on VO-BB and Chris nearly drowned is a sea of amazing voice talent who not only said they’d help but made fast work of providing great audio….lots of it! At last count 24 professional voice over talents from around the world, including yours truly cranked out everything Freedom Radio needed for a successful countdown, organizing ourselves as only former and current radio professionals can do…with fast, quality audio.

I fell back into my old production manager role from radio days gone by, voicing and producing some of my own stuff (which you heard in the second paragraph) and then producing for some other great voices including audio’connell female voice over talent D.B. and Kara, the aforementioned Bob Souerand a wonderful voice talent by the name of Diane Maggipinto.

My lesson that I took out of this experience (aside from getting to work with or be teamed with some terrific voice talents) is that my DJ talents, limited as they were even back in the day, have long since abandoned me. Fortunately for the soldiers, my contribution to this part of the project was fairly limited.

The donation of our collective time and talent was clearly something all the voices in the project wanted to do because it was the very least we could do to show our support to the men and women who leave the safety of their families and homes to follow orders around the world all the while putting themselves in harms way on our behalf. And such life and death stuff is never trite.

Our family’s thanks to all the men and women serving on our behalf all over the world (especially the two from our family). God bless you all and we hope you all come home soon and safe.

Tags: commentary, media, radio, voice actors, voice casting, voiceover by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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