So I’m checking my Treo today and up flashes as “news bulletin” from All Access, a radio industry e-zine.

“XM SATELLITE RADIO has suspended OPIE AND ANTHONY for 30 days, effective immediately. The suspension follows the airing of the “HOMELESS CHARLIE” rant about Secretary of State CONDOLEEZZA RICE last week for which XM and O&A apologized”. That “rant” included a guest musing about raping Secretary of State Rice, First Lady Laura Bush and Queen Elizabeth, according to the New York Daily News. I did not hear the broadcast.

It went on to note that the suspension was a result of recent statements that O&A made on air that “put into question whether they appreciate the seriousness of the (“HOMELESS CHARLIE” broadcast) matter.”

Yes, this IS satellite radio that these former terrestrial radio shock jocks got suspended from…the very “panacea” that was to be the safe haven of “naughty” former terrestrial radio shock jocks everywhere. I’ll leave it to the more suspicious of you out there to determine if this firing had more to do with the mix of politics and business (i.e. the pending merger of XM Satellite Radio and Sirius Satellite Radio which would need governmental approval the FCC commissioner had previous to this incident indicated he is loathe to offer) rather than anything resembling broadcast standards.

Back track a few days earlier when WFNY/New York (former radio home of Howard Stern and terrestrial home of O&A) fired on-air hosts Jeff Vandergrift and Dan Lay of “The Dog House with JV and Elvis” show. Their bit involved calling Chinese restaurants and making obnoxious and insulting statements. I did not hear the broadcast.

Comedian Donnell Rawlings was fired from New York’s Power 105.1 FM last week for making an anti-Semitic remark on air. I did not hear the broadcast.

And then you remember the whole Imus thing.

So with all these disc jockeys fired or suspended, when do we get to fire the audience?

Yes, the audience.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: if a radio station General Manager thought he or she could make their company money by broadcasting knitting and crocheting 24/7, you’d be listening to “Yarn 105.3” right now!

But people are listening to what I consider crap radio. Lots of people. And advertisers are spending money to have their products and services featured on these shows. Lots of money.

So since these listeners have made a choice that they are free to make and these advertisers have made a business decision that they are free to make, why are we blaming the disc jockeys?

Sure what they are saying is vile and crude and abhorrent to most of the citizens of the free world. Their humor is at best sophomoric most of the time. The problem is there is an audience…a big one…for these types of broadcasts.

Who is taking THEM to task?

It is the audience who is the truly guilty party in these matters. it certainly isn’t only about the broadcasters and the stations. In fact, I don’t think it’s even mostly about them.

I’m not sure if the audiences for these crap radio shows are getting what they want or getting what they deserve. I’m just glad there’s still an “off” switch and that I know where it is.

Tags: advertising, commentary, commercials, marketing, media, radio, technology by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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OK, I’ll grant you that there are a lot of people “Monday morning quarterbacking” the Imus thing (your humble author included). But I saw this post regarding how the public relations (or crisis communication, if you prefer) was handled by Imus and company during this whole debacle (which wouldn’t have even been necessary if he hadn’t made his stupid comment, blah, blah, dead horse).

I agree with a lot of it and some it just made me laugh. Maybe the author always writes well or is often off the mark, I don’t know. I do know I liked what he said in this article.

I hope you enjoy it too.

Tags: advertising, radio, tv by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
Comments Off on public relations checklist: what not to do

OK, Imus has been fired.

I don’t care about that so much because I really didn’t listen to him. The stuff I heard on his show I didn’t care for so I turned the channel. That’s what grown-ups do.

What Don Imus said about the women’s basketball team was stupid and offensive…to everybody. Depending on your social or political persuasion, you could argue that most of his show was usually either or both. He’s been doing some sort of inane or “shock” radio for 30 years; what’s the surprise about? People have been free to tune in or tune out Imus’ on-air belligerence for a long time

Controversy is pretty much the only ratings card morning radio has to play any more: A. all news or sports B. all music or C. comedy/stunting/controversial. So on average about 3.5 million people thought Imus’ controversial act (and some political chat) was worth listening to in the morning. Who’s blaming the listeners?

Imus’ employers didn’t care what he said or did as long as sponsors were happy. His sponsors didn’t care what Imus’ said or did as long as the audience and ratings were there. The audience either endorsed or was apathetic to Imus’ shtick (maybe they waded through the obnoxious stuff to get to the heady political interviews).

Then a political group gets wind of an Imus comment (that was stupid and offensive), a dust storm builds up into a tornado and repeated, likely heartfelt Imus apologies become mere interruptions in a diatribe which seem to be about social justice (a good thing) but more often are really about political and/or celebrity gain (a bad thing).

Sponsors and broadcasting companies who have long endorsed Imus’ shtick suddenly distance themselves as if ignorant to his previous work on their air. Who are they accountable to? Don’t say the government because in matters of broadcasting and any word that rhymes with “decency” our government is useless.

I don’t know if Imus is a good person or not but I do know he said a dumb thing, had his apologies summarily ignored and is now out of a job (two words: satellite radio). He gets most of the blame on this to be sure but not so much that dismissal was the only option. Shall we also fire the listeners, sponsors and networks? It seems they should shoulder much of the blame here too.

But we’ve become so comfortable with our scapegoat culture (protest here, finger point there) that once we’ve set our collective laser beams on a target (big or small) we fire at will. Then after the explosion, we move on with no perceptible improvement in OUR behavior.

Do we as a society even know how to accept an apology any more? Are we getting to a place in time where even saying “I’m sorry” is pointless?

Over at CBS News.com, Dick Meyer presented some other points (some similar to mine) on how our culture thrives on building up then tearing down celebrities. I don’t think we’d have to look to far to see how we do this in our own personal and professional lives as well.

Man, I hope we stop doing this soon.

Tags: advertising, commentary, commercials, media, radio, tv by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
5 Comments »

Editor’s Note: In the daily observation of life around him, the author occasionally feels the need to point out ridiculously inane behavior and general thoughtlessness. These are called “Rants” and this is one of those times.

As it’s kind of a quiet Saturday afternoon with folks sleeping or running errands from the house, I took the opportunity to visit Voice 123 and submit some auditions.  As I’ve mentioned before here, my bookings, auditions from agents and production schedule offer me less and less time to fiddle with the cattle call that Voice 123 has really become. But I still have months left on my paid subscription so I figured I better get to it. 

It has been awhile since I sent in some auditions.  I threw out the ones I didn’t think I’d be the right voice for and the ever present low ball audition (especially those folks requesting custom auditions for message on hold…who are they kidding?)  I was reading one audition that had a low price for the amount of work required and the usage of the voice and was about to delete it when I read down a little further and notice an addition to the usually inane Voice 123 disclaimer on price which read: 

“Voice123 Team Note: We recognize that this project may be below Voice123 pricing recommendations. We have become more flexible with budgets as it was brought to our attention that we could be violating United States federal anti-trust laws by limiting the participation of voice seekers in our marketplace when they don’t met our budget recommendations. It seems that, legally speaking, it is up to the providers (the talents and voice producers) and not the marketplace (Voice123) to determine to exclude the voice seekers they don’t want to work with.

Right after the release of the new Voice123, we will be working on several improvements that will help talents and voice producers filter the types of projects they want and better match projects with talent and voice producers depending on the budget and experience of the talent. On (sic) the meantime we are trying to be flexible to keep everybody happy.”

 “It seems that, legally speaking,…” Wow, what impressive attorney filed that hard hitting legal brief? 

As you might guess, I find this disclaimer highly suspect.  But I am also not an attorney. I am however a big David Letterman fan (not the stalking kind, I just like the show) and I thought of a Dave quote when he interviewed Bill O’Reilly from Fox News as I read the Voice 123 disclaimer. To paraphrase, it went along the lines of “I’m probably not as smart as you are but my gut tells me 60% of what comes out of your mouth is crap.” 

If Voice 123 is going to be “filtering” projects and pricing in their “next” version (which it seems they’ve been working on since 1950 and which might be ready by 2010) why can’t they filter now? Likely, they can.  In my opinion, the real answer is Voice 123 will take any voice job that comes through, slap it up on the board and let all the $50 announcers quote that price on a $2000 job just so Voice 123 can jack up the number of leads they provide VO subscribers and thereby justify the company’s existence.  

As always….I could be wrong.

Tags: advertising, character voices, commentary, commercials, internet, marketing, message on-hold, narrations, podcasting, radio, rants, technology, voice 123, voice actors, voice casting, voiceover, voiceover advice by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
6 Comments »

Editor’s Note: In the daily observation of life around him, the author occasionally feels the need to point out ridiculously inane behavior and general thoughtlessness. These are called “Rants” and this is one of those times.

Well, this will likely put me in dutch with some of my broadcast news friends but I can’t sit quietly about this any longer cause it BUGS me…radio news reporters and anchors should NOT be doing commercials…period.

Now before you cry discrimination, the TV news people shouldn’t either but I’ve not seen that happen. I have heard it far too often for my liking on the radio. It’s wrong.

While there was a time in radio and television’s history where news people often read live commercials, that practice dissolved as broadcast outlets’ news divisions evolved and the integrity of the news department became sacrosanct. Today, radio news departments have to scrape and claw for the money they need to do proper field reporting with decent technology while being first and accurate with the story in an amazingly short production window. In such an environment, salaries wane and integrity teeters.

At such a critical time when broadcast corporations often seemingly replace “public trust” with “shareholder’s investment” the news divisions and their leaders should not muddy the waters regarding their market’s perception of their talent by allowing those newscasters to read a murder report one moment only to have that same reporter’s voice heard on a pre-recorded car commercial the next. Not on their station or any other in their market.

What about out of market spots or corporate narrations for videos or even audio books? I have no problem with any of that. But in a local market, if you’re a news voice you cannot be a commercial voice. News integrity means never having to say “24 months interest free financing on approved credit.”

Tags: commentary, commercials, marketing, media, radio, rants, tv by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
4 Comments »

MIAMI BEACH – Sometimes work can take you to places you never thought you’d go. Miami Beach is one such place and it is the location from where I am writing this evening. While I am on a sales and marketing assignment, I didn’t bring any recording equipment because the schedule I was given for these business meetings showed I wouldn’t have the time to devote to voice over production. However, I am a bit of a planner.

Everytime I travel to a city, I check and see if there are any of my fellow voice over pro’s nearby in case I were to find myself in need of some studio help for a pressing audition or recording. I also find it’s a great way to meet my fellow pros; heck, we can always grab a drink and share some war stories too if there aren’t any projects that need attention.

I’m sure glad I found Doug Turkel and his Miami based voice over business He could not have been nicer and more welcoming. Doug is not only a talented VO in his own right; he also works on air and in production for the South Florida cluster of Clear Channel radio stations. VO is full of terrific people and I can now add Doug to that list!

Tags: commentary, peter o'connell, radio, voice actors, voiceover meet-ups by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
3 Comments »