Monday evening NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams debuted its new announcer for the show’s open.

They teased in blogs how they were going to debut the new voice (a voice well known to many) to replace the recorded voice of Howard Reig who had retired two years ago.

I watched with eager anticipation the Nightly News open, remembering with fondness how blown away I was by the use of Walter Cronkite’s voice when Katie Couric took over the CBS Evening News…that was so brilliant and subtle, it was perfect.

NBC News’ choice – Michael Douglas.

My response – What the…?

I have no idea, not one clue as to why somebody at NBC News would think Michael Douglas would be considered the perfect voice to introduce the network’s flagship broadcast. He sounded dull, lacking authority, bad. I didn’t immediately recognize the voice when I heard it so where’s the celebrity value in that?

Mind you, as an actor, producer and director Michael Douglas is an impressive professional. And as a voice over in some commercials, he has sounded great. He is very talented!

But for the open of NBC Nightly News, he sounds terrible. I’m not the only one who didn’t like the choice either.

Listen….

Is that “New York” he tried to say? Nooz?! Didn’t anybody ask for a re-take? Who directed the session?

Make no mistake, I am not gunning for the job, I’m not bitter that Steve Capus over at NBC News didn’t call me for the recording. But this news operation has had so few mis-steps amongst anchors changes, budget cuts, merging of its cable new operations, new sets etc., that this stupid choice (in my opinion) for an announcer sticks out like a sore thumb.

So let me take a quick vote…don’t vote for yourself and don’t vote for me but tell me who you think would have made a tremendous choice for the announce job at Nightly. I can think of three or four voices right off the bat. But let’s discuss this (oh and you can tell me how wrong I am to not like the Douglas choice too).

P.S. Wow, look at the comments on the NBC Nightly News blog. The Douglas choice is a bomb…and this is the guy Brian Williams wanted as his announcer?! Ooops!!!!

P.P.S. Oh man! The digs continue with competitors making some hay at NBC’s expense…

Tags: announcers, commentary, media, NBC Nightly News, tv, voice actors, voice casting, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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There are more times than I care to count in recent years where I realize I have become my parents.

That’s not a bad thing as my parents were wonderful people to whom I owe everything. But “parents” often make references that to a younger generation seem “historical”. Like “oh Dad, that happened so long ago!” even though it was only 20 years ago.

For some of you, even in the voice over or on-camera talent business, the “so long ago” comment may apply to my observation here.

Recently, actor Dick Wilson died at the age of 91. Many people knew Dick Wilson (I did not) but many millions more (myself included) knew his character Mr. Whipple, the grocery store manager who implored the ladies in the toilet tissue aisle “Please don’t squeeze the Charmin.”

Mr. Whipple sold a lot of toilet tissue.

As many commercial performers know, a good run for a spot may last 6 months to a year. Dick performed as Mr. Whipple for Proctor and Gamble for decades.

P&G created a product, Dick Wilson created an icon.

P&G gets my vote for getting it “right” with the commercial now running for Charmin.

May we all perform so well that our employers recognize us thusly:

Tags: advertising, commentary, commercials, marketing, tv, voice actors, voice talent, voiceover advice by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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For the past few weeks I have been working on the 2008 marketing plan for my voiceover company. Business volume was good in 2007 but I want it better in ’08 and to do that I have to focus with greater intensity on a solid plan for 2008 that also responsibly manages marketing expenses.

So I set a goal for myself to plan out the year, review budgets and press on. This goal also requires consistent review and updates by me and I expect to do that. So I am pleased to share this achievement of my goal with you.

What prompted me to do so was a blog post today by my voiceover colleague Tim McLaughlin. He shared a story about his successful goal setting in 2007 and how it improved his performance (awesome!). He’s right about the goal…but in my opinion, that’s only half the story.

A business or an individual has less chance to achieve a goal without a written plan to get there. If I set a revenue objective, for example, how am I supposed to achieve it? I need (and you need) a marketing plan. How you format the plan should be based on what works for you…you have to live it so set it up anyway you like.

Mine breaks down the year by quarter, by month and by week. Slightly anal, you say? Maybe, but it’s a format that works for me, especially when you have to plan out execution elements like design, printing, production etc. A direct mail campaign might be scheduled to drop on March 1st but you’d better start the production process about 45-60 days earlier if you have a March 1st goal. Your printer has other clients he has to serve, you know!

So my advice is to set goals absolutely, but write and live the plan to get there too.

Tags: advertising, blogs, commentary, marketing, voiceover, voiceover advice by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Bob Souer and Kara Edwards were so kind to join me for dinner last night as I stopped by Charlotte, NC. And I also enjoyed having lunch with Brett Mason who has a great story about how he started in radio.

In the voice over business, it’s rare you could go into a city and NOT have someone in your voiceover network who you would know. For such a individualistic business, our networks are getting stronger all the time. My thanks to Kara, Bob and Brett.

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

Family Guy creator Seth MacFarlane had hoped Fox wouldn’t continue production of his show without him when MacFarlane did not report to work in support of the Writers Guild of America strike, saying of the idea of producing his show without him: “it would just be a colossal dick move if they did.”

Well they are and it is.

Look, I get that they may own the show (at least partially assuming MacFarlane didn’t entirely get squashed during the last negotiations to bring it back after it was cancelled) and I also get that Fox has a network to program.

But these characters are critical to the show and while others can impersonate the voices, it would be a bad move long term. This strike will end but the bad feelings may not regardless of future revenue possibilities.

And woe to the voice talent who takes the interim gig…like he won’t be black balled. Except for maybe one or two exceptions, he may get lots of money short term but he’ll likely be back to doing convenience store ads for basic cable as soon as the strike is over.

Tags: tv, voice actors, voice casting, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
2 Comments »

The great thing about being asked “what do you do for a living?” is telling people that I am a voice over talent which often times is followed up by “what’s a voice over talent?” I get to tell them about my business because they asked me…I didn’t force explaination on them. That is a sales person’s dream!

The bad thing about that scenario is how often it happens and how monotonous the explaination can feel after a while.

Well leave it to voice talent and teacher Bettye Zoller to spend the time to define it for all of us so we can just send people to a web site after they back up the Brinks truck with the oodles of money they’re going to pay us for our voice over talent.

I really enjoyed the part where she rattled off examples of the type of work we do because I often forget a few:

Voiceover talents today are hired to narrate audio books, anime, cartoons, videos, films, and cable TV programs. They are the voices of toys, talking picture frames, cell phone messages, talking greeting cards, your car’s GPS navigation system, and everything else that’s manufactured with a computer chip inside of it on which a voice track can be stored and played. Voiceover talents greet you (and annoy you!) on thousands upon thousands of those pesky recorded telephone messages and IVR systems. They talk to you through ceiling speakers while you shop in stores. You hear voiceover talents trying to convince you to buy cosmetics at your department store on a video playing over and over (looping) next to those expensive cosmetic products! The military uses voiceovers in training projects and the educational field also uses voice actors for educational endeavors. Nearly every classroom today, kindergarten through post-graduate study in universities sports a large TV monitor in a corner on which educational videos are played. Sometimes, it seems that a teacher doesn’t talk very much anymore. Rather, schools teach a majority of the time with videos.

Thanks Bettye for taking the time to slap that together. You can read the whole article here if you like.

Tags: announcers, character voices, commentary, narrations, podcasting, radio, tv, voice actors, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice, voiceover blog by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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