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For schools, especially colleges and universities, I can’t imagine anything much more annoying than alumni.

Whether the alumnus is a big donor (not me) or a little donor (sometimes me), donors always seem to want something.

I want some wins for the University of Dayton in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament (well, wins for ALL their men’s and women’s sports but focusing now on men’s basketball).

The great news today was that Coach Anthony Grant’s 2024 Flyer’s had a very strong season and became one of two Atlantic 10 teams to punch their ticket into the big dance.

All that means for me is that the Tournament Madness is a little more fun for me and my family.

No, we are not a big basketball family but UD helps make this time of year more fun when they get in the tournament. That’s all.

And the days before the tournament starts (like the days before the regular season schedule of my Buffalo Bills), we can each dream big and imagine all the possibilities of winning it all! 🙂

That’s the way it is with most annoying alums like me. 😉

For the players, staff and families of the team within my Catholic university, I hope they all enjoy this time in their lives in the same way I enjoyed my time at UD in the 80’s (especially my time at WVUD-FM {where this broadcasting and voiceover journey all meshed together with me and UD} – that’s me on-the-air in the back of that graphic).

Win or lose, #GoFlyers // #LetsFly .

Tags: commentary, radio, university of dayton, WVUD by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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When I was working at WVUD-FM in Dayton in the mid-80’s, one of the young account executives came into my production studio to tell me he was going to take a radio sales job at WLZR-FM (which I thought at the time was somewhere near Indianapolis although those calls belong to a station in Milwaukee now).

Geography and my memory notwithstanding, the station’s nickname was Lazer. And the AE gave me a reel-to-reel tape of their station’s imaging, voiced by a guy named Mark Driscoll.  The radio industry nicknamed him “Mr. Voice”.

The industry folks at the time were clearly well aware of someone I was not…but someone I knew I would immediately never forget after hearing his radio imaging for that station.

I remember the mixture of voice and sound that came from my production studio speakers right now just as if it was then. It helped usher in a new sound at the time for contemporary hit radio (CHR). I wish I still had that Lazer demo. The excitement and energy of that station came flying through those speakers.

Mark Driscoll’s radio imaging work was among the first of its kind. And the copy writing!! Others were similar but they were not him.

The only thing I knew Mark Driscoll for was his voice work. Never knew or met the man. I was Facebook friends with him…heard some unique stories about him…but that voice…his production…you KNEW Mark’s work from the opening syllable and effects.

He was so talented.

Word came down from social media that Mark died this week at 72 years old. I hope he lived a happy life.

He left an indelible radio production mark on me. Wow.

Here’s some Mark Driscoll imaging work I found on the web and this probably isn’t even his very best stuff….but it’s still fantastic.

Tags: radio, radio imaging, requiescat in pace, university of dayton, voice actors, voice talent, voiceover, WVUD by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Aside from me having done a little math, few people will likely care that much that I’ve now been a professional voice talent for 40 years.

I’ve been in the voiceover business, getting paid, getting new and repeat clients for 4 decades.

And yes, for you trivia savvy, MTV and I launched in the same year. MTV has made much more money than I have.

But back to my 40th anniversary.

Sure, clients and prospects may like the idea that they are working with someone with 40 years of professional voiceover experience and coming with that, a plethora of voice acting skills. But as for the rest of the world, Peter K. O’Connell’s 40 years as a professional voice actor doesn’t really mean that much.

The anniversary IS important to me but not because of longevity or being self- aggrandizing. The very slight marketing benefit I may enjoy really isn’t cause for celebration either.

What makes me proud to celebrate 40 years in the voiceover business is who got me here. Not me being in the business all this time.

It’s about the support of SO many people, not all of whom could be named here but none of whom are forgotten.

Their help is really the story I want to share here. My failures are mine (and plentiful) but my successes are because of their help.

Thank you God for all of them and all of this.

How did I get to 40rty years in voiceover?

My family first…my saintly wife and glorious kids today (and every day). Certainly my parents, who originally gave me the public speaking and broadcasting genes to start with and then the ability to attend Canisius High School (where I met my video production teacher, video company partner and groomsman at my wedding, Terry Fisher) and then the University of Dayton.

Knowing my interest in broadcasting, my brother Michael connected a junior-in-high-school-me with local radio broadcaster Susan Hunt, who was the morning news anchor at WFXZ-FM. I was able to become an intern with Susan and the program director, Jeff Appleton. What a coup for a sixteen year old broadcasting novice!

I was probably more of a burden to Susan and Jeff than a help – but I was/am grateful for the opportunity. I am still embarrassed to think about how green I was at the time. But by doing the internship at that time, I established what I was told was the first broadcast internship at my high school. I guess that’s something…not sure what.

Let’s see where we go from here.

DAYTON, OH

In 1982, when I started working at the University of Dayton’s student-run, carrier-current radio station, WDCR-AM (now WUDR) and a little while later at their professionally operated 50,000 watt station reaching three states, WVUD-FM (now WYDB), I simply didn’t know how much I didn’t know.

All I knew was that I wanted to work in radio. I still would work in radio if today it was even ½ the business now that it was then, but it’s not. I keep my hand in radio volunteering at an independent Catholic formatted radio station here in Raleigh (Divine Mercy Radio), which is just fine for me.

Before entering UD, I didn’t know John Luttrell who hired me at WDCR (who is now with Cumulus Media in Albany, GA) or Tracy Hurd who was my program director and who is not involved in broadcasting any more. I didn’t know the late Mike McMurray who was the PD at WVUD who hired me or Music Director Sandy Huff-White, who I have been friends with ever since we worked at Hitradio 100.

I had no idea there were other broadcast fanatic people my age until I move into a college apartment with Dan Suffoletto, Ron Alexander and Jeff Wagner. Oh what fun we had.

How about props for my Dad and especially my Mom, who was attending a charity dinner in Buffalo while I was at college, sat with weekend TV sports anchor Clip Smith and, by the end of the dinner, had secured for me an internship at WKBW-TV my first summer back from college.

Back at Dayton, I was working as the afternoon news anchor, then weekday evening DJ, 6-9pm as well as morning host fill-in when the morning man went on vacation.

Speaking of vacations, I went on vacation from the station for a week one summer (we worked year round). While I was gone, there was a sort of melt down in the commercial production department and I came back to be made Production Manager…this is where the voiceover bug really started to brew.

Commercial production clients liked how I sounded, they pay me a little extra sometimes to do their spots that aired on other stations…and for much of that help, I owe thanks to the radio station account executives Gary, Lenny and Ruth.

So there I am at school studying (sometimes) working (a lot of the other times) and having a swell time. Unbeknownst to me, the host of our live local weekend oldies show failed out of school (he was more into radio than studying) and I get put in that slot (while continuing in the production department. I finished at WVUD in ’86 with the #1 rated Saturday show in the entire market, 7p-12a, against some really great programming. There’s luck, timing and a little talent included in all that craziness, as you might guess.

Oh, speaking of luck, I graduated college.

BUFFALO, NY

I mentioned earlier about the video production company I started with Terry after I graduated from the University of Dayton. Also at that time, I became the voice of Burnham’s Appliances in Buffalo, NY with the help of Kevin Brayer, who was a family friend and working in management at the local chain of stores. That was a nice break for me.

When I recorded those spots, usually over at local radio stations, I met terrific local radio folks in Buffalo (and some others of whom did NOT hire me to work on the air as I wished they had 😉  One jock/production manager who was especially nice to me recording the Burnham’s spots was Keith Luke at WBUF, who had one of the deepest voices you’ve ever heard. I also met Chris Nichter when recording a few of those spots at WJYE.

Interestingly and again unbeknownst to me (cause I love saying unbeknownst) starting his radio career around that time and going on to be a long time production voice in Buffalo with Entercom radio (now Audacy) and local TV was my high school buddy Matt Young.

Actually, I came across many nice folks while I was recording voiceover and working other jobs over those years (“other jobs” because Buffalo has never been as busy as LA, the internet VO biz wasn’t yet a thing and recording studio technology was not yet as portable…but it WAS stupid expensive).

Those who I met who stand out the most in my Buffalo voiceover memories include Alan Baumgardner and Kim Ferullo over at Chameleon Communications, Shaun Mullins at Propellerhead Media,  John Ciglia and Dan Innes at Crosswater Digital Media, and maybe most importantly Toni Silveri, who just started All Coast Talent when I met her and she quickly signed me. We’ve been long time pals ever since…Toni also introduced me to the great character voice actor and teacher, Pat Fraley.

VOICEOVER AGENTS

I’ve had many voiceover agents over 4 decades, which reminded me of the old phrase ‘you have to kiss a lot of frogs to find your prince’.

While there are many frogs, who I decided to no longer work with, there are far more princes (and princesses) including Toni (who I mentioned) Erik Shepard of the Sheppard Agency, Kelly Wilkening at Big Mouth Talent, Laura Von Holle and the team at Heyman Talent, Cindi Davis-Andress and the team at Pastorini Bosby Talent, Stacey Siegert from Moxie Talent, Tanya Buchanan of Ta-Da Voiceworks in Toronto and Jeffrey Umberger (formerly of Umberger Agency) in Atlanta.

These folks do the work for their clients and I appreciate each of them even more because of business relationships with those former VO agents who did NOT do the work.

Live and learn.

Muhammad Ali’s said: “The man who views the world at 50 the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life.”

VO-BB.COM

What I know now as a voice talent that I didn’t know then is that while this is among the most sole of sole proprietor businesses, I am happy to report that I found I was not in it alone.

The “there are others like me” moment became most apparent to me in 2005 right after the on-line voiceover world really kicked off around 2003-04. I was on an unmemorable VO bulletin board web site (mostly conversations in text) where a VO talent I knew from that board, the great Connie Terwilliger, posted about a different voiceover bulletin board website, VO-BB.com.

It’s hard to effectually put into words the world that opened up to me on February 2, 2005 when I joined VO-BB.com. Insightful information, humor, arguments and just friendships among people who knew my business, knew my challenges, shared my fears…just everything.

Phone calls, in person meet-ups and people who I can call on and who can call on me when they need my help…all sprang from this simple website. It’s like if one were alone on a journey, seemingly forever, to finally came upon a camp of delightful and insightful fellow travelers. DB Cooper (and now Bruce Miles) cannot be thanked enough for keeping this enterprise going.

Without this internet bulletin board, there could have never been a FaffCon or FaffCamp.

FAFFCON

Some years before the first FaffCon, a bunch of VO-BB’ers were at the VOICE conference in Hollywood. It was a nice conference, I was invited to speak on one of the panels, and everyone had a nice time, especially seeing VO people in person. But following the event, those of us in attendance chatted on the VO-BB about the event. VOICE felt very corporate.

It seemed like the people presenting were, for the most part, trying to sell their services by giving you a little taste of their knowledge with a 45 minute presentation. Also, people with greater voiceover experience gained less there than those who were just starting out in the VO business.

Nothing wrong with all that but it was just like every other conference.

In any industry.

Ever.

Amy Snively posed a question on the board about an idea she had for a different kind of voiceover conference strictly for experienced voiceover talents, based on a conference design that was developing at the time…something called an unconference.

Presenters at this unconference would be made up of attendees (versus pre-arranged, more well-known speakers), who presented their ideas for voiceover topics. The organizers would review the topics, chose the ones that made the most sense for the audience, merge the similar topic ideas and presenters together, create a daily schedule right there at the event and, alakazam, the conference content and schedule would be set.

Attendance at the conference would be limited in capacity and to those who were professional voice talents versus those who might have a lesser experience level. Later an event called FaffCamp would be created for voice talent at any level of the VO journey.

Bottom line and the point of difference: at this voiceover unconference, nobody would be trying to sell you a product or series of lessons. The 3-4 day event would just be about education and networking based on voiceover performance, voiceover business needs and voiceover technology…with everyone sharing as much as they were willing to share. It was a safe place to meet, share and learn.

Needless to say, the voiceover talent on the board thought it was a great idea…Amy created a team to help her and – in short order – she created and produced 9 FaffCons and I think 2 FaffCamps. Amy Snively did that and turned voiceover education on its ear in the best possible way.

My participation was small compared to Amy and her co-producers (first Pam Tierney and later Lauren McCullough). Because of the birth of my son, I could not attend the first FaffCon; at the end, I attended all but two. I produced a promo video for the first unconference and got asked to help out selling sponsorships. I think it was at FaffCon 2 in Hershey that I was handed a microphone during the giveaways and asked last minute to MC it. It went well and I helped with the MC duties after that. Minor support that I was glad to offer in support of those doing the real work.

But the biggest impact on the attendees and the industry (including me) was the content offered, the people networks built, the enormous knowledge shared and fantastic individual revelations uncovered. You really had to be there to understand the intense impact FaffCon and FaffCamp had on many lives but it was unlike ANY other voiceover conference I have attended before or since. I remain grateful for FaffCon to this day…and there are hundreds more like me.

VOICEOVER MEET-UPS

Even before FaffCon, voiceover meet-ups are something that have sustained me professionally and personally for many years. These are simply a gathering of two or more voice talents – sometimes in in your area or when you’re traveling, in a fellow voice talents town. Nothing fancy, usually breakfast, lunch or dinner at a spot…the important thing was and is the conversation and fellowship.

In June of 2007 (according to my voxmarketising blog post) – before FaffCon or other conferences that I ever attended – it was everyone’s voiceover friend Bob Souer who called me up from his then home in Charlotte to say he would soon be in Western New York. Would I want to meet with him? At the time he was working in the Media Department of the Billy Graham Association in North Carolina and a Crusade was going to be in our region of the country.

Where had I originally met Bob? On the VO-BB.com of course (told you that was an impactful place).

This would not be the last meal, event, baseball game etc., that I would share with Bob or his wonderful family. But it would be the spring board for me to initiate many more meet ups when I would travel for my marketing business or when people would come to my town.

If you’ve ever had the unfortunate lot to travel a lot for business, having the option to call on friends (especially voiceover friends) in other cities makes such business travel more enjoyable and gives you something extra to look forward to than just the monotonous itinerary airport-hotel-quick dinner alone-hotel-meeting-airport-home. Plus information shared with smart voiceover people is great for my business too.

For me, it is truly humbling to realize how many great folks in voiceover blessed me with their time in these small meet-ups since 2007. Time is a great gift to share and for the scores of voice actors who have allowed me to spend time with them, I am really grateful. Thank you.

One of the meet-ups that made quite an impact on me (which will surprise no one who has met the man I am about to mention) was when I was in Miami in 2009. Doug Turkel had assembled a group of local voiceover talents to create a kind of Mastermind group – voice talents meeting together at a scheduled time with the expressed purpose of mentoring each other, helping to solve VO business problem and share ideas. All through my future travels and my FaffCon experience, I kept thinking we needed to do this kind of meeting in Buffalo.

HEARD AROUND BUFFALO

With the success of the FaffCon, I was busier than ever because – for a while – the events were running on top of each other…plus VO business, marketing business, travel and a growing family….it was a lot.

But this local meet-up thing was gnawing at me…this would be good for me and for the local folks I knew OR didn’t know yet but would get a chance to meet. But time…and pressure and…and…I needed help.

I did something that – due to my awful pride or ego or both – I tried not to do too often. I asked for help to put together the local Buffalo meet-up group. It couldn’t just be on me to set up the group or it wouldn’t get done at that time.

So in the spring of 2013, I made two phone calls to (at the time) Buffalo-based voiceover friends I knew I could count on: Dan Lenard and Leslie Diamond. Loosely based on my experience with Doug’s group and FaffCon, we together created our Buffalo voiceover meet up group: Heard Around Buffalo (Leslie provided the creative name).

All volunteer, no profit just everyone who wants to be there and who should be there was there, with a focus on pro VOs. We tried for monthly meetings and we got pretty good at it. Very voiceover focused, lots of conversations about performance, marketing, technology…and life. Exactly what it needed to be. We were even blessed to have voiceover friends from the central part of New York state and Southern Ontario. These were special evenings indeed.

Even though Dan, Leslie and I moved out of Western New York, the group still gets together and I am very happy about that (though, selfishly, I miss our time together). Voiceover superstar Maria Pendolino oversees the group now. Local voiceover meet-ups are a very worthwhile use of time and it recharges one’s spirit to be around people who understand one’s profession. Again…very grateful to all who have joined me here.

RALEIGH DURHAM VOICEOVER MEET-UP

Had you asked me at any time in my 50+ year life in Buffalo, NY, “would you leave Buffalo?”, my answer would have been no. I couldn’t think of a reason to leave. Snow? It’s all I ever knew.

Well, a reason involving the health of a family member progressed to the point that my wife and I had to make a decision and not an easy one. But it was the RIGHT one.

We had to move south in 2016 due to this situation, but I got to pick the city because of travel schedule. I needed to be in a city that had a good airport. We wanted good schools for our kids. We wanted a good quality of life. My choice. No pressure.

Because I had been in the area many times before on business and it seemed very nice, I told my wife we should explore Raleigh, North Carolina first. What made Raleigh most immediately memorable for me was their beautiful airport that could get me anywhere. I said if they spend that kind of money on the design of their airport and expansion of its airline schedule, this is a town that cares about quality of life.

Well fast forward to today and we are very happy here and grateful for the friends we’ve made. We will always miss our home in Buffalo.

From a voiceover business perspective, I was fortunate to know a few voiceover friends in Raleigh-Durham already including Rowell Gormon, Deb Stamp and Wendy Zier. They, of course were, very welcoming and provided local insights that helped in our family’s move to Raleigh and my business transition to a new market.

But because of my experience with Heard About Buffalo, I knew I wanted…no, needed to start a voiceover meet up group here. I needed to grow my network, learn about the market and make new friends.

So was born the Raleigh Durham Voiceover Meet-up (RDUVO). With the help of Rowell, Deb and Wendy we had our first meeting in June of 2017, less than a year after moving here. Even through COVID, when we met virtually (like pretty much everyone else) we got together for organized meetings and sometimes just for coffee. Glad our group is going strong.

CATHOLIC RADIO VOLUNTEER

All my professional life, I’ve been involved in a variety of community activities – to better myself and to better the community I live in. I think this is true for just about everyone…we donate our time, talent and treasure to those organizations we feel drawn to help.

In Buffalo, my biggest commitment was to the Buffalo Niagara Sales and Marketing Executives, which was formed in 1942. I joined because I felt I needed to learn more about sales and marketing, which I did. I was a member there for about 25 years, leaving BNSME a year or so before we moved to Raleigh.

I was also involved in supporting Catholic education, which helped me a lot in my life. I served on the alumni board of my high school, the board of trustees of my grammar school and finally on the Diocese of Buffalo’s Board of Catholic Education. There are other groups I served but this isn’t my resume and that’s not my point here.

My point is that when I moved to Raleigh, I told my wife that I was really done with trying to serve on multiple committees with multiple groups all while taking time away from my wife and children. Plus I also kind of felt like I’d been there, done that.

So what I said to her was I was going to pick one charity and that was going to be my sole community focus in Raleigh. And the charity I picked was actually selected before we had officially decided to move to Raleigh.

In Buffalo, I had done some volunteer announcing for the Station of The Cross Catholic Media Network, headquartered in Buffalo. To my knowledge almost all Catholic radio stations are non-profit 501 (c) (3) groups and many are run by volunteers. This particular group of stations in Buffalo didn’t have a roster of announcers so they would get volunteers to read the community announcements for their radio stations in the Northeast.

So when we were looking at Raleigh, while in my hotel room here one morning I looked to see if there was a Catholic radio station here.

There was, sort of.

Divine Mercy Radio was operating two low-power radio stations (where you could hear the signal within about 3 miles of the transmitter site) in both Cary, North Carolina and Wake Forest, North Carolina. They also broadcast on their web site. Their broadcast schedule was basically a retransmission of the EWTN radio network and a few local programs. So they were barely on the air but they had big plans.

Anyway, back in Raleigh at the hotel…while we still hadn’t decided where we would move to, I called the phone number on the Divine Mercy Radio web site and ended up speaking to the wife of the couple running the radio stations. I introduced myself, said my family was thinking of moving to Raleigh, had experience working in Catholic radio and I would be glad to volunteer my announcing services if they might need them.

Cecelia Flanary and her husband Keith could not have been more excited to receive my unexpected call. Cecelia had just been to Church that day — praying for help to get an announcer for a script that had to be recorded — because none of their volunteers were announcers.

Then she gets my call out of the blue. And why did I pick that moment to call? I just thought I should do it while I was thinking about it. Mysterious ways indeed.

So I have been volunteering my radio programming, production skills and live announcing abilities with them ever since I moved here. On February 4, 2019, the station powered up it’s 10,000 watt AM station (bye-bye low power) and about a year later we got our own app. Today, we have a pretty great assortment of local programming. In our first year as an AM station, our production work received one of only a few national awards from EWTN for excellence. Very blessed.

IT’S NOT ABOUT ME

The smartest and most effective voiceover talents in the business have all learned one important lesson about their performance in voiceover.

It’s not about me.

That means that, as a voice actor, you completely serve at the vocal pleasure of your director. Whether you think a script should be performed a certain way matters not a wit. Your acting skills need to serve the objectives of the director…not your performance preferences. Don’t like the professional direction you are given for the voiceover job you accepted to do? Tough, do what you are told…you were not hired for your opinion (in most cases).

Leave your ego and opinions at the recording studio’s door.

It’s the same for me as I reflect on my 40 years in voiceover. I was the vessel but any success I have enjoyed came on the shoulders of the family, friends, clients and contacts with whom I have interacted with.

As I hope these stories have proven, it’s not about me.

It’s about those who have taken the time to befriend me, mentor me, berate me, ask me, listen to me, accept my apology, tolerate me, love me, hate me, respect me, help me, disregard me, pray for me, marry me and certainly give birth to me. And importantly, vice versa.

40 years as a professional voiceover talent is NOT a reflection on me but a testament to those people, helpful and awful, who showed me direction, red flags or even disrespect in my life.

What I did with the sum total of all those interactions is how I ended up here today.

If I stumbled (which I did, many times), that’s on me. But if I succeeded, it was because of all the people (named and unnamed) who did what they could with the developing lump of clay that is me.

More to come…God willing.

Tags: Faff Camp, faffcamp, faffcon, university of dayton, voice 2012, voice talent, voiceover, voiceover advice, WVUD by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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RALEIGH, NC March 17, 2017 – – When the very young Peter K. O’Connell began his voiceover at a Dayton, Ohio radio station in 1982, Madonna didn’t have her first hit song yet, Reagan was president and the Internet wasn’t even a thing! Oh and O’Connell sported a mullet (business in front, party in the back).

Now celebrating 35 years as a voiceover talent, the most astounding professional accomplishment noted by O’Connell was his ability to keep working as a professional voice talent. “In the 80’s, we didn’t even understand you could have a career in voiceover,” he said.

Surprise!

With steady business from new and returning voiceover clients, the anniversary snuck up on O’Connell until he was asked by one of his three children (another wonderful surprise he didn’t ponder in ‘82) how long he’d been working in VO. The anniversary seemed like as good a reason as any to freshen up his marketing tools including a new website, branding and voice-over demos.

Having just moved to Raleigh, NC from Buffalo, NY, O’Connell’s new branding was partially inspired by his family’s new home. “I was surrounded by University of North Carolina blue, so I thought I better add that color to my logo ” he joked.

About Peter K. O’Connell

From Fortune 500 companies to companies that think $500 is a fortune, multi-award winning male voiceover talent Peter K. O’Connell has shared his voiceover skills with a wide variety of companies globally. Some of Peter’s clients include Duracell Batteries, General Electric, Kraft Foods, PBS Television Network, Shell Oil, Deloitte Canada, U.S. Army, Starz Cable Television Network, BlueCross BlueShield and SunSetter Awnings.

Known as America’s Friendly, Neighborhood Voiceover Talent, Peter is a natural born storyteller whose voice-over work has been featured in radio and TV commercials, corporate narrations, political commercial voice-overs, TV network promos, e-learning narration projects and other media productions. Originally from Buffalo, NY, now living in Raleigh, NC, Peter owns audio’connell Voiceover Talent, a division of O’Connell Communications, LLC. Peter can be reached via audioconnell.com or peterkoconnell.com.
– 30 –

NOTES FOR EDITORS

CONTACT

Peter K. O’Connell

Your Friendly, Neighborhood Voiceover Talent

audio’connell Voiceover Talent

P.O. Box 5493 | Raleigh, NC 27512-5493

PH. +01 716-572-1800

EM. peter@audioconnell.com W. audioconnell.com

COMPANY MEDIA CENTER

http://www.audioconnell.com/media

PETER K. O’CONNELL VO CREDITS

http://www.audioconnell.com/clientuploads/pdf/PDF%202017/OConnell_Peter_Voice_Over_Resume_170124.pdf

COMPANY NAME SPELLING

Use lower case letters- audio’connell or audio’connell Voiceover Talent

COMPANY NAME PRONUNCIATION

au·dio·o’·con·nell (awe-de-oh-oh-kah-nel) or au·di-o’·con·nell (awe-de-oh-kah-nel)

Tags: blogs, media releases, university of dayton, WVUD by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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Maybe it was because the new President of the University of Dayton is, like me, a native of Buffalo, NY and a fellow graduate of Canisius High School.

Maybe the University of Dayton Magazine wanted to profile someone who graduated 30 years ago.

Maybe it was because I finally paid the fines on all those overdue Roesch Library books from 1986.

Those are some of the answers I’ve given people who asked me how I got a profile article about my business in my university’s alumni magazine University of Dayton Magazine.

“How did you get THAT?” seems to be the question. They should be asking: “How did YOU (of all people) get that?”

My best guess reasons for getting the placement was a splash of creativity, timing and luck.

Let’s flash back to late summer or early fall 2016. The O’Connells had made like the Clampetts and moved, but instead of moving to Beverly (Hills, that is, swimming pools, movie stars) we moved to Raleigh, NC (more accurately, Cary, NC but everybody knows Raleigh, so there).

What one forgets, when one hasn’t moved in decades, is how many people need to be notified about ones change of address and what a pain that is to do. Oy!

While doing all the mandatory address changes, I remembered the secondary groups I needed to convey information to about our move, one being my school alumni associations, which included the University of Dayton (Go Flyers!).

In addition to wanting to know where to send their donation requests (as all private high school and colleges do) schools also update the alumni notes section of their newsletters. I didn’t remember the last time I updated UD about me (not so very often)  so the move seemed worthy of a note.

I sat at the computer and composed a note. The initial drafts of what I wrote bothered me because they were plain and dull. “I moved from Buffalo, NY to Cary, NC just outside of Raleigh.” Really? That was the best I could do? Nah, I could do better. I could make it more fun and interesting than that.

So this is what I sent:

“Former radio broadcaster (WVUD-FM ) turned voice-over talent Peter K. O’Connell (RTV, ’86) has moved from the 53^rd largest broadcast market (Buffalo, NY) to the 24^th largest broadcast market (Raleigh, NC)…mostly because it’s warmer. In August, O’Connell, his wife Andrea and their 3 children moved the clan to Cary, NC. Peter owns a popular voice-over company, audio’connell Voice-Over Talent, producing audio for commercial and narrations for clients around the world. He can be reached at peter @ audioconnell.com.”

Editor’s note: WVUD-FM was a 50,000 watt commercial FM radio station owned by the University of Dayton until they sold it some years ago.

My thinking was this new version was unique, fun and maybe interesting and informative…to somebody. At the very least it wasn’t boring. I sent it and promptly forgot about it.

Some days later, I received a nice email from Gita Balakrishnan, who writes for University of Dayton Magazine, where the alumni notes are published.

It said:

“I would like to know more about the Class Note you submitted to the UD Magazine for a possible Anatomy of a Class Note. If you are interested, please let me know so I can send over some questions to know a little bit more about you.”

Hmmm. Seems they were plotting their next edition of the alumni magazine and my timing was pretty fortunate (lucky). Were I a public relations specialist (and I am not) I believe I would have heard in my head the voice of a hockey announcer screaming ‘He shoots, he SCORES!’

What’s the point of sharing all this with my fellow voice talent? I just want to present some thoughts for you to consider as you draft your 2017 marketing plan or while you just play tiddlywinks at your desk waiting for the phone to maybe ring with a new VO job.

I don’t know what the publication numbers are for University of Dayton Magazine but simple math estimates easily assume there are certainly 100,000+ active living alumni to whom the University sends this publication. I really want to say there are more but let’s just use 100,000 as the number.

If even .5% of those 100K UD alumni (@500) are somehow involved in media production, isn’t it worth a few minutes time to write a creative, 4-sentence promotional blurb, send it in for free and see what happens? (Hint: the answer is yes).

My experience in interacting and advising a great many professional voice talents tells me they are generally deathly afraid of marketing and it’s tools, like public relations and publicity. The reasons range from lack of understanding about how to do it and what’s involved to the fact that marketing is too much like work (seriously).

Universally, ALL of that same group are concerned about the expense of marketing. Public relations and publicity may cost you some time, but usually very little (if any) money.

There was no guarantee that my 4-sentence email would turn into such a nice profile or that they would even print a sentence of it. There was a 100% guarantee NOTHING would be published if I didn’t send it.

Some voice talents look at writing press releases about their business as embarrassing, because as a voice talent you are the business. So, in essence, you are just writing about ‘how great thou are’ when you’re writing something about your own business and it’s awkward. That’s very true. But remember, readers (press or the public) either don’t know or mostly don’t care who wrote the release – they are just reading it. They’ll discover the facts as they need them.

Here’s my trick and maybe it will work for you too: when writing a press release or presenting a story idea about your “business” (which, again, is you), think about yourself as. a. business.

When you write your personal name in the release or pitch, you write “John Smith” but you should perceive it in your head as writing “The John Smith Company”. There, now you’re not an individual, you are an entity. People write releases about entities all the time!

I respect humility more than you could possibly know and I too feel extremely awkward about writing about myself in releases. But the bank respects my monthly mortgage payment more than my humility. So if publicity helps me make more money to pay that mortgage, then I will use my little trick to get past my internal awkwardness and just cash the checks from any business my small PR efforts get for me.

My hope for you is you take a day, or a ½ day and think creatively about your business, your services and the institutions/groups you are involved with in your life. I just know there are public relations and publicity opportunities for your business within some of those groups. Think! 🙂

Alumni groups are one such group, churches are another, charities you work with are another. Of course there are more if you just think about it, it’s your life. Make a list!

You read newspapers, listen to the radio, watch local TV….they need content to fill their paper and airwaves. Is there a story idea or an angle you could offer them with some service you offer or some project you’ve worked on or a client you’ve secured that the public might find interesting and unique?

Still not sure?

Is what you do, the services you offer and the projects & clients you’ve worked with/on more interesting than an 800lb pumpkin? Because I see TV crews and radio stations covering pumpkin weigh-offs like the darn Super Bowl at Halloween. So I think you might have some angle on your business that someone in the media might want to cover too. I think at least SOME of what we do is more interesting than an 800lb pumpkin.

But you have to do the research and the legwork.

You have to look up the contact information for all the media outlets in your area.

You have to make those editor or reporter calls to pitch your idea or write that email.

You have to learn how to write a professional press release (it’s NOT hard).

You have to think about what you do and how to translate that into an interesting pitch for an article in the business section of your newspaper or even the lifestyle or sports section.

You may perform as a voice talent but you’re really a business owner. Instead of fretting about where your next job is coming from, how about focusing on expanding your audience now…without much if any expense and see what that leads to. It will be more productive than fretting. I hope this helps.

Oh, and that 4-sentence blurb I sent to UD Magazine and Sambla evolved into this….

Former radio broadcaster (WVUD-FM) turned voice-over talent Peter K. O’Connell (RTV, ’86) has moved from the 53^rd largest broadcast market (Buffalo, NY) to the 24^th largest broadcast market (Raleigh, N.C)—mostly because it’s warmer. In August 2016, O’Connell, his wife Andrea and their 3 children moved the clan to Cary, N.C. Peter owns his popular voice-over company, audio’connell Voice-Over Talent producing audio for commercial and narrations for clients around the world.

WVUD-FM—Peter started working at WVUD in 1982 after the station’s program director heard him on the University’s carrier-current station, WDCR. He started at “Hitradio 100” doing afternoon drives news before later coming the evening disk-jockey.

RTV— A radio television major, O’Connell credits a former General Manager for WVUD, professor and great voice talent, Jack Rang, with teaching him commercial performance at UD. As he recalls, “Jack had an awesome voice.” Most of Peter’s early training came via imitation of others, listening to local and network broadcasts to analyze how they did it. Since then, he has had professional training from talented industry veterans in New York, Chicago and LA.

24^th largest broadcast market—Peter’s move opens up his work to a larger and more media centric market. And Peter notes that “the weather is a bit more forgiving here than in Buffalo from December to March.”

audio’connell Voice Over Talent—Peter started his company right after graduation, where he started doing spots for local companies. When Peter works with students who want to become talents in the business, the one thing he tells them is that “You have to want to perform voiceover like you want to breathe—because it takes a lot of work to be noticed in this industry, to stand out, it’s not just about a cool voice.”

World—Peter’s voice-over recordings have been heard globally including London, England; Seoul, Korea; the Caribbean; Sydney, Australia; Toronto, Canada; Delhi, India and Buenos Aires, Argentina. Nationally across the United States, Peter’s voice has been heard in all major markets including New York City; Los Angeles, California; Chicago, Illinois, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Dallas, Texas; Dayton, Ohio and Buffalo, New York.

Tags: commentary, public relations, university of dayton, voiceover advice, WVUD by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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DAYTON, OH, January 2, 2017 – – There was one reason Peter K. O’Connell wanted to attend the University of Dayton when he enrolled in 1982. The school owned a 50,000-watt FM commercial radio station and a select few students filled the on-air disc jockeys slots. O’Connell found himself working a regular on-air shift at WVUD-FM in only his freshman year; a voice talent was born.

Thirty years later, having voiced hundreds of commercials and narrations since graduating from UD, O’Connell got to share his gratitude for the University when he was profiled recently in the school’s award winning University of Dayton Magazine. As well as featuring his professional accomplishments, the article noted his family’s recent move from Buffalo, NY to Raleigh, NC.

About The University of Dayton

The University of Dayton is a top-tier Catholic research-university with academic offerings from the undergraduate to the doctoral levels. The University of Dayton includes a diverse community committed, in the Marianist tradition, to educating the whole person and linking learning and scholarship with leadership and service.

About Peter K. O’Connell

From Fortune 500 companies to companies that think $500 is a fortune, multi-award winning male voiceover talent Peter K. O’Connell has shared his voiceover skills with a wide variety of companies globally. Some of Peter’s clients include Duracell Batteries, General Electric, Kraft Foods, PBS Television Network, Shell Oil, Deloitte Canada, U.S. Army, Starz Cable Television Network, BlueCross BlueShield and SunSetter Awnings.

Known as America’s Friendly, Neighborhood Voiceover Talent, Peter is a natural born storyteller whose voice-over work has been featured in radio and TV commercials, corporate narrations, political commercial voice-overs, TV network promos, e-learning narration projects and other media productions. Originally from Buffalo, NY, now living in Raleigh, NC, Peter owns audio’connell Voiceover Talent, a division of O’Connell Communications, LLC. Peter can be reached via audioconnell.com.

He is also a proud graduate of the University of Dayton.

– 30 –

NOTES FOR EDITORS

CONTACT

Peter K. O’Connell

Your Friendly, Neighborhood Voiceover Talent

audio’connell Voiceover Talent

P.O. Box 5493 | Raleigh, NC 27512-5493

PH. +01 716-572-1800

EM. peter@audioconnell.com W. audioconnell.com

COMPANY MEDIA CENTER

http://www.audioconnell.com/media

PETER K. O’CONNELL VO CREDITS

http://www.audioconnell.com/clientuploads/pdf/PDF%202016/OConnell_Peter_Voice_Over_Resume_160926.pdf

COMPANY NAME SPELLING

Use lower case letters- audio’connell or audio’connell Voiceover Talent

COMPANY NAME PRONUNCIATION

au·dio·o’·con·nell (awe-de-oh-oh-kah-nel) or au·di-o’·con·nell (awe-de-oh-kah-nel)

Tags: media releases, university of dayton, WVUD by peter k. o'connell, your friendly, neighborhood voice-over talent
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