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 (now known as “Flyer Radio”)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.
SILVER CREEK, New York, November 30, 2010 – – LPGA National Teacher of the Year, Cindy Miller knows that to get the attention of corporate America, some extra vocal finesse could be helpful to seal the deal. So when the Legends Tour competitor needed a persuasive voice for her new promotional video, she hired voice talent Peter K. O’Connell.
ABOUT CINDY MILLER GOLF
Cindy and her husband Allen Miller, a gifted fifteen year veteran of the PGA Tour, are the only married couple in the world to have played on four major tours – PGA, LPGA, Champions and Women’s Legends Tour. Together they have created a unique team-building program call “Improve Your Team from the Inside Out”, which uses golf as a platform for developing lasting communication dynamics. The program is one of the many educational, entertaining, and engaging programs offered by her company, Cindy Miller Golf. She is also recognized around the country as a fan favorite for her stellar performance in the Golf Channel original series “The Big Break III: Ladies Only” and “Big Break VII: Reunion”.
ABOUT VOICE TALENT PETER K. O’CONNELL
A professional voice talent since 1982, some of Peter K. O’Connell’s professional voiceover credits include productions for the Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), Shell Oil, Starz Cable Channel, Time Warner Cable, New Jersey Alliance and New Jersey Tourism, J. Walter Thompson Advertising (JWT), 2K Games, Cleveland Browns, Tops Friendly Markets, Harlequin Enterprises, First Choice Power, Pathmark Supermarkets, Crosby Stills & Nash, Fashion Outlet Mall and the American Red Cross. O’Connell’s voiceover skills have been heard world wide in retail commercials for radio and TV, medical narrations, infomercials, e-learning narration projects (computer-based training, internet-based training or web-based training) political commercial voiceovers, TV network promos, public service announcements, as well as other video productions.
ABOUT audio’connell VOICE-OVER TALENT
audio’connell Voice-Over Talent is a worldwide, English language-based voice talent business. The company provides voice talent for commercials, animation, corporate narrations, documentaries, broadcast voice imaging, audio books and messaging on-hold.
Founded in 1982, world-wide industries served by the audio’connell include advertising agencies, media and broadcast production companies as well as both large and small businesses. Sister company International Voice Talents provides similar services, using professional foreign language male and female voice actors. Mr. O’Connell also owns Voice Over Workshop, which provides professional voice over training to novice and experienced voice talent world-wide.
audio’connell Voice Over Talent, International Voice Talents and Voice Over Workshop are all a part of O’Connell Communications, LLC.
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NOTES TO EDITORS
Company Media Releases ON LINE:
http://www.audioconnell.com/media
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)
Company Name Spelling:
Use lower case letters- audio’connell or audio’connell Voice-Over Talent
Company Web:
http://www.audioconnell.com
Company Blog:
http://www.voxmarketising.com
O’Connell Voice-Over Resume:
See resume here
I can’t remember when I first signed up with Voices.com but I think it was 2004….pretty early into their creation. I tried it for a couple of years and then went back to my free listing. I wonder if they will be starting an old timers or founding members club soon? 6 years is like 60 years in web years.
All along the way, the company has always worked hard on their customer service. And über-web geek David Ciccarelli (co-owner of the company with his wife Stephanie) has always tweaked and improved the site.
But alas, the software program they were using had conniption fits if I tried to use an apostrophe in my last name or my company name on a title page (some computers and web browsers even today show a diamond with a question mark where apostophes should go…makes me think no Irishmen or Italians were involved at the start of the internet). David himself some years ago tried a work around with me on that challenge but no go with that software version.
Instead of O’Connell, it might be listed as the very inelegant OConnell or even worse Oconnell (ugh!). And did you ever watch somebody try to pronounce audioconnell? As audio’connell they seem to have a better time with it. Certainly not end-of-the-world stuff, all this, but it still makes you wonder whose alphabet and symbols these early web lords were using when they started the interweb? Oy!
Well I was on the Voices.com site recently and low and behold I saw some O’Connells WITH apostrophes in their names! As I am not a paid subscriber I wouldn’t expect to know of any such updates when ever they happened (maybe they themselves missed that minor update tweak) but I did get on the phone to Voices.com make sure I could make the update with no problems.
I had the good fortune to speak with Scott at Voices.com who (true to company form) was very helpful in making sure there wouldn’t be any computer glitches. He could not have been nicer.
So NOW when you search Peter O’Connell on Voices.com I’m the first listing. When you search O’Connell on Voices.com I am the LAST listing (although I am ((puff, puff)) the most often listened to of all the Voices.com O’Connells) but I think my last place listing there is because mine’s just a free listing which is understandable.
I even tried using the K. as in Peter K. O’Connell in the listing change with Scott, which is what I use professionally, but we went back to just Peter O’Connell in the page title because the upgraded software evidently didn’t like middle initials or periods and dropped my search results way down in both types of searches.
Whoa is the poor period! Flummoxed is the lonely middle initial! What ARE the Peter K. O’Connells, the Michael J. Fox’s and other short, middle aged voice actors to do?!
Work around it like we always do! But at least I got my apostrophe. Alls right with the world.
Female Voice Talent and Voice Over Coach Deb Munro
I got a message from Deb Munro on Facebook that her Double Diva Voice Over Seminar December 4 & 5 (2010) in Toronto is ALMOST sold-out.
Two spots left…and she left me this message a couple of days ago.
So you better get on line to see if there’s still room for you.
Also it turns out that Elley Ray Hennessy is casting for a Disney feature during the seminar. There will also be a mixer Saturday night and i don’t think you have to be a part of the seminar to attend…but check anyway because I don’t know where they are having it.
All the details can be found by emailing Ms. Munro: workshops@micnme.com
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.
