For decades, Bill Rice has been the voice of ABC News, going to back to when Harry Reasoner and Barbara Walters had their ill-conceived and ill-fated on-air partnership.

Ever since, Bill’s steady voice has been heard as that news division covered some of the greatest tragedies in our history.

As the news divisions’ overnight program “World News Now” celebrates its 15th (now 16th I guess) anniversary, the show did a long over due piece on Bill Rice’s announcing work for ABC News and the ABC Television Network.

Tags: ABC News, announcers, tv, voice talent, voiceover // 5 Comments »

>>>PROMO LAST UPDATED JANUARY 27, 2008<<<
[audio:http://audioconnell.com/clientuploads/mp3/080127_podcamp_toronto_2008_promo.mp3]
Right click here (“Save Target As…”) to download the promo to your computer!

Podcamp Toronto 2008 will be happening on February 23rd and 24th at Ryerson University in Toronto. This second annual new media gathering is free but requires folks to register here.

audio’connell Voice Over Talent is a proud sponsor of Podcamp Toronto 2008 and has created this promotional announcement for any and all new media friends to use in their podcasts or on their web sites to promote attendance and awareness of the event.

PLEASE SIGN THE COMMENTS SECTION below to let us know which podcasters and web sites are using the promo.

Tags: advertising, podcamptoronto, podcamptoronto2008, podcast, podcasting, social networking // 18 Comments »

[audio:http://audioconnell.com/clientuploads/mp3/voxmarketing_episode101_011208.mp3]
Click here to download the episode!

â–º (0:00) Show Open: (Voxmarketising Episode #101/ Show date: January 12, 2008)

â–º (1:00) Welcome:

â–º (1:55) Oversight (Stuff You Might Have Missed):
– Xerox has a new logo

– Cool logo sites You The Designer and Logo Pond

– Voicey Awards (nominating VO-BB and Philip Banks for Best Team Performance

– Podcamp Toronto 2008 and the audio’connell Voice Over Talent promo featuring the voice talents of Jeff Kafer, Elaine Singer, Chris Rice, Mary McKitrick, Kara Edwards, Liz de Nesnera, Dave Courvoisier and Jim Sutton

â–º (10:36) VMT Interview (On voiceover or marketing or advertising or all of the above):
– Winners of the Unofficial NBC Nightly News Voice Off including winning entries and interviews with the third place finisher, the second place finisher and the winner.

â–º (25:18) Brain Spanking(Funny, Weird, Annoying News of the Day But Stuff That Usually Makes You Think):
– Quick observations on the current Writer’s Strike

â–º (26:50) Popular Demand (Voice Comments, Emails and Blogs Posts from Listeners):
– Summary comments on the Unofficial NBC Nightly News Voice Off

â–º (27:40) Show Close:
Comment Line – +01 716-989-6151
Email – peter at audioconnell dot com
Blog – audioconnell.com/blog (Subscribe)
Add us to your Linked In or Facebook

Tags: advertising podcast, marketing podcast, voice over podcast, voxmarketising podcast // 14 Comments »

BUFFALO, New York, January 12, 2008 – – With over 150 votes cast, ranking the 60 submitted auditions, the top three choices have been announced for audio’connell Voice Over Talent’s “Unofficial NBC Nightly News Voice-Off”.

Third place was awarded to San Diego, California voice talent Connie Terwilliger.
[audio:http://www.audioconnell.com/clientuploads/mp3/NBC_Nightly_News_Auditions/ConnieTerwilliger_NBC_NN_Open.mp3]

The second place finisher was Bruce Miles, a voice over talent based in Phoenix, Arizona.
[audio:http://www.audioconnell.com/clientuploads/mp3/NBC_Nightly_News_Auditions/BruceMiles_NBC_NN_Open.mp3]

The voice over talent who received the most votes in the contest was David Houston of Austin, Texas.
[audio:http://www.audioconnell.com/clientuploads/mp3/NBC_Nightly_News_Auditions/DavidHouston_NBC_NN_Open.mp3]

The completely unofficial open casting call began just before Christmas, following the selection of actor Michael Douglas as the new “official” announcer for the network’s signature news broadcast NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams. His brief vocal performance, which accompanies the newscast’s nightly video introduction, was not the actor’s best voice over performance, in the opinion of audio’connell Voice Over Talent president and professional voice over talent Peter K. O’Connell.

O’Connell noted: “Choosing Michael Douglas to be the Nightly News voice is an excellent choice but Michael’s performance for the script read simply wasn’t as good as it should have been for this important news program. While I don’t think the network will make any changes because of this very tongue-in-cheek contest, maybe the examples shown by our auditions will encourage Mr. Douglas to go back into the studio to give it another shot.”

The auditions can be heard on the audio’connell Voice Over Talent’s blog site – www.voxmarketising.com – or accessed through the company’s web site – www.audioconnell.com/NBC.

A professional voice over talent and audio producer for over 25 years, Peter O’Connell is president of audio’connell Voice Over Talent, a worldwide, english language-based voice talent company. He also operates International Voice Talents, featuring foreign language male and female voice actors.

Both organizations provide professional voice talent for commercials, animation, corporate narrations, documentaries, broadcast voice imaging, audio books, podcasts and messaging on-hold (MOH). Industries served by the two companies include advertising agencies, media and broadcast production companies as well as both large and small businesses around the world.

Mr. O’Connell also owns Voice Over Workshop, which provides professional voice over training to novice and experienced voice talent around the world.

The three businesses are all a part of O’Connell Companies.
– 30 –

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

Twitter

YouTube

LinkedIn

Google+

Tags: media releases // Comments Off on MEDIA RELEASE – Winners of Unofficial NBC Nightly News Voice-Off Announced

1.11.08 5:00 p.m. ET – – VOTING IS NOW CLOSED.

We have been blessed with some terrific voice over talents willing to share their abilities with us on our unofficial, unsanctioned and possibly unholy quest for a new announcer for NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams. Of course, if NBC takes my original advice and gets Michael Douglas back into the voice over booth with proper vocal direction, he’ll surely nail it the second time and we’ll all be back selling pencils on the street corner.

But for now, we vote! And here are the rules that I may change or amend to suit my fancy at any particular time (as my parents used to say) “just because!”

Rule 1 – Please listen to all the voices here (its a faster loading page now for more enjoyable listening). Not just because it’s polite but because as maybe the one person who has heard all of them, especially from names I was not initially familiar with, I don’t want you to miss the joy that I’ve had of discovering some new talent.

Rule 2 – You may not vote for me. There are so many reasons why this rule makes sense:
• It would be bad form to be voted best on my own blog
• The appearance of my vocal talent being somehow considered superior to my peers within my blog would be gauche
• This avoids me suffering the embarrassment of either losing or not being voted for at all (OK, now you know the truth, deal with it)

Rule 3 – You may not vote for yourself

Rule 4 – Please vote only once. If you have so much time on your hands that you can vote more than once, you’ve got business or family problems that require your immediate attention.

Rule 5 – Please order your choices as best or first (1st), gooder or second (2nd) and good or third (3rd). I will tabulate all the scores and announce the final top three finishers, with prizes to be determined by how reasonable or ungodly high my Christmas bills turn out to be.

Rule 6 – Voting takes place right here in THIS blog post within the comments section below only. It’s up to you if you want to be anonymous or not but I’m only giving you three choices so your friends shouldn’t hold it against you if you don’t vote for them. If they do, get new friends.

Go vote and tell all your friends, the polls are open!

P.S. If you haven’t already SUBSCRIBED to this blog, hit the orange subscribe button at the top of the blog. If you need to get a blog reader, this is the FREE and easy one I use.

P.P.S. 12/30/07 – This evening I received a call from a voice over friend of mine who is watching the voting here with great interest and enjoyment. He said he wanted to make it even more interesting and asked if he could donate a prize. I said that wasn’t really necessary but he cut me off and shut my mouth when he said the prize was a MXL 008 Large Gold Diaphragm USB Condenser Microphone. He wants to remain anonymous (what a character!) So this prize will be included to one of the top three vote getters. What a gracious and unexpected donation, thank you!

If you are a voice talent in this voice-off, right about now would be the time I’d start contacting friends, family and anyone who owes you a favor to LEGITIMATELY place their votes. The voting will be open for at least another week.

Tags: commentary, fauxdition, media, NBC Nightly News, tv, unofficial audition, voice actors, voice casting, voice talent, voiceover // 190 Comments »

BUFFALO, New York, December 27, 2007 – – With over 60 nominations submitted by professional voice talents in just four days, audio’connell Voice Over Talent president and professional voice over talent Peter K. O’Connell has opened to the public the voting process to select the “unofficial” winner for his company’s completely unofficial auditions for the announcer’s job on NBC Nightly News with Brian Williams.

AUDIO SAMPLE
[audio:http://www.audioconnell.com/clientuploads/mp3/Media_Release_Audio_Samples/0712_audioconnell_NBC_sample_copyright2007.mp3]

O’Connell joined a chorus of voices on the web who were disappointed by the vocal performance of well respected actor Michael Douglas, the network’s new choice for the announcing position on the program.

Proposing a solution, O’Connell posted a completely unofficial open casting call on his voice-over company’s blog – voxmarketising.com. The call garnered over 60 submissions from voice over talents around the globe, all reading the news program’s introduction script with the show’s theme music. Almost 100 responses/votes have been posted on the blog to date, including the donation of a new USB microphone as a prize by donor who requested anonymity.

The auditions can be heard on the audio’connell Voice Over Talent’s blog site – http://www.voxmarketising.com – or accessed through the company’s web site – www.audioconnell.com/NBC.

Voters are requested to pick their top three choices from the submitted auditions, ranked in order of preference. Complete rules are listed on the blog.

O’Connell had advised that the network “should probably take Douglas back into the studio and try again. He’s a very talented guy. But if NBC News decides to make a change in announcers, we’ve got a bunch of great professional voices for them to choose from.”

audio’connell Voice Over Talent is a worldwide voice over talent service featuring professional male and female voice talents specializing in commercials, character voices, corporate narrations, voice imaging, podcasts and messaging on-hold (MOH) created for advertising agencies, media and broadcast production companies as well as both large and small businesses around the world.

The company also operates Voice Over Workshop (http://www.voworkshop.com/) to provide professional voice over training to novice and experienced voice talent around the world.
– 30 –

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

Twitter

YouTube

LinkedIn

Google+

Tags: media releases // 1 Comment »