Broadcasting and Recording Arts

Submitting your show or voice demo to a station or network must be professional.

A majority of talent have their demos professionally made because they don’t have the equipment or skills to do it themselves. Now it’s not saying you can’t do it, but it is always best to get someone to do it who is listening to your material for the first time, they will pick out what they think sounds the best.

We may add something in our demo we like, but it may not necessarily be what the station or networks want to hear. A trained professional ear will be able to make a good judgment call on this.

Your demo should be two minutes long, sometimes longer in some cases. Most stations or networks won’t listen past two minutes, they don’t have the time.

Your best material no doubt should be in the first minute, if you don’t catch their ear, they will turn it off and your demo will end up in the circular filing cabinet.

If you are sending a demo to a large station or network, it is always best to send it to them on CD in wav format, this way they can listen to it on any CD player. Sending a CD with mp3’s on it will lessen your chance of them listening to it, not everyone has a player that reads mp3’s.

When you mail out your demo pay a little bit more and get delivery confirmation, there is nothing worse than waiting to hear back from a station and not even knowing if they received it or not.

You should keep track of the address, phone numbers and email address of the stations you are sending your demo too. It is always a good thing to follow up a few weeks after to see if they had a chance to listen to it.

Don’t be discouraged if they tell you they haven’t had a chance too look at it yet, you would be amazed on how many submissions they get every week.

I usually contact the station or network first and you must know the program directors name before you call them, you will look very unprofessional if you call and ask the secretary to talk to the PD and you don’t know what their name is. Do the research and get as much information about the station as you can, it will make you look better if you do get a chance to talk with him or her.

When you do contact them, ask them if you can send them a demo of your work, most of them will say yes and sometimes they will inquire about what you are offering. If this happens you better make sure you know what you are saying, because if the wrong answer or comment comes out of your mouth, you may as well tell them you are still in grade school.

Spend some time and rehearse what you are going to say before you make the call.

In some cases they may ask for a demo they can download, if you don’t have a website, get one. You need to have a portfolio of yourself and a streaming demo that they can hear on demand. (I STRONGLY RECOMMEND THIS)

Remember that you and many others are applying for the same job, do something different that makes you stand out.

1. Make sure your website looks neat and not cluttered with crap.
2. Keep your demo short with your best material.
3. Know the station and the program directors name before you call.
4. don’t be discouraged if you get turned down, it part of the business.

Ray Gauthier

Tags: PROVIDING A GOOD DEMO // Add Comment »

First of all I would like to thank you for visiting, this site is for the broadcaster, podcaster, producer, editor or anyone who is interested in the field broadcast arts.

Let me say for starters if you are new to broadcast arts it can be a very exciting career, it can also be very frustrating.

You might have the talent, the energy, the drive and a killer show idea to sell to the world and come up empty every time because no one will listen to the show, been there done that.

Most of the big networks who are looking for new talent or shows will not listen to your show or personal demo if your name does not ring a bell.

The amusing thing is, if they would just listen to what we have to offer they just might like it. The famous excuse I always hear is “We don’t want to mess with what works”

I’ll use our show for example, we produce a weekly eighties show called Back To The 80s.

The formal name was 80s Meltdown, but we changed it because the name Back To The 80s was more positive than meltdown.

melt·down

“Severe overheating of a nuclear reactor core, resulting in melting of the core and escape of radiation”

Not very positive is it, so you can see why I changed it.

We have been consistently producing these shows since 2005 and it has had huge reviews from our listeners and the stations that carry it.

Not to pat ourselves on the back here but this show is killer, it is loaded with trivia, humor, requests, dedications and it consists of a top ten countdown that opens the show every week. The production and sound quality is excellent and because I am a perfectionist when it comes to production, that show has to be perfect without error of any kind before it is uploaded and available for broadcast.

This show is radio ready and kicks butt on other 80s shows that are syndicated nation wide. Why these networks don’t take the time to listen to it boggles my mind, but I’ll say this; the network that does take a chance with us is going to be happy they did when they see how popular it is with the listeners; it will make them allot of money!

We currently have AM/FM and internet radio stations airing the show and these stations are awesome, they did take a chance and it’s paying off for them. We get emails from station owners all the time telling us what a great addition to their line up Back To The 80s is and I couldn’t thank them enough.

The point I am making in all of this is if you have a dream, hold on to it and keep it strong, sooner or later someone is going to see how talented you truly are. The problem with the big stations and networks are that they don’t care anymore about what good can come out of a show, only on how much money can it make them and that is sad.

Every week I listen to Back To The 80s as a listener, to see if it makes a difference in my day. The dedications are touching and the trivia and humor keep me listening. Your probably thinking,“Of course you listen, it’s your show”

No I tune into the show as a listener to see if it entertains me and if it doesn’t, we take notes and make the necessary changes to the next program.

We have been producing shows, providing voice work and radio imaging for quite a few years, so I can tell you that when it comes to broadcast arts; I know what i am talking about.

If you have a show or podcast that no one will listen too, feel free to tell me about it, I would be happy to have a listen and give you my honest opinion on it. If it’s good, we will also pass the word around to our affiliates and get you on the air.

Ray Gauthier….

Tags: MAIN INTRO // Add Comment »