Re: Hutch

["Sean Smyth" <ssmyth@suscom.net>]

Don Kelley writes:
"3) College students with no experience are not ready for daytime shifts on
major market stations.  There are a zillion subtlities of performance that
they have yet to learn:  losing a regionalism, learning how to finesse a
mike, how not to pop their P's, how to pronounce W, how to sound
knowledgable and excited about music they didn't choose to play and might
not even like, how to follow a strict format, why quarter-hour-maintenance
liners are important, why ratings make or break you, how to talk to a demo
they're not in yet (especially a demo that is, say 20 years older and of the
opposite sex). That's the stuff that you learn through experience - working
at paid jobs out there in the real world."

I agree with your premise Don, but when many of the smaller market stations
are only hiring one full-timer and not providing any opportunities for
young, aspiring DJs (or anyone else for that matter), where can
fresh-out-of-college grads get a break? I'm not advocating throwing someone
from WHRB right into the midday shift at, say, WBCN, but what else are
20-somethings (of which I am one) to do to get a break in commercial radio?