Where is the best city to start a career as a Radio DJ?

Question

Where is the best city to start a career as a Radio DJ?

Answer 1

I would say New York or Las Vegas

Answer 2

Kip is pretty close. Tony's good. Pinay - rethink your answer.

Your best bet is... your hometown (or the closest town that has a radio station). Unless your hometown is in the top 10 major cities.

Why: You can live at home, you can hang out and bug them until they give you a job, most hometowns are small enough where this is actually possible.

NOBODY starts in NY or LA. Or even Jacksonville (see below).

Here's an example taken from personal experience. I grew up in a small town in Fla. Hung out at the local radio station and took CC courses in drama, speech and was one of the AV guys who would operate the projectors, etc. This gave me enough experience to get assigned as a correspondent and eventually a DJ with Armed Forces radio while I did my military hitch. When I returned to the US, my folks had moved to Jacksonville, a relatively big city. I had about a year on-air under my belt in the military but was not ready for Jacksonville - a top-50 market.

I got a job in a small town in Rhode Island and lived with my grandparents until I got good enough to get that job in Jax - about two years later. Then I progressed from there.

Here's my brief version on how to get in radio. Take it from one who started this way. If you want to try radio as a possible career choice, It's easy, really easier than most think. Go to all the local radio stations and tell them you're willing to do anything for little or no money (at first). Including interning (though those are usually for current college students in a broadcasting major). In a big city, that's going to be more difficult than a smaller town, but not impossible.

Maybe they need a Gofer, or a production or promotion assistant. In the old days you used to be able to 'hang out" at a station. That's still a possibility (usually at night) in a small town, but in a bigger city, it's hard because the stations are in office buildings. Anyway, so maybe you get a Gofer or promotion assistant job. Or maybe you're just the kid who hangs out and will go get burgers. Then as people leave for bigger better gigs, you move up. Radio's a very fluid business. People move a lot. Because the only way to really get promoted is to go to a bigger market.

Give it a try. You've got nothing to lose. Study all the stations where you live. Visit some of the websites I'll put below. Go around to all the stations (obviously start with the ones where you like the music - but don't leave out religious stations, foreign language stations etc. anything to get experience and something legit on your resume). Because you've studied the station and listened to their format, you'll impress them with your knowledge; go to the remote broadcasts and get to know the promotion people - the ones hanging banners, in the tent and handing out bumper stickers.

Sooner or later someone will leave and you can say, "Hey, I can do that, I want his job now that he's leaving." It's important you have a driver’s license & clean record, 'cause you'll be driving the station van. Go 4 it!

Also, many colleges and some high schools (especially magnet schools) have radio courses of study and there are private vocational schools like Columbia School of Broadcasting. Emerson College in Boston is the premiere Media College in the US.

If you are interested in a career in radio, check out this great scholarship program from the John Bayliss Broadcast Foundation. It could mean $5,000 towards your tuition!

www.baylissfoundation.org

Radio is not all DJs. You can turn other skills say with accounting into an off-air career. Sales, though not as popular with young people, is a great way to get into radio even if you don't have a great voice. you'll also make more money and work steadier hours - but it's not as glamorous. Radio stations also need acountants and business managers.

Good Luck!

-a guy named duh

Answer 3

I would say whatever city the radio station is in that hires you. If you enjoy what you are doing and are good at it, you will either be happy where you are or, have the oppertunity to move on to bigger and better things.

Answer 4

As the others said, unless you have major years of expierence or a God given talent to be perfect (and no one is) usually it's either small markets (read hometown) or some medium markets doing fill work (in other words, your names on a list after they have gone thru about 5 others with more experience to fill in for the DJ that called in sick)

But really, it's small town radio... I live near markets that have roughly 200,000 people in them so it really isn't small time as in very desolate.. but I know of PDs who have gone on radio forums such as radio-info.com and actually asked for trainees wanting to learn the radio trade.....

Answer 5

Everyone who is BIG on the radio had to start out somewhere small.  Even Howard Stern started out at a tiny radio station in Westchester County, NY.  Get your foot in the door SOMEWHERE.  And then work on your "demo tape" (or in this case your audio file) with your work and submit that to radio stations in bigger markets.

Good luck

Answer 6

Everyone I know in radio of my generation started in tiny markets, honing their skills for very little money. Many of us, me included, worked at clumsily programmed low-watt daytime AM stations.

Nobody in a top 100 market is even going to glance at a MassComm degree if you haven't worked yet.

Answer 7

Chicago or Los Angeles