Marc Zumoff, Broadcast Coach

Take the job you don’t want

The radio newscaster was happy, delivering news in the afternoons and occasionally going out to municipal meetings and the like in the evenings.  It was a good gig at a solid, well-respected station in the market.  His boss was fair.  His co-workers were nice.  The equipment was good and the overall working environment was satisfactory. 

But being a radio newsperson had its limitations.  That is, it wasn’t exactly what he wanted to do in the business.  It wasn’t the perfect fulfillment of a lifelong dream.

Then one day, the newscaster got wind of the fact that the play-by-play voice for the college football and basketball team in the market had been relieved of his duties.   The station for which he was working was the voice of the school’s games and when he heard of these developments, he took swift action.  He literally walked down the hall to the station manager’s office, knocked on the door, entered the room and said, “I don’t mean to be presumptuous but I can do play-by-play and, well, I’m of the understanding you might need someone to do the games on our station.”

The station manager, in a pinch for somebody to broadcast the games, quickly acceded and the newscaster soon began fulfilling his lifelong passion of doing play-by-play sports. 

If you haven’t gathered by now, the announcer is me, and the lesson is simple.  Even though I had always wanted to be a play-by-play announcer, I’d spent the first five years of my broadcasting life as a newscaster.  Doing news gave me several advantages: experience in the areas of journalism, writing, reporting and being live on the air.  It also allowed me to be in the right place at the right time.  When the opening finally came, I was there ready to claim it.  Suffice it to say, I never went back to news again.

At www.marczumoff.com, we’ll counsel you on all opportunities as part of a comprehensive method of developing your career as a broadcast performer. 

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Re-inventing TV

Recently, an article posted on a Chicago Tribune blog reported that news producers, writers and editors at an NBC-owned TV station in the Windy City had to reapply for new, multi-faceted positions.  The article said that staffers at WMAQ-TV were told this because of increasing demands to provide content not just for TV but the Internet, mobile devices and other emerging platforms.

Media are converging quickly.  Distribution channels are being developed at a rapid pace.  And with it are the demands for television news and sports people to be multi-dimensional in order to meet these demands.

That goes for broadcast talent as well.  At Comcast Sportsnet, the station that employs me as play-by-play voice of the NBA’s Philadelphia 76ers, I also have to fulfill requirements to provide content for the station’s website, csnphilly.com  http://www.csnphilly.com/pages/main.    This includes filing a video report on the team following every game and writing a weekly column on the Sixers called Zoo’s Views. 

Interestingly, I’ve also seen reporters in the field for the Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper filing video reports for their website as they experience their own media convergence.

The message for those of you trying to break into the business as broadcast performers is clear, come to the market equipped with a number of tools.  Be ready to write, learning through a combination of course work and experience at a school newspaper or other publication.  Also, be sure you know at least the rudiments of shooting and editing.  Of course, this latter point is true anyway given the fact that at many small market stations, one-man bands in the field are often commonplace.

At www.marczumoff.com, we’ll help you to be prepared for the rapidly changing world of media, how it’s distributed and your role in it.

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Big Fish

It was a Friday night around midnight back in the day, and my best friend was taking my girlfriend out on a date.  I knew this because they’d come to visit me at a major market radio station where I was getting ready to work the overnight shift as a low-level assistant.  Funny thing was, I had already obtained a fulltime job as a radio newscaster at a nearby small market radio station.  But I was also working weekends—in effect, seven days a week.

This was the broadcasting equivalent of functioning as both a big fish in a small pond and as a small fish in a big pond.  In other words, I was working as a performer at a smaller market station while at the very same time, holding down a bottom-rung position at a major market station in the evenings and on weekends.

Because of this, I was unable to go out many weekends, hence my best friend accompanying my girlfriend on a date.  But at the time, I could see the bigger picture.  I had rationalized there eventually would be time to go out with friends.  I was young and this was the time to hustle. 

If you can possibly keep a foot in both a smaller market and larger market outlet at the same time—while getting adequate rest and maintaining your sanity of course—this could have a significant benefit on your career.  It’s simple really—while you’re getting your on-air experience at one place, you’re effectively “in the door” at a larger facility.  So, say after a year or so of being on the air at the smaller market station, you could begin to shuttle samples of your work to the people who matter at the larger station.  That process made so much easier by the fact that you’re in the door already, that you know the important people there and perhaps even more significantly, they know you. 

This is best accomplished by acquiring employment at a small station that’s within a reasonable driving distance of where you live and the larger place where you might work at other times.  If you can do that and put your social life on a temporary hold, it could have greater professional benefits for you in the future. 

At www.marczumoff.com, we’ll help you with becoming a big fish in a small pond and a small fish in a big pond.  


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