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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