Joe Cipriano’s Valuable Voice
A couple of weeks ago, I praised Joe Cipriano's book, "Living On Air," in which he tells stories of rising from a small-town radio DJ to one of the top voices in Hollywood, doing promos for all the major networks, awards shows, and game shows. Today, I talked about it...
Connected Cars
Last week, car makers and broadcasters and other audio providers met in Detroit for the DASH conference to talk about connected cars. One of the organizers was radio consultant Fred Jacobs, whose company also makes apps for stations to stream their audio. He joined me...
Joe Cipriano, “Living On Air”
Joe Cipriano is one of television's top voiceover talents. You've heard him promoting the primetime lineups of most networks (including 25 years as the "voice of Fox"), or as the announcer on game shows like "America's Got Talent" and "Deal or No Deal" or award shows...
Vin Scully
Vin Scully announced yesterday that he'll return as the broadcaster for the Dodgers next year -- for his 65th season. No other broadcaster has ever done the job as long, or as well. Sure, St. Louis had Jack Buck, Detroit had Ernie Harwell, Chicago had Harry Caray --...
This Was Not A Test
One of my favorite voiceover stories involved a guy who did imaging for rock stations all over the country in the 1980s from his studio in Chicago. He had an incredibly deep voice and ballsy delivery that fit perfectly with what we were doing at WHCN, the rock station...
Remarkable Radio
I'm not a regular listener of "This American Life," but I did download the latest episode, in which Ira Glass and his colleagues retract and apologize for a show they did earlier this year with Mike Daisey, the monologist whose off-Broadway show, "The Agony and...
Stop Talking Like That!
One of my pet peeves as a broadcaster is when people on the air don't speak like real people. What was the last time you asked someone if they knew the weather for tomorrow and they said, "there's a chance of precipitation" or "we'll probably get some white stuff"...
20/20 Hindsight
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, CKLW was one of the great 50,000 watt Top 40 radio stations. It signed on in 1967 and within 90 days was the most popular signal in the Detroit area (although it was licensed across the river to Windsor, Ontario, which is why the...