John Glavin johnglavin@RadioWavz.net
I check your website from time to time and noticed an alumni
page. I was on the air in the late 70's, and offer the following: Radio has
changed so much since we were on WJEF in the late 70's. There were hooks on
the walls next to a teletype machine and we'd hang several feet of copy on
the appropriate hook, depending whether it was state or national news, sports,
weather, etc. Records were spun,
production was on two tape tracks, and if you had something complicated in
mind, you'd cram three or four people behind a production board and you'd have
this crazy symphony of hands trying to hit carts, reels and records at the
right time. And of course, having to sign off at 3pm really sucked. It was
so much better on a Friday during football and basketball season, because you
could stay on the air until ten or fifteen minutes after the game. But the
experience gave anybody who wanted to continue in radio after high school such
a jump on the competition. By the time I was a junior I was the afternoon news
anchor on WAZY-FM. After a year at Purdue I was morning show co-host and Production
Director.
In 1984 I helped put WKLQ-FM on the air in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where I
was production director and did voices for the "Morning Zoo" format
there. I also was a booth announcer for the Fox-TV affiliate there, and continued
those duties even after several moves until 1998. In 1990 I became Production
Director for Cox Communications in Atlanta, overseeing production for three
radio stations, the Atlanta Braves, Atlanta Hawks, Atlanta Falcons, Georgia
Bulldogs, and Georgia Tech Yellow Jacket radio networks. It was a fantastic
time to be in Atlanta, between the Braves making their huge run, and the Olympic
games in 1996. One of the coolest things I did down there was to coach Hall-of-Famer
Hank Aaron who came in to cut a commercial for his auto dealership. WSB-AM
is the main station in the group, originating the syndicated talk shows of
Clark Howard and Neal Boortz, and there were always fascinating people in and
out of the stations, including Barbara Bush popping in to interrupt a desperately
boring meeting during her husband's 1992 campaign.
In 1996 I then opened my own consultant firm, working with radio stations across
the country. I work with 14 different clusters, roughly a hundred stations,
for the Clear Channel and Midwest Family
radio chains. I live in a little village just across the border from Indiana,
in Michigan, on the shores of Lake Michigan, with my wife Melinda, her disagreeable
cat Harriett, and our dogs Elvis and Cormac. I still go to Purdue football
games and have been lucky enough to attend each of the bowl games since Tiller
resurrected the program. I really want to come down on a Friday before a Purdue
game to tour the facility. I'm sure I'll recognize absolutely nothing physically.
Everything has changed, except one thing: it's the experience of being on the
air, of learning mic technique, of writing for sound, that gave me a leg up
on others who wanted to work in commercial radio. In this business, learning
hands-on puts you years ahead of someone with just a communications degree.