What is the future of radio? Is there space for traditional radio in today’s climate with services like Spotify, Pandora and on demand talk via podcasting?
The Future Of Radio
I continue my chat with Duke Morgan voice over talent from the previous podcast episode. We talk about the big corporations destroying today’s radio and inhibiting talent from shining through on air. Internet radio is an alternative but as Duke rightly says, “as your audience grows [online] so does your expense”. You need bandwidth to cope with audience demand and therefore need more advertisers to fund that expense.
Radio has been deregulated so much that ownership rules allow large corporate media outlets to own many radio stations in any single local area. Now they don’t seem to care what they’re selling as long as the costs are down and the music keeps playing.
Getting Into Voice and Audio Production
Duke started to refine his voice over skills and learn more about equipment and editing to ‘future proof’ himself from the way the radio industry was starting to go. He taught himself about radio production, audio equipment and future audio trends.
Running An Audio Business
There really is nothing better than running your own business because you’re working for yourself. Too many radio stations demand multiple skills for one position (on air talent, production, voice over) and this can lead to burn out.
Tomorrow’s Audio Production
Duke has just made the switch from PC to iMac which makes it super easy to do advanced audio production. The Adobe Audition teams are constantly working on great updates and subscription to the Adobe Creative Cloud allows a producer to branch out into video editing and even graphic design. If you’re working with voice then video is the next logical step. I mention Adobe Premiere Pro that I’ve started using which is a really straight forward piece of video editing software (especially if you already have audio editing knowledge).
How Can You Make Your Voice Sound Better?
I pose the question, ” how can I make my voice sound better?”. Duke gives some fantastic tips like listen to your heroes and the people that do voice work really well. Then try to emulate those styles and voices eventually you come into your own after taking a little bit from different experts. Voice coaches can also help you but Duke is a great supporter of self tuition.
