Randy, you must've been eavesdropping on my dinner conversation with my friends from my radio pack. We got together last Friday and discussed this exact question:
Are there many other BROADCASTERS left? Who are the new BROADCASTERS who have those skills?Barker, King, Clark and Reege. I agree with all four of those and would add Ed McMahon and Hugh Downs, although they're both retired for the most part.
Ryan Seacrest came up often in our conversations, mainly because most of us either worked with him or at least crossed paths with him at some point (the group's members are all in/from Atlanta). And all of us were trying to figure out what the hell is so special about him. Hey, he's a nice guy, good voice, pleasant to be around, good-looking I guess. But he now has three of the highest-profile gigs in the country:
American Top 40, the KIIS-FM morning show and
American Idol. Plus now he'll inherit
New Years Rockin' Eve. He replaced Casey Kasem, Rick Dees and Dick Clark in three jobs inside of three years. We all agreed that Seacrest isn't
that good, and also wondered if there was anyone on the radar that was any better?
The shared conesnsus was that the practice of voicetracking has single-handedly shut the door for the majority of people who want to get into the business. The standard line for wanna-be rookies is that they should go to Frogballs, TN to get seasoned and experienced and then work their way up to medium and large markets. But now those entry-level jobs are gone, replaced by one guy (or gal) making $30,000 a year to VT five different shifts on five different stations that woould have paid $18,000 a year individually.
Do I understand why VT is used? Sure I do. But while the industry has made itself more profitable short-term, it has also managed to blow up the "farm team" that the next generation would have come from. And based on that , I say that (love him or hate him), Ryan Seacrest is as good as it gets.
Now I'll sit back and admire the longest post I ever wrote on this forum.