| All this on-air activity has created a strong demand for well-trained broadcasters
with talent and ability. Nobody knows this better than Don Scott, Managing Director of Western Academy Broadcasting College WABC. Scott and his team of pros have been putting people on the air as professional broadcasters for over two decades.
In fact, WABC's intensive accelerated program boasts one of the highest job placement rates of any broadcasting school in the country. "Over the years, we've developed a knowledge and understanding of exactly which abilities radio stations are looking for when hiring broadcasters," says Scott, "and the WABC course is designed to develop those abilities. Now radio stations are familiar with the high calibre of professionalism they can expect from our students, so they're calling requesting WABC audition CD's & mp3's whenever they have openings."
And call they do. “Here's the proof,” says Scott flashing a 4-page flyer of names and photos of hundreds of Western Academy announcers currently on the air. "Program directors are telling us, nowhere are broadcasters trained any better than they are at Western Academy. Our success rate verifies it. Over 1000 Western Academy grads have now been hired in professional radio & tv broadcasting!"
But it hasn't always been an amiable working relationship with the broadcast industry. Scott says, "especially private broadcasting schools had a pretty bad reputation overall, and there were a lot of barriers to overcome. For decades, most broadcasting graduates had little expertise or professionalism, and the broadcast industry had no use for them."
"Some private broadcasting schools churned out the students by the hundreds. These schools made a lot of money, but only very few graduates ever got jobs. So the radio industry developed contempt for the lack of ethics and the empty promises of these broadcast schools. We had a lot of damage to undo."
"And it didn't come easy," according to Scott. "Those first few years were tough ones, because radio stations were skeptical that WABC was just like the others, with graduates who had poor broadcasting skills."
"But we knew if our students were well-trained, Western Academy could win the radio stations over. The strong broadcasting performance, skills and good levels of professionalism gave the broadcast industry confidence in the WABC program.”
So what's the key to developing the required amount of expertise? "Studio time," says Scott, "daily time behind the microphone practising the broadcasting techniques. It's like someone who wants to be a hockey player - put him in the classroom with the best NHLers in the world, and unless he gets several hours on the ice daily, he'll never make it as a pro. In the same way, announcers need daily studio time. They'll never succeed without it."
Providing daily studio time at WABC requires a radio environment of seven professional studios where students simulate a real radio station, right down to a tiny in-house transmitter on the FM band. "We knew that our students would need at least several hundred hours in professional broadcasting studios before they'd have the skills to get hired. And we provided it. Each student gets 350 hours behind the mike, and it's given WABC the super success that we envisioned!"
But it's not all studio time. Students experience additional learning in several hours of daily classroom time where they absorb the theory of broadcasting, along with daily analysis of their studio performance. "We've got a great curriculum," Scott relates, "it's been carefully designed and crafted to meet the needs of the contemporary broadcast industry, and is in a continual process of fine-tuning and upgrading to produce excellence."
Added to the training experience, labs covering journalism, commercial writing, broadcast regulations, media's objectives and influence, broadcast ratings and promotions, resulting in WABC's students being well-equipped to enter the media and climb the ladder upwards.
And Scott has surrounded himself with a teaching staff of high calibre professionals. Each has extensive experience. "Really qualified people, expert pro's" he says. "Decades of experience on air and teaching broadcasting. That ensures a rich contribution to each student's learning process."
To be certain, WABC Western Academy has continued to convince the radio industry that broadcasting schools can be trusted to provide a high calibre of talent. But Scott says, "some bogus radio schools continue to prey on unsuspecting people. You can usually spot them by their high tuition and lack of adequate facilities -- they'll have few studios that have to be shared by too many people."
"We've found that to train effectively, the student/studio ratio must not exceed 4 to 1. That is, one broadcasting studio for every 4 students. Believe it or not, there are schools that have high 20-to-1 ratios, and even worse!" Scott explains, "therefore each student will get very little studio time per week." WABC students get several hours of studio time daily, 15 hrs/week -- totaling 350 studio hours, plus 200 hours of classtime."
"And some of these schools charge $12,000 or more. It's an incredible cost if they have have skimpy facilities" he says "especially when their hourly tuition
rate is double the amount of WABC's. Their plan is to push a lot students through per year and make a lot of money. But it will eventually catch up with them. Once they have hundreds of students out there who can't get hired, the bogus schools usually go out of business. Unfortunately hundreds of people will have been burned in the process."
Then why do people enroll in schools with inadequate facilities and poor training? "People are so eager to get on the air that they overlook the obvious" says Scott. "They just don't realize how important studio training is, that without enough of it they'll never get on the air."
"They've wasted all that time and money. It's sad. Even sadder is that their dreams of a broadcasting career are over.
Scott has compiled a check list to help evaluate broadcasting schools:
1) Studios: Find out how many real true broadcasting studios and how many students, then calculate the ratio. Western Academy has 7 professional broadcasting studios, with one studio for every four students, a 4-to-1 ratio.
2) Hours of Studio training: Time behind a mike in a real broadcast studio is vital for developing broadcasting skills. WABC's radio training offers 350 studio hours, plus another 200 hours or so of teaching. Television training similarly offers mostly practical hands-on experience.
3) Total hours Broadcast training: Be careful to determine the number of hours of true broadcast training. Often broadcast schools lack adequate studios and other broadcast facilities so they “fill” with fluffy non-broadcast material as a way to keep their students busy. Western Academy's radio program is 550 hours of pure broadcasting - no secretarial training, no psychobabble, no non-broadcast material. WABC is the real thing - nothing but broadcasting.
4) Cost/hour of broadcast training: Watch out for excessive tuition. If it seems too expensive, it probably is. Western Academy's radio broadcasting tuition is $4925 for 550 hours of training - that's about $9.00 per hour - the best value anywhere! (Some schools charge double that amount). And yet, WABC has 7 state-of-the-art computerized broadcast studios and a job placement rate that is second to none. Television training is offered at about the same cost-per-hour for both the basic & advanced TV training programs.
5) Job placement rate: Ask for a list of graduates who are currently on the air and where. Any credible school should be able to provide at least a hundred names or more. Don't settle for names of people who are no longer in broadcasting. That's a warning signal about inadequate training which provided no staying power in the real world of broadcasting.
6) Instructors: Should be broadcast veterans of at least 10 years experience. Careful about part-time instructors who “pop-in” as occasional staff. They can turn out to be broadcast castoffs. Find out how they qualify to instruct you.
7) Gimmicks: Giveaways, prizes, are suspicious. Nothing is really free. And how do you feel sitting next to a student who got free tuition, knowing that your tuition dollars paid the way for the person with “free” tuition.
8) Enrolling from a distance: Who would ever buy a car through the mail or over the internet without seeing it & test-driving it? Go see the school and look it over. Know what you're paying for.
9) Getting Hired: A school can brag about a high success rate, but make it commit to you personally. Western Academy does commit to work with each student until they get hired, no if's and's or but's. That's the WABC promise.
And Scott's concern isn't just for unsuspecting students. “Radio stations are likely to receive applications from poorly-trained announcers. We'll have to remind them that WABC has always given them quality product, and they can count on us to continue to do so."
In the meantime, Scott cautions students & radio stations alike, "Choose your broadcasting school carefully!"
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