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Rare Talent
April 28, 2015
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You listen to the 'competition' in your market.
You hear the other talent. You hear the other stations' promos and liners, their production, their stationality.
If you're smart, you listen to your station, to yourself, too.
And when you're honest with yourself, you acknowledge, even if only silently inside your mind, most 'talent' -- sometimes including your own-- isn't all that talented break in and break out.
In fairness, producing brilliant content three to four hours every day, five days a week, 50 weeks a year is an impossible task.
You're not only alone, without a staff of writers and producers, but you usually have more than one job at your station. It's not usually possible to spend all your working hours creating compelling content for tomorrow's show.
Today, every one of you has more than one full-time job. Simple as that.
But even before consolidation, even before PDs were required to do all they need to do as programmers plus an air shift, before air talent was responsible for content on more than one station, before there was one production person for five stations, before GMs not only ran multiple stations but often multiple markets, truth is you could list the really talented radio programmers and performers in any city, no matter how large, on the fingers of one hand.
Larry Lujack and John 'Records' Landecker...
Ron Chapman and Bill Gardiner...
Dr. Don Rose and Chuck Buell...
Bobby Rich and Jeff & Jer...Real talent, great talent, has always been rare, in every field, especially ours.
Still, this insight from author, Stephen King, is worth remembering...
"Artistic talent is far more common than the talent to nurture artistic talent."
It's worth repeating aloud:
"Artistic talent is far more common than the talent to nurture artistic talent."
If you don't have that person in a position of influence and leadership in your company, chances are you won't keep the best artistic talent anyway, even if you have the good judgment to recognize it and are willing to pay for it.
No question, it's rare!
But it is out there.
Ask the most talented people in your company. Ask the truly talented people you know in our industry outside your company. They know, or they know someone else who knows.
Or just ask me: I can give you half-dozen names today.
Talent is too uncommon to waste today. Nurture the talent inside your company. You'll love the results.
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