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Mistakes Happen …Don’t Make Them Worse …
July 14, 2020
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I love the passion for radio I am seeing in the recent e-mails I have received. It's nice to see more air personalities putting in more time and effort into their work. Passion is the building block for whatever you do in this business. Passion does not mean perfection. Mistakes are going to happen; it's how you handle them that's important.
This air personality forgot to turn his microphone off, and it really shook him up.
Whoops ...
Air Talent:I accidentally left my microphone open while I was taking a winner's information, and everyone heard me. One of the other guys called me on the studio hotline to tell me to turn my mic off because everything I was saying to the winner was going out over the air. It shook me up for the rest of my show. My boss is on vacation and I am worried that when he gets back. I will be in trouble. Should I say something to him when he returns?Coach: It really does not sound like a big deal, but when he gets back, make sure he hears about it from you first. PDs like to be in a defensible position. Stop worrying, there is not an air personality alive who has not made a mistake of some sort, including your boss. Believe it or not, I too had my share of mishaps on the air. Listen to my story and you'll see that what you did wasn't so bad.
If I Had Read The Memo ...
I was working at Country station WUSN in Chicago and one night I got curious during the second hour of my 6-10p air shift. We were doing this "secret combination vault" thing for a ton of cash. Between songs I was screwing around with the vault and the damned thing opened! It made all this noise with sirens, bells, whistles, and flashing lights! I didn't know what to do because I remembered being told turning on the mic would not mute the noise; so going on the air was not possible, listeners would have known the vault was open thanks to a ton of recorded promos with previous winners. It was crazy. I had to segue into commercial breaks for over an hour. With no luck getting hold of the engineers, I finally broke down and called my PD and friend, Lee Logan. He answered his phone, heard the commotion, and laughed so hard he could hardly talk. The first thing he said, "I guess you didn't read the memo about fooling around with the vault." Other than taking a ribbing from the other air personalities, I survived and have thoroughly read every memo since.The Cover Up Is Always Worse …
Getting caught in a lie over a mistake is always worse than the mistake itself. I didn’t try and cover up my “secret combination vault” mishap, I just told the truth. I knew better because I used to work with a guy who overslept and missed his first two breaks at a car remote on a Saturday. He called the station and did his breaks from home. He had taken the station van without permission to his apartment the night before so he could head over to the remote without having to go to the station first. He was an hour late to the remote. He got fired over the incident, but the reason was not what we thought.We Found Out …
In an air staff meeting the PD told us the air talent lot his job because he took the van home without permission and it was the dealership owner who called the salesman and told him about the personality being over an hour late. The air talent never told the PD who found out from the sales manager who had to tell the station owner the client was mad and wanted a discount because of what happened. To top things off, the air personality had asked the client not to say anything about him being late. The way the air talent handled the situation cost him his job, trying to cover up his mistake.The Point Of All This …
There isn’t a radio person alive who hasn’t messed up on the air. But the real mistake isn’t the mess up, it’s compounding the mess by trying to hide it. Hang your head, tell the truth, and remember --in the future you’ll have a good story to tell. -
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