Programmers Offer Advice At NAB Session

Veteran programmers told attendees at the NAB RADIO SHOW's "Follow the Leaders in Programming" session about their routes to success and offered advice for those looking to follow in their footsteps. 

CLEAR CHANNEL/HOUSTON's KEN CHARLES advised radio newcomers to do "everything you possibly can to pick up whatever (skills) you can" in order to survive in times of consolidation. CHARLES recalled losing jobs for things outside his control and having to find the resolve to persevere and succeed. He also lamented the loss of smaller-market talent to train for larger-market jobs and said that the industry's biggest challenge is to develop talent without a farm system. 

BUSTOS/SACRAMENTO's JUAN GONZALEZ told of how he went from various on-air positions to scraping together enough money (and credit-card debt) to buy a pair of SACRAMENTO FMs (which merged into BUSTOS MEDIA). GONZALEZ spoke of the challenge of becoming VP/Programming and thereby becoming the manager of people who had previously been his bosses. 

WEEI-A & WRKO-A/BOSTON's JASON WOLFE credited his managers in BOSTON for tutoring him as he rose through the ranks from Producer to PD. WOLFE suggested that networking is the best way to get a job ("You have to make those calls") rather than sending out tapes, to which CHARLES added that with more duties and less time, PDs don't have time to listen to aircheck submissions anymore.

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