10 Questions with ... Jon Ingram

BRIEF CAREER SYNOPSIS:

I have worn MANY hats in the industry in my brief career. I've lived in Missouri, Virginia, Chicago, and southern Illinois hosting various shows. I'm now looking to move into Talk radio and host a variety talk show. I studied broadcast journalism and psychology at the University of Missouri.

1) What do you do to maintain a positive mental attitude and stay motivated?

Sometimes it can be hard. At 27, I have a lot of my career ahead of me and like most people my age, there's a certain anxiety that comes from the pressure of making sure you take steps that positively affect your career. There's so much time to go that the unknown can be very daunting. I've heard it said that radio is a volatile industry, but regardless of what I was doing professionally, at this point in my life anxiety would be part of the equation. It seems to be that way for almost everyone around my age, regardless of profession. Truthfully though, anxiety will always be part of the professional makeup because my job is something I take very seriously. I don't want to screw it up!

Still, in the long term I feel I take a positive approach to my work and my life. It's very important to be able to step back from all the minor BS of everyday life and try your best to look at things objectively. When it's all said and done, I'll look back on my life up until now and be satisfied with the big picture. That being said, I'm not about to stop trying to improve! I have a lot of life ahead of me and I do my best to stay positive, and overall I have. Why? I don't know; ask my therapist.

2) Some people get discouraged or enlightened with the business when they actually step out of it for a while. Tell us your observations from the outside.

I miss broadcasting to people. There's probably a certain level of narcissism involved, in the sense that I'm often like, "Wow! I'm having this prominent thought or idea about something going on in my life and I wish I could talk about this with people!"

Also, there's a certain level of depression in my life, and part of my therapy is being able to talk about it on the air. I miss having the ability to talk about things to the audience because it really helps me think through all the s*** going on in my life.

On a less ego-related note, there's so much going on in the world and it's such an interesting time that it's a bummer not being able to wake up every day knowing I can discuss it all with the audience.

3) What's the best way to get your foot in the door?

I'm from Chicago, and since it's the third-biggest market in the country, it's very, very hard to get your foot in the door. One day I went into the lobby of a very major radio station in the city and asked the receptionist to call the people at said station and say I was downstairs hoping to talk to "so and so," "so and so," etc. I hadn't ever talked to these people, but I had looked up the names of the people I felt I should talk to and asked the receptionist to tell them I was in the lobby, in a suit mind you, asking for a meeting with them.

I sat for a couple hours, asking the girl at the desk every 30 minutes or so to phone again to let them know I was still there. It was humiliating. Eventually, after about three hours, the PD of the station came down. I handed her my resume and told her I'd love to talk about a potential job at the station. She said she was too busy at the moment, but we scheduled a meeting later in the week.

In short, if you can't get a meeting, bombard them. Worse comes to worse, you don't get hired. Are you any worse off than you were before? Maybe two or three people will think you're a desperate creep, but the odds of you getting your foot in the door are much better if you just throw your ego out the door and do whatever necessary to get a face-to-face meeting.

4) What is the next job you'd like to obtain?

I've been hosting various music-based shows for the entirety of my radio career, and I find myself now being intrigued about what I would be able to do as a talk show host. I've always felt there was a certain "performance" aspect of every conversation, in the sense that to a certain extent people are putting on a show in the way that they interact with each other. When you add a microphone and the awareness of the fact that the conversation is being broadcast live to the mass audience to the equation, the results can be insanely entertaining.

In addition to broadcast journalism, I studied social psychology in college and have always found human beings to be the most fascinating part of life. I just love stimulating conversation, and I think audiences do, too. The main risk of a talk show host, of course, is losing sight of your audience and getting caught up in and dissecting every minutiae of a conversation and boring the s*** out of them. I'd like to think my knack for conversation and my hyper-awareness of the audience will pay off in a really engaging broadcast.

5) Are you finding salaries/benefits lower than you ever thought, about the same, or have you seen some pleasant surprises?

They're mostly the same ... as low as ever!

6) What's the strangest thing that you've had happen on air?

One time I was interviewing someone who sold books with erotic mad libs as part of my celebration of Valentine's Day. This was one of the few instances I was able to conduct a live interview. She supposedly wasn't happy with the interview, because about three minutes in she asked if we could start the interview over, despite being told many times that the interview was live.

7) What's the most unbelievable on-air bit you were allowed to do?

I've had some pretty surreal segments on my shows, but I'd like to take this opportunity to say that a big thing that can help "unbelievable" moments is to embrace the spontaneity of a live show. A big part of that has to do with listener interaction. It really benefits when a show, especially ones with a single host at the helm, broadcasts live callers. Many stations at which I've worked have required that I record calls between songs and commercials, editing them for brevity and content security before they air. Personally, I'd much rather take live callers, relying on the dump button to get rid of any FCC-banned material. It's the sign of a good host and producer to be able to filter out potential boringness by not putting lame callers on the air in the first place -- and knowing how to inject some entertainment into the conversation.

If executed well, it allows for a great deal more spontaneity than anything that is edited and filtered. Obviously sometimes you'll slip up, but if the goal is "real" radio, aren't even the botched segments/callers part of the equation? Even failures can be resurrected and turned into compelling content with the right approach. That's how I look at I look at it at least.

8) What have you learned about yourself, others, or life in general in your downtime?

I've learned that there a lot of radio stations out there, and many of them run on similar philosophies. Most PDs I talk to stress an emphasis on "local," "positivity," and "listener interaction." At first I was scared the industry was getting groupthink, but eventually I realized that these are simply three things that make successful radio stations. They're just things every host needs to be cognizant of in order to do a good show.

9) Having been through all you have dealt with in this biz, what advice would you give people trying to break in?

Make sure you try your hand at a variety of roles within the industry. Host, produce, manage, sell! This will make you more desirable to small and mid-markets, where it's essential you can play a variety of roles due to a consolidation of job titles. Also, when you are exposed to various aspects of the industry, you have the opportunity to learn what roles you most enjoy playing, which can guide your moves in the future.

10) Where do you see yourself in five years? Ten years?

I see myself doing a successful variety talk show in a major market!

Any books you can recommend to people who need something inspirational to read?

I'm a huge reader, and I find lots of inspiration from biographies. There have been so many great and fascinating people in this world, and it's inspiring to read about their lives. Whether it's a famous politician with a 60-year career or a musician who died at 27, inspiration can be found from every life. A good goal is to live a life that people would want to write a book about!