About 40 years ago I was a student in the Radio & Television Arts program at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute.
On my first day, we had ” Announcing ” with Maury Desourdie.
Maury told the class to be totally silent while looking at the clock in the classroom for 5 seconds……….
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The lesson was simple; would you let that much dead air pass on your station ?
Later, I had the aptly named Jerry Good as a radio instructor.
Jerry, who was the Program Director at 99.9 CKFM at the time, was a straight forward guy and one of his first directions was to be aware, to be alert and to be cautious whenever you were in a room with a microphone.
I can still hear him saying to the group, ‘ you all have your quirks,…. and those quirks can kill you in broadcasting ‘.
Through the years, I’ve seen people lose their jobs for alcohol abuse, drug abuse, misusing the station vehicle, in one case a bizarre sequence of photos turned up on the company cell phone plus, there’s been a handful of people gassed for swearing on the air, usually unintentional.
I was reminded of all of this last week when Thom Brennaman, the tenured Cincinnati Reds broadcaster, didn’t swear on air, but rather, unknowingly, made a homophobic comment that enraged the viewing audience, and in this age, went viral in seconds.
Thom Brennaman has been a top flyte American sports announcer since the mid 1980’s, achieving a professional level in sports broadcasting far greater than anyone in Jerry Good’s radio class at Ryerson in 1982.
Unfortunately, he forgot a basic rule of broadcasting according to Jerry Good and now in his mid 50’s is facing a very uncertain future.