“Top Athletes Have Coaches. Top Singers Have Coaches. So Why Don’t Radio People?”

If your PD does not want you to be a star in your market, you may need to get away from them.

Some program directors were not stars on the radio. Most of them today have been good music directors or assistants and average DJ's at best. They can't really teach you how to be a star in your market, because they are competing with the talent they are managing.

People are trying to keep their jobs. They are running 3 stations and have a meeting with the sales department and scheduling logs and handling promotions. They may comment on one thing they heard negatively and take it out of context and say, “Don't do that.” This is the common drama that happens between people who don't know how to coach talent at radio stations all across the country, and it is not their fault.

Radio does not have that intense drive to be excellent in all phases anymore, because people stopped teaching.

Corporate consolidation was like a dagger into the heart of the creativity Black Radio was built on. Legions of top talent were told, “We don't need you anymore.” A lot of my colleagues died of a broken heart because their careers stopped. They did not recover.

 We did not have all the social media channels like today. That would have been great to have that tool and
we stopped evolving.

So the teaching process died decades ago. In terms of the great teachers and architects  of black radio are concerned. They were not there anymore.

When was the last time the Black Radio family in America all got together outside of the award shows? The learning conferences stopped. The money in Black music stopped flowing like champagne, so the sponsorships for the events stopped.

Is there anybody at the radio station that wants you to be a radio star? Is there anybody in the building encouraging you to push the needle?

Everybody needs a coach. I don't know why radio people don't think they need one.
Shedeur Sanders has a coach. Michael Jordan had a coach. Steph Curry has a coach. The top singers and actors have a coach.

Who is your coach?
Why don't you have one?