It was fun seeing all of my deejay buddies post their photos and career trajectories for #NationalRadioDay last week. Here are a few that I snatched from their social media pages. And then there's the program director's memo that kept 19-year-old me on the part-time payroll. NOTE: he used bad math. I was being paid $40 per MONTH, or $480 per year to do some radio promotion work on the University of Kentucky campus. Had they cut me, I would more than likely have found a different career path. 😢 Happy #NationalRadioDay 🎧 Here's the 1976 @WKQQLexington program director's memo that saved my job and kept me in the business. I had only been working there for two months when Dick Hungate suggested that
Tag: deejays
How much do y’all radio deejays make? Ain’t y’all loaded?
"You deejays make all that BIG MONEY!" Well...some do, some don't. It's all about the deal that's struck with management. Deejays who are connected to revenue streams typically pull better salaries. I've done at least 7 critical negotiations with management at WLRS-FM, then WQMF-FM, and then a series of revolving deals with the various managers of WHAS Radio and television over the past 45 years. WHAS Radio news anchors recently discovered a treasure trove of station documents, including this 1943 contract for staff announcer and "specialty man" services. There were also rates for singers, musicians, actors, and sound effects specialists. Here is a 1976 proposal from WKQQ/Lexington program director Dick Hungate to his manager requesting to unplug the automation and switch to live