Kernen passed recently.
Specs is not dead. Just turned 95.
Happened late 80's through early 90's, people who started new jobs in the Detroit market were often mentioned in newsletters. It was heavily implied they were graduates, but not all of them were. When confronted, they'd say it was a general listing of job moves or a mistake.Herm wrote: ↑Fri Apr 23, 2021 1:13 pmDo tell! What are the details here?SolidGoldDancers wrote: ↑Mon Apr 19, 2021 9:15 am
Specs Howard did a good job teaching the skills to people who had the talent. But they also did some dodgy shit, including publishing the names of people who were hired in the industry but didn't attend Specs Howard, as successful graduates.
Yeah, they were really good at using misdirection in their marketing.SolidGoldDancers wrote: ↑Sat Apr 24, 2021 2:13 pmHappened late 80's through early 90's, people who started new jobs in the Detroit market were often mentioned in newsletters. It was heavily implied they were graduates, but not all of them were. When confronted, they'd say it was a general listing of job moves or a mistake.Herm wrote: ↑Fri Apr 23, 2021 1:13 pmDo tell! What are the details here?SolidGoldDancers wrote: ↑Mon Apr 19, 2021 9:15 am
Specs Howard did a good job teaching the skills to people who had the talent. But they also did some dodgy shit, including publishing the names of people who were hired in the industry but didn't attend Specs Howard, as successful graduates.
One of the college kids that was hired out of a group of eight to do summer promotions work ended up being listed, he attended and graduated from a prestigious university.
In a different incident, I was doing a large build project and needed workers for a two month assignment. Against my better judgement, the GM insisted I put out a call to the school (an advertiser) because he felt this was a good opportunity for motivated broadcast tech students. I told the school I didn't care if they were involved in the technical program, but the job would be moving things, unboxing, pulling cable deletes, and it would be jeans and t-shirt, sweaty and dirty work. I wanted that made clear to their students that this was not radio or TV studio work, it was construction/manual labor, but it paid well above minimum and was in the industry of their study.
None of that was made clear to these students, all of them showed up expecting something far different than what I was offering.
Great post.Herm wrote: ↑Fri Apr 23, 2021 1:23 pmRTV4-04
Everything is what you make of it.
I can think of 4 people from my graduating class, including myself, who had/have a career in broadcasting. There may be more, but not many more.
I don’t have any illusions about Specs Howard. I know they were better at marketing themselves than they were at preparing students for careers in broadcasting, but they weren’t completely inept at the latter. I knew nothing about broadcasting when I started there and I’ve done nothing but broadcasting since then. I don’t know what I would be doing if I hadn’t gone there, but I love my job and it provides a pretty good life for my family and I. Like I said... everything is what you make of it.