Professional Academy of Broadcasting

The Professional Academy of Broadcasting was (is?) a Knoxville institution for a long time - AFAIK it started up back in the early 70's and lasted at least into the 90's. Does it still exist? I can't find a website, which would seem to be a good life/death test for a current media-based business. There are a lot of references to it on Knoxville radio history websites (see sidebar).

I taught there for a semester, but the date is hazy - it would have been sometime after I finished my graduate work at UT in the Broadcasting Department, which puts it after about 87 but before 90, when I was teaching at a private school in Seymour, and it couldn't have been 88/89, when I was teaching at Farragutt High School. The 80's are a little. . .vague in spots.

I was fired after (or maybe even before the end of) that semester, for being too (paraphrased) "academic" or "rigorous" - well, what did you expect from someone who recently came out of grad school?

Anyway, today's audio special is a recruiting disc from the Professional Academy of Broadcasting, voiced primarily by the owner Russ Skinner. I'd like to think that it was produced in the actual studios of PAB, but given the equipment that was there when I was there, I'd speculate that it was done somewhere else. The disc itself is one of those plastic, floppy flexi-discs, or in this case an "Evatone Soundsheet", to give it its official name.

I like the offer to "evaluate your abilities to work in the broadcast industry" - more likely "evaluate the status of your bank balance" - does anyone think any applicant ever got turned down?

You too can enter the exciting* world of Professional Broadcasting!

*read: excited when you get an actual paycheck that covers the rent and food.

Those Famous Tennessee Beaches

Here's another limited-interest post (even more limited interest than usual!).
In the mid-80's WUTK ran a promotion called the Beach Bum Contest, where listeners had to identify a staffer dressed as the title character around campus to be entered into a drawing for a trip to Ft Lauderdale.

Below are some IDs and promos that I produced and that were cut by various station staff. A couple are me, at least one is the renouned Benny Smith, and the last guy sounds like someone who did some other Knoxville radio, but I can't ID him off of the top of my head. I don't know who the other voices are, either, so if you know, please leave a comment.

WUTK Beach Bum Promos

UNRADIO Part the Third

It's Saturday, so it's a good time for another UNRADIO post. These two shows (from an unknown date in the mid 80's - but it's no earlier than 1985) feature Mike Dotson.

UNRADIO-Mike Dotson 01 (this show starts out with a rough-sounding section of crumpled tape, but clears up eventually)
UNRADIO-Mike Dotson 02