Station ID requests and a great opportunity to enhance your demo reel.

[OneGeoVO]

Hello VO talent,

 

We are running a successful, professional internet radio station - 20th Century Radio. (see - http://20thCenturyRadio.com )

 

Since our start last November, our listenership has been has been growing steadily.

 

Currently we have listeners in over 100 countries, and we are growing at the rate of 6200+ new listeners each month. The average session length is an above average 95 minutes per listener.

 

Okay, here's what we need, and here's what we can offer in return.

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20th Century Radio plays old time radio shows (e.g. Gunsmoke, Dimension X, Nightbeat, etc.) but our target audience includes a much younger-than-you-might-expect demographic. Rather than sounding like a tour through a dusty radio museum, we are making every effort to highlight the great talents of yesteryear and to bring their work back into a contemporary mode.

 

If selected, the work you submit to us will be professionally mastered in an advanced recording studio with possible audio FX and/or professionally produced background music. Then it will be aired to tens of thousands of listeners each month. We will also send you the final mastered copies which of course you can use for your demo reel. In addition, you will be given credit in a frequently visited area on our site at 20thCenturyRadio.com which will also contain a link to your web site if you have one.

 

Bonus - If you do contemporary celebrity impressions, and your spot is accepted for airplay, we will also air a brief audio credit at the end of your spot, e.g. "Celebrity impression by Frank Jones of JonesVOService.com"

 

Sound good? Great! Here are the parameters of what we need but don't be confined by this, use your imagination and by all means exceed our wildest imagination:

 

So break out your Bogart, Bacall, Cagney, or Lake, or ? (yes, man or woman) make up your own character etc. and give us your best shot. Here are some script ideas:

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"Hey baby, don't you know this is 20th Century Radio?"

 

"20th Century Radio. It's the best of the best baby."

 

"Freeze Buster! Back slowly away from that dial. Don't you know? The best show is comin' right up on listener supported, 20th Century Radio."

 

"You call that a radio station? It's time to pucker up darlin, then tune in to 20th Century Radio dot com."

 

"I walk the deserted streets, past dank alleys and the few bars with patrons that look like they fell of the wagon back in '46. I couldn't find her (or him) anywhere, that is, 'till I tuned in to listener sponsored, 20th Century Radio."

 

 

Or even something like this:

 

(Done in a rapper or hip/hop style, maybe even with lip/fake rhythm machine sounds):

"Yo, Mista, Mista, Bogart and Bacall, Jack Benny IS the man, Jerry and Dean, UmmmHumm, dig dis man those dudes crunk. Dat's what I dig on 20th Century Radio, yo cool widt dat or what?"

 

Okay, so I need to brush up on my cheesy slang. Hopefully you can cook up something authentic here. We would likely insert plenty of fun tracks into something like this, then turn out something truly surprising and off-the-wall for our listeners to enjoy.

 

Any other ideas you might have, are wholeheartedly invited.

 

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Okay, you get the idea. You can check out the station to hear what we already have going on in terms of VO. But right now it's mostly me, and I want to really blow our ID's wide open with a variety of new talent.

 

As you probably have gathered, we want a real film noir vibe here. And frankly the recording you submit does not even have to be that good technically. We can always dumb down the fidelity to make it actually sound like it was recorded in the 40s if we have to. But of course the work behind the microphone should be great of course.

 

If we select your work, it will get played a lot, and we will work with you if ever you want the spot pulled. Here's our content provider agreement which you should review before sending us any work:

http://www.20thcenturyradio.com/Content-Provider-Agreement.php

 

Feel free to send any MP3 files that are less than 10mb to the following email address. Of course, just assemble the following into a real email address before you use it:

 

studio001 at 20thCenturyRadio.com

 

Put the following in the subject line:

 

"Radio ID submission"

 

Thanks a bunch,

-- Joseph Maas, station manager, 20thCenturyRadio.com

[James]

Sorry guys, i have just deleted all the responses to this post.

Just to clear up, is this paid work? In that case, i can move it to an appropriate section.

 

Stay friendly guys!

[OneGeoVO]

Hi James,

 

Not paid. This is more of a trade. Here's the summary...

 

We are offering the following in exchange for submissions we use:

 

1-- Professional studio work, in that we will combine acceptable submissions audio imaging FX (in some cases), and/or with professional background music. Then we will return the high fidelity mix to the VO artist so he or she can add the work to their portfolio.

 

2-- We create a link to their site from our site within one of the more trafficked pages.

 

3-- In the case of someone performing a celebrity impression, we will also include a short audio by-line at the bottom of the spot, which also mentions their web address if they have one.

 

1 + 2 + 3 = Exposure for their VO work to thousands of new listeners each week, and moving forward a possible working partnership with a popular radio station company. (We currently have a series of stations, 5 in all.)

 

-- Joseph Maas, station manager, 20thCenturyRadio.com

[billh]

Well I know the old shows I watched them back in 60's.... damn am I getting old or what lol....

 

Anyway do you want impressions, character voice? I don't do impressions. But you can go to this page (Click here)and show 5 has a voice I do called Pappy. Plus Billy Bob is in show 13 and I do others they are on BW some place.

 

Any way let me know and I'll do a test read for you.

[OneGeoVO]

Hi Billh,

 

Actually rather than Pappy, here's an idea - The voice that interview's Pappy on show #5 is nearly a perfect Marshal Matt Dillon from the old time radio Gunsmoke series of the early fifties.

 

The voice actor was William Conrad who latter went on to star in that cheesy Cannon TV series, but in radio he was certainly a star with his many notable roles.

 

Now, if you wanted to do a version of the Gunsmoke prologue for us, with a William Conrad voice (and yes, you practically have that one now), then I could add an on-air credit which would likely get a lot more exposure for your work.

 

I'll also include a second idea where perhaps you could give us a good William Conrad, Escape! prologue. I'll see if I can attach a couple of examples of the man himself, but here's a couple of script ideas:

 

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Gunsmoke (spoof):

"I'm that man, Matt Dillon United States Marshal, the first man they look for and the last they want to meet.

 

And when they do, I tell 'em they better be listenin' to Gunsmoke on 20th Century Radio, or else it'll be a long night in the hooscale with Chester playin' that spit filled harmonica with the howlin' dogs until the stinkin crack of dawn. Got that? It's Gunsmoke every day on 20th Century Radio... or else."

 

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Escape! (spoof):

"Tired of the everyday grind. Ever dream of a life of adventure? Is your mother-in-law headed over for a 3 week stay? Want to get away from it all? Now you can ESCAPE! Just tune to 20th Century Radio, pop on the head phones and make like you're comatose in the land of adios amigos. Got that? It's Escape! for your pleasure, every day on 20th Century Radio."

 

 

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Okay, I'll do another post with my attempt to add the William Conrad audio samples. I just don't want to goof up this particular response.

 

Thanks in advance for your good work!

 

-- Joseph Maas, station manager, 20thCenturyRadio.com

[OneGeoVO]

Okay, here's the William Conrad samples.

 

And yes, if you decide to do a "Conrad" for us, just do it flat. We'll add music and sound effects and provide you with the fully mastered result.

 

I've also added a couple of my own, non-celebrity-impression works that I did for the station (Okay, I'll confess, the "dangertohealth" file is my attempt at doing sort of a James Mason'esque voice). Later on I'll see if I can get permission to post one of the completed mixes we've been working on for one of our other contributors.

 

-- Joseph Maas, station manager, 20thCenturyRadio.com

[OneGeoVO]

To present an example, here's the result of one of the collaborative efforts that came out of this request:

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Celebrity impression courtesy; Joe Pike of TheVoiceItGuy.com

 

Here's Joe Pike's submission:

http://www.20thCenturyRadio.com/vo/ARLND.mp3

 

Here's the finished mix:

http://www.20thCenturyRadio.com/vo/20thcent-arnold-joe-pike.mp3

 

Thanks to Joe Pike for graciously permitting us to use his work in this demonstration, and of course for our broadcast.

 

Joe did a great job, so we'll likely run this stinger for a very long time, and several times per day.

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Our ultimate goal with our old time radio programming at 20thCenturyRadio.com is to bring out the contemporary nature of many of these shows (yes, many of the shows from the 40s and 50s are still contemporary, amazingly so.). And part of this effort is to make the intros and segs as colorful and as entertaining as possible.

 

Thanks in advance for joining us in this effort.

 

-- Joseph Maas, station manager, 20thCenturyRadio.com

[billh]

I'll do it as soon as I get time. It may be a day or so.

 

Bill

[billh]

Heres a couple of takes on the Gunsmoke spoof.

Take 1 - Just Mat

 

Take 2 - I added Chester and some music.

[billh]

Heres the Escape Spoof.

[OneGeoVO]

Hi Billh,

 

Thanks for your work. Much-o appreciate-o senior-o!

 

I will post back the finished cuts for your approval before we go to air. Should be within a day or so.

 

Do you have a voice over web site? If you do, we'll be happy to put up a link to it from our 20thCenturyRadio.com site.

 

-- Joseph Maas, station manager, 20thCenturyRadio.com

[OneGeoVO]

Here ya go mon. I just got out of the studio with one of the mix downs.

 

Let me know that you think.

 

Thanks again for your contributions!

[billh]

I changed the Gunsmoke script so I did another take

[OneGeoVO]

Hey man. Good job, good twist of the 'ol plot. Nice horse too!

[billh]

Glad you like it ... I was thinking Spoof and just trying to talk like Matt didn't seem right so I thought I'd try that voice and change it up a little.

 

I am always around if you need anything else. I was also reading about the Amature Hour. That has me thinking I'd like to come up with a show for it. Maybe I can get a couple of people from BW to come up with an idea nd we can do a show...

 

It would be comedy knowing us, well ok me If I can write shows for The Hillbilly Yank. I think I can come up with something for 28 mins.

 

If anyone on BW wants to try doing a show let me know and we'll go from there ;)

[OneGeoVO]

Glad you like it ... I was thinking Spoof and just trying to talk like Matt didn't seem right so I thought I'd try that voice and change it up a little.

 

I am always around if you need anything else. I was also reading about the Amature Hour. That has me thinking I'd like to come up with a show for it. Maybe I can get a couple of people from BW to come up with an idea nd we can do a show...

 

It would be comedy knowing us, well ok me If I can write shows for The Hillbilly Yank. I think I can come up with something for 28 mins.

 

If anyone on BW wants to try doing a show let me know and we'll go from there ;)

 

 

Yes, your participation is entirely invited in our amature hour (which is for pros to). We recently started this one, and are still in the process of gathering participants.

 

Here's the final for your Gunsmoke deputy (see the attached).

 

-- Joseph Maas