Radio broadcasting school can teach you skills for more than a radio job. Here are some of the transferable specialties you can focus on.
Audio and Video Equipment Technician
Learn to set up and operate audio and video equipment, including microphones, sound speakers, video screens, projectors, video monitors, and more. Work concerts, sports events, meetings and conventions, presentations, and news conferences. Most audio/video technician jobs are in large cities.Broadcast Technician/Operator/Engineer
Be trained in how to set up, operate, and maintain equipment that regulates the signal strength, clarity, and range of sounds and colors of TV or radio broadcasting. Control the programming, switching between cameras, studios and other sources. Webcasting is a new market for these skills.Sound Engineering Technician
Learn to lay down tracks. Get experience operating machines and equipment to record, synchronize, mix, or reproduce music, voices, or sound effects in recording studios, sporting arenas, theater productions, movie/video productions and radio broadcasting. Some recording studio jobs, however, have been lost because many musicians can now use a home PC with good audio software to do the multitrack work that required a studio just a few years ago.Announcer/DJ
This category of radio job is easier to land at a small town station. These jobs in large cities are extremely competitive. Skill in front of the microphone, however, can open up jobs in new fields such as live webcasts, satellite radio, and audio production for the web.New Technologies Mean Rapid Change
Digital recording using computers has replaced tape as the primary tool you'll work with in the radio/audio field. Meanwhile Satellite radio should change the industry as it delivers hundreds of commercial-free channels to users for a monthly fee. Podcasting is also a new twist. It's delivery over the Internet of audio programming that gets downloaded into .mp3 players, and later consumed on the go. Podcasting can make anyone with a microphone, computer and Internet connection into a broadcaster, and make many specialty audio programs practical.Learn skills for a radio broadcasting career, and you never know what new mediums you might be working in before you're done.
Sources
Occupational Outlook Handbook: Radio Broadcasting Career <http://bls.gov/oco/ocos109.htm>
National Association of Broadcasters Radio Broadcasting Career Resources <http://www.nab.org/bcc/jobbank/resources/>
