Posted by Friend of FInnigan's on March 9, 2010, 11:42 pm, in reply to "Re: Finnigan-Voice Track Error"
Nice cheap shot. Would you care to share your legitimate email address with young Finnigan so that he can have an idea which faceless messageboard hack is trying to shoot down his efforts?
Allow me to tell you a story:
Five years ago, I worked across the street from Finnigan in the Marion-Carbondale market. At the time, he was 16, still in high school, and still making rookie mistakes. In fact, I picked on him a few times because of those mistakes. But, I heard something in his breaks that told me that he might have a little talent lingering below the surface that was begging for a teacher. Granted, I wasn't the greatest role model, but I took a liking to the guy and shared with him a few of the things that had been shared with me by my mentors. Slowly, but surely, he improved.
Fast forward to February of '08, the weekend of the Super Bowl. I was on the air at Z107-7 and called Finnigan to play a bit for him that I was about to air. I played the bit on-air and then got to talking with him briefly about what he was doing the next day for the game. Randomly, the idea popped into my mind to invite him to Tommy Austin's party. He was hesitant, at first, but realized that he had a chance to meet the PD of the radio station that he had said many times that he would kill to work for. He came to the party, made friends with the KSLZ staff, and managed to get a sit-down with Tommy in his living room after the game and he laid it all out on the line... his background, what he was currently doing, what he wanted to do... and Tommy agreed to give him a shot at voicetracking some weekend overnight shifts.
From there, Finnigan made it onto the payroll and eventually moved to St. Louis, made himself extremely useful to the cluster, both on-air and in the promotions department, and improved his skills. When TA left for Portland, he asked Finnigan to be a part of KKRZ, via voicetracking.
The point is this.... the kid has EARNED everything that he has in this business at the age of only TWENTY-ONE. 21... what were you doing at that age, sir? I don't know you from Adam, but I would venture a guess that you weren't on the air in three different top 25 markets, with one of those being a top 5. In TWO YEARS, he has gone from part-time at WCIL-FM/Carbondale to working in market #3, while attending college. Not that it's really any of your business, but did you know that Finnigan also owns his own business? You can call it whatever you'd like, but the guy has talent, drive, determination, and he knows how to make himself a valuable employee in this age where jobs in our industry are disappearing at alarming rates. So he made a mistake in a voicetrack.... it happens, sometimes. Ask ANY of the big name talents in this industry that are syndicated / VT markets outside of their home market.... I would GUARANTEE you that EVERY one of them has made that mistake at least once.
Back off of the guy... or send your demo to Jeff McHugh and Mark Anderson and try to take Finnigan's time slot.... or continue to be a coward and hide behind a keyboard. The choice is yours. I'd put a lot of money on you continuing to be a coward, however.
Message Thread
« Back to index