Thinking of "dabbling" in voiceovers?

At least once a week I make the acquaintance of someone who, with a sincere if not serious look on their face, explains to me that they've been thinking about getting into VO, not to have a full-blown career, but to just dabble in it.

I've gotten pretty good now at thoroughly being able to stifle the burst of uncontrollable laughter that threatens to derail what is otherwise a pleasant conversation.

They have no idea that their little dream and those of millions of others are slowly, inexorably destroying the VO business.

Allow me to do some number-crunching for you. As I mentioned in a previous VO article, the talent supply/demand numbers are extremely imbalanced and skewed in such a way as to create aggressive downward pressure on the prices that talent are able to charge producers.

When a newbie enters the fray, especially by way of the so-called pay-to-play talent casting platforms, it weights the imbalance even further.

Then, since the producers are the ones setting the price they are willing to pay a talent on a VO job, and since the majority of talent are increasingly hungry and even desperate for work, the average price on a per-job basis creeps lower and lower with each passing year.

Actually, this isn't necessarily a deal-breaker for me as an established talent. However, newer so-called "modern" talent find it difficult to justify their recent expenditures to build a proper home studio and even procure the necessary gear for a mobile studio in the face of the scant work available to them as a result of the imbalance. So far, this dynamic has not impeded new talents' desire to get into the business.

The bigger problem for established talent and their agents/managers is the fact that the professional union voiceover industry is dying a slow death due to the attrition of older more experienced producers who have been replaced by younger cohorts inexperienced at procuring professional talent, and who are just as apt to book cheaper talent via the pay-to-play platforms than to go the agent route.

Indeed, the whole notion of professionalism in VO is devolving rapidly into something quite unrecognizable as more inexpensive and inexperienced talent find what little bit of work they can get with producers who are happy to hire them at these much lower prices.

A producer will always get what they pay for, but when pricing power is basically non-existent, the inevitable result is that, over time, the mean quality of the VO industry's overall performance will suffer dramatically.

That is an outcome that is unacceptable to many pro talent who are no longer getting adequately compensated for performing, and who will likely fade away quietly from the VO scene into more satisfying and rewarding endeavors.

Voiveover: May the odds be ever against you

Since 2000, there has been an interesting confluence of widely differing factors that has caused VO to become an unrecognizable industry:

- The VO strike against the AAAA agencies in 2000 is definitely the first domino in this evolving chain reaction. IIRC, the strike lasted 8 or 9 months, a duration that forced most ad agencies who hired strictly union talent to begin searching for high-caliber non-union talent. After all, the show must go on. This new habit of procuring non-union talent was not easily broken, and in fact, made it easy for advertisers to maintain in the face of 2 recessions and the ever-tightening squeeze by investors to bleed more earnings out of ad firms and companies that advertise.

- The proliferation of reasonably sophisticated audio recording/editing software was the next domino. For less than $500-$750, anyone could buy a mic, gear, and some simple acoustic treatment and put up a shingle.

- And, that they did by the thousands, as radio firms merged, gobbled, and otherwise grew in ways that led to the unemployment of well over 10,000 announcers who talked into a mic for a living.

In the good old days, 90% of the money in VO was earned by about 2-3% of the talent pool, which was reasonably sized at approx 100,000 people. Now, only 50% of the money is made by 10% of the talent pool, which has bloated to over 500,000 peeps. And the remaining 50% is earned by just a third of the remaining talent with a sizable 300,000 getting almost nothing, but still trying to stay in the business.

Make no mistake about it, VO -is- a business. Anyone who ignores this fact is not dealing in reality. Statistically, the odds of making it in VO are poorer than the odds for a millennial who is seeking work in their chosen discipline.

So... that leaves other motivations for wanting to do VO. To scratch an itch, perhaps. Or just to have some type of fun creative outlet.

In that case, carry on and enjoy yourself. But, don't get disappointed if you don't make more than a dime at it.

Another financial crisis looming on the horizon

It has taken the U.S. economy five or six years to have any kind of hope of recovering from the financial crisis of '08. And it would have been a much tougher go, if central bank easing had not been as aggressive.

But, easing in any form is really not a solution at all; it is merely a band-aid that does nothing to rid the patient of the infection of greed.

A soft landing by any other name is still a soft landing. And, as the U.S. Federal Reserve now seeks to guide the economy onto a less risky, more stable trajectory, unexpected free market shenanigans loom at the margin to threaten economic stability and growth.

Let's start with oil. Anti-U.S. Shale interests have begun the first round of sabre-rattling which has resulted in a spectacular drop in the price-per barrel and the price-per-gallon at the pump.

At first glance this might appear to be a blessing for the consumer. And, it would be just that if oil prices can stabilize at or around the $60 level. But, many traders, myself included, tend to believe we have at least $10 or $15 to go before all the speculative selling will be exhausted.

Wherever oil prices ultimately settle and form a stable base, it will not be a protracted affair. We will probably see a return to the mean sometime in the last half of 2015.

Thus, the weaker Shale interests that some analysts have predicted would be forced to shut down both development and production operations will likely not have to do so en masse. Only a few may get pushed out, and whatever recessionary pressures that were caused by a slowdown in Shale development will ultimately ease, and the industry will be able to resume it's long-term plans.

As oil analyst Jim Veire pointed out at our recent family gathering on Christmas eve, The credit card banks take a punch on the chin by way of a substantial decrease in merchant fees from gasoline retailers. With prices at almost half of what they were a few years ago, credit card fees paid by the gas stations are also sliced in half. This will inevitably weigh on the sector for the next year or two.

But the bigger story here, if also the more stealthy one, is the U.S. Dollar. It's meteoric rise in the past few months poses a much greater threat to the U.S. recovery than either the oil or banking story.

As FT columnist Gillian Tett wrote in the December 18 issue, emerging market companies, particularly in the so-called BRIC group of countries (Brasil, Russia, India and China), are loaded up on over US$2 trillion in offshore debt, just over 70% of which is denominated in US dollars. For example, firms based in Russia where the rouble has taken a pounding in recent months, now find themselves in a rather pronounced currency squeeze that becomes difficult to service.

Another twist to the tale is that the structural weaknesses caused by this currency imbalance are not at all likely to show up clearly on companies' balance sheets because much of the debt is in offshore accounts, sometimes under names that provide no clear linkage to the parent firms.

Further complications arise when the offshore cash is converted and repatriated to the parent's country. It then is able to be labeled, in many cases, as foreign direct investment.

We all know what eventually happens to share prices when companies use accounting tricks to obfuscate the truth. And, when the debt gets serviced in an awkward and less well-planned fashion, other expenditures will surely suffer.

This all translates to more than a trivial threat to the US recovery as global demand, which is already in intensive care, could get another more widespread and protracted version of the 1997 Asian financial crisis.

So, while you might think the wrong debt decisions made by some emerging market companies will not effect your accounts stateside, don't be surprised when the raging, if aging, bull run enjoyed by equities takes several months or more off to catch its breath.

End of Year - VO Industry Analysis

One line summary
It's not looking good.

Quantitative View
There are now over 1.12 million talent compared to 100 thousand in 2004. While there is much more work thanks to hyper-fragmentation of ad platforms, the rate per spot is falling rapidly. The SAG-AFTRA paradigm is at risk of further structural decay in the face of this prolific re-balancing of the supply/demand dynamic. Top-listed actors are likely to continue to get the lion's share of the big VO jobs.

Qualitative View
Older writers/producers at production companies have already been downsized or are in positions of management where they do not select VO talent. New, younger, and less expensive creative staff are behind the trend to cast "non-announcery" talent ("No one likes to be SOLD anymore"). This is a major trend; not a fad. Polished, older announcers are now being cast only for ads that appeal to older demographics, or character-type performances. Talent who can adapt and create a character that pleases millennial producers will have better chances of survival than talent who lack the necessary flexibility to adapt.

Conclusion
Fewer talent are in the 95th income percentile than ever before in the history of the art form. A far greater number of talent (perhaps triple vs. 2004) are in the 30th percentile. Each week, the odds that you can make a full-time living in VO diminish substantially.

Obituary: Broadcast Journalism, 1938-2010

Broadcast Journalism, arguably the most influential sociological development of the 20th century, was born in 1938, when CBS Radio began broadcasting The World Today with Edward R. Murrow. For the next few decades that followed, Broadcast Journalism would come to define even further the principles of integrity established by the newspaper industry.

My participation in this saga began in January 1976. I had just been accepted to the broadcasting school at Brown College in Minneapolis. In order to help put food on the table, I worked full-time as a dispatcher at KMSP-TV, channel 9. My job was to monitor all the city and county police and fire channels for any sudden breaking news events. When something came up, such as a multi-alarm blaze, I would run down the hall to the senior news editor's desk and report the details of the event. It was his decision, then, whether or not to dispatch a film photographer, and perhaps a reporter, to the scene.

For this baby-boomer with plenty of aspirations, it was a glorious time to be in broadcast news. While my work was done mainly in the dispatcher's den, it was always exciting to run into the bullpen where the news director, news editor, producers, anchors, and reporters were hard at work putting together the stories for the evening broadcasts. What were the facts of the story? How many sources? Were there the requisite multiple confirmations of the facts? When these questions could not be answered to the satisfaction of the news director or editor, there was the occasional shouting match. However, when airtime came, there was an overwhelming sense of honor and professionalism, for the stories on the air were presented in an unbiased way that upheld the time-tested principles of journalistic integrity.

My interest in broadcasting was more on the music radio side, but I was extremely glad I got the chance to work in TV news. It allowed me to set a standard of excellence and discipline that helped me to build a solid foundation for my career, wherever it might take me. That feeling of honor and journalistic integrity grew within me and registered soundly as the years went by.

Even so, a few years later in 1979, I began to see other seeds being planted that would grow deep roots and eventually yield a harvest of deadly fruit that threatened the principled values I held so dear. At the time, the seeds were presented innocently and even logically to TV station owners and managers. The name of these magic seeds was Focus Group.

A market research company, Frank N. Magid and Associates, based in the unassuming heartland state of Iowa, was offering their growing list of client TV stations the chance to conduct market studies with their constituent audiences. The viewers, having been invited by Magid to attend so-called focus groups, would be presented with a variety of video clips from the TV station and then asked for their response. The content of the clips ranged from an anchor reading the news, to a reporter out in the field, to even the hair style, clothing, make-up, vocal delivery, and overall impression of the journalist in the clip. Often, the focus groups would even include marketing slogans, logos, set design, station promotional commercials, and even surveys about what kind of news stories the public wanted to see more, the so-called top-of-mind paradigm. Whatever was presented, focus group attendees would respond by giving a thumbs up or thumbs down.

To put it another way, Magid was taking a cue from the world of American advertising (which had been using this form of quantitative research since around 1960). They were putting a slightly different bow on it, and packaging it to TV stations and networks in order to help them monetize their news divisions, which until then had difficulty breaking even or making a profit. Thus, as each station signed up with Magid, they made the same mistake as Eve in the Garden of Eden; they ate the innocent-looking evil fruit of market research. Now that the poison had been ingested, it would only be a matter of time before true and honorable Broadcast Journalism met its untimely death.
 
By the 1980's, the health of broadcast journalism was already on a steep decline. News outfits everywhere, large and small, were subordinating almost every aspect of their operations to the whim of the market researchers and the results of their sacred focus groups. When a legacy journalist retired, video clips of the heirs apparent would be viewed in multiple group sessions and analyzed thoroughly. Up for review was not the journalistic integrity of the prospective talent, but rather their appearance, wardrobe, voice, and body movements. This gave way to two new industries: the talent agent business for negotiating contracts for news anchors, and the talent consulting businesses that helped anchors improve their craft, most of the techniques having far more to do with style and appearance than journalistic substance.

Along the way, research indicated that viewers tended to watch TV news more frequently when a crisis of one kind or other had occurred. Focus group data also demonstrated how viewers tuned in when there was a newly developing story of significance, or what has come to be known as breaking news. By the mid to late 1990's, news networks in particular began to use the term breaking news for just about every new story they reported.

Also in the 1990's, there was a proliferation of news channels on cable TV. The world of broadcasting is all about domination, and the legacy TV networks decided CNN had been enjoying dominance on cable long enough. NBC and FOX came on the scene with their own news programming, and in response, CNN added a few more channels to the burgeoning array. Suddenly, Americans were besieged with news content. There was one problem, however. There simply weren't enough hard news stories to fill twenty-four hours of content on one channel, let alone four or five. So, the executive producers, in their desperate search to fill up their broadcast schedules, began to add in-depth analysis of news stories. Every channel would break a story and invite so-called experts on both sides of the table to come on the air and debate the issues centric to the story. This gave way to an explosion of new business at public relations firms all across America, and the talking heads era of TV news was born.

The broadcast schedules, however, were still not completely filled. To solve the dilemma, network executives decided to expand the scope of their programming to include more entertainment and legal stories; stories where there was not necessarily a clearly defined moral or ethical framework and which could be debated at length. This trend in the late 1990's caused Broadcast Journalism to be rushed into intensive care, while its newer, younger, more socially relevant surrogate, known as info-tainment, stepped in to assume its role.

There was a slight recovery in the health of broadcast journalism the day of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In the first few hours of coverage, TV news was unable to assemble a focus group, gather data, and present packaged, contrived and premeditated content with an agenda. They were in such shock that they simply reported the news as it happened in real time. For a few short hours on that horrifc day, TV news did its job; no more and no less. In the ensuing months, however, Broadcast Journalism was placed on life support. For, by this time, every little scare that society encountered was presented as a crisis of immense proportions.

The viewing public, however, began pushing back in the mid-2000 decade. Viewership on many cable news channels started to drop significantly. Instead of doing some serious soul-searching, executives chose to migrate to more vertical, edgy programming in an effort to attract an increasingly fragmented audience. At this stage, TV news more closely resembled a form of social engineering than anything else.

On January 12, 2010, the tiny island country of Haiti suffered a terrible 7.0 magnitude earthquake. Again, for a few hours, TV news did its job. But because there were very few journalists still working in TV news, coverage was anything but professional. On January 20, a Fox News reporter opened his introduction by saying, "The scene behind me is just like a made-for-TV movie." At that moment, Broadcast Journalism died of heart failure.

If this story resonates in your spirit, I ask you to email it to a friend and pass it on. At some point, some in the business of TV news will probably read it. And maybe, just maybe, they will rebuke, resist, and break the stronghold of narcissism in their industry, and get a clue.