Haters Gon’ Hate
One last thing. Be prepared: The bigger your show grows—in both affiliate count and notoriety/presence—the better the chance you’ll run into “haters” along the way, at your own radio station. These are usually people that have nothing else going on for themselves outside of their one, local gig…the same people that have never left the market and would probably be working at a mall kiosk if they lost their job today. They can become insanely jealous seeing someone else expand their horizons. It’s threatening to them. They don’t enjoy watching you do all the things they’ve always dreamed of doing, but never had the work ethic or smarts to pull off.
When I was in Tucson, I’d often hear about hallway conversations and gossip along the lines of, “That R Dub!, he’s spending too much time on Slow Jams when he should be concentrating on his station.” The bigger my profile grew, the more haters that came out of the woodwork, as if, “How dare you have something else going on in your life.” These guys were sipping on some bitter tea; like the high school dropout that has disdain seeing their peers go off to college.
When I arrived in L.A., it was actually the opposite: They’d look at you sideways if you didn’t have a side hustle going on. It seemed everyone in the Clear Channel Burbank building was doing other stuff, from hosting TV shows on MTV, to acting in commercials…even the promo kids had their own agents!
