Interview With Neal Slotkin

         For my second interview, I talked with Neal Slotkin. He is a senior producer at Comcast Sportsnet. I knew that Neal was an adujunct faculty here at Rider, and so I decided to send him an e-mail. We then had a phone interview a couple of days later.
          Comcast sports net in this area focuses on the sports in Philadephia. That's what Neal and his team reports on. He says that he has various responsibilites and that his job changes everyday. Sometimes he works with the field producer. He goes with the reporters to interview players and coaches. He films what are called "News of the Day" which are stories about a specific team that usually last about 2-3 minutes long. He works very closely with the Flyers and the 76ers. He also travels with the Philadelphia Eagles. He goes to their home and away game and writes and reports about that. When he gets back, he edits everything and then writes something for the anchor of the show to read.  He's also a feature producer. This takes a little more work because it's about 5-6 minutes long and it needs to be planned ahead. An example of a feature he gave me, was when Harry Kalas (the announcers for the Philadelphia Phillies) passed away. Since he had been sick for a while, and people knew he was probably going to die soon, the station started preparing the feature ahead of time. That way when it did happen, they could air it as soon as people heard the news. The features need special attention because they need to go through a lot more videos, and they really need to keep up with the situation.
                     Neal got started at Rutgers University. He worked at his campus radio station reporting on the sports event at the school. He then had an internship at Channel 6 and an independent study at WFAM New York. He also volunteered at Prism Sports. After he graduated, he landed a job at ESPN and worked there for 3 1/2 years. One day his mother gave him a call telling that she heard that Comcast was starting a station in the Philly area focusing on Philly sports. Being from Cherry Hill, he was very interested in the project because a Philadelphia Sports' fan. So he left ESPN and joined the project. On October 1st 1997, Comcast Sports Net was launched.
                       As far as technology is concerned, he says it changes everyday and that electronic media is just going to have to keep up. From putting up extra online content to making applications available for blackberries and other phones. As far as their station, they are trying their best to keep up with the ever changing technologies. They have both facebook and twitter accounts that keep audiences updated constantly. They're also working on broadcasting games on their website.
                       Neal mentioned several things he like about his job. He loves the variety of what he gets to do. He also loves the fact that he gets to follow and write about the sports and teams that he is a fan of. Also the fact that he gets to work with sports in general, because it's something that he's always loved. He also likes the fact that he works with such talented people. What he doesn't like about it, is that it could get very hectic and busy. As he said, it's not a 9-5 job. He works a lot of nights and and rarely has weekends off. He has a family, and because of his hectic job, he misses a lot of things with them. Another dislike is the fact that the people on the production side don't make great money. He said it's enough to make a living, but that the real money goes to the people who are on air.
                       One thing Neal suggested as far as getting your foot in the door is an internship. He couldn't stress that enough. He said you can never have too many. He also said that while you're at your internship, try to set yourself apart from the rest. Go in early, stay later, offer extra help, volunteer to go on a shoot when you weren't supposed to be working. Those are the types of things that will make you stand out from everybody else. He said you need to be a hardworker, very responsible, and a solid writer. He said it's also important to listen well, ask questions, and be flexible. He also said that it was very important to be a well-rounded person. He said there were no specific trade publications that should be read, but to keep up with what's going on everywhere. Even you're interested in sports, read about what's going on the news and in other areas of the media so that way you have a good grasp of everything.



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Link    to comcast sportsnet Philly

Example of a program aired on Comcast Sportsnet Philadelphia

Interview with Richard Hankey

        For this interview/my station profile assignment, I interviewed Richard Hankey who is the executive producer of VH1's Top 20 Video Countdown. He works for the VH1 network (which is owned by viacom). I'm lucky enough to know somebody who works for VH1. My cousin's fiance is also an executive producer on several shows there and I told her about my assignment, and she said she could get me in contact with anybody that I wanted. I always had an interest in the Top 20 Video Countdown so I told her about that one. She spoke to him for me, and together we set up the interview. As I said before, I used this program for my station profile assignment because it was a show that I watch a lot and always took interest into how it was produced.
          As I mentioned Richard is the executive producer this show and others as well. He recently did casting for MTV's Jersey Shore. He said he got started doing internships in various places until he was hired at VH1. He became the executive producer of the Top 20 Video countdown in 2000. He loves the experience that comes with his job. He loves getting to meet new people and he loves his the crew and the people that he works with. He talked a lot about how this show has a very strong and great staff and how he loves working with all of them. Also, as far as this show he enjoys how simple it is. It's not too complicated to produce and put together. Something that he doesn't like about the job, is having to cast the host of the show. He said there was a period of time when it seemed like they had a new host every few months. He said casting the host for this show is the hardest thing he has ever had to do (casting-wise) and that he stresses out a lot whenever a host leaves for whatever reason, because he knows that it's going to be a long and difficult process to find a new one.
          He says the new technologies in the media may help make producing the show easier. Half of the experience of the show takes place online (voting for your favorite videos), so he doesn't seem to think that the growth of online content is going to affect this particular show very much. It was something I was actually wondering about since my group's webisode was about online content, but he doesn't seem to think that the show itself will go online anytime in the near future.
         Richard stressed how very important internships are. 75% of people who work at VH1 were once interns. They start as a production assistants and work their way up. He said while they like seeing that you got experience at schoo, he said doing an internship is extremely important and gets you more professional experience. He says it's important to not only have the skill and the knowledge, but to also have confidence and drive to want to work in this industry.

Here is the link to the Top 20 Video Countdown (the show that Richard is currently executive producer of)

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In addition to playing music videos, the VH1 Top 20 Video Countdown also does interviews with various artists on their show. Here is a video with the host interviewing American Idol Season 7 Runner-up, David Archuleta. In the video you also get a taste of how the countdown works as well.