Is RadioDaddy Becoming a Voiceover Junk Yard?

Agree with you. Yes, it’s one thing to help out the needy and give you a chance to keep the throat well-oiled, but I think many of the people making the requests are in business themselves - just trying to save their clients a buck or two.

And any self-respecting professional should think carefully about the cumulative effect of doing work for nothing. Are they really helping themselves? How do you pay for the home studio when you don’t get paid? Perhaps they’re training the market to drive the price of voicework down… devaluing the role of voices in media. Do producers, directors, editors, tv and radio stations provide their services for next to nothing? (Well, don’t answer that just at the moment!!).

Yes, this is a well-worn argument. But media are delighted at the proliferation of home studios - a fragmented industry means there’s always someone who will do it for nothing, because they wouldn’t have had a chance to do it if a, say, union or card rate applied to all jobs - then the decision would really come down to picking the best voice for the job, not the best price.

I am a little late to the discussion, but I agree with you.

I was an “end user” of RD for 2 years - I paid for a subscription and was glad too, in an effort to keep the community going. I only asked for a couple (3 I believe) of VOs during that time and was very appreciative of the work that went into them.

Toward the end of the second year things started to change and I was having issues with my subscription and signing on. Then the influx of, I’ll call them kids, happened and instead of well thought out posts and requests, it turned into a circus of gimme, gimme, gimme….

It is sad to see a great community fall apart so quickly.

I have been with radio daddy now for a while, and was promoted to voice pro status quite fast due to my background.

I rarely use RD for requests.

Yes, there are a LOT of punk kids out there filling up the forums, BUT, we have been weeding them out, or just not replying to their requests at all.

On the positive side:

Radio Daddy has helped me land clients. I have a repeat client from a radio station, who pays me well for every spot I produce.

I was also recently contacted by a dental supply company for a $500.00 project because of this website.

With any websites there are pros and cons.

Just ignore the punks, and remember, the site was made with the word FREE in mind.

I was a contributor to RD back in 2005… same story. People wanting something for nothing… I used it to practice some creative production… what ‘I’ liked. If they didn’t like it, they didn’t use it, but most did.

The biggest problem I had with RD was the guy that started it. Ego issues and erratic rules. This was all before “rep points” or whatever. I could see where it was going. I am sure it has been good for a few folks, getting clients and what not… but it started out to be an FREE exchange for LPFMs and non commercial stations… what it turned into… well.

If there was a place to go that was still totally free and without an “overlord” I might get my audio gear and mics set up again and contribute… just to help people out But I’ll never set foot on RD again, except maybe out of morbid curiosity. =^) And I agree… it CHEAPENS voiceover work… It has been breeding cookie cutter ‘insert station name here’ type stuff. Six sweepers for $50 and all that. Geez, us creative ‘do something fresh for each client’ types can’t compete. The market is saturated with “make a cheap buck, it’s a part time extra gig for me” guys. I went back to work for a commercial FM group with a non-competition policy, so I boxed up and put away my studio… but the profitablity had gone out of it before that.

Some of us were going to hit it big after doing stuff for podcasting, they said… Yeah, right!