It’s been a while since the first post on my radio blog in which I spoke about demo tapes and my opinion on how they should be produced and sent to broadcasters.
In this post I would like to talk about people who, for some strange reason, decide to use ‘stage names’ instead of their real names when they work in the media industry.
Why??
I have never, ever, understood why people do this!
If your name is Joe Bloggs, why would you call yourself John Smith? It just doesn’t make any sense to me! Yet I hear so many people doing it.
In most areas of the media you are selling yourself, your name, your brand. Why would you not want to promote that as much as possible? At the end of the day that is what you are selling, yourself.
I don’t know why, but it infuriates me and always has. The only thing I can think of is that people are hiding from something. What other reason could there be?
Many people starting off in the industry asked me ‘what should I call myself on air?’. My answer : ‘your name!’.
Let me give you a good example of how I had a chuckle at this…
I once had a radio presenter working at the radio station I was running, they worked at the weekend so I didn’t see them a great deal and I had to pop in to fix something and while I was there they asked me if I could sort out their wages. So we worked it all out and I dropped a cheque in for them (they were on air at the time so I just left it on the mixer console for them). I carried on what I was doing and they came back and the conversation went like this:
– Presenter : I’ll have a problem with this cheque.
– Me : Why?
– Presenter : It’s got the wrong name on it.
– Me : No it hasn’t? It has your name on it.
– Presenter : That’s not my name.
– Me : Well why on earth do you call yourself that then?!?!
– Presenter : It’s my ‘stage name’, it’s not my real name.
I swore a little and then had a giggle…
Why on earth do people do this? You have a name, it is YOUR name, use it! Why make up another completely different name??
As another example, and I won’t give the real name of the radio presenter, but they call themselves ‘Sam Sam’. Now, why on earth would you call yourself this (their name isn’t Sam by the way, it is a made up name, but it sounds like that). I just can’t for the life of me think why they would call themselves ‘Sam Sam’? It just sounds silly. The same goes for names such as ‘DJ Flip Flop’ and things like that. It’s a shame I can’t really use real names as there are some great ones out there!
As you have noticed, people who don’t use their real name really, really annoy me!
So what is the point of this post? Surely it is not just to moan about people who use silly names on air?
No, it isn’t. Well, it is a bit!
The point of this post is to encourage you to use your real name. It is your brand and identity. You get the chance to promote yourself as much as you want and your brand (your name) is the best advertising you can get! Use it! Cut the silly ‘ Join me, Smiffy’ tag on air and just use your real name. To me, anything else just sounds silly and childish. Use your name and build up your brand and make the most of it that you can.
My name is Gavin Watson and I have never thought of calling myself anything different. On air or off air.
* Any similarity to real names is purely coincidental!