Driven to succeed in radio

Steve Faguy, THE GAZETTE 



MONTREAL - On the list of dream jobs, being a DJ on a popular radio station is pretty high up. The job seems so simple: play popular music and chat a bit between songs, taking requests or running call-in contests. In reality, it’s more difficult than that, requiring a lot of preparation, a lot of listening back to yourself, and working under the stress of knowing that a bad ratings report could put you out of a job on a moment’s notice.

In 2012, Montreal’s three big English-language music stations each got new afternoon drive-time announcers — (Cousin) Vinny Barrucco at The Beat, Andrea Collins at Virgin Radio and Bilal Butt at CHOM — all of them under 35. Here, we meet them and learn that their paths to this dream job involved a high level of talent, a generous dose of luck, but mostly a lot of determination and perseverance.


