Specs Howard School of Broadcast Arts
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The Specs Howard School of Broadcast Arts is an educational institution, dedicated to preparing people for a career in radio and television broadcasting. It is based in Southfield, Michigan, USA and is named after its founder, Specs Howard.
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[edit] Background
Specs Howard was born 8 April 1926, in Kittanning, Pennsylvania. In 1948, he received a B.A. degree in history/political science and radio speech and dramatics from Allegheny College in Meadville, Pennsylvania. That same year, he opened his own radio station in Pennsylvania. Later, Howard moved to Cleveland and continued his broadcast career there. In 1962, he joined forces with Harry Martin, launching The Martin and Howard Show, which remained on the air in Cleveland until the duo moved to Detroit in January of 1967. The show aired for another year in Detroit.
In 1970, Howard founded his namesake school, the Specs Howard School of Broadcast Arts, with the purpose of training aspiring professionals in the varied and broad range of career paths associated with the radio and television industry.
[edit] Educational Focus
Students at Specs Howard obtain a broad spectrum of skills and techniques in both television and radio broadcasting. Students can choose one of two separate career path concentrations: the radio/audio-focused course or the telelvision/video-focused course.
Classes, called RTV, are named by the class number and the year of the class; i.e.: RTV-10-06 is the 10th class of the 2006 year.
Students spend the first two quarters of the eight-month program (or 12-month depending on whether the student focuses on both audio and video) taking classes that touch both radio and TV. At the end of the second quarter students decide on which side they want to concentrate, radio or TV. The students split up into radio classes and video classes which go into depth on their subjects.
In addition to the audio and video training, RTV students are taught how to be professional-sounding disc jockeys, announcers, and professional-sounding TV talent, and how to write in the broadcast style.
Additionally, students are lectured on commercial and news copy writing and are taught the basics of the transmitter operation, a subject that is covered in much greater technical detail later in the video course.
Students also learn about the industry from insructors such as Dick Kernen, who has spent 50 years, as of 2006, in the industry.
[edit] Alumni Success
Graduates of the school work in all aspects of television, radio, corporate video, and even the movie industry. Several have achieved varying degrees of stardom, anchoring or reporting on major media networks and appearing in films and syndicated radio shows.
You can find “Specs” graduates in all levels of the entertainment and information media—both on the air, and behind the scenes.
