I (Ken Laing) spent over 25 years as staff announcer
at CBC Windsor, doing all of the broad and varied announce and broadcast
functions expected of a staffer. I was hired back in the days when the
CBC announce audition was legendary for its difficulty, involving as it
did a knowledge of the phonetics of several European languages as well
as English. In those days we did not only classical, opera, Broadway and
jazz shows and interviews but we were routinely called upon to do commercials,
newscasts, documentaries, and live on-the-spot remote broadcasts for news
stories and and morning and afternoon shows.
In addition to the Windsor experience, my longest gig by far, I performed as announcer and program host in St. John's Newfoundland.
In St. John's the station manager sat me down in his office and said he didn't like the classical show on the national network and that I would create and host a local classical show on the Newfoundland network.
Since we had no classical records that weren't
badly scratched, I had to "raid" the local record stores of their entire
inventory just to get the first few shows on the air. The show lasted a
couple of years till the time I left CBC St. John's for CBC Windsor. Before
St.John's I held CBC temporary announce jobs in Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal.
Before all the CBC jobs, though, I got a good
grounding in private radio, starting at CJCS in Stratford and then stations
in North Bay, Kitchener, Niagara Falls, Montreal and Ottawa.
Recently, I have done some docu-style political commercials with the Moffat agency in Kitchener (will travel) and Media Street here in Windsor. I am available by appointment most days including weekends.
In addition to commercials and industrial v/o video I also do outgoing messages for phone systems and commercials-on-hold. I can record spots on my premises and submit the audio cassette to you or I can show up at the studio of your choice.
In addition to using my own style, I can read copy using a generic European pseudo-accent or in a french, German or Italian accented style. (Needless to say, difficult or exotic words or phrases are not a problem.)
Feel free to contact me on this website or for more immediate access
call my private delivery business, Windsor Dial a Bottle and leave a message after you hear mine.