MAJOR MARKET BUT NO MORNING SHOW QUESTION FOR DAN O’DAY: (Note: This person's air name has been altered here. Two of his e-mailed questions have been condensed into the following paragraph.) dan, air name is Stunt Boy. I've worked in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York blah blah blah, won a billboard personality of the year award but I cannot break into a morning gig. I want to do mornings and i can't convince anyone to give me a shot. People like, i get ratings and i'm smart and topical. What can i do? Someone said its the stupid name, i dunno. thanks DAN REPLIES: If you want to do mornings but can't get a gig, it means one of three things: PDs don't see you as a morning jock. You're not targeting appropriate markets. You've done a lousy job marketing yourself. To take these in order..... PDs don't see you as a morning jock. That's because (choose one):     A) You're not very well suited for mornings.     B) The type of show you've been doing until now does not accurately represent what you would do in mornings, and that is all those PDs have to go on.     C) You're pitching yourself to PDs who aren't good at judging morning talent.     D) The PDs you have pitched don't think you're a good jock (or "their kind" of jock), period.     E) You're shooting for markets above your present ability.     F) You're shooting for markets above your present marketability. (That is, you might be good enough for those markets, but you have not positioned yourself effectively enough to be seriously considered.) I strongly suggest you consider ordering our Radio Self-Promotion tape (which is available at our online catalogue). If you've got the credentials and the talent but the industry at large doesn't know who you are, you are the victim of your own lack of positive self-promotion.     To start with (remember, you asked for my opinion), the e-mails you sent me were filled with typos, proper nouns (e.g., "I") that you repeatedly didn't bother to capitalize, writing "u" for "you," etc. Hey, that's your choice, and maybe it's fine for e-mailing your friends. But if this represents the way you present yourself to prospective employers, you're drastically lowering their expectations of you as a professional. You're not targeting appropriate markets.     I have a hunch that the answer lies here. You've worked in a number of major markets, so you probably see yourself as a major market jock. But to get a shot at a real major market morning show, you have to either:     A) Do great on another air shift (probably afternoons) for a major market station and wait until the current morning show host quits, is fired, dies, or is incarcerated.     B) Get great ratings results doing mornings at a smaller market. My hunch is that you expect to move laterally - that you would be upset at the prospect of moving DOWN in market size. But that's your most effective way ultimately to end up doing a major market morning show. Offer your services to a medium market station that will be impressed by your major market credentials and will give you a morning show of your own. Finally, I think you're right: I can't imagine your air name helps you within the industry. It doesn't position you as a personality, and by your own admission "there's like 10 of the same name." Hope some of this helps..... Best, Dan O'Day