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Jim Albracht has been around the Quad Cities airwaves for decades.
At the start of his career he was a sportscaster right here at WQAD News 8. Following that, he moved on to host a radio show at WOC for nearly 10 years before being pulled off in a round of iHeart Media layoffs. This happened several years ago. Then, citing a restructuring plan, iHeart lets go of DJs across the country in another round of layoffs.
“It’s been a long ride,” explains Albracht in the “Off the Air” podcast.
Albracht sat down with Good Morning Quad Cities host Jonathan Ketz to talk about his roller coaster ride in broadcasting and what he thinks to future holds for others in the industry.
“The future of radio is wobbly, man,” said Albracht. “It’s just wobbly for a lot of different reasons and not because it’s iHeart. Radio has to be local it just has to be. There’s too many things now, if I can get on the internet and tweet it, I don’t need (the radio). I need to know what’s going on in my town.”
As the business goes through changes, and new generations of people come into adulthood, Albracht says to remain in the industry, you’ve got to be a “climber.” He said “if you’re stationary, you’re a target.”
In this podcast, Albracht also reminisces on the helpful mentorship of WQAD’s Jim King as he got his start. And as for his early-morning radio days, Albracht says he’ll never get up at 4:30 a.m. ever again.
Today you can catch Jim Albracht on the Iowa Hawkeye Radio Network.
