Bandiero, Al - Author, DJ

By: Dominick A. Miserandino

Al Bandiero is heard nationwide on most major radio markets. He's seen the world of music and radio change and develop over his career and gives us his thoughts on the future of radio.

DM) Did you always feel that you were going to go into radio?

AB) No. Actually, I was all set to play major league baseball, until I walked into a radio station in high school. I was mesmerized with how it worked. Radio is a theater of the mind. To watch how it works is 180 degrees in the opposite direction of how people think. To see how it works, was amazing to me. My love for baseball has never lessened; I just got excited about radio.

DM) Where did you go to school?

AB) I went to Chelsea High in Manhattan. Then I went to Brooklyn College for a year. It was deciding between going to college or waiting three years to enter the radio field which was difficult. I would have been three years into my career if I left college which isn't always the best.

DM) So, you left college and got your first job. Where was that?

AB) A little station in Upstate New York, in a town called Hudson, outside of Albany. It was a really small town, in a small station. I joked that it had 4 cows and 3 pigs who were listening to me! It was so small, that the station used to stop playing after 10 PM!

DM) You've been on a number of different shows and syndicates. Why did you switch around?

AB) I've been doing different shows quite some time. Some shows click, some don't. Most of the time it was a company syndicate show with really no up part in getting the show clear. You go on one show, get canceled, and start somewhere else. "Jammin' Party" (the current show) was something. The timing was right, the people who syndicate it are excellent at what they do. We had the show cleared in many markets in less then 1 year. We're already in 6 of the top 10 markets.

DM) Can you still be heard in Hudson, NY?

AB) I might. (laughs) I'm probably still big there, with the chickens and cows! Right now, I'm on in 90 cities around the country.

DM) And what's next with the syndication then?

AB) I wouldn't mind getting into 150-200 markets.

DM) And I understand that you're stretching out beyond radio?

AB) I'm in discussions about doing a syndicated TV show. It's in the works, but I can't go into it right now, I have to be host and procurer?. Plus, I also have a fitness book.

DM) Fitness? That's a bit of a tangent. How did you get into that?

AB) I was always into fitness, I mean, I wanted to be a baseball player! It was great when I met Sly Stallone. He opened me up to going to the gym.

DM) How did you meet Sly?

AB) I met Sly through his brother Frank. I had broken "Far From Over" in the Saturday Night Fever sequel. Sly directed it, and Frank had the big song, which opened up the movie. When Frank came on tour, somebody told him that I broke his song onto the radio. We became friends and when Sly came into NYC, Frank took me in to meet him and Sly and I became friends.

DM) And you still keep in touch?

AB) The last time I saw him was in LA, working out at the gym. It was a private gym.

DM) And in addition, you're working on a fitness book?

AB) I stepped up when doing magazine fitness. People always said I should do it, I said, "Yeah, yeah OK." My wife said, "You really should do this." So we put a treatment together, and shopped it around. The focus is for somebody who has a career but wants to stay fit.

DM) You certainly have your hands in many different things.

AB) I've found that when I concentrate on one thing, I need something else to generate that fuel to keep my interest there. But I don't think that's different from other people. Radio, TV, movies... it's all entertainment. To keep doing what I'm doing on my radio show I'd always look to other avenues, and the challenge of a career.

DM) Speaking of radio again, lately in the news some people have talked about the demise of "regular" radio and the rise of "Internet Radio." What do you think of the new medium?

AB) I think its in an infancy stage now and I saw a report about a few weeks ago that radio stations on the net have not grown in the last 6 months. I think part of the reason is you'll listen and lose stream or garble, they need to clean up a little more. I think it may be irritating to listen to something like that, that's why I think its still in the infancy stage. It's not like you have a mega system to listen to. It's not like your stereo at home, when its cranked up. The computer is only one on one. I pop a CD in when at computer. I think its fantastic that somebody can punch up stations around the web. What's more interesting is that somebody is putting computer chips in cars. Now, people who drive a lot out of the area, they can hear what they want any time and not worry about losing the format or the personality. It's all for a small fee per month and many car companies already have it.

DM) What do you think the effect will be on "regular" radio?

AB) It's hard to say the effect on regular radio. Any time competition comes along to any degree somewhere down the line I think it will affect it. There's no stopping computers. At some point, whatever you want, or need, you can get over the computer.

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