NOW ENROLLING for August Day and Sept Night Classes. APPLY TODAY!
ICB has 3 radio stations: Listen LIVE for HIP-HOP/R&B or SPORTS TALK or 104.9 THE EDGE (click station)
Watch Youtube Videos featuring CAREER DAY, Student Videos and more HERE
July 2nd, 2008 - A Live ICB Radio Broadcast at the 10th Annual Cruise Night in Lombard GO MORE
June 10th, 2008 - CAREER NIGHT featuring Ernie Scatton (ICB grad) from ESPN 1000 and Alan Cox, Host of the Morning Fix on Q101 MORE
June 6, 2008 - ICB Sports Chicago will be doing Live Radio play by play for all HOME Dupage Dragons games MORE
May 22nd, 2008 - Mike Barz loves our students and features them LIVE on Good Day Chicago MORE
May 21st, 2008 - Mike Barz Fox 32 Good Day Chicago guest speaks MORE
May 19th, 2008 - Chicago Bandits Women’s Pro Softball and Illinois Center for Broadcasting partner to air live games via internet and MLB.com MORE
May 5th, 2008 - Career Day w/ Matt Abbatacola from WSCR and DJ Julian & Errick Brown from B96 MORE
April 1st, 2008 - Ryan Ivemeyer wins OPENING DAY Sox Tix courtesy of Beonair.com, Ticketbag.com and WSCR.
March 12th, 2008 - Radio Personality Jim Lyman from Q101's Morning Mix.
February 27th, 2008 - Eddie V from B96 visits ICB & does virtual tour:
CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO!
March 1st, 2008 - Career Day with Alan Cox & Steve Tingle from Q101 and Rich Wyatt & Errick Brown from B96.
January 9th, 2008- Showbiz Shelley from B96 visits!
December 13th, 2007 - Career Night with Alan Cox of Q101
ICB featured in West Suburban Living
Radio Dreams
Lombard school gets students on the airwaves
AMANDA PARKER is 19 and locked and loaded for a Top 40radio career. For her, four years at college is simply too long to wait to pursue that dream. She tried pursuing a communications major at Western Illinois University. No good, too slow — and too much theory, not enough practical instruction.
That’s why this past year Parker has been earning her radio chops— along with 150 to 200 other aspiring air personalities — at the Illinois Center for Broadcasting (ICB) in Lombard. Though the school’s low profile “campus” is essentially one floor of an unassuming office building, inside students receive hands-on instruction from Chicago radio and TV industry veterans. The results are an enviable 80-percent job placement rate for graduates (about 60 percent of those work in radio, with 40 percent opting for television).
The school boasts 10 radio studios and one TV facility where aspiring broadcasting students learn the ins-and-outs of sound and video production as well as announcing. WFLD-TV traffic reporter Sondra Solarte is an ICB grad. ESPN 1000’s Ernie Scatton and KISS-FM’s Joann Jenette also took training here. So did WSCR’s Matt Abbatacola (see “Scoring Big” below).
The program typically runs about 10 months and costs around$14,000, a bargain for Parker compared to the more than $40,000 it would have cost for four years at Western. “Finally, I’m excited about what I’m doing,” says the Aurora resident, who had just been named assistant program director of the school’s in-house Hip Hop station. “This is one-on-one instruction. Everything is hands-on from the first day. I’m in the studio, learning the soundboard.Everything makes sense.”
Patrick Johnsen, director of the school (which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this year), admires Parker’s focus and motivation. He thinks she’ll do well at her required internship (ICB places all students in internships with major Chicago radio stations).
“We try to be upfront,” Johnson explains. “There’s hard work and commitment involved. You might have a fantastic radio voice,but no ambition and you probably will fail. Someone else with a great personality and an average voice will thrive because they put the effort forward. Often we find our older students do better because they are more motivated.”
Older students? You mean the world of radio isn’t the exclusive realm of teens and 20-somethings? “Oh, not at all!” says Johnsen.
“If you look at our classes, you’ll see18-to-24 year olds in the morning, and students in the 28-to-40 range coming in at night after work.”
Guys like Chicago actor Ed Smaron, who admits to being “40-ish,” and originally thought he’d add radio skills to his performing repertoire. (Johnsen confirmed the school does offer voice-over classes, but cautioned commercial voice acting is a rough, highly competitive field, and should be looked at in terms of supplemental income rather than a full time job.)
Smaron never imagined winding up with Shadow Broadcasting, writing and delivering overnight newscasts on WLS. He’s been there two years, though. “I didn’t go to the school hoping to get into radio news,”Smaron admits. “I had no journalism background. I learned the basics and practiced at the school radio station. After that it was all about gaining experience. I had a lot to learn on the job.
“I do two newscasts per hour between11:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m.,” says Smaron.“I’m on the phone talking to police and fire departments. I have 90 seconds to cover news, weather and traffic.”
Those pursuing radio careers often have to be willing to move and get experience in smaller markets. Smaron wrestled with the notion of having to leave Chicago for his first paid radio gig.“I had my demo tape prepared and sent out,and had an offer from a station in Charleston, South Carolina,” he recalls. “I like the weather there. I was ready to go. Then I heard from Shadow Broadcasting, and they told me to see them first — and I’m glad I did. Given a choice,I didn’t want to leave Chicago.”
Parker knows she’ll be faced with a similar decision-sooner than later. “I don’t mind being paid less to work in a smaller market — as long as I’m doing something I love,” she says. “I love radio. If it means going to Nebraska and doing the corn report, I’ll do it. That’s got to be better than sitting bored in some cubical all day doing a job you hate.”
— Jim Mueller
Reprinted with permission from West Suburban Living Magazine
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