Columbia School of Broadcasting

Columbia School of Broadcasting is the most recognized broadcasting school in the Unites States and in many
countries outside the United States. It was founded in 1964 after converting from a college to an adult vocational school. Many distinguished graduates have emerged from the school over it history and have helped shape the broadcasting industry.
Overview
The school is best known for pioneering distance education through the use of taped recordings being mailed to broadcasting students anywhere in the US and Canada divided into units and organized by format. Initially, there were only three units that included News, Sports, and Music. his was later expanded to include commercials, talk show hosting, and interviewing. Students were expected to listen to a pre-recorded LP (vinyl), read the course text, take the test at the end of the text and then record their own show on reel to reel to return to the school location nearest them for grading.
A Radio Production course and a Television course was added in the seventies, quickly followed by a Sports Play-by-Play course written and taught by two veteran sports announcers, Lou Riggs and Al Epstein. In 1999, Columbia became one of the first schools in the country to offer a course in Internet Broadcasting and had the students stream their shows as their final grade. This course was often visited by members of Akamai management as guest speakers, which was just starting up at that time.
Columbia School of Broadcasting also developed a unique Broadcast Sales and Management course for Account executives and sales reps, teaching them ratings significance, roe playing in the sales process, how to interact with business owners and marketing reps, importance of long term customer relations and closing sales for advertising. This course has been revised and updated to include teaching banner sales, explaining impressions, CPM, CPC and CPAs.
Notable Alumni
Columbia's alumni numbers over 23,000 throughout the US. It is approximated that there are 3,000 alumni in 30 countries outside the US. These countries are annotated on their website at the bottom of the home page. Columbia teaches radio broadcasting in English and Spanish. The course can be taken anywhere in the world and usually takes most students 10 to 12 months to complete
Columbia's name has been used in talk shows (Letterman), Dramas (Sopranos), Books (too numerous to mention), Sports shows, we've mentored movie stars, singers, lawyers, doctors, and government contractors with the singular purpose of improving communication and reporting skills.
Columbia School of Broadcasting is headquarters in Virginia, outside Washington, D.C. and is run by Bill Butler, the president. In the 1970's and 1980's Columbia was the official broadcasting school for training NFL players for the field of sportscasting and the school still invites and trains prominent sports figures that are getting ready to transition to the sports broadcasting world. Columbia often works with companies wishing to have commercials created that remain proprietary to the company, unlike commercials produced by individual broadcasting stations. Graduates provide voice over services for free, for the opportunity to have their voices attached to company commercials. The school makes available their recording studios so that student get practice in production and voice announcing. There is no charge for recording company commercials provided the school doesn't have to write the copy.

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