Paul Marshall has now been on the Sacramento airwaves twice in his career via 98 Rock, with 20 years between stints. Now accompanying listeners for their morning drives, “The Paul Marshall Show” is just the most recent venture in a broadcasting career jam-packed with formats, timeslots, and cities.
“A journey it has been,” Marshall recalls of his career beginnings. “I started out doing college radio outside of Boston. I would wake up around the crack of noon and go to the campus radio station, wait for my friends to get out of their classes, meet them downstairs in the cafeteria, and go right back up into the radio station until we shut the transmitters off around 2am.”
The only glitch in Marshall’s plan to be on the college radio station was remaining a student at the college, which proved to be a difficult feat while missing classes. “If you do that for a semester, they put you on something called ‘academic probation,’ which means you haven’t gone to class enough and you are in trouble and in danger of being thrown out of school.”
With a goal of staying enrolled, Marshall got his act together only to find himself in the same position once more. “I got my grades up enough to do the same thing for the second semester… spending all my time at the campus radio station, and then they give you something called ‘academic suspension,’” he remembers.
But being out of the academic setting wasn’t the worst thing for Marshall’s interests, so when he returned to campus again, it was another futile effort. “I knew what I wanted to do from day one, so I did the exact same thing and got thrown out of college.”
From there, Marshall focused his efforts on music and making a living. “I did the band thing for a while, hurt my back working in a warehouse, because that’s what you do when you’re in a band. You have to have a job that pays your rent,” he says. He once again set his sights on a career in broadcasting.
Getting into radio initially felt right for Marshall as someone whose radio had kept him company through many of his early childhood years. “It really was about the connection… I come from a broken home. I’m also my mother’s only child… When you’re by yourself and you have no brothers and sisters, you look for companionship. And I was fortunate enough as a 9-year-old to win tickets from WRKO in Boston…to go see Beatlemania,” he recalls. “The radio was a constant companion. And it still is. We are the first social network.”
“They were always there,” he remembers of his local stations growing up. “It was something I could rely on. I could turn on the radio, and I wasn’t alone.”
“It really was about companionship, and it still is,” he says.
When it comes to the common debate over radio stations and streaming services, Marshall’s stance is pretty clear. “You can get the music anywhere. You cannot get what comes between the music anywhere else,” he says of music radio, suggesting that people don’t listen to radio for the same reasons they might turn to their Spotify Premium accounts.
Marshall believes that if an on-air personality can really connect with the audience they serve, they’re already providing something that a streaming service’s algorithm lacks.
“That’s really what this is about,” he says. “Ozzy is always going to be Ozzy. Sublime is always going to be Sublime. People don’t listen to radio for music. They listen to radio for a connection. That’s what we’re doing. We have to connect. Emotional. Radio is not soda. Radio is not beer. Radio is not sneakers or cars. Radio is emotion. And those who are the best storytellers and who can hit emotional triggers with the audience are always going to exist. It’s the difference between a personality and an announcer.”
On the heels of being kicked out of school and dabbling in musicianship for a while, the next move for Marshall became clear. “I went into WZLX in Boston and spoke with the APD and said, ‘How do I get a job here?’”
His first professional gig was alongside a storied on-air pro that showed him the ropes. “I basically took an internship with the morning show with an on-air talent named Annalisa… She was my radio mom, so to speak, and gave me some amazing experience.”
From there, Marshall went on to contribute in a variety of timeslots and roles to nearly 15 different radio stations across the country in Boston, Portsmouth, Amherst, Memphis, New Orleans, Kansas City, Phoenix, and Sacramento.
His career has included 5 different stints at Audacy radio stations, of which Marshall notes the importance of bowing out with grace when things inevitably shift and change. Despite the fact that “people like to badmouth big companies,” Marshall says, “I find that Audacy has done a fantastic job of adapting.”
The reality for Marshall in a constantly shifting broadcasting landscape is simple. “If you haven’t been fired, you don’t work in radio.”
In terms of Marshall’s own music tastes, the stuff he reaches for varies so much day-to-day that he’s more interested in how the station adapts to diverse music tastes than the specific formats he serves.
“I’m fortunate enough to work for a station right now that understands that listening tastes are varied,” he says. “Years ago, we would think that the guy that likes Metallica wouldn’t like Public Enemy, but that’s just not true. Musical tastes are varied. It depends on your mood.”
For Marshall personally, it’s hard to call out even just one favorite artist or genre. “I love all kinds of music, so as far as a favorite goes, it’s difficult to say. Depends on what day of the week and what mood I’m in,” he shares.
He goes on to say, “All the audience wants is their favorite music, whatever that is. Now, that said, I don’t go to McDonald’s for pizza. I don’t expect to listen to whichever hip hop station is in LA to hear Metallica and vice versa. But as far as musical consumption goes… there is no real line.”
In simpler terms, Marshall quips, “There’s a much bigger world out there than three chords and a bottle of whiskey.”
Jacquie Cadorette is a music features reporter for Barrett Media with over 10 years of experience crafting and managing digital editorial content in the broadcast media space. Her radio career began at Philadelphia’s 102.9 WMGK where she assisted with crafting copy for promotional materials before moving on to blogging for Elvis Duran and the Morning Show, writing prep copy for iHeart, and ultimately becoming a senior editorial content producer on Audacy’s central team, where her work was syndicated to over 250 station sites nationwide. After bringing the company’s podcast editorial brand to life as the Head of Content, Jacquie dove into freelance editorial work alongside her other endeavors.
A PA native, Jacquie spent 9 years in New York City and then a few years in Portland, OR to continue her writing career and indulge in great coffee on the west coast. She now lives in South Philly and can be found enjoying live music, looking at the world through her Canon camera, or diving into a project she’s never tried before with unfounded confidence. Jacquie can be reached at jacquiecad.media@gmail.com.
