Jim Cutler is a seasoned voice actor with credits too numerous to mention. His website says, “In any hour, I will voice a national News network, a kids’ network, then sports followed by a big entertainment show for a national cable channel. I do a lot of styles that you hear every day but do not know it is me. But I sound familiar.
Jim is today’s featured voice actor.
Jeff Lynn: You became interested in the business in a way I don’t often hear about.
Jim Cutler: My shortwave radio introduced me to radio stations from around the world, and I started DXing distant AM stations. That’s when the bug bit me hard. Radio. These days, I own a larger shortwave radio.
JL: What is a typical workday like? Is there such a thing as a typical workday?
JC: Hardcore. Nine in the morning till 11 at night, every single minute. Including Alaska and Hawaii. We don’t eat at the table. It’s eat while you can. I’m very grateful. We came from nothing. We didn’t hurt anyone. No one handed it to us. We just work really hard, thank God. We love what we do.
JL: So, you are very well known as a premiere sports voice among all the many things you do. Did you set out with that in mind, or did it happen organically?
JC: I did the imaging at WEEI in Boston in its heyday. Then, Mark Mason put me on the ‘Fabulous Sports Babe’ show on ESPN Radio, then ESPN TV, then meeting Bruce Gilbert and Rick Scott and sports grew organically from there. There’s HBO sports, to being on the intro for NBC Sunday Night Football each week because of the great Fred Guidelli. After that, it was just station telling station. Dawn [Jim’s wife] and I are both hardcore Red Sox fans. And Tom Brady is wicked pissah great.
JL: Who are your early influences?
JC: Gene Shephard. And all the announcers I’d hear around the country by DXing the AM band at night. I still do it, and it makes me love radio even more.
JL: When I started in radio, voice actors shipped me sessions via FedEx. What other notable changes have you seen?
JC: Yes LOL! I had a very hard time getting station chief engineers to allow us to ditch FedEx and send them MP3s when dial-up modems were finally here. Dawn and I were the first people in Boston to get ISDN lines, and finding the right person at the phone company was a brutal process.
We first automated things by putting our audio files into an ENCO computer tied to a Zephyr. We’d mail our stations a radio-shack touch-tone pad. Stations would connect their Zephyr to ours, then play touch tones down the line to make the ENCO computer cycle through audio files until they found theirs!
Our ENCO computer would find their file and play it down the Zephyr for them—instant delivery. No one understood FTP back then, but they’d gladly dial into us.
I was one of the first to own the great Orban 7000 digital workstation. We had no furniture in those early days—just a fax machine and an Orban 7000 workstation. Soon, we distributed it via DGS, which was essentially FTP. We’ve all come a long way.
JL: Biggest blooper?
JC: Too many to mention. If I get a name wrong, I hear about it on X. Every time I get a new impossible name to read, or there’s an NFL or NBA draft, all those new names go into a giant database. Different pronunciations of clients, hosts, anchors, regional towns and streets, etc. I have over 10,000 items in my “pronouncers” list.
JL: Tell me three things that people may not know about you.
JC: I’m certified in a completely dead language, Morse Code. I can do 30 words per minute.
I’m a hardcore astronomer with six telescopes.
Third, my wife Dawn does a full 50% of everything I do, working equally every minute of every day.
Hear Jim’s demo here.
For Networks and Shows, Atlas Talent New York represents Jim.
Radio and TV station bookings and auditions are direct at 516-676-0800. Connect directly here.
Dawn Cutler is a voice actor with numerous credits and can be reached directly here.
Jeff Lynn serves as Editor of Barrett Media’s Music Radio coverage. Prior to joining Barrett Media, Jeff spent time programming in Milwaukee, Omaha, Cleveland, Des Moines, and Madison for multiple radio groups, including iHeartMedia, Townsquare Media, NRG Media, and Entercom (now Audacy). He also worked as a Country Format Editor for All Access until the outlet shut down in August 2023.
To get in touch with Jeff by email, reach him at Jeff@BarrettMedia.com.
