Mr. Mike C. Collins Jr. This is Me

Education

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1. 1. News-Talk 1110 WBT | History: The 1980's

   www.wbt.com/programming/histor - [Cached]

   Published on: 5/28/2008   Last Visited: 5/28/2008

   Mike Collins joined WBT as a weekend part-timer soon to be hired full-time to host the morning show (1985) and become Program Director.

2. 2. Cover Story

   www.leadernews.com/Archive/082 - [Cached]

   Published on: 8/28/2002   Last Visited: 8/28/2002

   MIKE COLLINSHe Has Enough Jobs To Keep Two People Busy
   
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   But other than that, Mike Collins was on vacation.Collins, the WFAE radio-show host, advertising agency executive and newspaper columnist, is the epitome of a multi-tasker."I get four or five hours of sleep a night," he says."That's really all I need."Collins, 51, has been involved in radio, television, acting, writing and business ventures of some type since childhood - from the day he learned to play the accordion and discovered that audiences reward a good performance.The music was long before he came to Charlotte, before his voice on local airwaves paid the bills.Now, Collins hosts a morning show on WFAE, is creative director for the advertising firm Collins, Haynes & Lully, and writes a newspaper column for The Leader. "As a kid, I got to be really good at the accordion.I really practiced at it," Collins says."I was in several competitions in the Washington (D.C.) area and won in the virtuoso category when I was 16 or 17.I paid my way through college in bands, as a keyboardist."He also performed in the Tony Grant Stars of Tomorrow Show, on the Steel Pier in Atlantic City, a circus atmosphere that stretched a half-mile into the ocean, where a high-diving horse would jump into the water."We would do four shows a day.But vaudeville was over.I was 13 years old," Collins says."If I was starting out today, that's what I'd do.I'd be an actor."Somewhere, playing music live evolved into playing other people's music from a radio booth."My goal when I was 20 years old was to be the midday guy at a radio station that played Frank Sinatra and Ella Fitzgerald," he says."I never thought I'd be doing serious journalism, and talking about politics and economics and social issues."
   
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   Collins started his radio career at the University of Maryland in College Park in the early 1970s, doing weekends and vacation relief shifts for the college station and WMAL in Washington, which was owned by ABC.He moved to Columbia, S.C., to station WIS in 1976, then went back to WMAL two years later as music director."I hated that job the minute the elevator door opened.I loved Washington; I had grown up there.This was the dream job and the dream chance," he says."But the minute the elevator door opened, something happened and I knew it was the wrong decision."He lasted three and a half months, then returned to Columbia as the midday host, on air from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m."It was heavily personality-oriented.The music wasn't that important," he says."I did interviews.I did stuff.Five hours is a long time.God only knows what I did."After 18 months at WSPA in Spartanburg, S.C., he was back at WIS as program director and morning host.But about then, another urge had started: television.
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   To stay involved with radio, Collins would drive to Charlotte on weekends to do a broadcast from Carowinds for WBT.Then they asked him to do the morning show."I hated mornings," he says."I can't sleep before 11 at night."He did the morning show."I figured, I got a condo in Spartanburg, a house in Columbia, and I'm not making any money, and WBT will pay me more, and WBTV was right down the hall, so I could pester them to death," he says.A week later, he was named interim program director, then program director.Then he added morning weather for the TV station.At the same time, literally, he was on the radio."So they put a TV camera in the radio studio, and I'd do pre-tape while I was on the air.I'd put a long record on and tape some weather," he says."It was a circus every morning to pull this off."He became program director at WBT, and when the TV side started its Live at 5 newscast, he was asked to do feature pieces for that, too."It was like doing gymnastics to make that work.I was actually pushing buttons on the radio to make the next commercial start, or the next record, while I was talking live on TV," he says.He switched to the midday TV cast and did that on weekdays, as well as weekend weather."People said I was crazy (working seven days a week), but I loved it," he says.He sent a tape to a friend in New York, and did the weather for CBS This Morning while the regular weather guy was on vacation.At WBT, he co-hosted a Sunday-morning radio show and did the weather on the late-night news.It almost became too much."I was pretty shot.There were times when I'd sit down on the stairs between floors and say, 'What are you doing?'* * *Meanwhile, both WBT and WBTV had management changes.He wasn't a meteorologist, which most television stations demanded of their weather forecasters, most of it for show.
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   Then Collins added a Web site column, which he wrote three times a week.He switched to The Leader last winter.Now, Collins get up about 6 a.m., reads his paper, goes to the radio station for his show, meets with the producer about the next day's events, then goes to his ad agency.In mid-week, he turns in his newspaper column.He's been on WFAE and at the ad agency for nearly five years.The radio broadcast is what keeps him in front of an audience.Collins calls himself "a fiscal conservative and a political moderate to liberal."
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   Collins said he'd prefer not to have a debate, a "one-upmanship" show in which nothing really got said.The Republican side would be on later."He said, 'Sure you will.' But if you listen, I've had Sue Myrick on, Mel Watt ...," he says."I finally told him to get off my phone.Public radio considers a lot of different topics.And just because it considers a topic that's to the left or the right doesn't mean they're taking a stand on that topic.It means it's putting it out there for you. "You don't have to adopt them as your beliefs."* * *
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   If there were ever time without anything scheduled - on that rare day, Collins says, he would spend it reading some of the books that have piled up for "one of these days."Then he'd go to a movie and out to dinner with friends.He still dabbles in acting some, with CPCC's summer theater, or at Belmont Abbey or Charlotte Repertory Theatre.Maybe that will be the next thing."I guess if I retired and did nothing, I'd be an old character actor," he says."A crotchety old character actor."Maybe when I'm 60 or so."
   
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3. 3. Collins, Haynes & Lully - About Us

   www.collinshayneslully.com/pag - [Cached]

   Published on: 11/28/2003   Last Visited: 11/28/2003

   Mike Collins, President & Creative Director
   
   Mike has worked in communications since 1972 and has personally created over 10,000 TV & radio spots, special programs and documentaries.He also has directed the development of print and outdoor campaigns.Mike is behind the mic, too, as host of Charlotte Talks with Mike Collins, weekdays at 9am and 7pm on 90.7FM, WFAE.Hear Mike's award-winning program live on the web at www.wfae.org