Business is the operative word.  Radio isn't a game to be played nor is it something to do simply because you think it might be fun, or because you happen to like music.  If you want to have fun, go to the park or the beach.  If you want to work in radio because you like music, get a job at a record store.  Radio is business, and it's big business.
        Consider the numbers in radio.  Stations sell for millions of dollars.  Using lower than normal numbers, assume you play only twelve commercials an hour at your station.  With decent salespeople, you can keep that going for twenty hours a day, six days a week, 50 weeks a year.  Let's also assume you are charging an average of $100 per commercial play.  That breaks down to 240 commercials a day, 1,440 week.  That's 72,000 commercials a year with a gross income for the station of $7,200,000.  That's seven and a quarter million dollars.  The numbers used in this example are an example only.  Many stations play more commercials an hour.  Many charge more than a hundred dollars a spot.  Many are able to fill more hours and more days with their commercials.  In other words, for many stations, $7 million a year is a low figure.
        Let's look at the availability of jobs.  As of December 31st, 2003, there were 13,563 radio stations in the United States, not including FM translators and boosters, or unlicenced stations.  There were 4,794 AM stations, 6,217 FM stations and 2,552 educational FM stations.  At the average music radio station, there are only five full-time, on-air positions: Morning Drive, Mid-days, Afternoon Drive, Evenings and Overnights.  Using only the numbers for commercial FM stations and assuming they are all music stations, that means 31,000 full-time on-air music radio jobs nationwide.  Additionally, with the advent of "voice tracking," which is the use of computers to play pre-recorded music and DJ voices as if they were live, the overnight and part-time on-air positions at many radio stations are simply no longer available.  That drops the number of potential radio jobs even further and the vast majority of those jobs are already filled.  Coming out of radio school, without much, if any, experience, you'll probably not go to work as the Morning Drive or Mid-day disc jockey.  You may be good enough to get a job doing the evening or overnight shift.  More likely, you'll start out doing weekend fill-in work.  This means a part-time position, without benefits, at a relatively low hourly wage.
        Radio stations, as mentioned above, are open all the time.  As the new person at the station, you'll probably be the one called to work New Year's Eve, Christmas morning, Thanksgiving Day, Superbowl Sunday, and all of the other holidays that "normal" people spend with their families.  Working the overnight shift places you in the position of not seeing your friends who work "regular" hours.  Your family and friends will be getting home from work as you get up to start your day.  You'll get home from work about the time they're awakening to have breakfast.  It can cause severe strains on even the best relationships.  High divorce rates are not unheard of among radio station employees.
        You may opt to work for a non-music station, a talk-radio format or news/sports station.  Even at one of these stations, the number of available positions is low and the pay is also usually low.  Most often, as a new employee, you'll be paid by the hour and won't have benefits.  You may well start out as a "studio engineer", more commonly referred to as a board operator, or "board op."  As often happens, you'll probably start out working part-time on weekends and overnights.
        Beyond all this, radio is a business of egos.  In some cases, egos get in the way of people treating others as they would like to be treated themselves.  Quite a few people see themselves as "stars" and will treat new people at the radio station with a significant degree of disdain.  Additionally, like any other business, there is office gossip, backstabbing and politics.  In radio, it can be brutal.
        If you're one of the people who wants a job in radio because you like music or think it would be fun, think again.  After playing the same songs over and over again five hours a day, five or six days a week, you'll get awfully tired of the music you're playing.  The concept of the job being "fun" will wear off quickly when you need to report to work at 11:30 pm for the start of the Midnight shift.  This is especially true if you're working part-time at the station and just got off work from your regular job a couple hours ago.
        Dire as this may sound, if you've made it this far, there is some good news.  There actually are jobs to be had.  Air-talent, news, producing, studio engineering and production.  They really are out there.  They key is to get your foot in the door doing anything you can.  That gets you experience and more station call letters on your résumé.  That'll make you more desirable as an employee at another station, or to fill a position that may become available at your current station.
        But, remember the bottom line.  Radio is a business.  They hire you for what you know and what you can do.  There's a lot of money on the line.  You have to be able to work unsupervised, with a high work ethic, and be able to do the job for which you were hired.  At the same time, it can be fun and exciting.  Radio has its benefits as well as its drawbacks and, with the proper training, you can get a job, but it takes a lot of hard work and a tremendous amount of determination.
        So what do you need to get started?  Above all, you need to be able to read.  That doesn't mean that you are able to look at a page of text and understand what it says.  You need to be able to read it aloud and read it smoothly enough, and with enough feeling, to make the listener think you are simply talking as you normally would.  You need to also speak without an accent, regardless of the language you are speaking, be it English, Spanish or Russian.  Most people have some trace of a regional accent.  At best, a regional accent will limit you to working in radio within that specific region, if they will even let you work there at all.  Consider the person with the strong Brooklyn accent.  Presenting the news from New "Yawk" to all of "youse" is going to be a problem, especiallay anywhere outside of Brooklyn.
        You are also going to need some training and practice.  You need to know how to operate the equipment.  Can you run the console?  Can you use digital audio editing software?  Can you splice audio tape?  Can you play the music and will you know what to say between songs?  Try this: Make a list of three song titles with their respective artists.  Pretend the third song just ended and, as the DJ, you need to tell the radio audience the names of the songs and the musical artists, the time and temperature, your name, and the station's call letters, name and motto.  Give it a try and keep it to less than 30 seconds.  Alternatively, read the following section aloud and try your best to sound as if you are just speaking, not reading.

Finishing three in a row on the Big "X," W-X-Y-Z, "The Sounds of Your Life." Billy Joel's "Just The Way You Are," followed by "Second Nature," from Boney James and Diana Krall with "The Best Thing For You." I'm <your name here>. It's 78 degrees at eight twenty-seven. More music on the way after a short break. Be right back!