Bruce Dunn, Broadcast Media Guru Joins the Alan Alford Sports Talk Show!!!

welcome everybody to another great episode of the Allen Alfred Sports TR show I'm Allan and today we have another fantastic guest we have none other than Bruce Dunn from dun Enterprises this man has been in broadcast media for over 40 years extremely gifted we're going to hear from Bruce in a few moments but before that let me go ahead and thank our wonderful sponsor Chef G Florida barbecue sauce so delicious and addicting you may need a support group definitely visit Chef G's right here in Tampa at 301 South 22nd Street let them know that Allan Alfred Sports show sent you can't visit them in Tampa please visit any one of the four Great flavors right atbbq sauce.com and it's FL BBQ sauce.com let's go ahead and bring Roose on let's have another fantastic show let's [Music] go all right so welcome to another great episode of the Allen alred Sports St show I'm joined and so delighted to have Bruce Dunn dun Enterprise of Central Florida so how have you been busy it has been a crazy 2023 and quite frankly I'm looking forward to 2024 yeah I mean you definitely stay busy you're always on the run and always going and doing professional broadcast media let's start with there how did you first get started with professional broadcast media well started in college actually you know I I grew up in Brooklyn New York and went to a performing arts high school in Brooklyn and played on a football team involved in the theater Arts music and sports and one of the guys on the football team's dad worked at the United Nations and he asked me what I was interested in and I told him I wanted to to go into radio and TV and do some stuff like that I didn't know exactly what we're talking 70s now so it's a relatively new fi and he invited me to come to the United Nations one weekend to see international radio and that's how I literally got introduced into the radio side was through the UN radio and as a direct result of that I went okay this is what I'd like to do and then he told me about Ohio University in aens Ohio which at the time was number three in the country in Communications and had a solid radio and television program at the public television station where most universities have their you know the PBS and and NPR stations so I volunteered for a couple of weekends and then I put in my application to attend Ohio University just in case I didn't get a football scholarship to play ball there because you know in all honesty I wasn't that good so I wanted to play football and I wanted to be in Communications but Ohio University did not offer me a scholarship but what they did say is if you you know get admitted in Admissions and you get to uh to come here you can try out for the team and if as a walk on if you make the team you'll get a two-year scholarship so I earned an academic scholarship first got to Ohio University walked on made the team and got the two-year academic scholarship wow and and unfortunately I got hurt in my freshman year so I I worked at the public television station and and in the public radio station and as a direct result of that I was thrown right into the hardcore television and radio business to the point where football wasn't my you know my main thing as as much as I was there you know to play you know we're the Mt conference it's funny CU as we're speaking right now I'm actually watching Ohio University play Central Michigan Action night Matt conference got no TV back in the Lakes so so from that time on it was dedicate myself to working at the public television station and radio and doing news and doing TV handson I learned every position in the television industry every position in radio I became an engineer a technician a producer a director an executive producer I learned how to do everything from Soup To Nuts or as I say now from conception to completion and the the the person that taught me well was an executive producer young man there well not young but you know and and at that time to me he was an older gentleman but still young at the same time and I'll never forget I I went to him after two years of working at the radio station and TV station simultaneously I was doing both working through news and I said said I want to produce and he simply said to me well produce what what do you mean he said you want to be a producer then produce now I never understood what that meant because I really didn't understand what the word producer meant in its raw form and his line was very simple he says if you've got a story to tell if you have something that you want people to know then you have a story to create that's what a producer does produce you have access to all of this equipment and Technology here at the TV station go out and produce and that's all he needed to say I took advantage of every opportunity night and day television equipment Cruise editing shooting in the studio writing recording editing I did it all I was able to do it all and I learned how to be a oneman show back in 1978 19 79 when the technology didn't allow you to do that whereas today in 2023 that's what the technology does so I was way ahead of my time but it was a lot more cumers a lot more difficult to do than what I'm doing now it's strange when you think about that you know 45 years later and what I did back in the late 7s is easier to do now than when I did it wow it's wild it is a wild thing and and you know I you know great minds STI alike you know I'm actually from Brooklyn New York that's the where I'm originally from so you being from Brooklyn New York how has that experience helped you and drove drove you to success well one of the reasons why I went to Ohio University specifically was I needed to get out of Brooklyn I needed to get away from the people that I grew up around everybody was going to Syracuse they had a great Communications program back in the late 70s and from you know still do they have a great graduate program though but I knew if I stayed around the guys that I went to high school with and hung out with in the neighborhood I would still be there trying to get my undergraduate degree I would have never graduated and I said I needed to get away I needed to do something different and and it was it was great because going to the Midwest with that New York mentality and Brooklyn and City Style living and going into the appalachin mountains of Ohio into the Midwest it gave me a whole different perspective first of all it calmed me down it it got me to the point where I now couldn't run that New York wave style lifestyle because everything was slowed down so I learned to slow down I learned to to breathe I learned to take in the atmosphere around me and it wasn't until I left New York Brooklyn and spent five years in Ohio to really appreciate New York when I went back because as a kid when you grow up in Brooklyn Bronx Queens you don't go into Manhattan or the city you stay in the Burrows you stay in Brooklyn Queens Bron Staten Island you rely go into the city unless you're going to a movie or a club or a show or or or something of that nature but for me being in a high school in Brooklyn canari High School I found myself in the Performing Arts I found myself at Broadway quite often Broadway as well as the United Nations way down on the east side so those experiences allowed me to tackle the Midwest mentality with with an open mind with a an appetite to learn and it was it it felt easy less pressure less stress I let my guard down I could relax I wasn't always on edge it took a year for me just to chill to the point when I did leave Ohio and went back to you know home during the Christmas holidays and doing spring break and all those things it was like whoa don't don't forget where you live now yeah yeah you know that instinct better pick back up real quick because you really did let your guard down when you were in Ohio because you did there was no need to you know you could walk around and not look over your shoulder and and worry about feet footsteps and and who was lurking around a corner because it didn't exist yeah it really didn't exist not at least not on the college campus so yeah maybe in the outline areas and and back in then we're talking the late 70s early ' 80s there were other challenges there were other challenges I mean we were still very very fresh off the Civil Rights Movement so there was a lot of you know what people like to use that word now I call it Prejudice it was a lot more Prejudice and and and I'm not big on the word racist because a lot of what we dealt with in the late 70s wasn't racism per se completely it was more Prejudice it was more fitting into a stereotype believing the things that we had been programmed to believe and see in a community Through television and that was one of the things that attracted me to television and to broadcast because I saw the power of TV I saw the images that were being portrayed and I knew some of them were real some of those stereotypes were real to the culture but it wasn't everybody and the question became for me is why aren't there different images for those that aren't like that and you didn't see it so my reasoning was okay let's produce the positive sides of things and let's show a different side from an educational standpoint and that's why I stayed into in the world of PBS and public television as long as I did because PBS was the perfect location to create develop produce and educate the general public about what was going on in the world yeah that's remarkable and your position has brought you to some great highs and you got a chance to do some boxing too with Jim Gray how was that experience that was interesting I mean you know working with the network levels I've worked with a lot of celebrities and stars and people at all you know all the old school names from back in the days of ABC Sports and and and working with NBC C Sports and and CBS and you know back then it was you know four networks that was it you know you had ABC CBS NBC and PBS that was it you know you didn't there was no Fox you didn't have Independence there were you know small UHF stations that didn't do anything so if you were able to connect with those big four you were in and I was able to do that through ABC back in the day you know working for the pro Bowers tour Chris Shankle and Bo Burton Jr and working with the legendary Chuck Howard Chad 40 and all of these bigname producer directors that created Monday Night Football and and and working on Monday Night Football as a kid in college as a reverse angle cameraman you know that that was one of the things that I did working in the Olympics you know in Lake plet as a cameraman you know that the experiences that I have had the I've traveled the world and everybody else has paid for it and I'm still traveling the world 45 years later and everybody else is still paying for yeah you know I'm I'm I'm just prior to starting talking to you I booked a flight through Showtime to do boxing in Minneapolis on December 16th and next weekend for Thanksgiving I will be in Washington DC doing the MMA fights with the professional fight league and then you know I've got soccer because there there's a whole series going on there and the thing is is not only am I doing those big things I'm doing those little and small things so that I can keep my experience and keep my skill levels sharp because just because you know yeah I'm a producer director associate director associate producer stage manager I can do all those things but how cool is is it to be able to still do cam still develop content as an editor still work in the studio and facility working with high school kids so that's what I do is I'm teaching high school kids what I do and then I show them my world and they're like wow wow so they can appreciate it more than my contemporary and my contemporaries a lot of them are become Cragin you know they've they've experience all the bad things of the of the industry and now they're bitter and they just want to retire and do nothing well that's not me you know that's not me my setup here in the house is is multiple TVs watching multiple Sports watching multiple events and it's not just football I have you know CNN on one channel I'm flipping through CNN and Fox News while watching you know college football on ESPNU yeah you keep bus that's what I do so you know and and I'll flip back and forth to see what's going on in every sport so that I can stay up on all the historical things that take place you know there's a historical news that went on tonight with a young lady that's become the youngest NCAA coach of a field hockey team so she she's being celebrated tonight watching lacrosse you know there are a whole lot of Black Folk playing lacrosse but you got to know the sport you got to understand it and and and knowing those Sports is what got me into the Olympics doing sporting events that most people don't even think about Salt Lake City 2000 doing curling curling you know it's a winter sport it's a Canadian sport but we had an American team men and women that were in contention for metals and it was great to be able to cover that event at the Olympics in Salt Lake City and I know that you're doing that boxing event towards the end of the year are you what is your take on Showtime leaving boxing well I really don't know much about it since I stepped into this Arena of boxing pretty late because I stopped watching boxing once Muhammad Ali literally stopped I stopped getting into the sport because as far as I was concerned those guys were you know Muhammad Ali Joe Frasier George Foreman they they were the epitome of Boss and I really didn't get into it as much because it just didn't have the same the same draw and the same ponos although it was there it just didn't feel like it for me so I'm not sure what Showtime is planning but I have a feeling with all the success that they've had they're not going to completely abandon boxing it's just going to get repackaged a different way and probably under a different Channel under a a different streaming service because because that's the big thing I mean I'm I'm watching television here on one TV I have Amazon Fire TV hooked up to it and the other I have AT&T Erse and then in another I've got you know Spectrum so some people are disconnecting from everything no I'm connecting to everything because I need to understand how all of these Services work because as an executive producer which is my title for running my company you have to understand how the money is flowing and how the money is being made so for me to understand how all of these subscriptions work getting the rights to cover events to put on events to wheel and deal you've got to understand how it all comes together and how it all works so that's what I do I watch I study and then the piece that most people don't even look at is now CNBC the financial side you got to look at now how these companies are doing to see where they're trending because if if everybody remembers when dots initially started there was a big boom with the dots and people were overpaying and selling their their domains and everything and then it became the dot bomb they all fell apart because they were overpriced overvalued they went public too fast and I watched all of that stuff going on to understand that the broadcast industry the cable industry the streaming industry the over theair technology is a precious commodity and you have to understand how to use sell and buy within that precious commodity the greatest thing that happened to our country and some people would argue and say not necessarily the greatest but also a detriment detriment because we didn't manage it well was the internet because look what you're able to do you couldn't do this 30 years ago you couldn't go out and create your own radio station from Whole cloth on a streaming service I mean I watch my son create his own podcast from Whole cloth I didn't I was sitting there I was like no you're not you're not going to be successful doing it and not only was he successful in attracting a quarter of a million subscribers but he got sponsors I mean how but if you have something to offer and you know how to Market that's another skill you know how to Market yourself then you'll get that Niche audience and that small Niche audience of 20,000 50,000 100,000 it's all you need you don't need Millions see that was what I grew up believing through the neon ratings and all of that stuff that you needed millions of viewers I mean how are you going to do anything without millions of viewers and then my you know my late brother taught me from being in fashion merchandise in Bloomingdales that it's about customers he says think about what department stores do they develop customers through the buying experience and then they develop the catalog put all of their merchandise in the catalog and distribute the catalog to those that shop department stores collect the data how through your information when you purchase something and then they send out a mailer to you and then they create that catalog of all their product and they send that catalog to you then all of a sudden you start buying things from that catalog and he shared with me what the formula was for purchasing and it's still the same online and that's why you see so many online stores ads people selling individual products if you have a base of people following you whatever that base is if 10% of that base purchased something you're gonna make money yeah that's that's some awesome advice there and I I gota ask is there a specific sport or venue that you enjoy doing or covering the most football for sure definitely football because it's a game that I don't watch football for the statistics I don't watch it for the superlatives of a wide receiver a quarterback running back I watch it for the athleticism of a team that should not win but is winning a team that was not predicted to win but then wins why you know I always go back to the Infamous game appalachin State Michigan appalachin was not supposed to win that game but nobody expected them to everyone told them they were going to get blown out so that's the heart of a ball player saying to the world you don't know us you don't know what we're going to do yeah your your numbers say we shouldn't win but if we're going to go out there we're going to play well above our capability just to beat that team and that's why I believe on any given day anybody can beat anyone you can outsmart them you can out Co them you can outmaneuver them you can out athleticism them I mean it all depends on the players coaches don't play the game players they make the decisions if they're going to win or lose but they are motivated by their coach in the mind thinking that they can win that they have the talent to at least be competitive because if you beat up on a team enough not that you're good but you beat them down to the point they're going to make a mistake and if you stay up and get them to make a mistake then you can capitalize on the mistake all it takes is that first score and then from there you keep going that's part of the lecture that I give now called the four quarters of life where I talk about you know the things that you need to do through your emerging life going into retirement and all of this worldly advice is is not coming from you know a book it's coming from my life it's coming from what I've done it's coming from what I've seen others do and studying and seeing is that a pattern because as you very well know there was a time when there was a blueprint of how to become successful doesn't exist any doesn't exist any I mean if people say well what's the key to success I say one word education yeah education you have to know how to learn you have to learn how to learn because what should work on paper does and that's been proven with the Dos with with social media with everything that's out there the success with all of the people that have through social media the odds were way against them there's no way they should have had that kind of success but yet they did yeah and that's that's great advice and I know that you're not think about retirement as you mentioned earlier and you've been in the bids 40 for 45 plus years so what goals do you have now Bruce to for the rest of your career well right now the biggest goal is still developing a younger circle of colleagues high schoolers college kids mentoring them because I just launched a new Venture a month ago with two other colleagues of mine so I own a mobile truck now so I'm a partner in a mobile truck six camera mobile vehicle and we're trying to do small things High School sports Comm community events corporate events nothing big you know big relatively speaking in my eyes anything $2,000 or less is not considered big most people can do most corporations and businesses can handle $20,000 in advertising and see what I have to do is I have to show people when I say you know cost you $20,000 to create this event oh my God $20,000 who has that kind of money oh I'm like wait a minute do you have sponsors do you have people that can do advertising see you could get one single lead or or Marquee Advertiser for $10,000 and get a second one for another $10,000 and those two companies can write $110,000 off for advertising because advertising now you can't buy advertising for $10,000 and not keep spending it over and over and over most advertising budgets are way higher than 10,000 so most companies have at least $100,000 in advertising and if they have $100,000 budget they can scrape out $10,000 and put that $10,000 and probably get a return on that $10,000 faster than if they were to spend $50,000 on a TV and a radio ad because of social media but if you're not thinking that way and you don't know that then a person like me has to show them how that works so that's where I am in my next phase now is to find those companies that have those small budgets that want to get bigger and expose them and show them how they can do it for as little as $20,000 on the highend and $5,000 on the low end and then while doing that train some young people to get the technical skills to produce and develop content so that's simp that's awesome and and I know we met at the day 2500 are you still doing work with the day 2500 NASCAR well not NASCAR specifically but the radio station wndb radio who is affiliated with MRN Motor Racing Network Motorsports Racing Network but my ties are because of my son who does social media and because he's in with the NASCAR folks and they saw what I was doing at my level of you know NASCAR catered to an older audience and they saw me as the older audience but then when they saw that my older audience wasn't just an older audience it was a younger audience and when they saw the way I was appealing to the younger generation they asked me to come in and do stuff for them as well so yes I'm still involved I'm not doing it on a you know on a on a regular basis but when events come to town wndb radio they'll give me a call and say hey we're going to be here at the event you want to do some stuff with us yes and again I try to explain to people everything that I do I'm not getting paid to do I'm I'm not calling it I I don't want to say experience because that's the last thing I need it's not experience it's Insight I do it for insight I do it so that I can meet people so I can I can get a different experience that triggers the brain to create something that I would have never thought to create had I not done that experience make sense it does it does I mean you got some great experience in fact so how can people reach out to you and follow you so that they can go ahead and get the Bruce Dunn experience yeah and and and that's what I try to do all the time you know my life is about enjoying the moment that I'm in I look forward to traveling because it's not necessarily the travel to my event or doing the event it's the it's the the adventure of getting to that event yeah I'm a people Watcher in the airports so you know I'm watching all the different types of people wondering okay what wonder where that person's going watching what they're wearing the clothing the design everything so it is just a wealth of information for me to travel because now I get on a plane I'm seeing who's traveling the type of person the look you know we're all judged by what we look like people keep saying oh I don't see color and I yeah yeah you do you just don't want to admit it but yeah you do we make judgments based on you know preconceptions that we have of a certain type of person whether it's a female whether it's a male black or white we have preconceived notions and stereotypes about people and what we end up doing is waiting for that one moment for something to happen that goes yep see there it goes they just re they just reinforc The Stereotype yeah we sit and wait for that moment to see if it's real well you sit and wait long enough everything is going to come around and happen and you know and and raise its ugly head so that's what I like to do you know I I like to people watch experience folks and and play I like to play I like to test people to see their comfort levels are they comfortable in their own skin or are they not comfortable you know like I said I fly a lot I'm in a plane and and usually the big test when I'm flying in first class is I don't start the conversation others do and and I'm and I discovered now a lot of people the only way they feel they know how to break the ice with a minority or a person of color a person of a certain size and stature is to assume they played Sports wow wow so they break the ice by simply asking hey how are you doing today who did you play for they make the assumption that you played Sports well speaking of sports I'm definitely hoping you get some great opportunities for being on the Allen Alfred Sports show and and let people know on social media how could they reach out to you well I'm not that hard to find that's for sure you know my uh my website is done enterprises. TV and from there you'll see it's a family type Consulting business where I provide freelance services and Contract Services to networks and production companies and and in the likes of every so done enterprises. TV is the website and from there you can find me on Facebook you can find me on Instagram on Twitter on Twitch on Snapchat I mean I am on every social media platform as well as LinkedIn so professionally you can find me on LinkedIn so that's what people need to understand social media is a professional platform if you use it for that and everyone I meet I immediately vet them and go right to their social media site based on their name and that's how I see who they are and what they're about and I'm trying to teach the younger generation that they have to be very conscious of what's on their social media because a guy like me once I know your name I'm searching you I'm seeing who you are and what you're doing and if I see silliness or Pol you know politics to a level that could sway a person's opinion about you then you might be too lethal for me because I don't put my politics out on social media it's not you don't need to what I put out there is what I do I don't put the politics behind it I put what I do so when you look at my Instagram my Facebook my Twitter it's merchandise it's shows that I'm working on it's positions that I've done it's the behind the scenes of those shows that's what I show just did black college football you go on Instagram and you look for HBCU go sports you're going to see the behind the scenes of what it took for us to put that game on the year you're going to see me working with the college students of bethon cookman University in a production control room and how we did TV that's what you're going to see when you go to my site and then occasionally you'll see some family stuff with my kids and my grandkids and then I'll promote them I'll post them my daughter web you know web know eat well done you know she's in she's a foodie she travels and eats and brings our grandkids into it and then my son is Big social media because he does a lot of stuff with the Jacksonville Jaguars he has some podcast he models so I promote them they do something big boom that's high high up on my social media platform until the next thing comes so I promote my kids I promote me I promote grandkids I promote you and other people that I meet on my site because the goal is for us all to be successful I am not going to be envious and jealous of someone who's doing better than me I want to be associated with that person that's the success is to be around