Thanks to “Watch Instantly” and VOD services from all across the ‘net I’ve been catching up on movies and television shows I’ve always wanted to see, but for whatever reason, I hadn’t.

Shows like Weeds, Dexter, and Sons of Anarchy are brilliantly written and acted with thoroughly engaging plots and story lines.  Each in turn has made me day dream about being a suburban widow turned marijuana dealer, a blood spatter analyst for the Miami Metro Police Department who moonlights as a serial killer or part of an outlaw motorcycle club.

I know.  I know.  It’s only they’re only TV shows and they’re sensationalized portraits of the lives that are being portrayed.  That got me thinking about my radio and how it has been portrayed in movies and TV.

One of my earliest TV watching memories is of WKRP in Cincinnati.  One viewing and I was hooked.  I knew right away I HAD to work in radio, never mind the fact that I had no idea what “work” even meant.  All I knew was that looked like a lot of fun.

Over the last 20 years, radio has been featured in some degree on TV shows like: NewsRadio, Northern Exposure, and Frasier and in movies like Talk Radio, Grosse Point Blank and Pirate Radio and I wonder who watches them and thinks, “wow radio is just like that.”

Because it’s not.

I mean, I have sat and watched Sons of Anarchy thinking that’s EXACTLY how it is to be part of a motorcycle club.  Then I’ll watch a movie or TV show that has a radio station in it and think that is not even close to how it really is.  The on air “talent” is taking a phone call and NOT wearing headphones and I want to yell (and often do) that can’t be done.

Even to the most seasoned of individuals, things get lost in translation.  Actors are not who they portray in movies and TV shows. DJs and show hosts aren’t necessarily the people they portray on the radio.

For whatever reason, the lines between real and make believe get crossed for a lot of listeners.  Maybe it’s due to the immediacy and personal nature of radio.  It’s easy to forget that there’s more to the people you hear on radio than what come out of the speakers. Just like there’s more going on at a radio station behind the scenes in the office than what is heard on a daily basis.

And remember, truth is NEVER as fun as fiction.  It may be stranger…but it’s never as much fun.

Ian Cohen is Production Director at The Radio Agency. Please follow The Radio Agency’s Blog “Sounding Board” by subscribing to the RSS link above. Visit our website TheRadioAgency.com