Is Broadcasting Still a Viable Career?

Discover Lafayette welcomes Hans Nelsen, known on air as “Fast,” who co-hosts the morning show on Big 102.1 from 6:00 to 10:00 a.m. each weekday with CJ Clements.

Hans has been on the air in South Louisiana since 1985, starting as a USL student working the graveyard shift at a new urban contemporary station and going on to serve as on-air talent, program director, account executive, and sales manager at several top local stations.

He also spent years as a stadium voice and play-by-play broadcaster, and his career has become intertwined with the story of local broadcasting in Acadiana.

Hans was joined by his lifelong friend Sean Trcalek, General Manager of KATC TV-3, who was once known on radio as “Charlie Roberts.”  The two reminisce about their early days as radio co-hosts and their lifelong friendship.

Early Love of Music and the Magic of Radio

Hans grew up in a home filled with very different kinds of music, from German organ to big show tunes, and a little boy’s transistor radio became his portal to the wider world of sound.

He recalls: “I grew up in a household where my dad listened to German organ music and would play it throughout the house on Sunday afternoons. We had to listen to it whether we wanted to or not. My mom was really into big show tunes. ‘I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Out of My Hair” and “The Sound of Music.”

But his own soundtrack lived on his bike: “As a little boy, I had a transistor radio that I taped to the handlebars of my bike, and I would listen to top 40 in one way or another. 1972.” He loved the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, and pop hits like “Billy, Don’t Be a Hero.”

As he got older, he says, “I really wanted to be a musician, and I wanted to be a singer, and I can’t really do any of that. I can play a little guitar, but radio was this next opportunity, though I didn’t really know you could turn it into a career. I just thought it would be something I did for fun.”

Learning Radio on the Graveyard Shift

Hans’ first job was at an urban contemporary station, Foxy 106.3 (KFXZ). Growing up in New Iberia, he already knew some of the music: “It’s funny, you could be a rock guy, but also listen to the Gap Band and Kool and the Gang.”

Even so, he had to go deeper into that catalog for a targeted audience: “This was deeper and a more targeted ethnic audience. But it was a piece of cake, because I loved music.”

Being alone on the air at night was intimidating: “Well, I’d listen to so much radio. You try to imitate or emulate Casey Kasem, but I was so terrible. The fact that they let me stay past the first night…It was the middle of the night miracle.”

He also remembers the mind games of that lonely studio: “You’re in a room by yourself and you can play mind games because you can either convince yourself that no one hears you, or that everyone’s listening. That one mistake, everybody’s going to hear it.”

Hustling Through College Radio and 24-Hour Weekends

Still in school, Hans got a weekend job at KVOL (1330 AM) and was quickly recruited by KSMB: “On my second shift, Scott Seagraves called me from KSMB and said, I’m listening to you. Do you want to come work for me?”

He was “so hungry” to be on the air that he took on extraordinary hours. ““I would do six to noon on KSMB on Saturday and Sunday, and quickly added noon to six on weekends at KXKW. So, I worked 24 hours in two days and worked at a bar both nights. But I knew that I had the bug, and I turn it into a job!”

That building is where he and Sean first truly connected and eventually became a morning team:

“And Sean comes into that building, we end up being the morning team and here we are.”

Teaming Up with Sean: Voices, Characters, and Parodies

Sean came in as a young newsreader, hired to do newscasts in the morning and afternoon. Their chemistry led to a two-man show that blurred the lines between straight news and wild characters.

Sean explains: “It started as you and Debbie Ray and me in news. Well, when Debbie left, it was you and me doing news. And I think it was just kind of like. Why do we need a third guy? You know, I still did the newscast, but it was a two man show.”

Hans recalls the “credibility issue”: “Sean’s doing the ‘17 people were killed today’ delivering the news and then he’s doing this crazy voice five minutes later and people knew it was the same guy. But we somehow just moved past that.”

The two displayed a gift for spontaneous skits and song parodies: “We both could really rewrite song lyrics. We could make custom versions of big songs at the time. Remember Michael Johnson’s ‘Give me wings, gimme wings.”  It would end up, “Don’t give me legs. Breasts or thighs!”

Hans says the creativity often felt effortless. “What was special about us? A special talent we both had was that there was no prep. We would sometimes do stuff and turn the microphone off. We’d look at each other thinking, that’s good. How did we just do that?”

Humor, Changing Sensibilities, and Wanting Everyone to Feel Welcome

Looking back at their 1980s material, Hans is candid about how much humor standards have changed: “Yeah, it was humor, but let’s just say sensibilities are different, right?”

He offered a vivid analogy from pro wrestling to show how certain stereotypes were once normalized and now are not: “The character development in the 70s and 80s was the Iranian guy or the Nazi guy was the bad guy. It was what they did. You just don’t do that now, right?”

Hans shared his personal compass: “I always wanted everybody to like me. I need as many listeners as I can get. They don’t have to look like me. They don’t have to vote like me. They don’t have to drive the same kind of car as me. But I want everybody to say, ‘I like listening to that guy on the radio.”

Music, Memory, and Nostalgia of Radio

For both Hans and Sean, music is deeply emotional and geographically specific; certain songs instantly bring them back to particular corners of their childhoods. Hans shared, “Some songs. What I’ve always been amazed by is when you hear a song and it brings you to a specific place. I mean, like a certain corner in your hometown and you’re like, why am I thinking of that when I hear  Sammy John’s “Chevy Van?” He offers another vivid memory: “Saturday in the Park by Chicago reminds me of standing in line at Saint Edward’s Catholic School for the cafeteria. I don’t know why.”

Becoming “Fast Eddie” and Then Simply “Fast”

A big turning point came when KSMB’s sister station needed a music director and night disc jockey. The job came with a new name Hans disliked: “They tell me, your name is going to be Fast Eddie.” He tried to negotiate the name away, but wouldn’t get the job if he didn’t accept the on-air name. KSMB was too big to walk away from:

Later, when he was put in charge of a new station and morning show, he pushed to shorten the name: “When we put the morning show on, it was the rude awakening with ‘Fast Eddie and Rob.’ We could have done it. It just didn’t sound right. Fast is a speed, not a name, but it ended up being I can’t go anywhere and people yell it out like it’s normal. When I hear Hans, it’s heartwarming. I love being Hans, I wish I could be Hans on air.”

The Power and Future of Local Broadcasting

Both Hans and Sean describe themselves first and foremost as broadcasters: “What we have always had in common and still have in common is we’re broadcasters. People say, what do you do? I don’t say I’m the general manager of a TV station, or I’m a broadcaster. We’re local broadcasters and we’re passionate about it. We have been since the day we met, and to this day, we’re passionate about the impact that local radio and television can have on a market.”

For Hans, that impact includes everything from playing nostalgia-filled music to public service in storms: “By impact, I mean moving people. When you play music, when you tell them what the weather’s going to be like, but also telling people where to go pick up sandbags.”

Hans reminds us, “During a hurricane, we’re still the last man standing. TV stations may go down… but I have been on the air during hurricanes when I was the only voice available on the air in this market.”

Sean highlights the advocacy role broadcasters have played in keeping AM radio in cars:

“We are big advocates, and were successful this past year in advocating that automakers continue to be required to put AM radios in new cars. The reason to keep AM radio is that its infrastructure often remains operational when power grids fail and cell networks are overloaded or damaged, providing a core part of the Emergency Alert System (EAS). During events like hurricanes, AM stations became the primary way people received verified, real-time information, coordinated help, and connected with the outside world when phones and internet were down.

They both reject the idea that streaming will wipe out local media: Hans says, “I’ll wrap that up with saying, Satellite radio and Netflix are not going to mean the end of local radio and local TV.”

A Morning Show Today: Competing With Phones, Not Just Stations

Hans reflects on what it’s like doing a local morning show in 2020s Lafayette:

“Technologically, it’s very different. Audience participation and reception is very different. We compete with many more things. I believe my biggest competitor in drive time is the telephone.”

Listeners no longer call to check school closures, they get texts, but live local radio still plays a crucial role, especially in emergencies.

Hans and his long-time friend CJ now host a show built on deep local roots: “We put this show together with almost a hundred years of Lafayette radio experience in one room for four hours a morning. There’s nothing that has happened here since the 60s that we don’t know about. We know where every street is. We know where the schools are. We know it. To me, it is a gift.”

Big 102.1 has embraced app listening while staying “radio-first”: “On big 102.1, we’ve had over 1,000,000 hours of listening on our app. We’re still a radio station first. So if that many people are listening, that’s why we’re still effective… we do everything we can to stay connected to the audience, to do relevant things, provide relevant content and make it fun.”

Voice of the Ragin’ Cajuns

From 2009 to 2017, Hans served as the stadium voice for UL Lafayette football and basketball, a role that grew out of his lifelong fandom: “I was such a fan. I was a Ragin Cajun as a kid. I wasn’t an LSU kid or a Tulane kid. It was USL.”

Eventually, security protocols and family priorities pushed him to step away so he could watch games in the stands with his daughter: “Because of security protocol, she could not come in the press box. So when it was my weekend, I lost the whole Saturday and I said I would rather be in the stands with her watching the game.” His last act as stadium voice was a memorable one:

“So my last duty was to introduce Billy Napier as the head coach. And I resigned that day.”

Christian’s Story, Organ Donation, and a Legacy of Life

In one of the most moving parts of our conversation, Hans shares the story of his son Christian, who died after a workplace accident in 2013. Christian fell from a picker truck in a warehouse, and although doctors did everything they could, the injury was catastrophic. “He fell 20 feet. When you say 20 feet, you think broken ankle, maybe broken arm, but somehow, on the way down, his feet hit the forklift and flipped him. And he landed on his head.”

At the hospital, after a brief brain surgery, the doctor came in and said, “Call your family.”

When representatives from Louisiana Organ Procurement Agency arrived, Hans initially felt overwhelmed and resistant: “I’m like, heck no, I’m dealing with too much.” His ex-wife, Jenn, reminded him of Christian’s own wishes when he got his license. “She said he would want to do it because he asked about it when he got his driver’s license.”

That decision changed everything; “I realized he was going to save somebody’s life.

We ended up saving four lives and it was life changing for us.”  Christian’s heart went to a teenage male that had been waiting for a heart for 18 months with time running out. Christian’s right kidney and pancreas went to a female in her 30s. His liver went to a female in her 40s, and his left kidney went to a little boy. His corneas were donated, which gave sight to 2 people. 

Hans began speaking to civic groups and driver’s ed classes about organ donation:

“We would tell kids at Driver’s Ed like, they’re going to ask you about this when you get your license, you should know what it means. Most people can’t be an organ donor, even if they want to. You have to die a certain way.”

He and Jenn started the Christian’s Legacy Foundation to create awareness of the importance of organ donation and to provide support to donor families.

Stories of other young donors continue to touch him deeply: “All these years later, those stories touch me in a different way. And I would not have read that story the same way had I not gone through that.”

Is Broadcasting Still a Good Career?

Asked if he would still recommend a career in broadcasting, Hans doesn’t hesitate, though he acknowledges the landscape has changed: “I’m always going to recommend a career in broadcast.

Sean explains that media sales in particular remain a strong path, even as technology and products evolve: “Your competition is different. Your products might be different. But of all we do, that’s probably changed the least.” There are fewer jobs, but better pay and more efficiency:

“KATC had 100 employees not long ago. Our building was built for 120 people and we’ve got 52 now. And it’s not just because of efficiencies. Our cameras are robotic now

Hans still longs to see young people with the same hunger he and Sean had: “I would love to see some young person who was like me or Sean who was willing to work 24 hours in two days when I was at KSMB. They fired the janitor, and for nine months I cleaned the building every night after I did my show, because I wanted them to see that I was willing to do anything to make it. And that’s not beneath me.”

Through stories of late-night graveyard shifts, irreverent morning shows, hurricane coverage, stadium announcing, heartbreaking loss, and renewed purpose, Hans Nelson, “Fast,” reminds us why local broadcasting still matters. As he and Sean put it, they are, above all, local broadcasters, passionate about “the impact that local radio and television can have on a market” and the ways music, stories, and community can move people.

You can contact Hans Nelson at Fast@big1021.com.