You’ve heard the commercials. No matter if it’s a car dealership, an internet provider, or a government contractor, the voice acting is always lame and uninspired. The dialogue is uninteresting and the jokes are unfunny. TV commercial actors at least have inflection and tone in their voice. Does tone and inflection get lost over the radio? Or is it simply a case of the company trying to hire the cheapest voice actors possible? If so, why do people with no talent even get hired on as voice actors? What gives?
Adam
I think you nailed it in the sentence about hiring the cheapest possible people to read the spot. There are actually very good voice actors in radio, but they’re all in major centers. Out here in BFE, they take who they can get. That’s why the ads all suck. Professionals gravitate toward the big markets, where the money is. You don’t find many excellent voice artists capable of greatness and a high income potential out in the sticks. They all move away, and the radio folks have to take what’s left.
I’ve heard plenty of funny/clever radio commercials.
Ever hear the one about “eye exercises” where the guy imitates Richard Simmons?
Look up
Look down
Look up
look down
Feel the burn.
It was funny.
Yes, it was.
Following along with what fishbicycle said, sometimes the good voice people are left by the wayside because the business owner’s relative or friend has (in the business owner’s opinion) a nice voice and won’t charge the business owner a professional fee.
I’ve done voice work, and I’ve also been told “no, thanks–the owner’s brother will read the spot for free.” Meh, so I lose the job. But I also hear the spot on the radio–and while I don’t wish to sound like it’s a matter of “sour grapes,” I have to say that it’s very true: you get what you pay for.
Fishbicycle, not all of us outside the major markets are bad voice artists! 
Most of the time I hear the bad spots on the radio, it’s either a radio host/dj (who are not actors) or the business owner or owner’s relative. It’s not that the local talent is bad; it’s that they don’t hire the talent at all.
You have to give the voice talent a little bit of break. This ain’t Oscar Winning Dialog you have to work with. And, the fact is that the sponsor is generally a lot more interested in being confident that everyone understands the important words, such as brand name, dates, and slogans.
You get what you pay for.
Tris
To Spoons:
I know. But you are a very long way in any direction from a major market! Some of the really good folks are still living far from anywhere. Heh.
Hmph! Oh, hang on, let me really act indignant: Harrrumph!
There are actually some pretty good voice people in Middle America. They just record their stuff and send it via the Internet to wherever it goes for final production. It really isn’t that hard to do. My sister-in-law, for example, lives in Dallas and is steadily employed as an actress/voice talent; she gets a lot of work because she lives in the sticks.
That said, voice work is much different from acting. Visual media like TV and the movies give the viewer physical cues like facial expressions and body language that enhance the vocal message. When you’re dealing with audio only, it gets harder because all you have to work with is the voice. In fact, there are people with acting training and experience who can’t do voice work because they’ve been trained to use their whole bodies, and that doesn’t always work in audio. But the people who can do voice work and act do very well. Think about cartoon characters. A good voice actor like Tom Kenny or Grey DeLisle will always find work.
Also, a lot of broadcast performance training focuses not on acting but on sounding conversational. Many commercials don’t rely on acting, but the announcer does need to sound like he’s talking to you, not at you, and that’s what many announcers focus on; acting skills just aren’t needed, so they’re kind of secondary.
This is probably more information than you really asked for. But there it is.
Robin