What New York buyers check in a narrator demo

What to take away

What New York buyers listen for

At Atlas Talent Agency, which reps voice actors from its Manhattan office, submissions are reviewed by category, and the reader is often the agent who would book you. Sound and read are judged in the first line, because that is how the agency's ad and promo clients listen.

Most Manhattan voiceover desks do not publish a screening checklist, so the detail below describes common practice in the city rather than a stated policy at any one agency.

Dual-roster desks screen the same way but keep union and non-union lists apart. If your reel does not state SAG-AFTRA status, the screener has to guess, and guessing ends the review.

Casting directors in New York, including the in-house promo teams at the broadcast networks such as NBC and CBS, skip to the middle of a reel, then the end, checking whether energy holds. A demo that peaks in the first clip and fades by the third is a pass.

Agents listen on laptop speakers first. If the mix only works on headphones, the read is treated as unbookable for broadcast. Clean levels, no clipping and a consistent tone matter as much as the performance, which is why voiceover production quality is part of the screening, not an afterthought.

Casting directors often hear demos in batches of twenty or more. Yours has to separate itself within one line.

The industry convention of a short, category-specific demo reel is long established in voiceover practice, and New York buyers follow it closely, as outlined in background on Voice-over - Wikipedia.

Audiobook demos: what New York publishers and agents screen for

Audiobook demo screening in New York starts with narration stamina. Publishers want a voice that can carry ten hours without thinning. Agents test this by asking for a three to five minute demo, not a highlight reel.

Fiction and nonfiction are screened separately. A literary novel needs interiority and pace control. A business book needs authority and clean transitions. Sending one demo for both is the most common New York mistake.

Accents, character work and pronunciation are checked against the manuscript. A demo with a mispronounced name or place signals a narrator who will cost a publisher studio time. Range without control reads as a liability.

Delivery format is part of the audition. Files named by title, author and chapter, submitted as WAV or high-bitrate MP3, get preferred treatment. A messy folder can sink a strong read. A working pattern is LastName_Title_Ch07_v2.wav.

Audiobook work in New York often runs through union contracts and publisher rosters. Pay and career context for narrators targeting this market sits alongside broader acting data in the Actors : Occupational Outlook Handbook: : U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

For narrators building a catalog, the same production habits that satisfy publishers also support voiceover expansion into other categories.

Advertising demos: the read, the pace and the slate

Advertising demos are screened for one thing: can you sound like the brand without sounding like you are selling. New York casting directors call this the read. It is conversational, specific and free of announcer gloss.

Pace is the second filter. A thirty-second spot has a fixed word count, and the screener knows it. If your demo clip runs long or rushes the tag, they assume you cannot hit time in session.

The slate matters more than most narrators think. State your name, then the category. Do not narrate your own reel. Do not add music under the slate. New York agencies forward demos with the slate intact, and a cluttered open gets trimmed.

Advertising and network promo demos are often screened together because the skills overlap. Both need energy control, both need a clean tag, and both need a voice that sits under a mix without fighting it.

The table below lists the checks a New York casting director runs and the submission spec that passes each one. It is illustrative, not a transcript of a named screener's notes.

Network promo demos and the New York casting rooms that book them

Network promo demos are the hardest New York category to break into and the easiest to screen out. Promo reads are written to sell a show in ten to twenty seconds, so the screener listens for urgency without shouting.

New York casting rooms for promo work sit inside the broadcast and streaming networks, their in-house creative teams and independent offices such as Liz Lewis Casting Partners, which casts voice and on-camera promo out of Manhattan. They book from reels they already trust. Cold submissions rarely reach the decision maker.

The promo demo must show tone range: drama, comedy, reality, sports. A reel with four clips in the same register tells the screener you have one setting. New York buyers want a voice they can cast across a season.

Audio quality is non-negotiable here. Promo mixes are dense, and a demo with room noise or uneven levels gets passed before the read is judged. The right voiceover production tools make that difference audible in the first second.

Submitting to New York voiceover agencies

New York voiceover agencies run their demo intake differently. Atlas, Buchwald, CESD and Gersh each handle submissions through their own office, and none of them publishes a full screening checklist. The SAG-AFTRA New York franchised agency list is the quickest check on which houses can sign union talent.

Casting directors add their own rules. They want availability stated up front, a rate expectation that matches the category, and a promise that you can self-record to broadcast standard. New York sessions often run remote, so your home setup is part of the audition.

Which desks take unsolicited demos changes with the roster. Most large Manhattan agencies work from repped talent and referrals first. Smaller boutiques and some casting offices run an open form on their own site. Send a hosted link that plays in the browser, never a download.

If you are formalizing the business side, New York voiceover work is a small business like any other. Registration and filing guidance sits with NYC Small Business Services (SBS), and the step-by-step path is laid out in Start a Business - SBS.

Getting a referral or an introduction

Keep the ask short: one line on who you are, one link, one sentence on what you want.

Narrators who treat this as a business, not a hobby, get screened differently. The market questions are the same ones covered in markets for voiceover, and the first moves are the same ones in Starting a voiceover business.

Common reasons a New York demo gets passed on

The demo is generic. A reel that could have been recorded in any city tells a New York agent nothing. Local buyers want category clarity, not versatility for its own sake.

The genre does not match the pitch. Sending an audiobook demo to a promo agency wastes both sides' time. Match the reel to the roster.

The audio is not broadcast-ready. Room noise, clipping and inconsistent levels end the screening early. Fix the chain before you fix the copy.

The read sounds like an announcer. New York advertising and promo buyers want conversational control. A formal delivery reads as dated.

The follow-up is aggressive. One check is professional. Three is a block. Agents remember the narrators who respect the process.

Common questions