Okay, remember how in my last post I said that I would be starting at Clear Channel that next week? Turns out my official start date wasn’t until nearly a month later; June 6th. Woops! But that’s okay though, because what I ended up doing was going into the station on Monday, May 13th, to get a jump start on the sort of things I would be doing and to see how a professional does the tasks. I went into the studio every day for 2 weeks and took last week off before it was time to actually start.
Here’s a rundown of what I’d been doing before this week. On my first day my supervisor, and on-air personality, Kat Simons, led me up to the Lite98 studio. On the way to the studio, she gave me a tour of the building, pointing out the different studios that handled other radio stations. What I found cool was that these studios not only controlled radio stations within the Richmond area, but also in many cities across the United States! This is done using IHeartRadio. The first day was basically touring and showing me how some of the controls in the studio worked. I also met my other supervisor Shardan Sandoval, the creative services director. His job was to make sure that the commercials and station sponsored events ran smoothly. I didnt get to see him very long, because he ended up going on vacation for the rest of that week and the next week.
Kat explained that since Shardan left, and it was around Memorial Day, the building was a little bit more hectic than normal. All of the jockeys had to balance their time on the air with creating twice the usual amount of commercials and PSAs, radio interviewing representatives from organizations and going out to events in the area. Since they weren’t expecting any interns until June, I didn’t have much to do since I couldn’t be officially trained until then. However, I DID get to record my first commercial for the station while Kat was taking a break. Check that out below! Another thing I did was assist her with updating her website while she was busy with other things. Everyday on her blog she has this game called “Cookin’ with Kat” where listeners have to guess what Kat is cooking after she tells them the ingredients. The 10th person to call in receives some sort of prize. Just for fun, she let me handle all of the callers, saying things like “You’re caller number 1 try again….Oh no! you’re caller number 8 try again QUICK!” I think the highlight of that week was on Saturday where I got to tag along with her to one of the events that the station was hosting; the Lebanese Food Festival! Apparently she’d done that event for over 20 years, so everyone at the festival knew her. When the station personnel go out into the community to attend events like these, its called a “remote.” I’ll be going to alot of these throughout the summer.
So this week the official start day was Thursday; and I could tell because there were way more interns walking around than before. I worked with Shardan learning how to transcribe commercials, meaning to listen to a company’s commercial and type it out word for word, preparing it for the Djs to read on the air. Speaking of which, did you know that 90% of everything that plays on the radio nowadays is prerecorded? This is done as a precaution just so adjustments can be made to the audio before it goes on air. This is called voice-tracking and it’s beneficial because the Djs can record things hours before the listeners hear it. Helps them stay ahead of the game! Another fun task that is done every day at is telling listeners about the “Pet of the Day” and bringing in a dog or cat from the local animal shelter. I want to adopt ALL of the puppies that come in! I got to meet so many new people in the studio and from around different city organizations.
Next week is when the serious work is supposed to start for me. Shardan wanted me to go home this weekend and look up tutorials on youtube on how to use Adobe Editor so I can get a jump on the basics. Also, me and the other interns have to attend a remote on Sunday called the Renew Nuptials at one of the Richmond parks. This is a casual wedding vow renual sponsored by Lite98. This celebration will be a great way for me to kick off my next week, where the REAL fun will begin!
