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| Historic building, no longer there. |
The behind the scenes magic made listening to every radio station exciting because I had a glimpse of how it was coming together.
I remember listening to CHUM and it seemed like after many of the newscasts, the first song was "Lady Marmalade" by Labelle. "That’s weird," I thought. There must be a routine to this, as I noticed other songs came up regularly after the DJ read the weather. Hmmm. "This isn’t ramdom". Pretty smart for a 15 year old, huh?!
When I got into radio as a job, (I say this very excitedly) I got to be the guy making the magic!
Then, I saw something else. There was more than the DJ working to put the show together - there was an entire staff! Each person has a unique task that added to the overall magic.
And most of those positions exist to this very day at LIFE 100.3.
The Music Director holds a meeting to listen to a stack of new releases and then chooses what songs to play and adds them to the playlist. More so, there are music categories - a dozen of them - representing new and old, Canadian and international, fast and slow, loud and soft, etc. All of the categories are strategically placed so the songs flow in some kind of pattern, and to avoid too many slow songs in a row, and to make sure that the biggest songs of the week get sufficient air-time.
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| Me. First radio job on the air. CKLC. |
A Traffic Manager (scheduler) schedules all of the commercials in accordance with the campaign the client asks for.
A sales person sells the airtime for that commercial to a client.
A bookkeeper collects the money.
A scriptwriter writes the script for the commercial.
A producer records a DJ reading the commercial script and mixes the DJ with sound effects and music to make the final commercial.
And after all of that, there are other departments, each with a role. Programming, promotions, news, administrative, web development, video production and Street Team. I’ll share more about the magic that comes from these other behind the scenes troopers in another blog.
Right now, I need to get to the office because there is probably something on my desk you may never know about, that is needing my attention!
Scott,
ReplyDeleteI, too, was one of those who was enamoured with the magic of radio in my youth. I studied Radio and TV Broadcasting at college (although I was really only interested in the radio part!), and took great joy in BECOMING the guy who makes the behind-the-scenes magic happen. I learned the various aspects of back-timing, editing, mixing, etc., and how they all work together to produce a professional radio show. I still remember the first 'perfect' shift I worked, producing overnight at a mainstream radio station in Toronto - nailed it! :-)
Unfortunately, timing wasn't on my side, as I graduated just as stations were converting from analog to digital, with the express intent of eliminating many of the bottom-rung positions...it was a short-lived, but fun career, nonetheless!