I’ve been interested in the radio industry for many
years, Radio 1 DJs such as Zane Lowe, Huw Stephens and Greg James (who I
listened to religiously at one point) moulded 14 year old Lucy's music taste
and made me love it so much I began considering it as a career. I’m now in my last year of
college and planning to study Journalism at University, I'm still quite unsure
about what I want to do, but I thought I would give this radio thing a shot.
After about a year of trying to find experience, I stumbled across the
community station Salford City Radio. Which conveniently is based 5 minutes
from my house (by car) I'm not that stupid, to have ignored something so close
to where I live! I’ve been at Salford City Radio since June 2012,
they trained me up and gave me the creative freedom I didn’t think I’d get so early in the
industry.
Starting college, I was shoved in a Media class with nobody I knew
except for a lad that slept through every lesson. I ended up sitting next to a
girl called Beth and found out that she was also interested in Radio - I was
mega shocked as I’d never met anyone who had this similar interest to
me. So, I invited her to help me present the radio show.
Since January 2013, Beth and I have been presenting a weekly radio show
that goes out Thursdays 8-9pm on 94.4fm as well as online. We both present and
produce, most of the time I create the playlist as Beth does have rather odd
music taste ranging from One Direction, to Blink 182. We create new segments
for the show and plan interviews.
Lots of opportunities have come our way since starting the show, we were
recently invited to report on Birmingham International Fashion Week where we
interviewed designers, watched fashion shows and drank lots of champagne. We
also had District 3 come into the studio for an interview last summer (that boy
band from last series' X Factor, not Union J. The other one!) They were lovely
and seemed quite shocked that they were being interviewed by 17 year old girls.
We hope to start a live show over the summer, but at the moment due to
college restricting our time, we pre-record the show on a Friday afternoon. We
probably should prepare the show in advance, and every week we say we’re going to. But most
shows we walk in clueless of what’s going to happen, we like it that way. Most shows
include new music that we’ve loved recently, reviews of each other’s song choices and
general chit chat.
Controlling the desk in a radio studio is easy; there are a few knobs to
fiddle about with when first going into the studio. These change the level of
your voice and the sensitivity of the mics, songs, CDs and Jingles. This is probably the most tedious job of them
all, but if you don’t do it your show won’t sound comfortable to
listen to, the audio will be all over the place. The rest is simple. You play
music, you chat and make up little games to make the show as interactive as
possible.
If you’re interested in the radio industry, use the
internet. Google how to get experience, it’s out there. Whether its
hospital radio, a community station or internet radio shows. If you have any
questions, tweet me at @lucyrebeccca and I’ll try to use my limited
knowledge to help!
Listen to the show - Thursdays 8-9pm 94.4pm (in Salford)
