Hey Blogspot! Yea I know, I know. I've been a lazy bum for more than a month now but here I am with a new blog! (This calls for a celebration! :D )
It has been more than a month since I’ve started my internship at Home Radio. I could say things are going okay. The “okay” status can
sometimes be vague, right?.
What I, along with Jovan and Gem, have been doing since were
verifying the advertisement logs, observing the operations inside the booth,
and sharing-slash-sitting on two chairs doing nothing. I have to admit that
there were times I really felt sleepy and bored. I began thinking that there
isn’t much to do in a radio station.
What made every duty day exciting was the crash course we
had on voice coaching. Darwin Tamosa, our supervisor, called those sessions “Orientation”.
I got curious why he always called them orientations when in school, we only
have orientations for the first few meetings then start with actual classes.
Wouldn’t he want to call those sessions as classes, instead? Well, he made his
point clear when he said that orientations are given to people who still need
to learn things they don’t know yet. Some of the tips we learned were indeed
new to us (while the others acted as refreshers of what we're taught in school) , so I understood why he called
them orientations.
Moving on, we listened to ten audio clips per day although
it wasn’t on a regular basis. I’d like to recall some of the tips that really
stayed in my mind:
1.)
Kill the DJ – gone are the days when people who
had deep bass voices were in demand in the radio broadcasting industry. In the
U.S., most of the disc jocks there go on air with their normal speaking voices.
There’s no need to sound so manly with that deep and husky voice. Today’s
listeners are more into jocks who sound natural and different from every other
DJ.
2.)
Microphone as the Listener – another tip was to
speak as if the microphone is the listener. It’s close to you so there’s no
need to amplify or shout every word you utter. Try to speak to the mic as you
would to a person. If there’s a need to sound intimate, be intimate…with the
mic.
3.)
Here from There – this tip talked about how to localize
news and issues from far places. Remember, proximity is one factor that makes an
article newsworthy. What I learned from this tip is that we have to relate
foreign issues by stating how it would affect us here in Cebu. Say for example,
the issue about the Philippine Peso gaining momentum against the U.S Dollar. As
a radio broadcaster, one must be able to relay this by how some Filipinos are
affected. The Philippine government celebrates economic gains while those
families having relatives working abroad have to suffer the effect of low
dollar exchange rate.
4.)
Observation and Conversation – this tip talked about observing the surroundings while you’re on your way to work. One incident may spark your fancy and you can use that as a topic when you go
on air. You make a conversation out from what you've observe may it be from the
news or from anything.
5.)
Know When to Stop – You don’t want to bore your
listeners, do you? Out from what you've observed and talked about, you should put
limits on the air time you consume for talking. Remember that in the radio
station, you don’t talk as you please but you cater to your listeners. Play
songs they’d probably want to hear and don’t forget to thank your sponsors by
promptly playing their radio ads.
These tips will do for now. I am
looking forward for more of Darwin's orientations in the coming days! :D
-pRaNs B.
