It’s a good thing I like radio, because on Labor Day, I did shifts on two different stations–10AM to 3PM on The Lake and 4 to 7PM on Magic 98. Here’s a diary based on notes I made in the course of a very long day.
10:40am: We’re counting down the 93 greatest album sides of all time this weekend. We’ve also got two remote broadcasts today, one from a car dealership and one from a charity event, so I have to push the right buttons to get those phoned-in reports on the air.
10:50am: Well, that break sucked. Going in, I tried to do too much, and whenever I do, it nearly always goes wrong. I was consoling myself thinking that it was the kind of thing few listeners would notice when I screwed up the back end in a way they couldn’t miss–the prerecorded remote report wasn’t cued up properly, and I ended up with what seemed like an eternity of dead air before I got it on.
11:35am: I think most jocks have a love/hate relationship with sponsor remotes like the ones we’re doing today. Love ‘em because you usually get a separate talent fee that dwarfs what you’d make at your straight rate of pay; hate ‘em because they’re always extra—on your day off, on a holiday, outside your regular working hours. Love ‘em because it can be gratifying and fun to meet listeners; hate ‘em because there’s a certain safety in being the boy in the box that disappears when you’re out in public. What’s worse, though, is when you’re there, and nobody else is. At a remote where few people show up, you sit there feeling embarrassed, and the client sits there mentally adding up how much money he spent for nothing.
12:05pm: For Lake remotes, we use cell phones almost exclusively now. Years ago, it was common to use a portable transmitter called a Marti unit. It gave you far better fidelity than a phone, but it often meant you had to carry, deploy, and position an antenna. Once that was done, you’d plug in a microphone and go to work. It was obvious to anyone watching that you were on the radio. A few weeks ago, I did an appearance outside a Madison Mallards baseball game, where people were lined up waiting to get in. It would have been a lot different walking up and down that line with a mike than it was with a phone, for them and for me.
12:45pm: Tracking album sides straight through (and right off the original vinyl, with pops, scratches, and silence between the tracks) gives the station a far different ambiance than usual. Normally, we play highly produced sweepers between the songs and never segue two songs together. As a broadcaster, I know how important it is remind people as often as possible what station they’re listening to, so they give you credit if they happen to have a ratings diary. As a listener, I appreciate a quieter, less-hyped presentation.
110pm: I believe I’ve done more radio in the last couple of weeks than in any stretch since I went back into it 2006, and I’m feeling it today. I’m sleepy, and I haven’t been sharp at all. If I don’t summon up some energy for my shift on Magic later today, it’ll be a train wreck.
1:50pm: I just dropped in down the hall at the Magic studio to talk to Chris, the guy I’ll take over from at 4:00. He’s a radio lifer who’ll work three shifts on three different stations today and love every minute. How he found time to get married and have kids, I don’t know.
2:20pm: I want to dub off some recent airchecks at some point today. Back when I did the all-request show on the classic rock station in Davenport, Iowa (which I haven’t said much about here), I taped every show, and I used to do things on the air just to amuse myself on the drive home. I don’t do that anymore, but I still believe in airchecking myself. A jock who doesn’t critique himself, as opposed to merely admiring his work, is not much of a jock at all.
2:21pm: OK, sometimes I just admire my work.
2:50pm: That’s a wrap on my weekend at The Lake. The Top 93 album sides countdown will have taken up something like 46 hours of airtime by the time it ends tonight, and I will have been on for 21 of them. I have very few quibbles with the list, except for omitting both sides of Born to Run and Abbey Road, particularly when the first Montrose album got on. Putting on a side of Wings at the Speed of Sound instead of one from Band on the Run is a pretty big oops, too.
Coming tomorrow: A few steps down the hall, several slots higher in the ratings, and three more hours on the radio.
Filed under: Radio Tales
