But my favorite related radio story comes from my days as an “underground” or “progressive rock” jock in the early 70s.
I worked at a small FM station in a college town (not affiliated with the university, but a regular commercial station) playing this stuff from 9:00 pm to 2:00 am. I was the only one at the station during my air shift.
This girl had been calling me up for a couple of weeks and we’d been chatting, but I had never met her in person. One night she called me up and seemed a bit depressed. So on impulse, I said “Meet me outside of your dorm in 10 minutes.”
Now the station was way on the outskirts of town, and her dorm was in about the most remote area possible of the college campus. I put on “Echoes” from Pink Floyd’s “Meddle” album, which is about 23 minutes long as I recall, and zoomed out of the parking lot.
She was waiting as instructed, I scooped her up and brought her back to the station, bursting into the control room just as the last few grooves of “Echoes” were being played!
All I know is, when I hear “Going For The One” by Yes, I rock out and sing along. When I hear “Close To The Edge” by the same sublimely brilliant group, I figure the D.J. had mexican for lunch
Yeah. Ummm. . . HillBilly Jim ? Thats because no real DJ “fills out his own music log”.
I “did not once”, but rather currently am a live DJ in a top 50 market. On FM even.
Others have come close to the truth (which will vary station to station, and college to pro, and market #252 to #11). I answer the phones, check the internet for obscure info I can find on upcoming artists (radio breaks are planned in advance), check the internet for any good relevant entertainment info I or others would find interesting, edit and check the levels of any caller I want to air . . . and make damn sure I am playing the right cut (cued correctly) of the right CD set to play soon.
Hey, its not road construction - and its not rocket science, but it does take skill.
What do you do while music’s playing? I tend to surf SDMB. We’re mostly automated music, with the exception of a dance show I do on Fridays and the occassional contest in the morning. I use a CD-cart system (CDs stuck in nifty cases that allow songs to be played without the standard second or so wait while the CD ques up). The live show takes a little bit of attention; gotta have my commercial breaks ready, have the live voice feed ready and coordinate starting/stopping with the on-air girl. Other than that, smooth sailing. Watch how hours time out (which isn’t hard), and play the songs on the playlist.
For someone in a higher up position, there’s more work. Gotta make up playlists, etc. However, they also have the luxury of using our DCS (digital commercial system) for essentially all music and commercial needs. Voice breaks are mostly recorded ahead of time (takes 1 hour to voice 8 hours of breaks).
This will vary greatly from station to station. We’re AC/top 40; we have a structured format; 40 minutes straight music, 5 mins commercials, 10 mins tunes, 5 mins commercials per hour. All breaks are standard (That was “X”, off the “X” CD, before that we heard “Y”; coming up at the top of the hour, “Z”), so there’s no major insight required. We’re not a great station, but we are second most popular in our listening area.
Bottom line - essentially, we do whatever amuses us. Some read, some surf, some do both. When I have studying to do, I do that. There’s not a huge amount of work for an overnight/weekender like me. You can bet that ‘drive time’ and morning crews do a whole hell of a lot more. They also tend to be thinking about keeping their employment or advancing, as this may very well be a career to them and not a pain in the ass POS part-time job.
Besindes all the things you hvae to do (phones, logs, cues, announcements, etc.), you also have to have the voice, and the ability to just talk on the air. This is highly dependant on personality: if you can mutter on about pretty much anything for up to ten minutes at a time withOUT someone responding to you, then this job may be for you. BUt you also have to have a good voice. Even if there’re two of you on the air at one time, you’d be surprosed how easily you can sit there, look at each other and think “What do we talk about NOW?”.
And you have to keep it fresh, relaxed, and as a previous poster said, “Folksy”. Not as easy as it seems!
We’re mostly automated music, with the exception of a dance show I do on Fridays and the occassional contest in the morning. I use a CD-cart system (CDs stuck in nifty cases that allow songs to be played without the standard second or so wait while the CD ques up). The live show takes a little bit of attention; gotta have my commercial breaks ready, have the live voice feed ready and coordinate starting/stopping with the on-air girl. Other than that, smooth sailing. Watch how hours time out (which isn’t hard), and play the songs on the playlist.