Week 9 – Third Radio Show and Presenting

First, here is my Bonfire Package that has been put up on WinchXtra:

I feel it was a good package in the way that I chose not to include myself and summarised the event for what it was, and I had fun with the scripting. It isn’t as edgy or story telling as my Comic Con package, but then again it doesn’t necessarily need to be. It was a relevant event that a large chunk of the Winchester population attended, so it was of interest.

WINOL

This week on WINOL I took on the role of presenter as well as producer. This was a great shake up and experience and lended further variation to the semester. I found the script writing to be challenging as I was still in features mode, however I feel it gave the bulletin more personality, light and shade.

I made a mistake however as I wasn’t 100% transparent at the beginning of the script when I introduced Steven Slominski, as I said I had spoken to him a few moments ago when really it was prerecorded this morning. This was a great learning point.

I was very fortunate as Laura Trant, presenter of BBC News South, came to act as guest editor this week. I felt the pressure when she was watching from the gallery as I presented, but in the debrief she only had kind words to say – she said that my voice had depth to it and that I did a good job. However I felt I should have timed the OOVs much tighter.

The bulletin itself was fantastic, especially due to Steven’s breaking news with the Southampton gas explosion, Brooke’s former gambling addict case study, and the variation of the rest of the bulletin. I feel that after Christmas that the second years will be more than capable of taking on WINOL and excelling further.

RADIO

This week Tate and I both felt incredibly comfortable and familiar with all the motions of producing our radio show. And now that all of the Masters students have had the role of News Editor, that is the last show of the semester.

However, there was still a struggle with standard in and out cues! I feel for next semester, we will have to form a sort of guidebook that will outline the format of the show.

The end product is smooth and I am proud of how much we have improved, including the MA students, compared to the first show. I feel that next semester we will carry on the show and we will only go up from here, tuning finer points.

We have managed to make it sound less scripted, although this could definitely still be improved.

Producing a radio show with Tate each week has increased my understanding of sound and also my understanding of the importance of radio as a broadcast platform. This has been incredible for my overall experience and I am looking forward to pushing it further next semester.

Week 7 – Radio Dummy Run

This week was the first week of mine and Tate’s radio show – The Tate and Zeena Lunchtime Show. We discussed with Annette that we wanted to start up a radio show, and it fit in perfectly with the MA students assignments, so it worked out that we would format, present, and produce a show that would in turn give the MA students’ work a platform to work on.

We wanted to format the show to be a mix of BBC Radio 1 – with the music, demographic, and general styling – and BBC Radio 4 – with the news content and nature of the content. Essentially, we wanted to create news that could relate to 18-25 year olds.

Each of the MA students – Ryan, Annie, Henry, and Jo – attended the WINOL news conference as we wanted it to be hand in hand with WINOL. We worked it out that they would all have a turn to be news editor also, so they would order the packages and write the bulletin/headlines.

The packages created were more of a news feature kind, rather than straight forward WINOL packages. For example, Ryan’s Stanmore piece was over three minutes long, whereas the package on the same topic that went into WINOL was only around one. With radio, Annette told us to aim for three to five minute packages, which is entirely different from my experience with WINOL.

The packages need to be more consistent with the demographic and format of the show, but these are inevitable teething problems that every show has at the beginning of its run. The MA students have done really well to create these packages considering they are at the point they are.

Not only was the length and nature of the packages different from WINOL, but so was the general formatting of the show, presenting, music, and production. I expected it to be very similar but instead I had to learn a whole new world of journalism in order to produce something half decent.

I found that my presenting voice was too overpowering and punchy for radio this week, so I have to work on having a more casual take. Annette said that our voices, however, complimented each other, and so we gave the show a natural variety rather than samey voices and presenting.

We found that sitting in the radio studio and putting together the show was worlds apart compared to the production of WINOL – there was a whole new set of equipment to master, even if I have just got my head round the TV gallery. In particular it was the sound mixing and the use of the Myriad system. Annette thankfully retrained us on the equipment and Tate gave it her best shot this week.

The scripting was difficult and unfortunately too similar to WINOL. It needs to be more relaxed and conversational. However, the newspaper review was a great addition and breaks up the show nicely. There are finer points to consider though, such as standard in and out cues for the bulletin and different parts of the show, and also not to use ‘We have been…’ as it is over used and silly.

We ended up with a somewhat shabby but well structured show, and for a first radio news day I would say it wasn’t all that bad. I would like to change my presenting, the music in the background, add in sports and a talking point, and generally clean up the production of the show. In hindsight we should have taken it into postproduction and cleaned up the audio and releveled the volume.

I am extremely excited to carry on this project and hopefully see it flourish as we gain experience along the way.

Sound Women – Meet The Patrons Event

I attended Sound Women’s event ‘Meet the Patrons’ where notable female radio presenters attended to speak about their careers, and to other woman in the industry who also attended and essentially network.

The first question was on how they started their careers.

Magic FM’s Angie Greaves was particularly quotable and I found her inspiring from what she had to say. She started off saying that she ‘got the bug’ when she started working in radio and couldn’t stop. She started off at Capital, working with people such as David Jensen.

BBC Radio 4’s Jane Garvey recalled that she had started off in radio by promoting the station by selling car stickers in a shirt two sizes too small, which sets the mood and speaks volumes about the industry when she first started.

BBC Radio 1’s Annie Nightingale, the first female radio DJ on the station, told us about how she was ‘crazy about the music’, and how the males didn’t know that women would be interested in being music DJs.

They were then asked the inevitable: did you have support as women, and how did you deal with the sexism?

Angie Greaves gave a straight forward, and empowering answer: ‘I just got in the studio and did my show.’

‘Focus on your contribution.’

‘There were no women doing the drive time by herself… If she was there, she was there to giggle.’

Annie Nightingale shared what she was told at the beginning of her career: ‘DJs are husband substitutes’. She described this type of sexism as ‘ridiculous’ and said it was all part of the society in the 70s.

She went on to explain that she was ‘worries about playing the right record at the right speed at the right time’. There was pressure on her to deliver, and to deliver well.

Annie believes that we have ‘come a long, long way from then’.

Jane Garvey pitched in saying that ‘there were no women in the position to encourage you’.

The next question fired at the patrons made them think: would you give space for a man to have a show if the main slot was taken up by successful females?

Annie Nightingale jumped in and expressed that she ‘doesn’t like tokenism’, and even went as far as to say that she believes Sound Women should in fact be called Sound People.

Angie and Jane both agreed with the ‘tokenism’ comment, which pretty much shut that question down.

The last question of the night opened up for lighthearted anecdotes: What were your best and worst moments in broadcasting?

Jane Garvey’s comment sets the mood for the worst moments: ‘I’d rather take a sack full of politicians before an actress.’

She explained that she had gotten into a situation with an actress where she was then asked to apologise and send flowers, but she simply refused.

Annie Nightingale, being the well experienced broadcaster she is, shared stories about Steven Berkoff and The Beatles.

‘You don’t know whether or not to walk out or hang in there,’ Annie shared.

‘You have to be a psychologist sometimes.’

She said that when interviewing celebrities of any sort, you need to get their attention and ultimately their respect. ‘I said to John ‘you’re the difficult one”, speaking about John Lennon. Annie told us how John Lennon soon paid attention after that comment.

The three patrons then went on to share general advice.

Jane Garvey:

• Links on local radio, you should worry about ‘how you emphasise the end of a link’
• ‘Be utterly honest’. She described BBC Radio 4 as a ‘manicured garden’, and BBC Radio 5 Live as ‘an allotment’. BBC Radio 4 has packages pre made, and sourced from other broadcasters, whereas BBC Radio 5 Live is made in the moment, much like real radio.

Annie Nightingale:

• The most important things are being there on time, and being reliable – but of course we all have our moments. ‘Be the person you want to work with… be pleasant.’
• Don’t treat anyone as anything other than important.
• Don’t moan about new people – they critique you.
• Ask people how they are – it’s not about you the presenter, it’s about the people you are talking to/about.
• Silence – if the interviewee hasn’t answered, wait and let them fill it.

Angie Greaves:

• She referred to a Gandhi quote ‘be the change you wish to see in the world’.
• Always write a link that makes people smile and talk. ‘Every week I talk about scandal.’
• Just be yourself.
• ‘There’s a time to talk, and a time to be quiet. It’s not about knowing your place, it’s about being on a team.’
• ‘Be aware about the male ego and how to work it to our advantage.’
• But equally ‘be aware of your male energy’ – you will get back as much aggression as you put out.

As well as these powerful and seemingly personal pieces of advice, Tate and I went on to ask Angie Greaves for additional advice on our venture to create a radio show. She told us to 1. Make more news than you need – so for our hour show, we should have an hour and a half’s worth of content. 2. The first two shows should be podcasts and not necessarily live, to allow ourselves to listen back and asses ourselves.

She went on to say that she would be happy for us to send her our show when it is done, which would be incredibly valuable and helpful for our progression into radio.

Tate and I also went on to talk to a few women who were there until the end of the event, which was a fantastic eye opener for us into the industry, and we now have a couple more contacts to add to Twitter and keep in contact with.