Why Your Reading This...

The aim of this blog and to be honest the aim of what i want to do in life is break into the UK radio industry. This blog will follow my final steps in the UK university system and hopefully my ups and downs into breaking into the industry

Sunday 24 October 2010

HOPE FM to Oxjam

So in the last few weeks I've been doing a lot of random things ranging from the theoretical to the practical. Since my last blog I've been round Hope FM in Bournemouth (http://www.hopefm.com/) its the towns first community radio station and can be picked up from Southampton to Poole, we got a talk from the stations founder Blair Crawford and its manager Kevin Potter. Its based in the YMCA building and is funded by 50% donations and is proud to say it is one of the most financially stable community stations in the country, after a being told about the history and about the day to day running of the station they took us into the studio were the Lunch Byte show was on air.

Later that day once back on the Talbot campus we also got to grips with our first editing software that we are to use whilst on the course (Adobe Audition), its a good piece of kit and matched in many ways with the previous software i was used to using Pro Tools, I have now purchased this software and am eagerly awaiting its arrival with the intent of making more mini features for my end of year show reel.

As i said in my last entry I have just been given my first project to work on, in brief we've been set the challenge to create a 3 minute feature on anything of our choosing, I've chosen to base mine on dog racing. One of the reasons was that Poole has got one of the few racing tracks in the country and also my Uncle used to own an ex-racing dog (called Hub Hub), it also interested me as it is an emerging sport that is gaining more popularity as the years go on.

My second assignment brief is to come up with an application for a community radio station in the Bournemouth area and to pitch it to the head of licencing for Ofcom, leading on from that the dates for the heads of Radio2, 6, Absolute as well as BBC technicians are coming into talk to us and that's just for this semester!

And finally at the weekend I was working at Oxjam in Bournemouth, the event held over three days and numerous venues was held to raise money for Oxfam, my roll was to interview bands and the public to help document the event for the daily podcast and in a couple of months will be showcased in Manchester for the main event! It gave me real practical experience on equipment even though it was just Tascams it was good to get out in the field again!

I promise not to leave it so long till my next post, but in the mean time happy tuning!

Monday 4 October 2010

"Ignite the Spark"

So i know its been a while since i set up this blog but i now have something finally to write about, I've been down in Poole now for just over two weeks and today i started my lecture programme reading Radio Production Ma at Bournemouth University, the course itself is run by a man called Prof. Sean Street (http://www.seanstreet.com/) who seems to know most things radio related,he's worked both in the commercial sector and at the Beeb being commissioned for numerous programmes.

The first lecture was rightly given to us by the Professor himself and was a brief introduction into the history of radio itself we listened to some classics such as War of the Worlds (1938) by Orson Wells and others such as Under Milk Wood (1954) by Dylan Thomas. Both of these and the rest of the extracts are classics and are highly regarded in the radio History. What amazed me was that Prof. Street spoke for over two hours with little or no notes about the history of radio from the first broadcast on Christmas Eve in 1896 right up the present day were commercial radio seems to be in a "rut" as it were, I know that I've made the right choice in being at Bournemouth as it can only further my career.

So as I'm sitting in my room overlooking Poole and its theatre some of the key things that stand out from my notes that I've learnt stand out:
1) In music radio your play list for your life is the music you listen to when your 14 till your 21
2) Once you plan a seed in the listener in your programme it can cause chaos, just think of the reaction to War of the Worlds!
3) To be a successful commercial radio station you need to be saying what we should be listening too not playing what we already listen to.
4) The partnership between the producer & the listener is to 'ignite the spark'.

We spent the rest of the afternoon training on Marantz recorders (some more successful than others), which will surely bring my nightmares back over these digital audio recorders, as lets just say I've had some serious issues with them in the past! We've also been set our first task of the year to make a 3 minute programme that could eventually go onto my final show wheel that would be featured on the Bournemouth Internet Radio Station (http://www.birst.co.uk) that if you get the chance do check out! So that's my first update into my life at BU I'm now going to knuckle down at start work on my first assignment that i will tell you more about in my next entry.

Tuesday 29 June 2010

First Blog

This blog (or its intention) is to document my ups and downs of breaking into the UK radio insutry. Yesterday I got my degree results from Staffordshire Uni were I was reading Film, Television and Radio Studies which I got told I will receive a 2.1 Ba Honours degree in. Later that day I had the long drive down to Bournemouth Uni for my masters interview for their masters course in Radio Production, which they also accepted me for that day. So as you can probably tell yesterday was a huge day for me.

But about me, I'm 22 years old I come from a small market town on the North Downs south of the Capital London, UK and have wanted to work in the media for years ever since I went on a tour round the BBC studios, it wasn't though unitl I was at Staffs Uni that I could decide between TV or radio and I fell in love with the radio medium.

I belive and feel radio is a the most intermit and alsmot beautiful medium of them all as their is no visual input and only audio so each listener has a different experience than the other. Radio is also less expencive to produce shows for and operate which means more experimental programmes can be made and people can try and have their break into the media on it. Shows like Little Britain also started on the radio and are now on the TV. Radio is going through one of the biggest changes since commercial radio station first started broadcasting in 1973 with LBC and its News. I want to be part of the changes coming in the coming years and want to shape radio for a legacy that I can be proud of.

Now this Blog won't be updated every day or for that matter every week, This wall is a place for me to share my stories or thoughts about radio and how it will affect me in the coming years!

So I hope you'll come with me on this journey of mine and let me share it with you