Diary of Placement

For my 6 week placement I worked at WHCR FM, a community radio based in Hull, unlike Commercial radio such as Radio 1, a community station is much more locally based that looks at problems or news that directly effects the community the station is based in, i.e Hull. On the show I worked closely with Dave Fewster, an experienced presenter who has worked on numerous stations such as Viking FM – another station based within Hull.

In Week 1 I was thrown in at the deep end, this was both nerve racking and exciting, this meant that throughout the course of the 6 weeks I was prepared for tasks set for me and would be able to confidently complete them. Within the first week of the placement was Hull Citys promotion to the premier league party, because the event was being held locally and for free I was trusted with some recording equipment and sent to the party to ask the general public what they thought of the promotion, a VoxPop. I was instructed to come up with my own questions, create the piece as long as I saw fit aswell as edit the piece together, this VoxPop then went onto air several times over the coming weeks and after It was uploaded to the WHCR Facebook page it received a notable amount of hits. In this week I was also entrusted with phoning various people up to arrange an interview to be had on the show. Other duties I had included finding news storys that myself and Dave Fewster could talk about on air and show our own oppinions on the matters we discussed, I was also given the opportunity to daily present the weather on air and on occasion pick some songs to be aired.

Whilst the show would go on Dave Fewster would show me how the system worked, what on console controlled what, how music and items were added to the ‘cartwall’ – this is a programme that the user adds items to and they appear in the selected order ready for the show. I was shown the timings for the station and how to work them out, finding music which would fit into the show at the exact right timings to make sure there was no silence at any point whilst we were on air.

In Week 2 I was trusted with showing 2 students how to create a VoxPop and edit the clips together to a standard were it could be played on air. So I went out with the two and asked the public if they believe we should be in the EU, after we had gathered maybe 20-30 responses we headed back to the studio and I showed them how to edit the piece together, the next mid morning show the clip aired for the first time, after this occasion it was passed onto other presenters to be played on their shows aswell as slotted into ‘Automation’ a period on the WHCR programme 12-1 were there are no DJs and the system plays various songs,advertisements and interviews/voxpops. I also resumed normal responsibilites of reading and talking on air. The same week I also had to go to Beverley on the Saturday to visit the weekly market and create a promotional piece for Beverley, this was again all edited and aired.

Week 3 I had to find my own story, which resulted in me ringing up a local charity ‘Recycling Unlimited’ and arranging an interview with the owner. I had to again write my own questions, get myself to the place and interview the owner. After being edited this too was aired several times aswell as being given to other presenters to air.

In Week 4, I used my initiative and went out and found my own Interview, ringing up a local band, arranging the interview myself and going to meet them, again as previously done I wrote up all the questions to the interview and edited all the questions together. I also took some music from the band which was then played on air after the interview, this was both good for the station and the band, as the station is very much community based, it further promote the idea that WHCR was trying to help the community and in this way supporting local bands. It helped the band as it allowed them some free airtime to talk about themselves aswell as having some music played live on air – the interview and music was then placed into the system to be played numerous times after its original broadcast.

Week 5, this week was again another interview, this time in Beverley to be used as another promotional piece for the town. The piece was promoting the tourist hotspot in the town – the Minister. There I met up with a Neil Pickford a tour guide at the Minister who had allowed me to be interviewed, aswell as providing me with an Interview, he also allowed me to take a tour, this meant that I could further discuss what he had talked about in the interview to provide more information. Again I was also trusted with teaching a new volunteer how to edit to a higher standard, in which I showed him how to edit the interview together, this was then aired the next day.

In my final week, week 6, I did a live interview on air with Dave Fewster, interviewing a Sharon Dahli about events going on at the Goodwin Centre, interviewing live on air meant that questions had to be thought up and asked depending on what the person being interviewed was saying which means you had to be quick when doing so. In the final week myself and Dave began writing advertisements for people interested in advertising on the show, this is something that I will be doing more often as I have continued to work on the show as a volunteer after my placement ends.