Things You May Not Know About Radio Geeks

In one of my older blogs a few months back, I featured a list called "You might be in radio if" - a rundown of funny deeds and acts radio geeks would or might do being in this profession. The list was written by American deejay/writer Corey Deitz who currently has a top-rated morning show in an FM station in Arkansas and maintains quite a number of websites devoted to radio.

As what he said, "Working in Radio is a unique experience. And, as in other professions, certain things eventually become very evident which are particular to that business." If you read the list and you are in radio, you'd probably get it. But if you're not, you might think radio geeks are really weird creatures.

Well, here is another list written by Mr. Deitz. But before we go do that, let me just say, personally and in deference to some of us in radio, we are REALLY just normal people (or are we?)

So, here now is Corey Deitz' list of...

9 True Things You Might Not Know About Radio People
(this is just for fun, right Mr. Deitz? lol)

1. 50% of our wardrobes really do consist of free t-shirts: t-shirts from Radio stations we’ve worked for, t-shirts given to us for participating in charity events and t-shirts from movie and record promotions. If you are ever at a garage sale and you see more than 2 t-shirts with Radio station logos on them, chances are very good a Radio person lives there. (Make sure you fumigate anything you buy.)

2. Evening DJs get propositioned more than any other air-shift, usually from under-age females. Being seduced by any of these little pixies is also known as “walking the jail-bait tightrope”.

3. “Rule of the Phones”: if she sounds sexy, more times than not, she isn’t. Generally, the ladies who call into Radio stations, in the hopes of luring the DJ into some kind of rendevouz, fall into one of these categories: 1) someone Richard Simmons should be praying next to 2) Stalkers or 3) 14 year-old Lolitas who are fully prepared to testify in court.

4. You can get on almost any Radio station to promote something if you bring the morning show food. Morning DJs lose all sense of propriety, right, and wrong when you offer them a cinnamon bun with enough icing to put a diabetic into a coma. Other sure-fire ways into the studio: pizza, subs, ribs (big in the South), donuts, and Starbucks.

5. You’re not crazy: Radio people really ARE weird. Seriously. Some of them are close to psychotic. Most probably fall into the middle: safely bizarre. Why? Nobody knows. The best we can figure, there is something about the mixture of power to control a medium and the ability to perform on it which attracts this one segment of society which could not possibly function within the confines of a standard, 9 - 5 job. Is it any wonder more and more health care plans in Radio now offer psychological benefits? Mmmm?

6. Yes, we really DO get fired as much as you’ve heard. Radio people get fired because formats change, because ratings go down, because Radio stations get sold, because of budget cuts, because of vendettas, because some drink too much and don’t show up for work, because some drink too much and DO show up for work, and because morals clauses in contracts are sometimes broken.

7. You don’t want to see us in person. Really. We usually look: fatter, thinner, older, and younger than you thought. We never equal your imagination. We should be required to wear ski masks on all external outings - for the good of all humanity.

8. We’re pathetic whiners. Really. We bitch and moan about how hard it is to drag our butts out of bed at 3 A.M. just so we can sit on our ass for four hours and talk. Please.

9. We have a high divorce rate. Why? For starters we move around a lot. You should only marry someone in Radio if you either 1) have a personal U-Haul 2) have a relative in the moving business or 3) you have tiny little wheels surgically attached to the bottoms of your feet. Besides the moving problem, marriages and relationships of Radio people are constantly tested by fans who come on to them.

Just for fun, right?
(still with that funny smile on my face)

Round and Round the Radio Formats Go

It used to be simpler….

I grew up with FM radio and during the 80s, Frequency Modulation in my opinion, was at its finest.

I’m pretty sure the 60s & 70s may have been so much fun but when I was growing up, a lot of us 80s Pinoy kids had our ears glued on FM because it was basically the only source of fresh music we could ever have, especially so with the dawn of the second British music invasion and the rise of commercial rock. The American Top 40 hosted by the legendary Casey Casem (syndicated and heard over the former 99.5 RT) was THE definitive yardstick of what’s hot and up there (still is, sans Casem), sending us kids to record stores to buy the singles or albums (which, back then were either in vinyl or cassette tape).

FM in the 80s also produced a good number of brilliant young deejays (e.g. Jeremiah Junior., Eric Cain, Peter Rabbit, the Triggerman, Joe D’ Mango, et.al.), in addition to the already established jocks in the scene [like Howlin’ Dave & Bob Magoo, to mention a few]. Save for a few OPM songs, FM in the Philippines during the 80s could pass for being an exact clone of its US counterpart.

The 90s for me came and went but the FM scene basically stayed the same, pretty much Top 40 with some stations still sticking to specialized (Adult-Oriented Radio, Rock & Alternative) formats, but with an interesting twist due to the rising commercial popularity of local bands (led by the Eraserheads and Parokya ni Edgar).

Then, the advent of the digital revolution and the internet changed the FM landscape drastically. Having been back after so many years of working in AM news radio and the corporate scene, I found myself in the middle of this radio culture shift.

The emergence of MP3 players and podcasting drastically changed people’s listening habits. Now, they could just download whatever music they want, load more than a thousand of their favorite songs and listen to them with virtually no interruptions. It practically beats listening to FM with all its stingers, radio ads, and deejay tattle.

This propelled a couple of FM stations in the US to shift to a new format called Jack FM (also called variety hits) where stations just play music using automation programming, basically doing away with deejays. For more info about this format, click here.

(Unintentionally, Bay FM’s format is a bit like Jack FM. Though we try to fill up most of our morning shifts with hosted programs, a huge pie of our 24/7 programming runs automatically).

Manila-based FM stations however, responded quite differently to this revolution. Aware that the availability of such technologies have turned away a lot of their listeners (especially those in the A-B categories), quite a number of FM stations have shifted towards targeting the masa (the common people - am I politically correct?).

Some stations even went as far as introducing all-tagalog spiels and stingers (some of which are really done in bad taste…sorry, but that’s just me). I mean, I love the Filipino language but to listen to a canned stinger of someone shouting “direcho! direcho! direcho!(forward)” as if it has some educational value to it is really very alienating for someone like me who had listened to FM radio for quite sometime. I don’t know how long would this formula work but I just found out that one station of this kind is now off the air.

If you want to know more about this “rigudon” or format shifts of FM stations in the country, read it here.

This shift in FM formats also made quite a huge impact on deejays. Somebody told me that one very popular but-now-jobless jock was seen in a variety show as a contestant. It really is hard to fight for what you think an FM station should be in the midst of all these changes, but times are really tough right now. Though some of the established ones have gone to greener pastures (like producing concerts and marketing), it’s really lamentable that we will not hear their voices anymore.

I’m quite sure a lot of changes will happen in the radio industry as technology advances. But in the meantime, let’s just enjoy new FM while it lasts.

Lessons This Blog Missed (It's Been A While...So Sue Me!)

I just committed probably the greatest booboo in my so-called blogging career (if you can call it that)...and that is, not posting anything here for a month now. Jeez...now who should I apologize to? Myself? My blog which is really a non-living thing (for the past month that is)? Well, anyway...

I have really been so busy with Bay FM (yes...busy as a bee, a valid reason though not acceptable probably in the blogging world). The past month was quite a ride. For one, I did learn one lesson - Don't ever think that erstwhile popular singers (or teenybop idols) who are presently reviving their virtually dead careers are now more accessible to us ordinary mortals.

I'm not mentioning names (or specifically A name), but there's this blond singer who was really (internationally?) popular in the late 70s/early 80s who just had a concert here in Subic. Before his concert, his handlers planned everything to a T...his itinerary, his radio tour, etc. And then he came to Subic. Pardon me if I speak for all the radio stations in Olongapo City but jeez...skipping the radio tour is definitely a no-no, not if his handlers want the guy's career ten feet under the grassy knoll! And for what...a lame excuse? That the guy's tired and can't really do the interviews anymore? Well, you ain't young anymore that's for sure, but if the Cascades were able to accommodate us (hell, they even did boardwork for a while...and for FREE!), I'm sure you could have done it, too. But, don't fret honey, you are still HOT (for a 50-ish, that is).

Hint: This guy really took our breath away in the early 80s (now I'm done for haha!!).

No more absences in the blogging scene...I hope (crossing my fingers).

You Might Be In Radio If...(excerpts from the original text)

Browsing the internet, I found this really hilarious article written by Corey Deitz over at http://radio.about.com/. As I was reading it I realized, yeah, I do some of those things in that list that qualifies me as someone who has been in radio for probably quite sometime. I figured I'd post it here though I sort of deleted some of the items which I probably cannot really relate to (well, the article was written by a U.S.-based radio executive) or something I'm not bound to do since I'm not really that a veteran of the industry. So, without further ado, here it is:

(PS. Some of the terms I defined are for the benefit of those who may not have any idea what the hell this list is talking about)

YOU MIGHT BE IN RADIO IF... you turn up the radio excitedly at the sound of dead air on your competitor's station.

YOU MIGHT BE IN RADIO IF... you swear at the competition while driving when you hear a song they beat you to.

YOU MIGHT BE IN RADIO IF... you've ever heard of a "cart" (a cart is a short term for cartridge... if you remember during the 70s, dashboards of jeepneys are stacked high with these old 8-track cartridges leaving drivers with almost zero visibility).

YOU MIGHT BE IN RADIO IF... you tell someone you plan to go to lunch "coming up next hour".

YOU MIGHT BE IN RADIO IF... you put up with it.

YOU MIGHT BE IN RADIO IF... you find yourself talking to yourself all the time to see how you sound.

YOU MIGHT BE IN RADIO IF... two days off in a row is considered a "long weekend."

YOU MIGHT BE IN RADIO IF... you forgot what kind you music you like, but instead like songs because they sound good after the jingle.

YOU MIGHT BE IN RADIO IF... you work on holidays.

YOU MIGHT BE IN RADIO IF... you have copies of both the album version and radio edit.

YOU MIGHT BE IN RADIO IF... you have recurring nightmares about bad airshifts filled with

dead air.

YOU MIGHT BE IN RADIO IF... you interview the governor and drive off in a junker.

YOU MIGHT BE IN RADIO IF... at Christmas dinner, you backsell the Christmas presents, explaining that "Unopened ones around the corner, stick around" (Backselling refers to the DJ technique where the deejay announces the title and/or artist of the song he just played).

YOU MIGHT BE IN RADIO IF... when the hotline rings you break into a cold sweat.

YOU MIGHT BE IN RADIO IF... you begin to like the music you are playing even though you have been faking it for years.

YOU MIGHT BE IN RADIO IF... you can run to the can, drop a load while smoking a cigarette and make it back for the last 15 seconds of a 4 min. song.

YOU MIGHT BE IN RADIO IF... every time you screw up the Program Director is listening and calls in to tell you how bad you are and he misses the 4 hours of dead air your idiot co-worker had.

YOU MIGHT BE IN RADIO IF... you can recite all the spots in a break (spots are radio ads/commercials).

YOU MIGHT BE IN RADIO IF... the equipment at your station decides to stop working properly and just go to hell on a holiday weekend when no one can be reached.

YOU MIGHT BE IN RADIO IF... you recite IDs and sweepers from different stations just to annoy your friends (IDs are promotional audio production of the radio station. Sweepers are recorded production used in between songs).

YOU MIGHT BE IN RADIO IF... when your at home and you answer the phone and give the station's call letters.

YOU MIGHT BE IN RADIO IF... you answer the phone and tell someone they're caller #6.

YOU MIGHT BE IN RADIO IF... you do an air shift in your dreams (Air shift is the length of time a dj works on air).

YOU MIGHT BE IN RADIO IF... on a holiday weekend, you're the only one at the station.

YOU MIGHT BE IN RADIO IF... you talk to friends in a "radio voice."

YOU MIGHT BE IN RADIO IF... you are well into your thirties and have been hit on by a 13-year-old girl on the request line (in the case of a male deejay, that is).

YOU MIGHT BE IN RADIO IF... you hate everyone's favorite song because it doesn't have an intro (intros are sometimes used as ramps or music beds by djs while they do spiels only up to the point when the first lyric of the song plays).

YOU MIGHT BE IN RADIO IF... when you think of your fantasy girl or guy it is always someone in a band - not a movie star.

YOU MIGHT BE IN RADIO IF... you don't know whether to introduce yourself at parties...with your air-name or your real name.

YOU MIGHT BE IN RADIO IF... you know what temperature it is.

YOU MIGHT BE IN RADIO IF... you make your friends listen to airchecks and they have no idea what you are talking about.

YOU MIGHT BE IN RADIO IF... you don't assume DJs are attractive.

YOU MIGHT BE IN RADIO IF... you hear your competition using catch phrases and you pull over to the side of the road screaming, "Thats mine Damnit!" - while your kids look at you as if you've finally snapped.

YOU MIGHT BE IN RADIO IF... you tell your wife/girl/boyfriend, "Coming up next hour we'll be hearing from the inlaws, plus we have a new dinner today you're going to really like..."

I need a friggin break.

A Dummy's Guide to Radio Lingo Part 1

If anyone wants to sound like a radio executive, its probably me. Being somewhat of an upstart, it dawned on me that I must know the language of this industry. Here now is my utterly desperate attempt at defining some terms which I use, simplistic my definitions may seem. If you read on...well, you'll know what I'm driving at.

Call Letters - Basically the station's identity. Here in the Philippines, FM stations usually carry the call letters "DW" and the next two letters having been assigned to the said station. With Bay FM, its DWSB, "SB" being "Subic Bay." (Reminds me of my days in amateur radio when my call sign used to be Falcon 95...)

Frequency - It's where you will find the station in your radio dial (duh!).

Stinger - Basically a produced audio file of a radio commercial or ad. This one I have difficulty defining. There are even stingers called floaters. Floaters, I think, are stingers a deejay plays as inserts during song intros for instance.

Music Bed - music a deejay uses as audio backdrop during his spiels.

Disc Jockey - aka Deejay, akaDJ, aka Pilot of the Airwaves (eww!); that dude who plays the music and talks to himself on the microphone while on air (and sometimes off).

Accounts - If you want your station to stay afloat, you need this. These are advertising accounts that pay the salaries of everyone in the station (and in the case of a government station like ours, money that enters the state coffers and can be felt and seen only in financial statements).

Advertising/Commercial Spots - Specific number of air time being sold to advertisers/sponsors. Usually, spots range from 15 seconds, 30 seconds to about a minute.

I guess these are all, for now. Excuse me while I wipe the blood off my nose.

For those who are seriously interested in broadcast terms and definitions, check it out here