The Resurrection of 89.5 Subic Bay FM

We're BACK! Finally, after several excruciating months of trying to rescusitate Subic Bay Freeport's official FM radio station, DWSB 89.5 Subic BayFM is now back on air! How we were able to do it was like some miracle of sorts.

Surprised? I know you are, or haven't you noticed why this blog only has new music lists and featured artists in its past few posts...well, we sort of died, temporarily. Long story really, but here goes:

It took a lot of prodding, and surprisingly, the wrath of mother nature that made this happen. Months have passed since our last broadcast. Us radio geeks were really having a hard time trying to convince a lot of people to just purchase our equipment real fast after our old, virtually low-powered set up was taken away leaving this station in the backburner. A new consultant was hired, a new agreement was forged with the mother network for the procurement of our equipment, and we really thought that everything will turn out the way we expected it to be even as we know how utterly snail-paced government processes can be.

Then typhoons Ondoy and Pepeng happened, two powerful storms that left majority of Luzon in total destruction. During that time, a huge advertising congress was about to happen in Baguio City. But then its organizers decided to change the venue and decided to go for Subic Bay.

With only a few weeks left, our agency worked overtime to prepare for the event - roads were paved and painted on, the convention center prepped and, the clincher for us geeks: 89.5 Bay FM was ordered to go back on air at all cost (being that the radio station is also going to be exhibited at the AdCon).

With absolutely no room for me to get all stressed, us geeks set out to immediately get ourselves even the basic equipment for us to operate the station again. Emergency procurement was the ticket. A lot of people came in to help us out (thank you all so much!) and in just barely a week and in time for the 21st Philippine Advertising Congress, we were back on air!

After finally upping our test broadcast, we rushed to the AdCon's exhibition area, installed a small set up at the Subic Bay booth and did our thing.

Whew! I bet reading this could have also stressed you out.

But then, this is only the beginning (a new beginning, that is). Still got loads to do and we do hope that starting today, 89.5 Subic Bay FM will NEVER leave the airwaves.

And the Bay FM saga continues...

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89.5 FM Subic Bay Radio

On Letting Your Guard Down

This isn't about radio per se...but this could be the one important thing I have learned being involved in this business..DON'T LET YOUR GUARD DOWN.

Don't ever let your guard down, lest you fall victim to opportunists, wannabes, utilitiarians, freeloaders and skanks..people who would just love to succeed at sucking out your lifeforce. Don't ever let your guard down on petty power plays and grudges; on people who lie and accuse you wrongly just so they can bring you down; on people who thought you can be wielded as some kind of force field or weapon that would virtually protect them from any liabilities and sanctions.

I don't consider myself a skeptic, not at all. But in this business, being a trusting person is quite risky. I was and still is one, which is probably the reason why I am at risk.

Thus, I have to utter over and over again this mantra...DON'T EVER LET YOUR GUARD DOWN.

Well, this is media, and I expect more of these characters to come out of the woodwork.

On the bright side though, I know there are people who really care, who genuinely would love to see this small army of radio geeks make something good out of this tiny station. BUT... one should watch out if their actions are really consistent with their motives. Are their actions really meant to fulfill our goals for this tiny facility? Is it for his personal glory? Is it because they don't really have something else to do or do they just wanna screw you? Am I becoming quite the cynic now? Naaa...

Someday, I will have learned this art of never ever letting one's guard down.

Birth Pains

I remember when I gave birth to my daughter, That day I woke up with my bedsheets entirely wet and later realizing that my water just broke. No pain, I said. So I was rushed to the hospital, still feeling no pain at all, and was hauled into the labor room. I waited for it to come but still... until the doctors came in and gave me a shot of something that would induce labor. Then it came, at first slowly, and then the excruciating, unbearable pain as if my insides were being ripped out of my body. After sometime at the operating room and numb from the anaesthesia, Gabrielle finally came out, my achievement as a woman and mother.

Birth pains worth experiencing.

Today, my daughter is a teenager, and I, now almost halfway through my adult existence with nary any memory whatsoever of that painful feeling of giving birth. Until Bay FM came along.

When I took the job, I sensed no foreboding pain at all. With pain I meant difficulties adjusting to this new job, people I now work with, a fairly new environment and the office politics that go with the territory. It was really a breeze since the guys at the department we belong to were genuinely nice to me and welcomed me as part of their office family. Then slowly, it came.

It wasn't really the physical environment or the people that caused the birth pains. It was actually the radio station, and boy did I found out how complex my job would be.

Consider the following realities and issues when I first took on the job:

1. Equipment of the FM station were either makeshift (courtesy of the Mcgyvers of the department) or lent out by well-meaning people and the agency has not really invested any equipment on the station;

2. There is no transmitter. It operates at merely 95 watts powered by an exciter. (So when you exit Subic and Olongapo City, the Freeport's only radio station ceases to exist);

2. The broadcast and production computers are 10 years old;

3. There was no such thing as advertising revenue. There was no such thing as advertising, period;

4. Only two people were assigned to do production and boardwork full-time, and these two were originally hired as telephone operators: BernieMac (who had a couple of deejay stints in Baguio and Zambales), and Tommy G (formerly a bingo caller);

5 Only two people probably listen to the station;

6. Programming sucks. The station plays sucky music and its playlist dictated by some head geezer in the department.

7. And to top it all off, it doesn't have a franchise but came to be because of a 5-year agreement with the government's radio network (of which its lifespan, when I came on board, went down to only three years since it already spent its two years perpetually on test broadcast).

A shabby FM radio station facility operated by a state corporation located inside a booming investment center which earns millions of dollars for the government. How ironic.

Gathering all the boldness left in me while earnestly invoking all the gods in heaven, and armed with a resolution from the agency's Board of Directors approving its initial advertising rates (which I proposed earlier during my marketing days) and the brand name Bay FM, I started writing a business plan for the radio station.

It was tough especially the part where I computed revenue projections (I hate math!). After a number of sleepless nights and a good many coffee and nicotine, I finally did it. So, I went running to the big bosses for them to finally approve it which, up to now, I wonder, did they or did they not approve it at all?

What the hell...I just moved on and started implemented it.

We have this notion that Filipinos are great in crafting ambitious plans but then dawdle when its time to really take action. But in this case, specifically my case, I couldn't afford to be a slacker here if I still want my head attached to my body. So, from the day I first stepped inside the radio station to this moment as I am writing this, I breathe, eat, sleep, laugh, cry, and literally live for Bay FM (definitely with exaggeration there).

Which brings me back to my analogy...

It may seem odd comparing the birth of my daughter with the outset of my, shall I say, career as a neophyte radio station manager. But hey, how else should I put it. Pain first, then glory later. With Bay FM, glory may eventually come, hopefully, in my lifetime.

Killing That Writer's Block (An Introduction)

Jeez, my first blog. Not that I'm not excited but it took me a long time to clear the cobwebs off my head, start exercising my lazy typing fingers and exorcise that evil spirit called writer's block.

I really don't know if I consider myself a good writer. A lot of my peers did. I try to be. But really, in the last 15 years of my life, media was my bread-and-butter...well, sort of. My post-college graduate life (which was light years ago) consisted of a couple of short-lived stints in FM radio, wire news services and magazines. Then, following a harrowing, near-death experience working at the DND's AM station (during the 1989 coup), I ended up working in the government's radio network.

Ho-Hum tsk..tsk...no room for creativity there.

Well, I used to think of myself as an idealistic person. But my stint there was not that bad, coupled with the fact that the government actually paid for my master's degree (now who says you can't get something good out of the government!). After seven years of not going to the office everyday to punch my time card in the bundy clock (well, I was a beat reporter), in 1997, I packed my bags, went to Subic Bay Freeport, and joined the young and energetic crew of the Dick as one of his close-in writers.

That period in my life was quite surreal because I never thought I would ever be that good in writing. I mean, it would be hell on earth if you do not come up with a flawless press release or a feature story (of...who else?) everyday!

And then the seige happened... type, type, type...write, write, write, with damocles' sword literally dangling over my head...pressure...and LOTS of it!

Then after the witchhunt was finally over, I got promoted but transferred to the Marketing Department. Six years of figuring out what the heck my job really was! I did a lot of odds and ends work on investment and tourism promotion, market research, event planning and management and then some, nothing really specific but all hardly honed my writing skills. But then I considered all of that useful knowledge. Who knows!

After all that jumping from one project to another, somebody up there (Thank God!) finally brought me to my final destination. Who would have thought all that trouble I got myself into before would be useful now?

Which brings me to this, my first blog. It really is hard to start writing again after having been in hibernation for a long time. But I felt I have to start chronicling the work I'm doing right now...developing and managing Subic Bay Freeport's first and only FM community station.

And what better way to do service to those who love radio than to talk about radio as a blogger. Well, let's just turn that radio on, shall we?

Now begins my double life.