One thing that people always told me about the media was it was “who you know, not necessarily what you know” and “be in the right place at the right time”. Two phrases that I’m not a huge fan of, and was never sure how you make them happen. Well for once in my little life both were true of me.
My friend Kenny who is the multimedia manager at Capital and Heart in Birmingham asked me if I would be interested in helping produce Heart Breakfast, as the Assistant Breakfast Producer was going away and they needed cover, I of course said yes. So he emailed Steph Mayoh the breakfast producer my contact details and the next thing I know I am booking in to sit in on the show for training.
I must say waking up at 4am to be at work for 5am isn’t the easiest of starts but boy is it worth it.
My first day sitting in on the show Lauren (the Assistant Producer) spoke me through her routine, there was so much to remember that I pretty much wrote down every word. Working out where to find saved documents and audio on the computer seemed to be a maze, and even with a step by step guide it still was like following a treasure map.
On my second day sitting in on the show Lauren let me take the reigns and guided me if I had any problems. I was warned that the hardest job would be writing the travel scripts for both Capital and Heart as you need to know the area well, luckily from working as a Heart Angel I have an understanding of the radio station’s area, however that doesn’t mean Google wasn’t my best friend still… as it was!
On my first day actually covering for Lauren I was so nervous, yet so excited to get involved, I even bought in some croissants I was that keen! My favourite part of my role was reading the texts that the listeners send in and then ringing them up to see if they’d like to talk to ‘Heart WM Breakfast’ presenters Ed and Rachel. Hearing the excitement in the listeners voices when they hear that you’re calling from Heart has to be one of the cutest things, and definitely worth waking up for.
As well as calling up listeners and writing the travel my job was also to update the blog choose the best bits from the show and edit a small snippet and upload them both to the website. This I found really exciting as I felt as if I really was contributing to the show. At the end of each show I would ring up a listener and we would pre record a feature known as “The Big Town Showdown” this daily feature is basically a pub quiz between the towns in the West Midlands. Once this was recorded I would edit the phone call and edit the session in Adobe Audition to be played out on the following day’s show.
Even though I only sat in on four shows, two of which I officially covered, I was welcomed with open arms and smiling faces and was invited to the teams meetings; where they came up with new ideas, evaluated their own shows and other local radio stations, and tested out new features, where I posed as a contestant on a demo feature for them. (Which I’m sure you can guess I absolutely loved this).
Calling listeners, being involved in the prep, editing audio, and just generally seeing behind the scenes of the Breakfast show was amazing and something I look forward to doing again soon, as it fed my thirst to be in radio, taught me new skills and tested me.
Oh wait I forgot to say…I made a lot of teas and coffees too… What did you expect?