Production Week 1/2

At the start we were assigned to two groups, I was assigned to a group with Alex, Connor, Sara, Stephen, Shammy, Makee and Ginny. We all agreed on Jazz FM for our station and then once that was decided our roles were determined. I was assigned to the role of Head Of Music, a role which I wanted. I felt as I listen to old music and stuff that isn’t seen as contemporary I felt I would fit this role best.

Production Week 3

The following week we were given a briefing on ads. during which i was making a blueprint for the music. We decided as a group to go with a Anthems list, an A list and a B list. Myself and Connor who is editor were going to go through PRS for the music however it wasn’t finalised and then I went home ill. I spoke to Tom privately about it and he was happy for me to go and was happy with my ideas for the show.

Production Weeks 4/5

This is when it starts to pick up in pace. Adverts are being briefed to us, the rest of the group are thinking about ads but at this present moment I was putting the music onto Myriad. at the time the 3 playlists were limited to 12 songs each. We were brainstorming ads for the show and deciding to start on out of breaks.

Production Week 6/7

I wasn’t in on one of the days due to another project. The next day I finalized all of the songs on myriad and changed a few that were duplicated. From that I listened to every song again and added ins and outs for the songs that needed them as well as hooks. Once that was done i also colour coded all of the carts on myriad and labelled our music as Jazz in genre. Once people had completed ADs and Sweeps I uploaded them onto Myriad next to the music.

We then had our very first pilot, Makee was in charge of the OB and they came in to perform a few songs which went well. The music was nice but Tom felt that the Choice of music was a bit too old and had too many covers. He spoke to me and told me he wanted something a bit more modern and contemporary mixed in with a few classics. From this I went onto our shared Google Drive and changed the running order and filled in songs I felt would make the show run smoothly. I did an advert for Confused.com which my friend Niamh recorded. I also recorded an add for my show trail which Ginny helped to edit.

Production Week 8

We had our final pilot which didn’t go to plan at all. We had no OB and we had a few technical issues with Myriad playing out the wrong songs. For example we were meant to play out Frank Sinatra but it played City Of Stars from La La Land. The feedback was definitely more negative than positive but the groundwork was there to turn it into something positive. Straight after the show myself and Connor went through the playlist and loaded the cart on Myriad with the play out and then finalized the cart. I also did the PRS for every single song that was listed which took around two and a half hours. Then I added the adverts I made plus the others which were re-done.

Show Day.

Show Day started with us finalizing bits of the running order and tweaking little things on myriad. I got the documents which included a full playlist and music policy which I gave to Tom and Matthew. The show started at 11 and there we no problems with the music which was pleasing from my end. I also helped Sara with some of the timings before the show started so that Tom and Matthew got the most accurate running order. We ended up going over by a minute due to the News and Weather but overall the show was a lot better than both pilots put together. I felt this experience was a very informative and good one and it’s an eye opener to the world of music radio!