February 5^th

With an agreed theme and major roles defined we were ready to start consolidating ideas for the show. Gaming was the chosen focus of the station and it was decided we’d have three shows.

I’m slightly unsure of my role, although I know I’m on the music team with Iona. I felt that my previous experience would help me do a good job and this is something I’m interested in doing in the future as a job.

The goals for the week was to research. I have no knowledge on Gaming so I contacted everyone I know that understands this subject as well as doing an online research.

February 12^th

The goal for today was to have an extensive list of music to choose from in order to create a music catalogue for the station. I added music from the FIFA games and the original soundtracks from Guitar Hero and The Sims. Iona added the rest and we ended up with a lot of songs on paper so I focused on writing the music policy. Once this was written I sent it over and it was put on the drive.

February 19^th & 20^th

At this point I’m still not sure of my role so I’m just going to call myself Deputy Music Director for the fun of it as Iona is Music Director.

This week we divided the final list and acquired the songs separately as it would be quicker. Following that we started importing them into Myriad which is the longest and best chunk of the process, in my opinion.

We didn’t do it all in one day so we came back the following days and finish it off. I decided to focus a bit more on getting the PRS information on the songs as Iona was importing the songs. Our pilot will be next week so we’ll under a bit of pressure.

February 26^th

After spending my free time on the weekend in the studio, we got to Monday and there was still work to do. A lot of our songs we’re edited for radio so I made sure they were all censured, if necessary and that the version we had was radio friendly.

Monday morning I just had to import a few songs that were left to edit, however some tracks were better to be left aside as they wouldn’t sound right after editing.

After that we had to make a playlist and schedule it. We were racing as we had just learned how to do so. Callum was a big help with Myriad.

Some panicking moments passed and everything was ready to be played, however the pilot didn’t go as expected and music-wise, we needed to make our playlist better and work closer with the show’s producers.

This pilot did make me want to step up my game. At the same time, I realised that I wasn’t being productive while the shows were going out so I started researching potential companies to produce add for.

March 5^th

This past week I focused a bit more on securing commissions as the music was being taken care of by Iona.

I had two phone sessions in which I directly contacted companies, however kept being sent different contact emails so I simply followed up. Tomorrow (March 6^th) I will be having another phone session as I was unable to call companies as the radio studios were being use for the shows.

This morning, however, I went back to working on the music. I, along with Iona, scheduled the shows for this week with, again help from Callum, who had already scheduled his own show.

When all shows were on a scheduled playlist on Myriad we added the adverts and the branding and made sure everything matched the running order.

This week went much better than last but there is still room for improvement, in my opinion. My plan for the coming days is to make sure that all the music, adverts and branding are on the right level on the playout system, so everything sounds professional and put together, make sure all PRS is done for the past weeks, on the Google Drive and get commissions for adverts.

March 12th

Second show done and I’m already slightly stressed about next.

Apart from PRS, when it comes to the music, we were able to get everything done. It did take a few tries and at time I did feel as though my time was wasted editing and censoring songs for specific shows that ended up not being used. Nevertheless, we changed plans for this coming week and decided that myself and Iona would be choosing the music for the shows.

During the weekend, I started working on scheduling the playlists, but as gaining studio access was more challenging than usual, the last show – Press Play – wasn’t touched until Monday morning, although I made sure I had all the songs ready to be imported into myriad. From 8am, I was supposed to start importing the ads but there was a slight issue with the music so I all had to be done again, which too longer than planned. In the end, it all worked out well and next week we’ll be doing better than this one. As I was dealing with the music in the studio, Iona was creating Spotify playlists to be part of our online content. Hopefully next week it will all fall to place.

On the Ads front, I’ve been no help but I will continue to make phone calls and email companies and for next week I got in touch with a contact of mine that works for the World Health Organization to see if there is anyone that would be happy to come on State of Play or o an interview next Monday.

March 19th

One more week to go. I’ve failed miserably in the ads front as I didn’t get any commissions. Nevertheless, music kept improving so at least I’m doing my job right.

In preparation for this week, we’ve decided to set the deadline for playlist to Wednesday. We were unable to meet this deadline. However I worked on a draft for all three playlists on Tuesday with a special focus on Press Play. I broadened my research in order to find more pop songs and gender diversity and built the playlists for State of Play and Press Play which were imported to myriad. Play Again still needed work but we only managed to get a semi-finalised version of the playlists on Thursday so I was only able to schedule the shows on Friday morning. James gave me a few pointers on how to make the logs better and Dan also helped. All that was left to do was to add the adverts which I did on Saturday.

All in all, this week I’ve edited and imported music as well as built the log which is what I have done the previous weeks along with Iona.

We have some admin stuff to do so this coming week, we’re focusing on that as well as our usual job.

March 25th

This past week was more of a paperwork week. I changed the music policy and did the clocks as well as helped with the music reporting. I also had to built the logs for all pevious shows again.
Myself and Iona still worked on the individual playlists as usual and I scheduled press play and state of play. The play again production team scheduled their show this week and the other two shows also ended up changing their logs.
I later also added the adverts, as usual.