Pilot week 1:

For our pop-up radio station, we have decided to do a food-based radio station and my roles include being on the music team and the OB team. This week I met with both teams to discuss are ideas and what we envisioned to the station to sound like and ways we were going to make the OB sound interesting. This week we came up with a brief music policy and decided that it should be a easy listening station. Therefore, the playlist consists of three different categories: A list – which is classic anthems, B list – which is contemporary and c list – which is songs that re food related and/ or related to the theme of the week.  During this week as well the OB team went to Wembley Box Park just to test out the tieline and to do a practise run of the equipment for those who weren’t sure of using it. Also we had planned to use this location as one of our OB locations, especially for world food week. However, this did not happen in the end as we did not get permission from Wembley Boxpark to broadcast there.

Pilot Week 2:

This week was our first practise of a doing a real OB with an interview. This week I was producing the OB and phoebe was presenting. The original plan was that we were to have two OB hits in the three hours, one in one location interviewing a manager or someone significant and one in another doing the same thing. Therefore, we had planned to go to a Turkish restaurant in Islington and a sugar free bakery called Romeo’s nearby. However, once we arrived at the Turkish restaurant, they cancelled the interview because they were busy with a private part, instead we decided to do both OB hit in Romeo’s sugar free bakery. The first OB hit was phoebe setting the scene and describing the surroundings, explaining why we were here and how it related to the theme of the week. Then in the second hit we interviewed the manger of Romeo’s sugar free bakery who was very knowledgeable of the company as well as it’s vegan and gluten free products. Also, throughout the week myself, Jay and Jason continued scheduling and logging songs correctly into myriad.

Week 1 – vegetarian / vegan week:

This week me and billy went to redemption bar in Covent Garden to do the outside broadcast. Redemption is a vegan bar and restaurant chain in London and therefore suited this week’s theme. Zoe, the marketing manager who we spoke to was knowledgeable about the products and the ethos behind redemption. Although the interview itself went well due to Zoe’s knowledge we did have a few technical issues. When we got there me and billy struggled to connect the tieline and therefore had to do the first OB hit over the phone. However, we eventually managed to get the tieline connected to a secure network. The feedback for the interview was that is felt rushed and the reasoning for this was that a few minutes before the OB went live I was told that the OB had been cut from 7 minutes to 3/4. I had prepared enough questions to fill those 7 minutes so when my time was cut in half it did become rushed trying to fit enough questions in the time.

Week 2 – World food week:

This week myself, Jay and Jason worked together to organise the A, B and C list so that the songs flowed better and the station sounded more fluid. We did this by updating the playlist by adding newer music sourced from A, B and C lists from popular radio stations in the UK, as well as including other songs that fitted the theme of that week. Once we had completed this we uploaded the new music into myriad, then created a log and scheduled the music into it. Originally we had contemporary and classics switched round so classics were A list and then contemporary was B list. However, we revised this policy between pilot week 1 and 2 and decided to switch them over. We also researched playlists from stations that have a similar demographic and also promote a similar ethos of feel good and easy listening.

Week 3 – Seafood week

This week me, Jay and Jason continued to add new music to the playlist which we sourced from popular UK stations, most the of the music we added this week was to the A-list. This was to ensure that our A-list was as current and contemporary as possible, we also made one addition to the C-list. Once we had decided on this playlist we then uploaded the new music into myriad and created a log.

Also, this week I organised the OB for dessert week in week 4. After ringing numerous of places, naked dough agreed that we could interview their founder Hannah from there location in Westfield,  Shepards Bush. One of the reasons I decided to contact Naked Dough is because it was London’s first cookie dough café that was safe to eat raw and started a large dessert trend of raw cookie dough. This week I also researched the company in great detail and came up with a list of interview questions that will be used next week.

Dessert package – week 3/4

Over the last couple of weeks me and Billy have worked closely together to create a dessert package. The point of the package was to start the show with a bit of context about desserts and it’s history, current trends and some information on world desserts. My role in the package was to write the scripts and to source vox pops; then Billy’s role was to voice the package and edit it all together.

Week 4 – Dessert week

This week was our last week in pop-up station and it was dessert week. As I mentioned in my previous blog post I had arranged for us to go to Naked Dough, me and phoebe went together and she was to present the OB and my role was to produce. Once we had arrived, we had technical issues with the first OB hit as we struggled to get the tie line to connect to a secure network. Therefore, phoebe did the first OB hit via phone, however this worked in our favour as she was able to do a two way with the presenters in the studio, which was something we were not able to do on the tie line due to the live screening we had set up for this week. However, after the first OB hit we managed to secure a stable WIFI connection and Hannah had arrived. The second OB hit went well and Hannah was a very confident and knowledgeable speaker.