Completing this internship at 106.5 The Beat has been an amazing experience that I will hold near and dear to my heart. The staff there have been amazing to work with and have provided an abundance of insight that will be extremely helpful if I decided to continue a career path within the radio industry. It was interesting to see into the radio side of mass communications since our course programs are focused more around journalism. I also realized how much the two aspects of communications intertwine with each other since I had to base some of my work from articles that were reported by journalists.

Throughout my time at the internship, I’ve experienced a few challenges as you would when beginning a new area of work. Most of these challenges came when I was learning new programs or tools that are necessary within the radio industry. I learned how to use tools like the switcher and how each button controls what we hear. I was also taught how to use the program used to queue up the show, and how to swiftly transition music and commercials. Because both were new concepts to me, it was difficult when I first began, but after having practice, I was able to overcome both challenges and thrive within the internship.

When I first began at this internship, I was interested in working within the radio industry, but it was that big of an interest, just more of a backup. After getting the chance to learn the basics of what is needed to work within this industry, I realized how much my passion for music could be translated to a career in radio. Whether I work on air or behind the scenes, I’ve gotten a chance to grow my appreciation for the industry and now it’s higher on my potential career paths list.

The skills that I hoped to gain described in my first journal were my public speaking skills on air and my multitasking abilities. After the last few months participating in this internship, I can confidently say that I believe I have improved both skills. Being able to talk on air more than once has given me the opportunity to learn how to shape my voice so that I sound more professional. It has also allowed me to get over the fear I had of speaking on air because the other personalities believed in my abilities even when I was nervous about them. Working with the switcher allowed me to improve my multitasking abilities because it literally controls everything in the studio. When segueing the show, chopping commercials, or conducting phone giveaways, we consistently use the switcher.

The goals I set within my performance evaluation were that I would become more confident when completing hands-on operations and not being afraid to ask questions, learn the promotional side of the business as well as I did the on-air side, and to gain as much insight about the industry by asking valuable questions. I feel that I achieved the first and last goals I set for myself because I learned to believe that none of my questions were “dumb” and that all information was valuable. The second goal I didn’t achieve because by the time I was able to get down to the promotions office, the internship was essentially completed, however, I’m glad that I was able to see how the on-air side worked in depth.

I feel that I was mentored throughout this internship mostly by the two radio personalities I sat in with as well as by my supervisor. They were all able to answer any questions I had with ease and they taught me the basics quickly and efficiently. Because my supervisor also has a show, I was able to sit in with him while he works on his show as well as the radio personalities so when I had questions, I would ask all three to get the most efficient answers. I felt that getting all the different opinions would help me more than just getting one.

I would recommend this radio station to students looking for internships. You can tell that all the employees have a passion for their craft and they are excited to be able to pass on their knowledge. It’s also a great internship because there are different radio stations in the building so sometimes other radio personalities will stop by and you’ll be able to have conversations with them as well. Whether students are looking for a career in radio or even marketing, there is some way they can find a great mentor at this company. 106.5 specifically are currently actively looking for a new intern since I am leaving, so it would be a great time to get in contact with them if any students are interested!

---

Work Samples

 

 

This third piece is an audio of a commercial I shot for the segment “beat your bills”. This was the first complete audio piece I created which included reading it off the script since this specific commercial has to be read word for word, recording it and adding the music track in the background.

 

 

Commercial Video

This fourth piece is a video of the 5th take of the second reader I did right before recording the “beat your bills” segment. I also had to read this piece word for word. This was a little after I did a few readers so I wasn’t as shy as I was in the beginning.

 

The 5th piece I don’t have a sample for, but it’s the script I use for when we complete contests on air. We have to ask them their name ahead of time for when we cut together the commercial instead of having them introduce themselves. We then introduce the caller and announce to them that they are the xth caller (which ever number we asked for). After doing this, the audio is cut within VoxPro, a program that works with the phone lines. After the commercial is fully created and the music track is placed behind the audio, the information is collected from the caller and I type all that information into the contest winner form so the caller can pick up their tickets to whichever show we were conducting the contest for.

 

(Hover over slideshow for picture captions)

[slideshow_deploy id=’24’]

Two communication theories that have been utilized throughout the duration of my internship are Social Penetration Theory and Agenda-Setting Theory. There are many more that I could tie into my experiences while working at the radio station; however, I have chosen to focus on these two specific theories.

Social Penetration Theory states that all relationships that individuals develop start out as a surface level interaction and move towards having more deep connections. This theory is best described as the layers of an onion. The outer layer represents that surface level relationship whereas the center layer is the deepest level of a relationship. At my internship, all of my relationships started out at that outer layer of the metaphorical onion. As time went on, my relationships with my coworkers developed more. Even if they didn’t become super deep connections, they still were gradually becoming less surface level. I actually discovered that one of my coworkers actually knew me when I was a baby, so our relationship was a little deeper than my other coworkers that I met when I began the internship. The way these relationships developed over time is described by the use of Social Penetration Theory.

The second theory I used was Agenda-Setting Theory, which is defined as when an influencer, such as a media outlet or in my case, a radio station, frames messages and sends them out to the public. These influencers act as “gatekeepers” in the sense that they get to decide which information is sent out to the public. One of the tasks I completed during my internship was finding news stories to be talked about on air. Through this task, I acted as the “gatekeeper” since I was in charge of deciding which stories were most valuable to be spoken about on air. While majority of the days I was following up on different stories, on June 18th, a major story occured within the music industry that I decided was needed to be spoken about during the duration of the show. Young rapper, Xxxtentacion, was murdered that afternoon. The information was coming in while I was at the station so we were updating the story real-time. Since this was a huge story, agenda-setting theory expresses why I decided to only speak about that situation.

Since this is a radio internship, there aren’t any classes that helped me prepare for this internship directly; however, there were some classes that had certain aspects that assisted me in this internship thus far. The first class that assisted me was public speaking. All these years, I assumed that I didn’t learn from public speaking because I’m still pretty shy when it comes to speaking to crowds, but I have noticed that I’m able to enunciate much better than I used to. I’ve been inside a radio station before and have had the chance to speak on air before I got to college. While I enjoyed the thrill of talking on air, I couldn’t seem to overcome the shyness. Even though more than 3 years later I am still shy, I was told I sounded pretty good for how shy I claim to be.

The second class that has helped me during this internship is the advanced media writing course. One of the things I help out with for this internship is coming in with news stories (both local and national) that can be discussed on air. One of the biggest assignments we did in the advanced media writing course was the five week reporting assignment. With this, we were required to bring in a completed news story each week to be added to our portfolio. While for the internship, I’m not required to write out an entire story, the weekly reporting project helped me learn how to find news stories even when you don’t think there are any out there. With the skills learned from this assignment, I have been able to bring in multiple stories on a daily basis.

The last class that has helped me with this internship is the digital storytelling class. One of the most important aspects of segueing up the radio show is making sure that the songs are tightly edited. If there is any silence on the radio, audience members begin to assume something is wrong with the station and will switch channels, in turn making the station lose listeners. In digital storytelling, we were taught techniques to edit our documentaries to be tightly edited, and while this was primarily focused on video, one of the tricks the Dr. Stouffer taught us about was how to layer audio in a appealing way. We use this layering technique when transitioning between a song and a commercial so I strongly believe this is one of the reasons it didn’t take me long to learn about segueing the show.

Since last week, I have worked at the station a lot more than my first two weeks here, especially since I don’t have any more vacation days planned. After learning the basics of Audacity, I got to learn how to work with the program Audition. At the station, we use this program to load mixes into the system so that they can be queued up on the radio. They also taught me about the different types of commercials that they record for the radio. One last thing I learned this week was how to segue the show. This is the process where you arrange the tracks so there aren’t any silent breaks while the station is on air. You also have to make sure the music flows together and does not sound choppy, otherwise the station could lose listeners because the could potentially think something was wrong with their radio.

Since segueing the show is so important and was a new concept for me, I struggled trying to get the show to flow how I wanted to; however, like with the issues I had last week, it just took a little practice to get everything down. After working on it for one day, I can now say that I am confident enough to segue the entire show on my own. Another challenge that I am noticing is the impact this schedule is having on me. Because I work another job immediately before this one, I’m noticing how exhausted I am getting after arriving back home. While it would be nice to sleep more, I still very much enjoy the internship and will continue to push so I can get the most out of this experience.

After being here for a few weeks, I’m starting to see how much I love this part of the entertainment industry. There’s so much that goes into it and it just fascinates me how it all comes together to its final product. Before interning here, I never took the time to think about how much is put into creating a smooth radio show. I thought the music just played automatically and everything fell into place due to an algorithm or something of that nature, but now I see how much effort is actually put into the radio station and it’s made me appreciate working here even more.

So far, the last few weeks at my internship have been amazing. I’ve learned a lot about being a radio personality and it’s made me appreciate the radio side of the media much more than I used to (and I already had a strong appreciation for it to begin with). I’ve learned many new terminology that will come in handy in the field, as well as how to use programs like Audacity more in depth as the only knowledge of the program I had before was how to speed up music. I also learned how to use the queueing system to organize the songs that are going to play as well as how to record voice tracks into said system in order to create commercials and breaks.

One of the biggest challenges I faced in the beginning was learning the new system. I was lucky enough that they switched to the new system after I started there so I was able to learn it along with everyone else; however, since I didn’t have any knowledge of the previous system, I was essentially learning everything from scratch. After getting the chance to sit down with two of the team members and get an in depth tutorial of how the basics work in the system, I was able to basically catch up to speed and now I feel proud as some members come to me when they have questions about it. Now that I had the basic knowledge of the system, it made learning the new aspects way easier.

The experiences I’m getting from this internship not only helps me develop a better understanding of the radio industry, but it also allows me to create valuable connections that will be useful if I decide to pursue a track in the radio industry. On Tuesday this week, I got the chance to speak during every break from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. and I noticed that as I did each break, I felt more confident than the last. Even if I still feel a little shy, seeing how much I improved in just a few hours was very reassuring. It makes me believe that I actually may have a chance in this industry.

          For my 2018 summer internship, I will be working at WBTJ 106.5 The BEAT, a hip-hop/R&B radio station located in Richmond, Virginia. Throughout my time working at the radio station, I will intern with some of the radio personalities that work there, learning the basics of what it takes to be a radio entertainer. As an intern, one of my main responsibilities will be to come in everyday and search for a few stories within the entertainment industry and a few local stories that can be discussed on air by the entertainers. I will also be personally speaking on air some days about the stories I find. One of my other duties will be to learn about all of the equipment and systems used within the station (they will all be taught to me throughout my time there).

          One of the most important parts of being a radio entertainer is being able to speak on air. Public speaking has never been one of my strong suits. When I took my public speaking class as a freshman, it was one of the most stressful classes I have ever completed because I am a shy person. Since I’ve been at the radio station, I have spoken on air already, which was a very nerve wracking experience, but it is definitely a skill that I hope to improve during the course of this internship. I strongly believe that working with the staff at the station, since they all have such outgoing personalities, will definitely help me gain the confidence I need in order to speak on air without feeling nervous. They have already discussed with me to feel free to ask questions whenever I have them because they are more than happy to help me learn everything I need to know. As I work with the different team members, I plan to ask them what their best advice is for someone like me who is nervous in front of a microphone, which will also help me improve my skills as an intern.

               Another skill that I hope to improve on is multitasking. I take pride in my multitasking abilities, but working at the radio station requires a whole different level of multitasking, While on air, the entertainers have to record and piece together commercials, cue up music, all while still keeping their composure on air. I hope that learning how to complete all these tasks simultaneously will allow me to improve my multitasking abilities, which in return will improve my qualities as a worker no matter what part of the entertainment industry I decide to continue my career.