Day 8 (July 16)

Today was a busy day at the station! They are getting ready because they have a lot of events coming up. I did three Power Points, putting together pictures and captions from events, today which took a good amount of time but I was working along with a Promotions Assistant, whom I've came to be friends with. Again, everyone at the station is extremely nice and it seems that everyone knows everyone and has a pretty good relationship with each other, which is definitely nice for a work environment. I already knew that the radio industry had a lot of hard work put into it, but there are a lot more positions in it then I had thought! I have been learning a lot though every day I come, which is good because that's why I did this internship.

Day 7 (July 14)

Today, I went in having a much better idea of how things work at the station. I am pretty confident in the tasks I am doing as well by now. Today I organized prize sheets- which are the sheets the station writes and keeps in files when listeners win prizes. These are important because they have to do with the most important part of the station- the listeners! So it is definitely important to keep ALL of them in a safe place and all together, because the reputation of the station following through with prizes depends on that! There are all kinds of prizes given away- concert tickets, restaurant gift certificates, movie passes, etc. I think that's a great idea to have a variety of prizes and I'm sure the listeners appreciate it as well. I learned that my boss, the Promotions Director, has to call and ask for concert tickets but has never had a problem with them giving a few pairs of tickets to the station, which is really good. I did another Power Point for a couple of different events today, which was cool. I'm definitely a visual learner so I like doing anything visual and have a pretty good idea of how people like to see things, so this was a good task for me to do. It takes a good amount of time to figure out the theme of each page (3-5 pages) but once I get started it's pretty easy. Overall, it was another good day at the radio station!

Day 6 (July 12)

Today, I got to go out to an event which was actually the premiere of this event, called Free Gas Frenzy. The station goes out to various locations and listeners come and choose six random numbers, which are then entered into a computer database which selects a random six numbers to see if it matches with the listeners, and there were various amounts of gas card prizes to win. There was also a separate drawing for even more gas cards! There were three other Promotions Assistants plus the morning radio personality, Jimmy, and myself there. The call time wasn't until 11:00 and we got there about an hour before it started, at 10:00 AM. The Promotions Assistants had previously tested the equipment on location to make sure it worked in previous days prior to the event, which is a big part of their tasks as a Promotions Assistant. Right when it started, I was in charge of taking pictures of the event. I was a little nervous because I had never taken pictures for an event before- other than with my friends! I had seen pictures on the website and in the Power Points that I had done for the station, and sort of went from those and took the type of photographs that I had observed. I took pictures of people in line, people at the table writing out their numbers, people going to the computer to see if their numbers matched, and of the workers from the radio station. At the end, I thought I did a pretty good job at that. About less than halfway in, (the event was 2 hours and ended at 1:00) I was in charge of doing what the Promotions Assistant was doing and checking ID's to make sure they were valid and 18+ and writing down the numbers that the listeners picked. The line needed to move extremely fast, but it wasn't TOO much of a challenge to keep everyone happy! Overall, I had a lot of fun at the event and got to observe how the station handles events and interacts with listeners, which was really cool!

Day 5 ( July 9)

Today, I learned a little more around the station. I actually helped, along with another Promotions Assistant, with the website and with the liners to be put in the binders in the studio later on. I get along really well with everyone I have met, and met a few more important people. As you would think in the radio business, everyone has such vibrant and great personalities- it's definitely a cool place to work.

For the website, I helped the promotions assistant pick out pictures for three different events and caption the event on the main events page. That's pretty cool, because that is the page that listeners and viewers see. I am definitely going to be at the Free Gas Frenzy event on Saturday, which should be exciting because it's a cool promotion! So today, pretty much I helped cut out more forms for that event, learned more about the liner binders AND created liners for the show, and I also learned about what the Promotions Assistants have to do in order to get ready for events. First, they have to go out to the location BEFORE they even have the event to test the equipment. Then they have to make sure the 102.3 XLC van is packed with the correct equipment; it's a pretty organized process!

Day 4 (July 7)

I'm definitely getting more the hang of things around the office/studio. There's still a lot of things I don't know, but I'm learning! The program director, Haynes' office is right across from my boss, Janelle. He seems to be very busy all day, basically running everything while also having his own slot on the station. I did more of helping for the Free Gas Frenzy event, which should be really cool and I'm excited to help! I'm most likely going to help at the event on Saturday, which will be my first at the station. Again, Janelle is so nice and helpful in explaining things and answering any questions I have. She is also doing a really good job in showing me how things work, especially in the studio. I learned that there are "liner binders" in each of the three studios which are summaries and bulletin points of events and promos for the radio personalities to announce on-air.

Day 3 (July 2)

Today, I met a lot of people around the station including on-air personalities, sales reps, and lots of other top employees that work for XLC and WKRS (the am station). One cool piece of information I found out was that the Program Director (the boss of my boss and others) is also an on-air personality (and I'm a fan!).

The Promotions Assistant (which by the way, seems like a really cool job) goes to a lot of the remotes (types of events that 102.3 XLC or 1220 WKRS attend) and helps set-up and follow through with whatever promotion is going on, as well as many others tasks such as helping with the website. There are also live broadcasts, where the station goes out to various places and broadcast up-close and personal with listeners.

Today, I learned how to do a photo re-cap. After an event, the station makes a presentation via powerpoint with pictures that gets printed out and viewed that reviews the event. Each page (there are between 3-4 pages) has a group of pictures from the event with a title that sums up those pictures. They try to get pictures for each page that have a common theme. One page would be "Listeners With Their Prizes" while another might be "XLC Listeners with Jimmy & Jen." So that's pretty cool that I get to do that. I also helped arrange and cut up XLC slips of paper for a new promotion they are doing called the Free Gas Frenzy. These papers are the ones that fans get to fill out to win free gas cards, so in a way I helped in the process of executing the event.

I also worked again with the prize sheets, and had to label them by day, date, and alphabetize them. I met a few more people today, which is always good! Everyone is extremely nice here as well.

Day 2- (June 30)

This was my second day as an intern. I already felt like I had learned the building more and where things are located (the studio, the front office reception area, etc.). Today I did more work with Janelle, all having to do with promotions.

Ever wonder about the prizes given away at radio stations? It's a very organized process that I started to learn today. I had to sort through and alphabetize many, many prize sheets which contained the title of the prize itself, the date, day, and disc jockey who gave away the prize, as well as the contact information for the winner. These have to be carefully monitered, because these are prizes that listeners get excited about! It's cool that I got to see a little "behind the scenes" of how prizes work and what the process is.