Looking Back On Things...

At first I didn't think broadcasting was something you could really improve on. I figured you were either good or bad at radio/tv. However, when I take a look back at my old projects I can really notice how much I've improved. I used to film vertically and use the source as my main audio device. I have since improved dramatically and picked up on many skills. I have learned my strengths and weaknesses. What matters the most is that I feel I'm more prepared now than I ever was to pursue a career in broadcasting. Whether it will be radio or tv, time will tell. Nobody is ever perfect, and there is a long road of broadcasting ahead of me but I know that I will try my best along the way and in the end I will succeed. 

5 Reasons To Take Broadcasting In School

Why go to school for broadcasting? I'm going to tell you some of the reasons why you should take broadcasting in school if you have interest in the field. Enjoy!

1. You make contacts - You will meat many people in the field who can give you real-life experience and maybe even help you get a job someday!

2. You have access to equipment - You will get a change to use expensive equipment that you normally wouldn't always get a chance to get hands on with outside of school.

3. You will have a team - Most broadcasting is done with a full crew. Your classmates will be your production team.

4. You can make a demo - The teachers will give you feedback that you can use to better yourself. You can also use any good projects as a demo for an internship or work position. 

5. You learn the industry - There is much more than just pointing a camera or talking over a mic and if you take broadcasting in school you will learn that fast!

These are just 5 reason as to why you should take broadcasting in school if you are interesting in the field. 

Off-Air Exercise

An exercise I was taught in school was to try new things to experiment with your vocal and editing skills. We have done small commercial ads in podcasts before for assignments and this was really where I saw the creativity come out of some people. You get to add fun sound effects and come up with a marketing script. The point is to make it catchy and believable. Just like a real ad! You could invent the product or use a real one. Advertising is LARGELY broadcasting. In order for the stations to survive they need to depend on sponsorship and commercials. Yes many people will change the channel or turn the radio off during commercial breaks. But we are all guilty of liking one or two commercials out there so try your best to sqeeze some upbeat fun into your ads.

Searching For Your On-Air Personality.

On-air personality is something you will find as you practice. I find that many people I know turn into entirely different people when they are on-air. You need to make yourself entertaining, but you don't want it to get to the point where you are fake to both yourself and your viewers. You mainly just want to be clear with everything you say, express your own opinions strongly, and have high energy while you are live. Don't fake it, but push yourself to go over the top a bit! 

What Do I Need To Start?

I'm going to tell you about some equipment that you will need to either practice on or make actual broadcast content with. First of all you will need a computer or an app source to to edit with. I mainly use premiere pro, but there are many other programs out there to find and they are all similar enough to each other. Then you will need something to capture footage. You can use anything from a DSRL to a mobile device such as an iPhone. Whether you are doing video or radio, you are going to need a mic and a quiet place to record. The Blue Yeti mic is an ideal choice as it's high quality, has setting adjustments, and you can even plug in headphones so you can listen to yourself as you record. With a mix of your video, audio, and software you can create almost anything. Just remember to stay in your budget as not all radio/tv has to be done with pricey gear.  

Don't Get Stressed!

Broadcasting can consist of long stress full hours. Often it is either early morning or very late at night that you are under high stress. It can be hard because you have to be on your toes. You have to be willing to adjust your schedule around the work that you are doing. Not only that, you need to be WIDE awake at all times because if you are on-air you cannot bother to slip-up and if you are off-air you need to pay attention to your queues. If you are out in the field you may spend hours setting up just for one small shot that you need. Broadcasting can be hard work, but it is certainly rewarding in the end.  

Broadcasting Is All Around Us.

Broadcasting is all around us. Everywhere you go it is there. These days there are many mobile broadcasting sources such as periscope. This is excellent for independent broadcasters looking to brush up on their skills (such as students), but can be hard for bigger companies. When I first hear about most things on the news, it's often on sites such as Twitter that I come across people stating their opinions on the various new items. Then I could go to the full article or turn on the radio/tv, but I usually can get everything that I need just from the few sentences that the person has explained. There is so much opportunity in broadcasting like this. Not only that, there are topics on just about anything. You could make an interesting story by doing something simple such as a stroll through a park. The opportunities are truly endless! 

Don't Let The Air Die!

Dead air can be scary. In broadcasting terms it is when there are a few seconds where the viewer hears or see's complete silence.  Maybe your teleprompter when out? Maybe your hosts are lost in the discussion. I have learned that you can be completely prepared, but if you haven't taken time to discus anything with your group that you will all suffer from it. Broadcasting takes MULTIPLE people to all work together as a team. It doesn't matter if one person is completely prepared. If there group is not then everyone will suffer. For example in a Riot Radio show  group I was in, a co-host brought up a topic that not only me and my other co-host new nothing about, but it was very complex for viewers ears as well. This caused dead air. You do not want to mention anything overly complicated on radio as most of your listeners out there are only half-listening due to multitasking doing other things. If something like that is brought up, try to use very basic words in order to explain it better and give your co-hosts notice before hand so they have time to do a bit or research and to prepare for it. 

Let's Interview You!

One of my favorite things to do both radio and television wise is interviews. I'm a very curious person and I use this as a strength in the broadcasting world. Interviews are really just a conversation with another person when everything comes down to it. However, they can take quite a bit of prep along with them. You need to research ahead of time so that you aren't going into the interview blind as to who you are talking to. Then it's also a good idea to have a short pre-interview before going live. Just remember to ask questions that are important yet not too personal. Keep the questions open ended and make sure the interview focuses on whoever you are talking to. The listeners and viewers don't care for the reporters side, they just want to hear what the person being interviewed has to say. Not all interviews will go as planned. Some of the people will be going through speed interviews who already answered the same questions multiple times now. So try to pick questions that are unique yet relevant. 

The Scary Room Of Buttons.

The control room can be quite the scary place for anyone who is in the broadcasting business. I know that most of my classmates were quite intimidated by it at the start. Even now it can still be hard to handle. I remember doing an internship at CityTv where my first few days where actually just sitting and observing the control room during live shows. It got to be quite chaotic at times as there were times that everyone started yelling all at once. I soon realized that it wasn't all that different from my volunteer work that I had done at Rogers Communications in Oshawa. It was just on a larger scale, with a bigger production team. Thankfully I picked up on some things quite fast as I had some experience from doing the live Rogers shows. By the end of both of those internships, I was participating in multiple roles such as floor directing. No matter what you are learning in broadcasting from a specific program or format, at the end of the day if you understand what you are doing and keep trying then you will succeed. There is nothing more chaotic than the control room during a live broadcasting, but you must find a way to get past all of that to truly work as a team with your crew. If one person isn't pulling their weight than the whole crew is suffering. 

Create Your Own Radio Show From Home!

In theory we'd all like to work in your pajamas all day, but what if radio was a way you could do that? There are many different online radio streaming sites that let you listen or create and program your very own station. From what I've seen from most of the online radio channels out there, it's mostly just a way to have fun and experiment with. But I have heard about broadcasts on multiple sites such as Radionomy can get quite serious. In my opinion, it's the perfect way to practice your online skills in a truly professional way. You could even make a demo out of it if it's high quality. The best part about these online radio stations, is that YOU are your own boss. You can talk about whatever you'd like to on air. You could interview friends or various people over Skype. Some of the online radio hosting sites even provide you with music so you don't have to look far to create your own pop or rock station. 

Here are a few websites to check out if you are interested in at home radio:

- http://www.radionomy.com/
- https://www.spreaker.com/
- https://www.airtime.pro/

Agree To Disagree!

 When you go on air with a group of people it's only natural for you to want to sound knowledgeable. So when a co-host or guest takes a point right out of your mouth you can often feel a bit frustrated. It's actually kind of funny seeing how the content wasn't discovered by you in the first place (usually). Today I'm going to talk about taking something you know and being flexible with your knowledge. The best radio isn't always the hosts talking about things they agree on. In fact, most of the higher rating radio shows have hosts that can get quite controversial on a variety of topics. People listen to radio because they like to feel like they are apart of a conversation. If you have a host that takes one side of the argument and the viewer disagree's, then that viewer is most likely either going to switch channels or tune out. You need to have the discussion take both sides of the argument for viewers of all kinds to stay happy. Sometimes you will have to go on-air taking a side that you don't actually agree on. It can be challenging but I promise you that somewhere out there a viewer is also taking that side. On radio you sometimes need to let your own beliefs stay put and explore the other side of things.   

Those Topics We Don't Like.

Today's topic is going to be something that people who aren't even into broadcasting need to understand. Everyone has fears. There is nobody in the world who has been able to ever say that they are 100% completely fearless. For me one of the scariest fears in broadcasting is being in the middle of a conversation and then finding yourself stuck. What I mean by that is whoever you are talking to has suddenly touched on a subject that you know little to nothing about. For me this subject is usually sports. Often there are times on air when sports various sporting events are mentioned, and I understand the public wants to hear about them. So if I'm on air and have no idea what is going on in the conversation then suddenly, I'm going to panic. This has happened a few times while live on Riot Radio at Durham College.  I eventually learned that the only way that I could conker this fear was to force sports news inside of my brain the day that I had to go on air. This way I was assured that I had confidence, knowledge, and an opinion on the latest sports trending topic. I have used my own fear to boost my knowledge in certain areas of broadcasting this way. All of this means that my advice to anyone out there who is interested in broadcasting is to be prepared to research subjects that you may care absolutely nothing about. Just know that at the end of the show, you will be a better broadcaster because of your determination to do this. 

Take A Deep Breath...

One of the hardest skills in broadcasting to me is pacing. After all of the research you have done on a topic, you just feel overwhelmed to tell the audience every small detail. This is a very difficult habit to break as the audience is listening to hear the important things and not the small details. To me radio is either too face-paced, or too slow. When I'm listening to radio the hosts have to talk at a perfect pace so people have time to take in what they are listening to, yet not lose track of what's going on in the conversation. It can be extremely hard to manage your pace on air if you are not in sync with everyone else who is talking. When I get nervous on-air, I tend to talk faster than normal which results in me slurring my words. This not only can cause problems for the listeners, but my co-hosts as well because they are trying to listen to what I have to say. The way I avoid this is practicing out loud before I go on-air, and to just take some small breaths during the live discussion. You must practice out loud. There are often times when you have everything planned out in your head and then when you actually hear the words it doesn't sound right or flow well with the conversation. I promise you that practicing out loud before can improve upon this immensly. It doesn't have to be the whole discussion out loud, but at least take about 10 mintues to plan out your thoughts more clearly that way.    

You Have Just Turned In!

Hello everyone interested in broadcasting! My name is Tessa Kille and you have just come across a students blog that is going to be about various experiences and any advice that I have to give towards the subject. Broadcasting can consist of many different things. Television, radio, live, control room, and on-air reporter roles to name a few. People often think that they need to decide between video or radio and I don't think that's true. Radio and television both have news, entertainment, sports, events, contests and more. When you think about it, there's always a way to do both weather you decide to volunteer at a local station or simply run your own. People always ask me tv or radio and to that question I smile an answer both. It is too early in my career to know exactly which one I'd rather do because I really do enjoy both. I'm going to be covering both radio and television aspects in this blog. I will share any experiences that I have had in the past and my advice to anyone who is interested in the field. Overall if you prefer one thing over another than it's fine. Just don't limit yourself.