Despite being overshadowed by other forms of media, the radio remains a staple of college life: during morning trips to school, when the mind has yet to regain full functionality, and we need something to sweep away the residue of sleep; during blackouts amidst a storm, and the family gathers around the only connection to the rest of the world, while the mighty television and the juggernaut of the internet lay dead; when we’re looking for a companion on those lonely late night drives.
Or perhaps the average college student only tunes in on the commute to those white-collar summer internships, a last sip of humanity before plunging into the depths of capitalism. But for some kids, that internship is the radio.
‘Junior jockey’ is the name of the gig, and Alan Everhard (pseudonym), a junior jock himself and a former DLSU student, gives us a glimpse into the booth and the goings on about it.
Beginnings and a tip
A year ago, he applied to a radio station in Mandaluyong, sending in a resume and a demo tape three minutes long. A tip for interested applicants, he says, is to submit a demo as if you’re actually going through the motions of being on-air. He recalls how his consisted of a song coming to an end, him introducing a topic and then introducing a song, and then the beginning of the song, as if going through the actual motions. “This gave me a leg up over others,” he says, as most people simply gave a three minute demo of incessant talking.
After that, the station recalled him for a callback audition, wherein he was brought into a small room and was spontaneously asked to talk about the cellphone of the facilitator. This was the last test before he was accepted.
When asked about his first time being on air, he said it “went well.” He wasn’t nervous (or so he says), despite stuttering and messing up a sentence or two. Back then, he was relegated to reciting ads and top of the hour news reports every hour or so.
The usual grind
“There are no schedules,” Alan says. “If you’re free, just come over.” In his first few months, his classes ended at the unwelcome hour of nine in the evening. So he’d leave school, take the often twenty minute commute to Mandaluyong to handle the 12-3 AM shift. At this time, there were only about 2-3 others in the station—all junior jocks.
This was when he got to learn to use the computers and how to transition. “But there were no ads, so it wasn’t the full gist of it.” (And ads are a big thing).
Of course, choosing songs is part of the job, but the choices are limited to a readied playlist of popular songs, and the playlist “has to make sense. You can’t play Diamonds (by Rihanna) after a song from The Script just played.’
While songs are playing, the jocks usually play games, watch television shows, and talk unless they’re the assigned spinner (more on that later) because they keep track of time and fix things.
The other trainees are nice, and the supervisors are nice as well, albeit strict. The supervisors aren’t necessarily the preconceived image of a capitalist squeezing his/her slaves dry of money, but they were indeed businesspeople. If you messed up, they would get mad and scream at you, causing some of the student jocks to even cry, he shares.
At any given time, there’s a spinner among the jocks who handles the transitions, the ads, the songs, the log times for the venerated ads, the microphone volumes and turning these off, deciding whether a caller speaks, etc. ‘People say it’s hard, but once you learn it, it’s pretty simple.’ Alan likes to handle spinning duties whenever he’s on, though normally the jocks take turns.
Thinking of a topic before the show starts is required, but one topic is enough. Alan has noticed how the popular topics are the ones you don’t have to think about too much. People are more responsive to blank type questions, such as ‘you know you’re in love when _____.’
Among all the responsibilities, what’s the most important? Not screwing up.
Screwing up
Screwing up includes (but is not limited to) cursing, leaving the microphones on when a song is playing, messing up the almighty ads, making negative comments about brands advertised by the station (imagine bad-mouthing Coke only to have a Coke ad play afterwards?), praising rival brands of aforementioned brands (imagine saying how great Pepsi is only to have a Coke ad play afterwards. Awkward…), and forgetting to log the time of the advertisements. Since ads are one of the few ways, if not the only way, for a radio station to make money, these are given the utmost importance.
On one occasion, a junior jock forgot to log the time and the entire junior jock program was threatened to be shut down because of it.
Tales from inside the Booth
There was one time Alan’s friend was on the air, and not only did he mess up an ad, he also cursed afterwards. Once the song started playing, the DJ started screaming at his friend, and did so for that entire song.
Alan had one show where he was spinning, and normally they have to keep talk minutes tight, around 4-5 minutes. But one of his fellow student jocks started doing shout-outs to everyone, the family (they were an entire clan, Alan quips), family friends, neighbors, friends of the neighbors. If Alan had not cut it short, it would have gone on for maybe two more minutes.
They get some interesting callers now and then. One fourteen year old patron calls in every now and then and talks about her love life.
Trade-offs
Radio jockeying is not exactly a job where you meet a lot of people, but you do learn how to speak better.
It’s not the same for all stations, but in Alan’s particular station, student jocks aren’t given contracts. So there’s no payment, meaning you commute with your own money. ‘Problem is, during late night shows, commuting dries up in the Mandaluyong area, and only taxis are available.’
The whole student jock thing can last your entire college life, but once you graduate, you can work for one more year before you get the boot, unless you get hired, which is only a slight possibility. So if you’re not retained, ‘you have nothing to show for it,’ Alan shares.
It’s also a year-round job, unlike most internships. That includes the school year, and sometimes you can miss out on being with friends.
Life in the booth has its drama too. Some of them don’t like each other, and there are cliques among both the student and regular jocks. There are about fifty of them all in all.
Despite all these, it’s still definitely a fun experience for Alan. The bragging rights, the resume points, and getting up to date with popular music don’t hurt either.
