Radio and Sound Recording:

News Director Logic dictates that stations with an all-talk or news format place much greater emphasis on this position than those with music entertainment formats. A news director defines the journalistic standards for the station and manages the reporting staff at news/talk stations. Otherwise, the news person is part of an on-air team, giving radio reports at scheduled news breaks within a show.

News Reporters at news/talk stations function much like print or TV reporters except that they write for the ear, not the eye, conjuring mental images by the skilled use of sound. They 5 exercise professional, journalistic judgment in investigating, reporting, interviewing, writing, editing and delivering news stories, often with the abilities to ad lib as needed. Excellent writing skills oriented to the radio medium are required along with a basic understanding of broadcast techniques and equipment. They are the station’s talent base and represent the station at scheduled events and appearances.

Announcers At smaller stations, many announcer positions are part-time and duties overlap into other areas. A station in the Greenville, South Carolina area, for example, ran an ad for a PT announcer that required this person to announce, play music as directed, operate the on-air control console during satellite-fed syndicated programming, answer phone lines, interview members of the listening audience and make in-person community appearances as directed.

On-Air Personalities The voices of radio bring a station’s call letters to life, hooking listeners and drawing ratings for those stations that are personality-driven. DJs and program hosts spin verbal magic, whether it’s between musical sets, as part of a morning or afternoon drive team or as hosts of programs designed to inform, provoke, entertain or enlighten the listening audience. They embody the heart and soul of a radio station and are assigned to different day parts, depending on how the station is formatted. An on-air job as a DJ or program host is a dream come true for many intent on becoming the next Howard Stern or Larry King of radio. The road to stardom today is more challenging than ever, due to revolutions in technology and consolidation among radio stations.

Radio Jockey or a RJ is a person who hosts a talk show on radio. In simple terms he/she is the ‘sutradhaar’ of an assigned show on radio. He/she hosts the show, reads the script, plays the music and audio advertisement at specific intervals, raises topics of concern, designs subjects for discussion and interacts with callers and listeners via telephone, email, social media and SMSs. Everything that he/she does should be appealing and entertaining. The RJ should be able to engage the audience with his/her voice and selection of words and how he/she presents the content before the audience does matter.

Skills required

  • Soothing and impact voice
  • Voice modulation
  • Clear diction
  • Accurate pronunciation
  • Command over the language and vocabulary
  • Flair and fluency in the language
  • Control over voice pitch
  • Good sense of humor
  • Individuality
  • Creativity
  • Spontaneity
  • Knowledge of music and current affairs
  • Mimicry
  • Well spoken in local dialects
  • Diplomatic
  • Punctual
  • Friendly and approachable attitude
  • Witty
  • Expressive
  • Talkative
  • Respectful
  • Influential
  • Confidence
  • Vibrancy
  • Impactful communicator
  • Content writing

 

Sounds

The world about us is filled with such an endless variety of sounds that it is difficult to believe each can be resolved into a single complex vibration pattern. When several sources sound together, their separate patterns combine into an even more complicated form. Yet our eardrums, the microphone diaphragm, and the loudspeaker all follow this combined vibration; and more miraculous still, our brain interprets the result. The simplest possible sound vibrations make a regular sinusoidal movement, and we hear the pure tones from a tuning fork, a flute, or an audio oscillator. The faster this oscillation, the higher the pitch. Very slow vibrations (subsonic, below about 15 times a second) and extremely fast vibrations (ultrasonic, above about 20,000 times a second) fall outside our audible range. The frequency or rate of these vibrations is measured in hertz. The stronger the sound’s vibrations (the greater their amplitude), the louder it seems. Slight vibrations are inaudible, whereas extremely loud sounds can become painful to listen to, as they exceed our threshold of feeling. Few sources emit “pure” sounds. Most are a complex combination of the main note (the fundamental) and multiples of that note (harmonics or overtones).

The apparent quality of a sound will depend on the proportions or relative strengths of these harmonics. Broadly speaking, a note played by a double bass, an oboe, or a bassoon can be judged by its overall quality. If the response of the audio system is not even over the whole audible range (because of fi ltering or limitations in the equipment), the proportions of the harmonics can change. Then the quality of the reproduced sound may no longer be recognizable as the original instrument

Stereo sound creates an illusion of space and dimension. It enhances clarity. Stereo gives the viewer the ability to localize the direction of the sound. This localization gives the audience a sense of depth, a spatial awareness of the visual image and the sound. However, because the speakers in television receivers are close together, the effect can be somewhat limited. Sound quality and realism are enhanced, but our impressions of direction and depth are less obvious. To simplify sound pickup, many practitioners mix central mono speech with stereo effects and music. When using a stereo microphone, take care to maintain direction (such as mic left to camera left) and to hold the mic still; otherwise the stereo image will move around. In a stereo system, reverberation even appears more pronounced, and extraneous noises such as wind, ventilation, and footsteps are more prominent because they have direction, rather than merging with the overall background.

Although most people regard the video camera with a certain apprehension, there are those who tend to dismiss the microphone (or mic) all too casually. They clip it onto the guest’s jacket with an air of “that’s all we have to do for audio” instead of treating the mic as a delicate tool.

Microphone (and how it is used) is really at the heart of television program sound. If the microphone is inferior, if it is damaged, or if it is poorly positioned, the program sound will suffer. No amount of post-production work with the audio can compensate for doing it right from the beginning. Program sound all begins with the microphone. It is not important to know how various types of microphones work to use them properly. They all convert sound waves in the air into a fl actuating electrical voltage (the audio signal). It does help, though, to be aware of their different characteristics. Although most microphones are reasonably robust, they do need careful handling if they are to remain reliable and perform up to specification. If you drop them, knock them, or get liquid on them, you are asking for trouble.