Steve always came in early for the afternoon shift at WRSE/WMJM.
He had a routine, developed through years of figuring out who he was when the mike flipped on. He was himself, sure, but maybe a little more as he tried to reaching his listener.
Steve knew there was more than one listener, but given the intimate nature of radio he liked to think of his show as a 4 hour conversation with one person.
According to the ratings books that tracked his show each year, his listener was in her mid 50s.
Her kids were out of the house or have just a year left of college and was looking forward to retirement.
Steve knew his listener stayed with the show, on average, more than 2 hours a day. That's a great percentage for any radio host, even one in a small market like Roseville.
That's why he comes in early - to look for quick items in the local paper or online that could be of interest and tape interviews with actors coming in to the big city to perform on stage or musicians he got to know in his early days working in music production.
The goal every afternoon was to sound like the show just happened. But sounding that way takes hours of work. Every day. As his favorite movie actor put it, "It's the hard that makes it great."
Kathy walked in Steve's "office." That's what he called it. Everyone else called it the break room. Kathy worked with every shift's announcer and closer with Steve than anyone since advertisers would ask for changes to their ads during the day, which meant Steve had more live reads to do than any other air shift.
"All right, Steve," Kathy said, "there are quite a few changes for you today. You will need to do live reads for Marberg and ad lib for the Roseville Water Ski Show based on this poster."
"Sounds good to me, Kathy." Steve replied. "Thanks for the updates and getting them to me before the show - that's a big help. Say, aren't you doing a couple of shifts this weekend?"
Kathy smiled. "That's right - the guys at the Ski Show want a live remote and asked me to do it. I talked with Jack, you know he is tight with the folks that put on the show every year, and he wants me to interview skiers, fans, officials, and play Beach Boys and Jan & Dean music all afternoon! I've not done anything like this so far. Could I ask you to give me a hand getting ready?"
"Sure," came the reply, "that sounds like a good opportunity. For you and the station, I'll do whatever I can and if you want me to pull in Jeff, Pete, Ken, or Kevin - I'll help get them on-board."
"Thanks, Steve. Are you OK with the show then? I know you have a couple things to do before you get on the air."
"Yeah, all set. Thanks, Kath. See you later."
The on - air bell sounded.
"Good Afternoon, it's 4 o'clock. Local news coming up after World News." And with that, Kevin turned up the network feed for the broadcast and took a sip of cold water. He had two minutes before he was back on air. Kevin would read the news, check with the cop shops before the 5 o'clock news, and re-write the top story.
In the studio across the glass, Steve had all the music lined up for his shift starting with some Supertramp, Kansas, and the Nylons. A friend requested a Vapors song from the early 80s called "Turning Japanese," which he had in the run down, but didn't know yet if he'd actually hit play when the time came.
As the news segued into the kicker story before a check on the weather Steve looked out studio windows across the street as Little Leaguers started their season. The sky was a perfect blue. His show was ready and he couldn't wait to share it - with his listener.
Chapter 9 goes live tomorrow, September 18 at 9 CDT.
Comments
Post a Comment