Jeremae Ventar CMS 115
Station: iFM
Program: i Goes Retro
DJ: DJ Julie
Broadcast time: 10 – 12 AM
When the red light is on, DJ Julie goes on air trying to be as
wacky and as entertaining as she could be; for being wacky she said,
means a DJ can gain a lot of listeners.
This has brought me to a realization that anyone today could be a
DJ as long as he is able to make “che-che” on radio. Before, there are
a lot of quality DJs who have good voices, are good speakers and are
able to entertain people with wholesomeness and decency; but today,
almost half of them are gone.
Back then, I used to admire several DJs and dreamt of becoming
one. I was curious on how my favorite DJs do their productions. When I
came to iFM, there were a lot of misconceptions that have been proven
wrong. However, these misconceptions may be applicable only to some of
the stations.
Misconception #1
I thought being a DJ is a difficult task. However, since we
are now in a digital age, DJs’ only task is to arrange the songs,
commercials, and stingers on the computer. Then, they get to talk
on air for about a minute. They get to play music, have a lot of
people to listen to them, and get paid for it.
The challenge here, however, is to pretend that they are
talking to someone, which is not quite of a difficult task.
Misconception #2
In some radio stations, DJs are not allowed to select what
music they will be going to play. Music track list is done by the
station manager only, except if the program features requested
songs.
Misconception #3
Only the DJ is in the booth. There is no technical director
to handle sound effects, stingers, commercials and even phone
calls.
There are also rules and regulations during broadcast which can
be applied to some of the FM stations.
In terms of commercials, all commercials are produced and encoded
by the main station (Manila). The DJ only has to arrange the music,
stingers, commercials, and ad-libs;
Only two to three songs are allowed to play before a commercial
or the DJ’s ad-lib. Six commercials with about 15 to 60 seconds
length, on the other hand, are played before playing the songs;
Ad-libs of the DJs should be one to two minutes only; otherwise,
the DJ should delete some songs to avoid overtime and to not
compensate the air time of other DJs; and
Standard ad-lib should always be in every 15 th or 45th seconder;
but other DJs don’t follow this rule. Sometimes, they do ad-libs
during the songs’ introduction.
On the other hand, during the program, there was a text message
saying “Ginapili niyo lang basahon niyo. Wala kwenta.”
I once tried to send my greetings via a station’s text line.
However, I was very disappointed because the DJ did not read it on
air. After that, I started to hate that station and switched to other
stations. But what I, and probably others as well, do not know is that
DJs have limited time on air and there are a lot of greeting messages
sent by listeners. Sometimes messages sent on 8AM are read in the 10AM
broadcast; hence, other messages are not read on air.
Meanwhile, in front of the iFM station booth is DYRI’s RMN. AM
and FM broadcasts differ in terms of format. FM provides music and
entertainment while AM can educate, inform and entertain listeners as
well.
Station: DYRI RMN
Program: Labugay Boys
Anchor: Ronel Sorbito
Broadcast time: 2:00- 2:30
I got to witness a radio program in which the anchor dramatized
the scene based on the featured news report. Ronel Sorbito, in his
segment ‘Labugay Boys’ played five characters in the program:
narrator who is an old man; Boy who is a man who assumed he has a
relationship with Angie; Angie, a woman who Boy has a secret crush
with; Alfonso, the man who Angie talked to causing Boy to get jealous
and hit him with his hammer; and the wife of Alfonso who Boy also hit
with his hammer.
Ronel Sorbito was the only one who produced the entire drama,
live on air and even without a script. He was also able to produce
sound effects (e.g. footsteps- tap on the wooden desk, hammer hit on
Alfonso- wallet) on his own.
Sorbito was successful in differentiating the five characters.
The kind of voice that he assigned to the characters reflects on the
kind of person the character is; hence, the voice actor should know
too well the characters that he is portraying.
He also observed distances from the microphone to indicate the
varying levels of each character in every scene.
Aksyon Radyo’s Aksyon Night Patrol with Jun Capulot and Jorge
Cabrera has this kind of segment too. They also dramatize the scene
from a news report and try to play different characters.
In this kind of program, people who have flexible/ wide range of
voices are at an advantaged. As what have been mentioned, a voice
actor should know the characters too well in order to differentiate
them. For instance, a prince should sound to be so manly while a
pauper can have a ‘probinsiyano’ accent. In that way, people will not
be confused on who is talking and will be interested to listen to the
program.
When we do radio productions, everything needs to be prepared
within 2 to 3 days before the production. However, radio personalities
like Sorbito did it an on the spot radio production. After all, he is
a professional radio personality; and one needs skill and talent in
order to be considered ‘professional’ in this field.
