For those in the radio industry...............?

Question

I'm considering applying for an internship, in the Spring- Semester, at a radio-station. Are there any skills that I could learn, that are considered universally valuable in this field?

For Example: Traffic managing? Producing? Editing?

Answer 1

Well, EVERY department in Radio has one thing in common.  COMPUTERS.  Each company has licenses on their own line of programs, so snopp around online and find out what the one you are eying uses.  For production and editing,  get familiar w/ Cool Edit, Cakewalk, Adobe, Pro Tools,  and knowing spreadsheets and windows NT also helps.

Answer 2

Dain's is a great answer. I'm surprised and disappointed he's out of the biz - we lose too many good people...

I get the feeling you want to get a head start, though - so you are more "ready" than other candidates. In that regard, why not go hang around at radio events and see what goes on. Introduce yourself and let everyone who'll listen know you are interested in an internship.

Depending on what school you are going to, there is a terrific scholarship and intern program administered in the US by the John Bayliss Broadcast Foundation. Check their site for more info.

EDIT: There's that Blue girl, with a great answer, too.

-a guy named duh

Answer 3

If this is a field that interests you beyond the initial "i want to be on the radio and meet chix" then yes, an internship is THE way to break in.  I cant speak for all internship programs, but when i was 16, I took a 2 year internship in San Diego. During that time I learned everything from how to hang a banner to all sorts of generic "donkey work"  Its long hot hard hours and can be quite stressful.  As an intern, you get to really see what goes in to the sounds you hear coming out the speakers.  Many intern programs will allow for you to shadow different departments such as programming, sales, promotions, production, marketing, web, traffic, etc..

My internship lead me to a very crazy radio life where i ended up as the program director of KRQR, Chico. Ive since left the industry - but those long weekends of live broadcasts at the car lot trained me well -- its crazy how something so small and at the time seemingly pointless can be providing you with skills for life.

The skills learned can be applied to almost any job as it really boils down to you working well with others.

Long story to say, yes do the internship.