When we listen to the radio, it’s easy to imagine the host chatting into the microphone and doing … something … on a computer to keep it all moving. However, it takes a whole crowd (working from home, of course; crowds are dangerous!) of knowledgeable, creative people (and some pretty fancy technology) to create each second you hear.
During the month of May we want to reveal all the human effort that goes into an hour of CKUA programming. Your donations throughout our Spring Fundraiser help support so many different things you may not even know about!
Let’s check out a day in the life of Leo Cripps, host of Journeys:
Hello, my name is Leo Cripps. I’m the curator for the program Journeys, heard every Saturday at 1:00pm MDT. Seems like I’ve been involved in music my entire life, either performing, promoting or playing other musician’s music on the radio. For over 30 years I have shared my musical passion through several different media and it was my honour to join the CKUA family in September of 2018.
Producing Journeys takes a substantial amount of time which I do find in between my very busy and active days. Here’s what a typical day is for me.
At the end of February 2020, I left the job I worked at for almost 24 years. I was hoping to travel for a bit, but shortly after, COVID -19 became a reality. Who knew the next year would bring so many changes?
My days usually end between 2am and 4am but I’m usually awake and on the go by 8am.
The day usually begins with a quick shower, some breakfast, and the half hour or so drive from Okotoks to the office in Calgary, accompanied by a guy on CKUA named Grant Stovel.
I’m usually at my office around 8:30am, meet with the rest of my team, get my day’s assignments and head off to my next stop. Ok, where do I work? I can’t tell you that. Because of the nature of my job, it is best that I don’t publicize that. I can tell you that I work for a company that provides essential services for the residents of Calgary and on any given day, I can be in every quadrant of the city.
Around 9:30am my workday goes into full gear accompanied by the best soundtrack from the great hosts at CKUA.
Throughout my day, I meet a lot of people, sometimes having great conversations about CKUA. So what do I do while driving around the city? What else, enjoy the great tunes on CKUA and fill my head with millions of show ideas! Many episodes of Journeys have been inspired by my daily drives, the music I hear and the people I encounter.
I’ve always considered myself a workaholic and a few months back, I took on a part-time position working a couple evenings a week at the Home Depot in Okotoks, so between 6pm and 10 pm a couple of nights a week, this is where you’ll find me.
After a long day working out of the house, I get home and it is time to focus on my passion – Journeys, researching, recording and producing it. With everything that I do for the show, each one hour of programing can take up to five hours to produce. Quiet time at night usually gives me the opportunity to focus on and produce the show. Like I said off the top, I usually hit the sack somewhere between 2am and 4am.
