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.
Curious about how your donation travels behind-the-scenes and winds up supporting one hour of programming at CKUA? Here’s another story about all the human effort that makes that magic happen. Let’s check out a day in the CKUA life of Sharon Cross, Traffic Coordinator.
What do I do? In a nutshell, if you hear it on the radio, I coordinate and schedule it! I’ve been with CKUA since 1994.
8:30am: After a quick breakfast, dog walk, and outdoor play of “keep away” with my pup Yuki’s favorite ball, I settle into my home office with my “Keep Calm and Drink Tea” mug. Then it’s a quick link to connect my home computer system into CKUA’s network and the first thing is to check the CKUA broadcast to make sure everything is airing properly. Then it’s checking emails, which are a mix from clients, colleagues and sometimes listeners.
10:30am: After any broadcast issues and emails have been taken care of, I check the previous day’s scheduled log to make sure programs and message breaks aired as they were supposed to. Then I can send the info off to Accounting for any client billing that needs to be done.
11:30am: Next my attention shifts to tomorrow’s scheduled log. I never actually work in the day I’m in and there are times my colleagues must forgive me for not knowing what day I’m in! Preparing the log involves making sure all the programs, paid ads, and other messages like those for fundraiser, are scheduled correctly.
Noon: Once tomorrow’s log is prepped, it’s time for lunch. My pup has been asleep at my feet and now wants another rousing game of “keep away”. She looks disappointed that I eat first and don’t have much time to indulge her. I regale her with stories of the “old days” when dogs had to stay at home all day by themselves. She doesn’t seem to care or believe me.
1pm: My main goal after lunch is to finish the next day’s log. But there are lots of other things going on. New scripts need to be prepped for production, new sales orders need to be checked and tracked, giveaways need to be taken care of. I receive directives from various colleagues on what needs to be scheduled in the present and future and I send out directives to others as well. The day often flies by, but by 3pm I have tomorrow’s log ready to upload into our automation system. Another day is ready to go to air.
3pm: Now I can spend the last part of the day starting to create future logs. There are sometimes changes to the programming to take care of, or special schedules to create. Before I log off, I give a final check that tomorrow’s log is good to go. And after I log off, there is my pup, not so patiently waiting for another walk and one more game of “keep away”!
