Tuesday, April 13, 2010
My name is Ryan Simmons and I am a second year student at Conestoga College. To finish off our time in the Broadcast Radio Program we are required to do a 3 week internship at a radio station of our choosing. I chose to do my internship at 99.1 CKXS. You may be asking yourself why I chose CKXS. Well, I was interested in what they were doing. I liked that they were focusing on the local communities, and the people who live in them. That was my reasoning in January of 2010, and now that I have worked here for a couple of weeks I realized that I was just scratching the surface. So now I will treat you to a special behind the scenes look at 99.1 CKXS from the perspective of this intern. The staff, are fun and friendly. I’ve seen people walk in off the streets and just start talking to the staff and this could have been a simple “Hello” or a lengthy conversation about the Masters Tournament and the staff is fine with it. The most amazing thing about that experience is that I have never seen a staff member forget a name of a passer-by. Okay so let’s get to the fun and when it comes to fun trust me they know how to have fun. You may remember the April Fools joke involving a Toll at the McNaughton Bridge. That day the phone was ringing non-stop, from people who were upset, people who got that it was a joke, we even had a few people come in off the streets to let us know when they found out it was a joke. It definitely was a good time. Another thing I should mention about the staff is that they are concerned for each other. One example of this was when Jay locked himself in the bathroom and Greg got everyone to check up on him, just to see how he was doing. This staff is definitely a unique staff and everything I have mentioned, I can say that I have not seen at many other radio stations. When I first saw the building was in February of 2010. I liked what I saw. The control room and reception area were “open” to the community. People can see exactly what the On-Air Teams are doing and even greet them by waving. Anyways when you first enter the building you come to the reception desk and from there, the control room, the news booth and the production studio are all within view which makes the station seem inviting. From there it’s down the hallway to the boardroom, Greg and Gary’s office and the Creative/Sales/Jay’s area. Now you can take a door which leads to the basement or, as it has been affectionately nicknamed by the staff the dungeon. I’ve been to the dungeon and it’s pretty frightening. There’s not much else I can say about the building except, that you may notice some brick along the walls. That brick is from when the building was first build and when renovating the building to house CKXS the crew rediscovered it and exposed it. During my time at the station, I have learned a lot about the marketing/promotions side of radio. I’ve also gained some valuable “real-world” experience which I couldn’t dream of getting anywhere else. And if it were time for Greg, Gary and (sometimes) Dana to ask me: “Ryan, how would you describe your time at 99.1 CKXS?” I would say “Awesome”