blessed fornication on a savoury fornication snack Batman! (read as holy f*ck on a f*ck sandwich Batman!)
I just discovered my radio show had over 4000 international listeners!In one month!
Do you guys have any idea how many that is? THAT'S LIKE MORE THAN DOUBLE 2000!!!
Let me back up a little here.
So at the end of 2009 I found myself ending the University year with no job to get me through till the next Trimester when I could once again live of my blessed student loan and student allowance. (Thanks NZ government for teaching me how to rack up 1000s of dollars in interest free debt by paying for things on the tax payers dollar!)
This caused slight issues, I have a horrendous addiction to seeing films in the cinema.This came about as a result of working in a cinema for 3 years.
Now in America this seems to be looked down on as a fairly lowly proffesion but here in NZ our cinemas aren't trashy places where your foot sticks to the floor if you leave it there for more than 3 seconds. At least, Sky City wasn't, mostly because it was brand spanking new. I was one of the first lot of staff members to be hired before the grand opening. This was a pretty cool job while in high school and raised me from quirky weirdo who likes foreign films and anime to quirky weirdo who works in a cinema so is now cool for liking foreign films and anime.
3 years later I get fired for what appeared to be (but wasn't) theft.
This brings me back to the point of being at the end of my study year with no job. I spent the next 2 months living off tax free under the table one off jobs doing things like cleaning house for people who'd broken bones and couldn't reach the top counter or waitressing for Bat Mitvahs (freaking AWESOME gig btw).
Eventually I thought hey, I'm not working on Sunday mornings, why not start going back to church?
So I did just that.
My first day back at church I happened to sit in front of a woman married to a guy who currently works in Parliament doing sound for all their events and press conferences and used to work at Wellington Access Radio. She started talking about how they were looking for 3 people to fill 6 month contracts doing things like Promotions, Technical work and Youth Co-ordinator. I mentioned I used to volunteer at a local tiny radio station called Tha Rage (yes, they actually spelled 'the' as 'tha' cos it was 'hip') so she said to give her my cv and she'd pass it on. A couple weeks later she said they wanted to interview me for the Promotions position.
I went in for the interview, freaked out as I always do, went home feeling kinda freaked that I'd never be able to do half the stuff they asked.
A couple days later I got a call from the woman who interviewed me offering me the Youth Co-ordinators position saying I'd be doing all the same stuff I did at Tha Rage only better and more proffesional.
Naturally I accepted.
Just like that I went from no job and no life to producing 4 shows a week for a national radio station which also broadcasts intrernationally (depending which way the wind blows, oh the joys of AM frequency) and online.
I felt pretty chuffed about myself haha.
During my 6 months I spent every Monday to Thursday on air from 330 til 5 as well as recording the news and interviewing people and all the awesome stuff that goes into making a Yoth radio show.
I also got to train other people in how to do all the stuff required to make their own show should the urge arise.
I think my favourite part though was learning sound editing/engineering. In my spare time I'd muck round splicing songs andchangin round peoples' words from interviews to make them say utterly bizare things.
The whole tie I was on air though, I wondered whether anyone was actually listening. They say that for every person who contacts you on the show there's another 10 people listening too scraed/shy/lazy to do so.
By that logic I figured we had about 40 people listening each day.
I left Access as an employee on the 1st of August when my 6 month contract came to a close but offered to stay on as a volunteer coming in once a week to do the podcasting for all the shows.
Through this I leanred how to check the online stats for each show.
Through that I discovered that during the month of July, the Youth Zone show had over 4000 listeners tuning in online from around tha globe. That's JUST the people who listened online, we have no way of measuring the amount of people listening on their actual radios.
I just about shat myself when I saw the numbers!
I can't believe that so many people actually found me and my co-hosts entertaining and CHOSE to go to the website and tune in to our show by choice not just by accidentally coming across it while turning the dial on their radio! Woo!
This is seriosuly the most awesome news I've had in a long while.
Even more awesome than when I got an email from Sylvie at Little Noise Cosplay saying she was making me a custom made Blind Mag costume, and that was pretty earth stoppingly awesome.
If you ever feel like checking it out (insert shameless plug here!) the website is
www.accessradio.org.nz/youth_zone.html and
www.accessradio.org.nz/queer_zone.html that's the only Queer Youth show in all of New Zealand, we're so proud!
The site's got podcasts of interviews and stuff and if you're on the site when we're on air you can listen to us live haha. I think if you're i the States it's around 12am? Well... in Idaho when it's 1130 pm Tuesday it's 4pm Wednesday in NZ so *shrug* work it out I guess?
Hope you guys enjoy it!
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