For the Love of Radio, my first production experience

Being an avid fan of the auditory medium since childhood, I was particularly enthralled with the emergence of podcasts as the popular medium. This blog is about how my first audio show recording went down.

Travelling all across the country, radio was my primary media for sports and news at a lot of places. Sure there was TV and Doordarshan, but our radio was not dependent on this thing called electricity and stood with us through thick and thin. As a kid I moved around a lot and this radio cum tape recorder meant a lot to me, from listening to my first radio broadcast to me playing my dad’s Abba Cassettes, it was my go to for most things entertainment. This radio was especially helpful when Indian Cricket team used to tour overseas, cause those TV rights would not be shared with Doordarshan, the free for all terrestrial Indian channel. I still remember the commentary over Akashvani(All India Radio) of Rahul Dravid winning us the Adelaide test.

These days though, I have a much more settled experience with the auditory medium. More out of choice rather than desperation. I have a standard list of podcasts, some daily, some weekly which I religiously listen to. I have learnt quite a lot from all the people I have listened to in this medium. So, when my Alma-mater called me in to be part of a radio production from BBC World Service, I said yes without thinking twice.

Have to give a shout out my favorite podcast here. I am a big big fan of basketball and National Basketball association(NBA) through the transitive relationship (duh, of course!). ESPN Radio is a great platform for audio analysis for the sport, and I am in particular an ardent fan of Jalen and Jacoby. The Former a retired professional basketball player and the later a sports show producer of repute. They talk about everything in sports, plus music, movies, pop culture and most of the things under the sun.

I and another friend have been avid listeners of this for close to three years now. We always talk about starting one such podcast ourselves but due to various reasons have never really come down to the trenches and do it.

The invite from BBC world service, in this context was a really exciting thing for me.

It was a panel discussion about how developing countries are using frugal innovation to solve their problems. It was a really proficient panel, full big hitters. Professors from Cambridge, IIIT-Bangalore who serve a lot of national and international panels were on it. I was there to offer a small perspective of an innovator and entrepreneur who is trying to make a dent in his own small way.

Honestly, I was more enamored by the process of this production than the panel discussion itself. The format of questions, the kind of equipment they use, the setting, asking the audience to clap, the lady with headsets on whose sole job was to walk around to record the voices, the main anchor re-working her choice of words to make things easier to grasp etc; this whole setup had my rapt attention.

Maybe this is a good time to add this disclaimer that we recorded about 45 minutes worth of audio, but the eventual production is only going to be about 8 minutes, so I technically may not even feature in this at all! Hardly matters though, since all I was interested in being part of the process.

The questions were directed and suggestive. The anchors had already researched the panelists background and had decided the kind of questions to ask of each one of them. It eventually devolved into an open-ended discussion, but the whole agenda was very very clear.

I may have gotten a little emotional with some of answers that I gave, but only the two ladies who are producing it know if I will make the final cut. Some of things were very personal and part of me wishes I hadn’t said those things, who knows maybe no one will ever hear it.

After the main recording was over, and the audience dispersed. The two people involved sat back and re-recorded some of the things which they felt a little iffy in the initial take. Including my introduction, which gives me a ray of hope. #FingersCrossed. They took an additional half an hour more to sort things out for themselves to redo all the tiny bits. It will take a further six months or so, of careful editing for the show to come to it’s final shape. This tells you how much of an effort it is to create any good quality content in today’s world, where the majority of internet it is filled with noise and click bait content.

I for one, hope this is just the beginning of my journey in this auditory medium which I thoroughly enjoy.

Here is the post about this event from my Alma mater.

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