ARMED FORCES RADIO + YOUNG vs. OLDER

Someone in my “Radio Pro” Facebook group made a posting about training broadcasters at DINFOS (Defense Information School) for AFRTS (American Forces Radio and Television Service)

I’ve worked with a lot of AFRTS radio stations in Europe and in Asia.

Sometimes there will be one “old pro” stationed there permanently, sometimes not. Everyone else usually is quite young, and this is their first experience with radio.

Because they are rotated among the various disciplines that comprise “broadcasting/journalism,” they might have come from three months of television, they’re spending three months in radio, and then they may be off to a stint at photo journalism.

So when a new person arrives at a base radio station, often he or she is “broken in” by someone who has 3 months’ experience.

These broadcasters face many of the challenges that radio people around the world deal with.

For example, trying to do “good radio” despite the interference of “the boss” — not one of the broadcasters but, rather, the base commander.

Most base commanders let the radio people do their jobs. But there are a few who know nothing about radio and see the base radio station as their own personal fiefdom.

My favorite was the commander who commandeered one hour per week to talk about whatever he wanted to talk about, despite his lack of concern over whether anyone on the base cared about the topic or his limited ability to speak into a microphone.

Just like at least one radio station owner you’ve worked for, the less enlightened base commanders roar with outrage when they hear a song they don’t like.

And yes, sometimes the radio station has to face the wrath of the base commander’s wife.

Because U.S. armed forces now are so diverse, the base commander (who represents a generation older than that of the recruits) freaks out upon hearing songs that appeal to young female urban minorities, young male urban minorities, young male rural Caucasians, young female rural Caucasians, young rural minority females, etc.

The primary function of the radio station is to serve the base community. They try to provide some degree of comfort to these young people who are so far from home — many for the first time, many of them desperately lonely in a completely foreign culture.

That includes information about activities on and off base, encouragement to take advantage of opportunities to experience the culture of their “host country” (rather than spending their free time in their rooms, playing video games)…

…and music. One big change vs. AFRTS tradition is that the Internet and iPods have taken away the base station’s monopoly on providing familiar music.

Still, the base stations do their best to play music from “back home.”

That’s a challenge, given that with 322 million Americans, there is no one style of music that represents “back home.”

While they don’t deal with advertisers, they are pressured by various groups (on and off base) to devote special affairs programming or public service announcements…

…even when there’s no relevant message for the audience.

At one of the stations I worked with most recently, once a month the station gave an hour to a representative of an organization whose spokesperson spoke such heavily accented English that no one could understand her.

Seriously.

Once a month, for a full hour no one in the audience could understand the only voice on the station.

I shocked staff members by suggesting they tell the organization, “For us to turn our audience over to you for an hour, you need to provide someone our audience can understand.”

They were shocked — and thrilled — by my suggestion that they formulate written guidelines for non-profit groups to be considered for air time.

It’s always interesting to distinguish the “radio people” from the “enlisted personnel who are being rotated in for a few months but have no particular interest in radio.”

The eyes of the radio people light up when I tell them to bring their own individual personalities into the broadcast studio with them.

Their awakening to their real mission is visible on their faces during aircheck sessions:

“During that break, why did you talk about that?”

“Um…I dunno. I saw it online.”

“Did you find it interesting?”

“No.”

“Do you think your listeners were interested?”

Hmm. You can see the lights going on.

At one coaching seminar, a woman had just come from television and was at the radio station because that’s where she’d been assigned. She had no interest in radio.

Often we devote the second day of my visit to aircheck critiques. I wasn’t particularly looking forward to hers, because obviously she just wasn’t interested.

After hearing her aircheck, I was brutally blunt with her:

“I hate to break the news to you, but you’re a radio person.”

On-air, she was great: Opinionated, vibrant, interesting, passionate, expressed herself strongly yet concisely, maintained control of the show….

Like it or not, she was a radio person.

Although the stations don’t run commercials, they air lots of public service announcements…which they write & produce just as a small market radio station writes & produces paid spots.

Remember, aside from their brief stints at DINFOS, they’ve had no exposure to radio. So their spots sound exactly like the spots you and I did during our first few months of radio.

At one station, I was shocked to learn that often one of the jocks/producers would decide to do one of the next week’s PSAs as, say, a satire on THE HUNGER GAMES.

Why was I shocked? He would make that decision before knowing what PSA he’d be producing.

Gently I suggested, “First find out what message you need to communicate. Then decide how you’ll approach it.”

He understood.

The mission of AFRTS broadcasters, though, is much more vital that it might appear on the surface…and more serious than most civilian broadcasters ever experience.

AFRTS Example #1

Among the reminding urging soldiers not to make too much noise when returning to base late at night (“because of our neighbors; remember, we are guests here”) and encouraging them to check out this or that upcoming event are spots urging listeners to be aware of the apparent emotional state of, say, their roommates…

Because loneliness is the biggest enemy of many of those young people so far from home and so estranged from their foreign surroundings…

And those PSAs are sincere, earnest attempts to prevent suicides.

AFRTS Example #2

In the ’90s, I was brought in to work with AFRTS personnel at a number of European locations — a mini tour. Broadcasters came from various parts of the continent.

During my two days of coaching in Vicenza, Italy, two young guys stationed in the Balkans attended. This was during the Bosnian War.

Their PSAs dealt with such topics as “land mine safety.”

I’ll never forget that.

The other incident I’ll never forget occurred during that same seminar tour. I think it was at Vicenza.

The program director — an older radio veteran — of the local AFRTS station handed an LP to one of the 19-year old enlisted personnel and said, “Copy Track #3 onto the hard drive.”

The young, uniformed radio soldier took the disc out of its sleeve, stared at it for a long moment and then, befuddled, finally asked, “Is that the third track from the center…or the third track from the outside??”