Reporter Guest DJ at Port FM Ashburton

A guest radio star is born

Mid Canterbury Herald reporter John Hobbs took on the weekly challenge this week as a guest announcer on Port FM Ashburton.

This week I got to dabble in the world of radio after Port FM DJ Bex Carr asked me to be a guest on her morning show – although this meant I had to be up bright and early, which is always a challenge.

I got to the studio and made my way to Bex’s lair, where I was armed with a highlighter and a sheet of celebrity gossip snippets to read on air.

After a few minutes it was on with the headphones and I was straight into it. I felt pretty special being introduced on air and before I knew it, it was time to open my mouth and speak.

Through the morning I got to read out the latest celebrity gossip and news and even some general chit-chat, which was a lot of fun. I also got to read out the daily horoscopes so I felt like quite a guru after that. Because May is New Zealand Music Month I picked out a couple of my favourite Kiwi songs at the moment to play on air – I hope listeners liked my choices.

When I studied media communication a few years ago, part of that course included radio work such as announcing and live news reading, so I was not as nervous as I was back then. But I still had the inevitable slip-up and felt quite silly afterwards. During a quick-fire question round I could not remember the name of the town between Timaru and Winchester. My head kept saying Tekapo even though I knew that was wrong so in the end I said “the T one”, then remembered it was Temuka five seconds later. Whoops.

I had a lot of fun and got to try heaps of different things.

It was basically like chatting to a friend but wearing headphones and having a giant microphone in front of me.

Also, I’ll be a regular guest on Port FM each Wednesday at 8.45am so make sure you tune in while reading your copy of the Mid Canterbury Herald.

© Fairfax NZ News