Logan gets his own Live Radio Show

Logan, one of the POWER 88.3 Radio and Broadcasting programme graduates, has dreamed of becoming a radio announcer since he was four years old.

When Logan (now 15 years old) saw an advert for the Rotorua Youth Centres POWER 88.3 Radio Broadcasting programme on his Facebook feed, Logan saw the opportunity as a great launchpad in to his dream job and wasted  time in registering!

Logan was involved in the early set up of the station including setting up computers and organising music in to categories.

POWER 88.3 ROTORUA is a ‘for youth by youth’ community radio project giving rangatahi groups a learning experience of a lifetime! Through this medium we train rangatahi to set up, programme and run a youth focused low frequency community radio station. Participants complete a 12-week programme and are provided with a further 12-weeks support and mentoring continuing as a volunteer with the radio station. This will further increase their skills, capabilities and resilience, and provide valuable work experience and future employment potential.

Young people learn the fundamental skills of radio production, construction of advertisements, public speaking and will workshop ways to develop content that focuses on the holistic needs of young people including their physical, emotional, intellectual, social and spiritual wellbeing.

This project aims to give rangatahi a platform to express themselves and their key messages for their specific communities of peers, whānau and others within the broadcast area, connecting with their whānau and communities, explore and express their ideas, opinions, culture, values and identity.

“I have learnt quite a lot. Quite a lot about audio production, how to do proper voice breaks, how the software works, how the mixer works etc. So much has been packed in to a twelve-week workshop!

The programme is compact, and its awesome, because there were things that I did not know, such as how audio production works, how the radio imaging works for example; you have to have all these little components of all the different sound effects and even all the vocal bits have to be chopped up and put in to a three second little piece of imaging but it takes three hours of work”.

– Logan

Over the July School Holidays, Logan took the initiative to set up his very own Workday show – The POWER Workday with Logan. Programme facilitator Gus Te Moni proposed the idea to Logan who immediately cleared his schedule in order to grab the opportunity!

Deciding on the name together, “The Power Workday with Logan” broadcasts LIVE from the POWER 88.3 radio studio at the Rotorua Youth Centre weekdays between 10am-3pm.

Logan recognised the opportunity to further his experience in Radio by doing his very own show.

“My first live show was a real challenge” Logan says, “Having to think on the fly, creating live content and running music ques, all of this while trying to engage the audience and get interaction by running quizzes and calling for people to phone in.

I had to think on the spot and reschedule music to fit in with the News and Weather too which added to the challenge. But all in all it was a very successful first live show!”

After the school holidays Logan is hopeful that he may be able to do the “Drive show” in the afternoons, but either way is just keen to be involved!