A live radio experience

Ever been live on the radio? No, neither had I until this week. However, I was lucky enough to be invited on to the Lunchtime Live with Jeremy Sallis show on BBC Radio Cambridgeshire as part of the wildlife Wednesday segment. They’d heard about my conservation marketing internship in Malaysia and were keen to find out more.

It hadn’t really sunk in until I was travelling down on the train. Thankfully, Kiran Kapur, the CEO of Cambridge Marketing College has plenty of live radio experience. She was able to help me prepare by practising beforehand with a recorder and offer plenty of advice. Simple things like prepare for how to introduce yourself and to speak slowly. Practise speaking clearly and getting used to having a microphone in front of you. Seems obvious, but it definitely does add to the nerves when you go into the studio and sit behind the mic. We also did some interview practice with questions that might be asked and some I’d not thought about that might trip me up.

Live on air

The experience itself is actually quite similar to a job interview. After the first few questions, I got over the nerves. It felt as if we were just talking off air. Jeremy was a fantastic host and very professional. He made me feel extremely comfortable to be in the studio and made it look easy transitioning between segments. There was a lot more talking off air, whilst songs were on than I was expecting. This actually made it much easier to speak when on air, as it just felt like a continuation of our conversation.

Overall it was a great live radio experience, and something totally new. Although like most people, I wasn’t too keen on the sound of my own voice listening back.

To hear how it went have a listen below.