AUDIO STORY: KVUT Offers Students Studio Experience
KVUT's Jeff Johnson sits at the studio's control desk before a show. Johnson is the station's Director of Operations. Photo Curtesy of KVUT.
[TRANSCRIPT]
Lakyndra Larkin: Hmm, I wonder what the weather’s like today. I’m sure KVUT has an idea.
Jeff Johnson: For East Texas forecast, showers and thunderstorms mainly before noon today, the high near 72. Clear tonight, the low around 45. Tomorrow, sunny, the high near 59. It’s 65 degrees at 7. 06. Morning Edition starts next. I’m Jeff Johnson. Good morning from Public Radio for East Texas, 99.7, KVUT.
Lakyndra Larkin: What you just heard is a radio broadcast recorded by 99. 7 KVUT located on the second floor of the Cowan Fine Arts building at UT Tyler. KVUT’s mission is to educate, enrich, enlighten, inspire, and inform their listeners. This station has been on air since September 2021, but news director Mike Landess, the anchor and producer for Mornings on 99. 7, Explains how it felt getting the radio up and running in the beginning.
Mike Landess: We put this radio station on the air with a blank piece of paper. I mean, if you can imagine that. Okay, we’re going to need a transmitter. Oh, that’s, okay, we’ll get a transmitter. We’ll need a tower, too. Yeah, we’ll need a tower. have to have an antenna to put on the tower.
We’ll have to, I mean, on and on and on. And so it’s down to, okay, we need microphones, and we need a soundboard, and we need soundproofing. And we, I mean, it was just on and on and on and on and on. as we put this thing together, and we spent almost a year just putting the pieces together. I was telling uh, someone, I was trying to come up with an analogy that would explain what it was like.
I said, this is a little like ordering a radio station from Ikea, but when it arrives, all the parts aren’t there, and the instructions are in Swedish. So you’re like, what do I do? But it actually has worked out pretty well, and uh, we got it on the air, uh, and it’s been an adventure, an absolute adventure.
Lakyndra Larkin: Although KVUT is run by professionals such as General Manager Lori Allen, who has 30 years experience in broadcasting, students interested in gaining lab experience regarding radio, news, and operations are welcome to fill out a KVUT Student Involvement Application for possible internship opportunities or becoming a student worker.
Director of Operations Jeff Johnson, who anchors special events and severe weather coverage, as well as reporting on local and breaking news, gives tips to those who are interested and wanting to work in the radio industry.
Jeff Johnson: You need to, if you do not already know how to, learn to write and write well. That is a skill that will transfer in anything you ever want to do. Um, technical things, uh, anything that you might learn like editing audio, using different software programs, this kind of stuff, those skills will all transfer into things like podcasting and you may be the only person who’s applying for that sales job that knows how to produce a podcast.
Well, guess what? That company needs a podcast to promote their products and services to their potential customers. If you’re the only one who knows how to do that and you apply, you are miles ahead of the other people.
Lakyndra Larkin: For more information about KVUT and their opportunities, check out their website at kvut.org or tune into the station at 99. 7. Thanks so much for listening. Reporting from the University of Texas at Tyler, I’m Lakenja Larkin.