PRESENTER (American): Hi everybody. I’d like to talk to you today about our university’s student-run radio station. We’re KKER 71.2 FM, but everyone on campus refers to us as JAM-JAM. We broadcast all the way from El Paso to Austin in the great state of Texas.
Now, we started about 12 years ago. Originally, we were only broadcasting for two hours per day because we only had one DJ. Her name was Cindy Long and she is responsible for starting KKER, as well as securing funding from the university for the radio. She went before the student board and was able to get several thousand dollars to buy the necessary equipment and get the station up and running. At that time, she played records and featured music from local bands in Texas.
Since then, we’ve grown quite a bit. We’re now on-air 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We have eight different DJs. We feature different themes for our shows. Our most popular show right now is Country Jam, which is featured from 4:00PM to 7:00PM. DJ Twang started that show last year and it’s still going strong. We also include a large selection of syndicated shows from other stations. In addition, we include interviews, music reviews and a two-hour request segment that solely plays music requested by our listeners, called Request Jam.
Of course, the station isn’t only run by DJs. We have a Production Department that is the backbone of the station. They handle all of the technical audio elements and editing software used to produce the shows. They also manage pre-recorded public relations announcements and anything else that we put on-air aside from music.
Our Promotions Department is what we refer to as our Face Jam. That’s because they do a lot to create and maintain our stellar reputation on campus and in the local community. They’re the promoters who are present at campus events, fairs, sporting events and fundraisers. They also created the Sack Lunch Jam, which is a live concert held on-campus every third Friday of the month from 12:00PM – 1:00PM. Those concerts are always free. Finally, they kick-off each year with the Buy Your Books Jam, which includes a live concert set-up outside of the campus bookstore, and serve free pizza, soda and sell raffle tickets. The prize each year for the raffle tickets is a discount for the university bookstore.
New this year is our blog. We have three editors running the station’s blog, which includes music reviews, samples of new music and an updated schedule of forthcoming events, both on campus and at local music venues. If you’re a musician or a member of a band and you’d like your album to be reviewed, please send a copy of it to our station or drop it off in person. And, uh, before I forget, we’re located in the basement of Union Hall, room B-4. We also feature live performances on-air of local bands once a month. These shows are known as Live Jam and always one hour long. Typically bands will perform a few songs, and then answer a few questions from our host, Tom Bradley.
We also have a Sports Department and a News Department. They air news and sports updates five times a day. Each update is three minutes long. We cover local news, university sports, and local high school sports, and even feature interviews with athletes. Being as how it’s August right now, we’ll be focusing on the football season that starts in two weeks.