When I first entered the radio business in mid-1990s, at the dawn of the golden age of consolidation, (though it’s doubtful anyone will reflect upon that time in such romantic terms) I knew that my life as an on-air broadcaster would be limited.  Content is king and even then I was certain that, at some point, I would make the transition to being content provider. 

Nearly 15 years later, I’ve worked my way in to the position of Creative Services Director for FM stations in CBS Radio’s Pittsburgh Cluster.  I spend my days creating the imaging for CHR, Hot AC and Country outlets.  Fortunately for me, I don’t have much involvement with the commercial side, so my time is free to be creative.  With the advent of the Personal People Meter coming online in my market later this year, we’ve been drawing back on our station imaging.  The creative, theater-of-the-mind branding schemes I used to craft between songs have been reduced to simply name and position reminders…nothing more than simple audio logos between the songs.  As I watch many of my counterparts at other stations get downsized, I’m met with the growing concern that I could be next.

In recent years, there has been a growing need for video production at radio stations.  I can recall reading several blogs and/or articles on the subject.  While these writings did anticipate the need for audio producers to develop these skills, they didn’t go very far into showing how to implement them.  That’s what I hope to for you here.  Now this is a situation of self-preservation.  In these times of budget cuts and downsizing, the chances of you getting the station to pay for these tools may be slim to none.  You’re going to have to take the initiative (and a leap of faith) to acquire some or all of these things on your own.  But, if you do, you’ll then be set up with what you need to further your career outside of radio, if necessary.

Now, as an audio producer, I’ve used Sony’s Vegas software for years but I’ve come to find it is also a very powerful video editing tool as well.  You can pick up a decent version of Vegas Studio for about $100.  However you’re limited to only four tracks each of audio and video, but for basic productions, you can get by with it.  Vegas can edit and render mov, wmv, avi, mpg, and mp4 video formats, so if you already have a camera that can record to any of those, you’re set.  If you need a cheap digital camera with instant upload capability, I recommend the FLIP video.  I picked up one for about $140 two years ago (now they’re around $130 with 2x the memory) and it has been quite handy. 

Now how the hell do you marry the two?  Well there are a ton of online tutorials available on how to make Vegas do some cool things with video.  Two sites I highly recommend are www.videocopilot.net and www.digitaljuice.com.  In addition to the video tutorials, each has some great production tools that are pretty affordable out of your own pocket: sound effects, orchestral music, animated backgrounds, animated transitions, even custom fonts.

What kinds of videos do you make for your stations?   Well, you can shoot a morning show contest or station event.  In country, we have a lot of artists come thru the station, so I always get a chance to record a dozen or so performances every year.  You can also create little graphic vignettes for your stations to run as pre-rolls to videos or online streaming.  I started doing this when I asked myself, “What would a sweeper look like?”  I took the station logo with a transparent background, made it move through the frame, added a nice animated background, text and some sound effects and voila!  A station video sweeper was created.

Finally, the ultimate money saver for the station: TV Spots.  You could now conceivably create your station’s TV spots in house.  Now you’ve just added to your value as an employee.

So here’s the rundown of my investment so far:

FLIP CAM                              $145

TRIPOD                                 $59

SFX                                        $99 (videocopilot.net)

Motion Design Elements    $3.95-29.95 (digitaljuice.com)

Animated Backgrounds      $1.95-99.95

COREL Paint Shop Pro      $75

So for roughly under $500, I now have the capability to shoot, edit and add some nice production value to video for my station.  And, I’ve developed some new skills that should help keep me employed for the foreseeable future.  After all, it’s the survival of the fittest.