During the Spring semester of my senior year, I was given the opportunity to intern at 90.5 WICN Public Radio in Worcester, MA. During my time at the station, I worked hands-on with the marketing and development team simultaneously. I gained a great deal of knowledge in membership and non-profit work, marketing, social media, and website maintenance, managing and promoting my own event, underwriting and sponsorships, team building and effective coordination, and the fundamental workings of the broadcast industry. I was able to use the significant marketing, editing, and writing skills I learned at Fitchburg State University to engage in a wide variety of projects over the course of 6 months.
WICN Public Radio has recently began taking part in their Annual Vinyl Sale after a multi-year hiatus. Coming in as an intern, my continuous responsibility was to coordinate 2021’s vinyl sale in June.
Managing the Annual Vinyl Sale involved a lot of dedicated work and communication. During this process I exchanged email and phone calls with listeners who wanted to donate vinyls, completely reorganized and cataloged over 3,000 vinyls by genre in WICN’s storage, and learned how to properly promote my own sale through designing flyers and ads, creating social media and events posts, and recorded two on air radio spots. One of them was intended to promote donations for the sale while the other was to promote the sale itself. Each spot ran back to back.
Following the working of the Annual Vinyl Sale, I produced many different graphics and logos to help support WICN’s events, programs, and overall operations. These designs were highly appreciated and already put to their designated uses.
This flyer was created for the Noah Preminger Quartets hosted in WICN’s Studio 50. I was tasked to redesign the flyer for the live streamed shows. This concert series is held at WICN once a month through the Summer of 2021. The design I created will help promote the concert and give direction on how to listen. Additionally, I created four flyers with the same design that highlight each of the four sessions.
Underwriting and Sales is a necessity to run a nonprofit radio station. It helps bring in a substantial amount of money and connections to the station. Working alongside the station’s Underwriter, I was given the opportunity to completely redesign the graphics for the stations underwriting packages. Through steady communication, I produced two new digital pieces that the Underwriter will use to present WICN to clients and potential sponsors; a rate card and a coverage map.
A significant project I worked on when I first came to the station was redesign and create a new logo for each one of the station’s programs. At the time, the station had about 32 programs. Through a lot of creativity and communication with staff and hosts, I was able design a wide group of logos. These were immediately approved and I uploaded them under each show heading on the WICN website.
These graphics can also been seen on wicn.org under programs; show schedule.
Although I spent a great amount of time working with development, non-profit work, and the creation of marketing materials, I was able to apply my film knowledge to these same projects. With a recent partnership with the Massachusetts Pirates Indoor Football team, I was given the opportunity to produce and create two videos that would air on the Jumbotron at the DCU Center in Worcester, during game times.
The first video selected is one I completely designed and shot myself, using the graphics I created for the station and implementing shadowed aspects of WICN. The other is a pre-recorded promotional video for WICN’s Studio 50. This video has already been used by the station but I was asked to cut down the video, add a music selection, and overlay a voice over.
The range of projects I present here are only a small insight of the overall experience I received at Wicn Public Radio. Amongst these works, I conducted a wide amount of grant research and wrote my own grant proposal, I helped succeed the stations Spring into Fund Drive by 73%, helped maintain and update the website, and immersed myself in any opportunity I could.
I am very grateful for the opportunities I was given at WICN. I worked with a highly cooperative and educated team that helped guide me from the college mindset to a real world work environment. It was rewarding to use the skills I learned during my courses at Fitchburg State University and apply them to these projects. I am excited to take these experiences with me as I continue onto my next career path.
CURTIS MONAHAN 