Has anyone here ever interviewed to work at ICRT, the English language radio station? I have a voice I’m very proud of, acting experience, and a tad of DJing experience. I’ve done a voice recording for a textbook listening exercise in Taipei, and I’m sure the studio still has my demo.
I’d love to hear from someone who’s been there and done that.
Dave
Once had a friend working there who tried to pass his job onto me. He said it paid “high 40s.” Er, no thanks…
But money is not a good reason to do things. If you think you’ve a future in radio, go for it. I listen to ICRT, much maligned though it is.
Now might be the time since Richie Walker’s last day is June 3.
Anyone know what he is going to do?
[quote=“wolf_reinhold”]Now might be the time since Richie Walker’s last day is June 3.
Anyone know what he is going to do?[/quote]
Take his place in the queue at the soup kitchen, which is where he belongs.
Interviewed there years ago…they were going to put me on the overnight weekend shift, which would have been a mercy, since what I don’t know about pop music would fill volumes.
As the job was explained to me, it isn’t exactly, um, rocket science. The playlist is made up by someone else. You just look on your computer screen and punch buttons. If you don’t have a spiffy comment about the current song, you press F2 or F3 or something (don’t remember) and a screen will pop up and give you some background info.
Don’t know about salary etc. but you did have to show 2 years radio experience abroad. I wouldn’t have had to (the crazy law says that with a Ph.D. in, well, anything, you don’t need experience…!) but I didn’t know that at the time. Don’t know if it was a mercy or not in the long run.
Other than that, you might want to ask about the (apparent) bonus paid for walking into other people’s shows and insulting their guests. I’m sure Jeff-u made out the day he tried to put Forumosa down on the air. :raspberry:
Riche Walker is history? What happened?
Uh, Dave, aren’t you leaving Taiwan soon? At least that’s what you posted in the “Buy and Sell” forum.
Your question about working for ICRT is an interesting one, and I am glad you posted it.
Now, may I ask you a question, are you leaving Taiwan soon or thinking about staying and working at ICRT, perhaps?
I posted the message about working for ICRT on June 3, Two Thousand THREE.
I sent a cover letter and resume and a professional headshot. They never replied. Most of what I’ve read and heard about ICRT and the people involved with it tells me that I’d be rubbing elbows with a lot of giant egos, which would chafe a very no-bull kind of dude like myself. Anybody on this board who’s working for ICRT will probably call “sour grapes” on this one, but then admit it’s true. 
I’ll take a pass on being the Rick Dees of Taiwan.
I am leaving Taiwan, at the end of July. I posted my stuff for sale (more to come soon!) early, because some of my things are a hard sell, and I don’t want to be stuck with them come leaving time.
I don’t know any of the regular ICRT “DJs” so can’t speak for their egos, but I know Rick Monday a bit and he seems like a laid-back, mellow kind of fellow.
I’ve also met a DJ there who’s a really nice bloke, but he tapes his shows and very seldom spends much time in the ICRT offices. He says that if he did, he’d last for about 5 minutes before going crazy (but he posts here, too, so maybe he’s already crazy 
).
But surely the main (maybe the entire) point of having a job like that is to satisfy a huge ego? I mean, unless you are really, really, really in love with the sound of your own voice how could go in there day after day and spout utter crap for hours at a time? Your Locker’s, etc. appear to be nothing BUT egos – grossly overinflated ones, at that. 
[quote]I posted the message about working for ICRT on June 3, Two Thousand THREE.[/quote] 
Sorry, Wandering Dave. I should have looked at the date of your first post. My bad, and aoplogies to you.
Best of luck with your travels.
[quote]
I’ll take a pass on being the Rick Dees of Taiwan. [/quote]
I think that’s a good call, but do keep Forumosa posted about where you go. The travel forum is always looking for good travel information.
ICRT seems to be having doled out a bunch of new DJ jobs recently. Yesterday’s Chinese-language newspapers mentioned that Linda, a Canadian-Taiwanese entertainer, joined the ICRT team. One report also mentioned that the station will be introducing six new DJs - one foreigner and five ABCs - for a new revamp of the station.
More worrying, the station now seems to think it has to play more Mandopop. Under the new general manager - a local woman with a lot of radio and TV experience - all DJs have to be able to speak some Mandarin (fair enough in my view, since this is Taiwan), but the station is also planning to play more local music. The report mentioned something like one third Mandarin music, two thirds Western, with the DJs speaking more Chinese than they used to.
That is precisely the policy that was abandoned just a couple of years ago. ICRT then saw English as its strong point, and decided to reduce Chinese talk and music as much as possible. In my eyes, that move was right: what’s the point of having lots of Chinese talk and music, if 99 percent of other stations on the island already have this?
My wish for ICRT has always been that the station could turn into a modern, trendsetting station playing the latest in quality pop and rock, wherever its origin. In other words, the station in Taiwan where you hear new things first. The new policy seems to be yet another flipflop move in the wrong direction.
I saw an ad campaign a while ago asking people to apply to be ICRT DJ’s, in Chinese, I guess being able to speak English is no longer a requirement.
enzo+:
But isn’t the point that this didn’t work? If it had, there would not be this supposed change.
More important than having some local music is the selection of tunes played. It is almost as if the music director specifically picks lemons. Very curious considering that BCC is in the same building and they have so much better tunes. Maybe the music director ought to take a peek next door.
I think highly of some of the folks working for ICRT and I very much enjoyed my two year stint as a commentator there…but they have for as long as I have lived here never been able to find a plan and or stick with a plan. I would guess that part of the problem is that (if I understand their situation correctly) they have always been kind of a “charity project”. I mean that in the sense that they have had to have some patron-be it the ROC government, the Koo family or whoever is currently paying the most money into their Board of Trustees and as the patrons change the plan changes. As the ancient wisdom holds; who pays the piper calls the tune.
I should mention that I have no solution, if I was the King of ICRT I have no idea what ought to be done. The first question that must be asked is; is ICRT supposed to be a money maker (i.e. a self supporting or even profit making business) or is it supposed to be some kind of “public service”. I do not think that question has ever been answered and I think the rotating patrons over the years have had different answers to that question.
Meanwhile the “foreigner world” in Taiwan has changed, I think significantly, over the ten years I have been here. And that reality needs to be factored in to what ICRT ought to be. And on a broader view, Taiwan has changed, it is becoming more and more of a “backwater” in Asia as the years go by. In a sense that matters too. Let me be quick to add that being unable to find a “radio formula” is not just an ICRT problem. Radio stations back in southern California used to have to constantly be changing formats/disc jockeys (I am sorrry I am showing my age, I meant “radio personality celeberity” or whatever Richie W. et. al. call themselves).
Opps, time to get to work,
take care,
Brian The Ex-Radio Celebrity Commentator
The China Times Express is reporting that ICRT’s new manager Zhu Yaru is changing the station to a bilingual format. One-third of the playlists will be Mandopop and the DJs will be required to use English and Chinese. They just hired a new bilingual DJ from Canada.
Thank goodness for the recent strides in Internet radio. ICRT just doesn’t cut it. Listening to Virgin Radio is much better.
That maybe the beginning of the end for ICRT as we know/knew it. If they are moving to a full bilingual format then my guess is that is step one towards eventual “all chinese” format. And when I say “all chinese” I mean both in the talk and in the management. ICRT could go the way of the Taipei Times, Amnesty International Taiwan and a host of other organizations I have had the misfortune of seeing “Taiwanesed” into stupidity. Oh, I just developed a new social-history concept; “Taiwanesed”. I will not define it here, the rules say “no hateful” talk on Segue. Well, I will do it in my book The Three Principles of the Taiwanese People which will be forthcoming some day.
take care,
Brian
I love their, “ICRT, where English is always free.” Uh, OK… :loco:
Except for the news, which could be read in both languages (although not at once…), I have no problem with Chinese being spoken elsewhere. That is not the problem. It’s the song selection.