Kang GURU English Language Interactive
Radio Presenters Network

Presenters Newsletter No. 1 October 2005
KGRE's Interactive Program Presenter's (English) Network

SMS

KGRE is currently looking into how the SMS phenomena in Indonesia can be capitalized on for KGRE itself. I know that some of you are also looking into the use of SMS with your programs. In the second issue of the network's newsletter we hope to be able to include more news about SMS — that is news from you and from KGRE. If you are using SMS then please explain how you use it and if you have any good advice for others.

Promo Samples and Local Interviews

Kevin went to RRI Palu a few weeks back and met with Pak Jojo, an old friend of KGRE. He has an interactive show there and it is pretty popular. He was using some great promos for his program which involved promo for a KGRE visit (see Track #1 Compilation CD No. 1) and a ‘mini-interview profile’ of one of his listeners (Track #2). They were very similar to the idea raised at the Bali meeting a boy getting out and doing local interviews with people in the surrounding community. I have included several examples on the accompanying CD. Jojo makes them himself using Cool Edit (now known as Adobe Audition) and the mini promos and interviews certainly are appealing and catchy – what do you think? Jojo has a ‘Learning Tips’ promo – Track #3. KGRE is planning on using this idea for promotion of people appearing on KGRE in the near future — for example, Delon promo (Track #4).

Recruiting Presenters

Presenters expressed the difficulty in recruiting new presenters or guest presenters. The problems are finding dedicated people willing to commit to a program and whose level of English is high enough. Maybe it isn't necessary to get so called ‘dedicated’ people to begin with? Kevin recently visited RRI Jayapura and met with Sophie Fanumbi. She has been presenting her program called ‘JEV - Jayapura English Voice’ — for over two years and does it all by herself from 6.00pm until 9.00pm. I asked her if she had help and she said not really — she was all on her own although occasionally had friends and guests in. The next day I met a very well spoken SMA student called Maximillian at the Student Meeting I attended at SMK 1. As soon as I heard him speak I knew he'd be great on radio and as it turns out he IS interested in radio and in broadcasting. I suggested to Sophie that maybe Maximillian would be good to host a regular Student News segment (or similar segment) on her program. Sophie is now working something out for him. So a suggestion is to find a clever and lively student to run a regular segment for students on your show.

Listeners' Meetings

At the meeting in August it was suggested that one way to find out about how popular your program is and what the profile of listeners are is to hold a Listeners Meeting at the station. One way that was suggested to get management more supportive is to have this listeners' meeting and ensure that lots of listeners attend. It was said that management would be more supportive if they saw how many active listeners there were and how many listeners have a good level of English and a strong interest in learning English. So, can I suggest that you start organizing a Listeners' Meeting. KGRE is willing to help you with this as we did with RRI Mataram in May 2005. See the website report –
www.kangguru.org/travel/kgretravel2005lombokjakarta.htm#rri

We may be able to help you by actually attending and actively participating in the event, supplying prizes and activities and by helping with some promotional activities.

Content & Format Ideas

Check the list from the August Meeting — there are over twenty suggested segments/activities for presenters to consider. How many of these are you currently using or thinking about using? It may be interesting towards the end of the year to se who is using which ones and which ones have been tried but didn't work.