Freshers OB 2023

Freshers OB (Outside Broadcast) 2023

The General Premise

On 28th October 2023, URY held their annual Freshers OB, where new members of the society could learn how to set up, present, and pack down when broadcasting outside of the station. With broadcasting running at James Beach from 13.00 to 16.01, the result was three non-stop hours of chaotic songs, presenting, and very smooth transitions.

This page shall document the most significant jokes, chaotic incidents, and general happenings.

The Actual Broadcast

The Setup (dun dun dun)

As it happens, not much of note actually happened during setup. Since it was *not* National No Gazebo Day, the gazebo did not break, and everything was fine - aside from one thing. According to eyewitness accounts, the speakers fell down. By 13.00, however, they were fully set up and ready for broadcasting. They also did not break into any rooms in James College. Seriously, they didn't.

The Start

In the first 30 minutes of the broadcast, several members of URY conducted a reach test: the OB could be heard from as far away as the Campus Nisa and just outside V-Bar. However, in terms of legibility for speaking, the limit was practically the area around the lake on West.

The Broadcast

Several random happenings occurred during the broadcast, some of which are documented below:

There were approx. 10 presenters and a few members of the tech team floating around during the day, which certainly created a friendly atmosphere.

URY received several odd messages through, initially stating something to do with the music and getting into car crashes. This mysterious listener continued to send messages in throughout the day, calling it "exciting". To this day, URY is not actually sure what they meant by this, or if it was a troll. Most messages were very supportive.

They had many requests from members of the public, including Level 42, Basket Case by Green Day and Satisfaction by Benny Benassi. The amount of internal requests is so long that it made up practically the entire show!

Whilst playing the intro to Pigstep, the group probably nearly managed to break everyone's eardrums by playing it just a little too loud. This issue was fixed one second later.

According to the tech lead for the day, output for nearly an entire two hours were distorted online and on stereo FM. This was fixed somewhere in the second half of the broadcast period.

There was an "oldie takeover" of non-Freshers presenting a single link during the last hour of the show. They probably played something from the Beatles, or adjacent.

It was incredibly cold, to the point that several presenters had to run home and grab more layers.

Between those present, at least 4 separate Nisa runs were made for mostly hot drinks and snacks. One of the presenters at the time, like a madlad, grabbed an iced coffee instead of a hot one.

There was a singular meow on air. More was requested. More did not come.

At one point, the presenter live asked for several bicycle riders on the bridge opposite to the OB to do a wheelie. Three successful wheelies were witnessed. Later, URY also broadcast an informal vox-pop with more bicycle riders.

The OB potentially broke the record for earliest Christmas song and jingle on air in URY: "Here Comes Santa Claus (Right Down Santa Claus Lane)" by Elvis Presley was played at 14:27, followed by a URY Xmas jingle. It was not even Halloween.

The same URY member that had bought iced coffee also started shouting "THREE MORE HOURS!" towards the end of the OB. This did not and was not intended to be on air, but was a direct reference to the "FOUR MORE YEARS" inside joke regarding URY'S SRA nominations.

Many of the presenters plugged their shows early on, including Music Menagerie which started straight after the OB ended.

The transitions overall were very smooth, sometimes involving a fair amount of setup.

Only one K-POP song made it onto the broadcast: "POP/STARS" by K/DA.

Two Lena Raine songs made it onto the broadcast: "Confronting Myself" and "Pigstep".

Two Beatles songs made it onto the broadcast: "Yesterday" and "Girl".

The first song played was the Muppet Show theme, and the final song played was "With or Without You" by U2.

Several presenters logged into Timelord to help with specific timings. Not everyone knew this was a thing you could do, but it is.

According to one metric, the total "stream time" (different to time live on air) was 3 hours and 40 minutes. This was possibly due to the setup being completed extremely quickly.

The URY "Whisper" jingle made it into at least one song as a joke, and airhorns were played during another.

URY received several requests from the Pole Exercise society, as they were practically in a room behind the OB setup.

The Transition

Whilst on air, the team of miscellaneous members of URY present at the OB decided to complete a series of events this page will label as "The Transition". At 14:59, the song "Crab Rave" by Noisestorm was played, before being cut off at the beat drop for what seemed like the news to be played; this is not required on OBs.

However, after the introduction to the news was played, the broadcast went straight into Rick Astley's "Never Gonna Give You Up", and proceeded to rickroll a section of Campus West before linking to "Buddy Holly" by Weezer following the jingle that normally plays for exiting news.

This plan had been concocted 30 minutes beforehand, and went successfully. The presenting team found this entire sequence hilarious.

The Ending/Packdown

The end of the broadcast went without issue: by 16.01, Studio Red started broadcasting and the OB had officially ended. Packdown went smoothly afterwards, and URY broadcasting went straight to Music Menagerie.

List of who was there

Producers: Rosie Allen, Tolan Enderby, Charlie Bradbury

Tech Lead: Harry Smith

Technicians: Jake Gillman, Bee Stevens, Cameron Watt, Alice Carney, Ashley Bryan, Alyx, Freddie Aberdeen, Tony Bell

Presenters: Millie Gee, Charlotte Smith, Lotte Cook, Amy Sargent, Suzie, Matthew Keel, Sarah

Note: Some people may have had multiple roles, and there may have been more participants than those in this list.

Page credits

Page Written by Charlotte, Alumni and Archives Officer 23/24 who was present as a Presenter.