This is the year. This is the year that the Lima University radio station wins first place at the annual Ohio Broadcasting Awards. Last year, WLND lost "Best College Radio Station" to WLVA and if Finn Hudson had anything to do with it…it wasn't going to happen again.
The first day of school was tomorrow, which meant by 7 am WLND would officially be on-air. From 7-9am was the news and sports show hosted by Sam and Puck. After that Rachel was on-air from 9-11 usually discussing the latest in Broadway news and gossip. The 11-1 shift is taken up by Artie and his always on point hip hop and R&B knowledge. The 1-3 shift is for the popular afternoon show The Riot with Santana and Mercedes with a once a week segment of Fondue for Two hosted by Brittany. Every Sunday Quinn hosts a hour show where students call in asking for advice and words of wisdom. WLND was a very good station considering they were run by students that also had school and other extra curricular activities to balance. The only problem is that the "extra curriculars" can sometimes affect the way everyone runs their departments, which then affects the quality of the on-air programming.
"Alright everyone, it's a new school year so you know what that means. New potential staff members." Finn, the general manager of WLND tried to get everyone's attention. However, the others had different plans and continued on with their conversations on who had the best summer. "GUYS SERIOUSLY LISTEN UP! I will not lose to that Jesse St. James and his poor excuse for a radio station, again." Finn yelled.
"Finn's right you guys we need to start checking out the potential talent because as program director I refuse to come second to WLVA this year." Rachel, the program director says to her fellow directors. "Now I think we need to look at what went wrong last year, so lets discuss music."
"Whoa hold up hobbit, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the music, but I can tell you that the problem was that we were forced to listen to your annoying a little bit more than we needed to." Santana was the music director and she and Rachel got into the same argument every week. "Now lets talk about what actually is important and that is getting more staffers so then Berry won't be hogging up all of the airtime and costing us listeners."
"Santana's right you guys." Will interrupts the group, "we need to think about what direction we want to take our station and what we need to do to get us there. "Now Rachel there is nothing wrong with the music that we play." Santana smirks at Rachel who just rolls her eyes. "However, I do feel we should play more classics hits." With that the smirk quickly disappears and Santana rolls her eyes. "AHH there's the eye roll I was looking for. So ideas just throw them out there."
The next hour is spent with the WLND staff coming up with the best way to get potential staffers before they decide to call it a night. Tomorrow was their first day back on-air as well as the first day of school, so that meant it was going to be a very long day.
"Santana! All I'm saying is we should at least throw broadway musicals into the rotation every now and then."
"And I'm telling you Oompa Loompa that the day broadway music is heard on this station is the day that you become bigger than Barbara Streisand...which is never."
"Well as program director I demand that you put at least one song from Wicked on the air."
"And as music director I demand you stop singing on air. We have gotten numerous complaints and I'm pretty sure the FCC took us off air until you're shift was done."
"UGH, I can't work under these conditions. FINN I want to change offices. I can't work with her." Rachel storms out of the office down the hall towards Finn's office with Santana right on her trails. "Finn can you please find me a new office to work in I don't think I can work in the same room with Santana anymore." Finn lets out a big sigh and looks up to both divas with annoyance because at least once a week he has to break up an argument between them.
"What's the problem this time, Rachel?"
"The same problem it always is. Santana and her reluctance to add one of the most underrated genres of our time...broadway."
"No Rachel for the umpteenth time, I will not move you into another office. You both share and office because both of your departments work hand in hand with one another. Now you and Santana are going to have to work out your differences when it comes to music, okay. I don't have time to constantly play referee and then also run a station. Now if you please go back to your office and get ready for our first round of freshman tours." Finn goes back to his computer where he resumes checking and responding to emails that accumulated over the summer and ignoring the stares from both girls. Santana and Rachel turn around and walk back to their office and Santana goes to her computer where she is looking at the Itunes top 10 list, but not before giving Rachel her signature scowl.
"WELCOME to WLND I'm Brittany S. Pierce the promotions director and I will be guiding you through this tour and showing you each department and informing you of what that do. At the end you can sign up for any department you are interested and all there will be left to do is interview and hopefully if that goes well then you will be apart of the staff. Okay lets get started shall we." Brittany leads the group of freshman to the front desk where Mercedes is on the computer as if she is ordering supplies, little do they know she is actually on Perez Hilton.
"This is Mercedes, she is our receptionist as well as a host for the afternoon show The Riot and she orders supplies for the station and answers phone calls and emails." Brittany continues to talk about the position as if it is the best place to be.
"Hey guys! Though I love that description of my job I have to be completely honest when I say...it is so boring." The group of freshman laugh at this and some nod their heads in agreement. "It can get boring, but it has it's good moments. Like for some reason people think that the reception desk is a therapist office and that I give good advice because everyone brings their problems to me. Oh and here's my next client." Mercedes points to Quinn and everyone turns around to look at her.
Brittany takes this opportunity to describe Quinn's department. "This Quinn and she is the public relations director. She is in charge of getting the stations name out into the community and making sure we look good. She organizes to a big philanthropic event for the local community centers show choir. And then every year we put on a big benefit concert. Moving on." Brittany leads the group to the next office where she describes her job and Mike Chang's Multimedia position. " I am in charge of promoting our station as well as giveaways. It's a fun job and I get to color and play with glitter. But now I can only use glitter pens because I wanted to be Ke$ha for a day and Santana spent almost two hours getting the glitter out of my hair. Then there's Mike who is the multimedia director. He is the creator of our award winning website as well as our logo."
"Hey guys, yea it's really fun and if you're interested, but don't know anything about the programs we use don't be scared because I will be happy to show you the ropes." Mike genuinely wanted some more people to join his staff. As of now it was just him and Brittany suggested to help, but that was only because she thought it was going to be like Draw Something. As Brittany walked down the hall, she heard Santana and Rachel arguing over how Beyonce is just as much as a gay icon as Madonna. "AND HERE IS THE PROGRAMMING AND MUSIC OFFICE," she says louder than necessary. "Santana is in charge of the music. She listens to unknown artists as well as the popular ones. And Rachel is the program director. She is in charge of the on-air personalities and the shows. Moving down we have Tina who is our External Relations director. Her job is to make sure we always keep in touch with alums and when we win awards she puts it in the newsletter." Brittany continues the tour and leads the group to the sales office. "Artie is our sales director and he gets us the clients that give us the money. Kurt is our continuity director and he schedules the commercials and then he bills the clients when their contract is over. Then if you turn around we have Tina's brother Mike and he is our production director. He creates all of our commercials and station imaging."
"Brittany, I'm not Tina's brother because we are dating." Mike says in frustration
"Oh well you two look alike and have the same last name, but whatever." Brittany shrugs and Mike just shakes his head assuming he will explain it to the blonde haired girl later.
"Well that is the end of our tour I hope you have found a couple of departments that sparked you interest. You can head back up to the front office and Mercedes will have some sign up sheets for you. Hope to see you again." Brittany leads the group back to the front and waves them goodbye.
The group heads over to Mercedes who awaits them with a big smile. "So how'd you guys like the tour?"
"It was pretty cool. I really like that there's an advice show so I think I want to help out with that." A kid with long dreads and shoes Mercedes is pretty sure she saw Jesus rocking in that one movie.
"Yea it's obvious that the only talented one is me so I'm going to be an on-air personality." Says a girl with a very obnoxious and eccentric style.
"What about you?" Mercedes looks at a shy boy who has had a very goofy grin on his face since he's walked in. "Any department you're interested in?"
"I like the news so I'm thinking that department, but promotions seems kind of fun if I get to work with Brittany all day." His irish accent makes him hard to understand, but Mercedes is pretty sure she heard him correctly. As the freshman put their name down on the respected lists she thinks to herself...this is going to be good.
So there it was the first chapter. Please review and let me know what you think so far. This one was kind of boring, but I needed to introduce you to all of the different departments. Let me know what you want to happen. This is my first story so hopefully you guys stick with me long enough to watch me develop into a better writer.