“We´ve got a big list of things we want to do” says Reuben Sneller, from Tequila Radio.
The University of Glamorgan has something special that needs more recognition. Tequila Radio is a space dedicated to students who want to explore and live the magic of radio.
Reuben Sneller, 23, is the assistant manager of Tequila Radio and has been a part of the team since it started in 2007. He is studying BA Radio in the university and in combination with Jordan Harrison, Tequila Radio´s manager, constitutes the head team of the station. As part of his duties, Sneller “makes sure things are running smoothly”. He said “If anyone’s got any issues they can come and see us.”
The station, which name was already decided when Sneller joined, hosts shows where students can “be really creative with what they´re doing, experiment and push boundaries a bit.”
Tequila Radio was established 3 years ago, Sneller said, when “there were two guys, Adam Perkins and Ariel, who were studying here and really wanted to get a student radio station running for the university.”
Sneller said they set it up “because if you are running radio courses you really need a radio station for people to really get stuck in with”. After a lot of work, Tequila radio first aired on October 2007 and the main reason for Sneller joining was the great experienece that involves running their own radio station.
How does Tequila radio continues running? As a way to finance Tequila Radio, a 10-pound fee is charged to join the team which helps to cover all the license costs for playing live music.
And, in terms of advertising Tequila radio has a promotions team which is in charge of making posters, banners and organising events that help the station to be known. Students partcipate promoting their shows and others using the special websites. “So is kind of word of mouth mainly and with Facebook and social networking.”
Regarding the timetable there are several challenges, Sneller points out “Last year was running on a completely week 1-week 2 schedule, so you had a show every other week. But there were a lot of empty slots, so we decided to split it slightly so there are special lists and mainstream.” The difference between both is that a mainstream show is every week but it has to stick to a playlist; a special list show is every other week but you can play what you want.
So, in order to decide who gets which spot “it became first-come-first serve. If you got into us quickly and a slot is empty you can have it, otherwise you get either the show you wanted or you have to work around stuff.”
But how many people listen to Tequila Radio? To answer that Sneller says there is no way to know “I don´t think is huge numbers but our aim is to get the station running smoothly. Different shows get different amount of listeners, so if someone really goes on their promotion for their show, they are going to get a lot of listeners. So is difficult to tell.”
Regarding to the website, it is maintained and put together by Kevin More who is a 3rd year TV student. “At the moment we are really looking for someone to take own of that next year.”
Tequila radio doesn’t escape the law and has to be careful about swearing and defamation though It is regulated, probably in a different way than commercial stations. “We want people to get used to how it would be if we were an FM station or properly governed by Ofcom. People make mistakes but nothing major has happened.”
So, according to Sneller the future of Tequila radio involves it “to really blossom. In our time, obviously we are going to be here until may next year now, we just want to get it running smoothly and train people up ready for next year. We´ve got money and we´ll try to improve some of the kits in the studio. That is our aim. We´ve got big list of things we want to do and we are going to try and tick as many as we can. But then obviously in the future, whoever takes on next year will have different aims to us but that’s the joy of a student radio station. If you get involved in it you can shape it to how you want it basically.”
Author: Edgar Elias Pelcastre Norell.
EPELTECH 