WLTL field trip, as experienced by Nik Krull

​Hi all I'm Nik Krull the co-news director here a WLTL. On Thursday October 8th the WLTL managers went on a field trip to learn about jobs in radio. We started the field trip with a tour of the United Center, the home of the Chicago Blackhawks and Chicago Bulls.  After the tour and a special event at the end we headed over to CBS radio Chicago home of B96, XRT, and US99.5, and after CBS radio we traveled to WGN radio.

We started out the field trip by getting on a bus to drive out to the United Center, the UC. When we arrived at the UC a Blackhawks employee in the sales department named Nick met us to start the tour. At the beginning of the tour we headed to the top where we saw the Bud Light Legends Lounge to take a look down at the hockey ice where a Micheal Rosival was out training, also we say the brand new 2015 championship banner that was hung the previous night.  Along with seeing the banner we also got to try on the championship ring of the VP of sales (and former WLTL manager!).  After the sight from the top floor we went down to the press box and we learn about how many people are there collecting stats about everything in the game. Once we left the press box we got to take a look at the BMO Harris club which is on the lower box level and a different view from the legends lounge. The special part of the visit to the UC was next as we left the Harris club we went down to the main concourse, where the Stanley cup was seated for pictures. We were fortunate to get group photos with the cup.
 
After our tour of the UC we hoped on the bus and headed over to CBS radio, where we met up with two people from the Promotions Department.  We first walked through the offices and saw into the radio world.  Then we went to the on air studios and got to meet on air talent. We learned about how the the host of the 10-noon show host, Terri Hemmert, went through as one of the first woman in radio, and how she pushed through and is now very successful.  After learning about Terri we moved over to US 99.5, and talked with their mid day host, Drew Walker.  Drew talked about he came about in radio and then explained the technology he and other hosts use to make the show run smoothly.  When the tour ended at CBS Radio we moved on over to WGN radio where two WLTL grads, now WGN engineers, showed us around. We saw everything I could imagine could be in a radio station: a lot of engineering equipment, studios, producer boxes, the news room, offices, a production area, a green room.  And we capped it all off with a visit to the Allstate showcase studio, the main studio where most shows are done--a room some may recognize as it is a very cool street view studio. 

As cool as it was to see all everything and meet everyone, this trip taught me how there are so many jobs in radio, from engineers to editors to producers to sales people to promoters to bosses, to live talent, that all make radio run smoothly for your listening enjoyment.

​Nik Krull