By: Lathan “Laytin” Gil
You DID hear about how we are nominated for College Radio Station of the Year at the National Association of Broadcasters Marconi Radio Awards! I say, “You did hear about it because if you’re reading this, that means you follow our content, and if you follow our content, we’ve been promoting it like crazy. So you HAD to have heard about it.
We have been nominated for this award six times within the past seven years, and you know, even though we are only nominated for an award, the night is very fun. With spectacular outfits, fancy food, and networking with radio industry professionals, it feels like you’re at the Oscars.
How Do We Feel About Going?
This is personally my second time attending the Marconi Radio Awards, and hopefully the first time I will witness us win. But for some of us, this will be their first time going. Video Director Sophia Guiro ‘27 has actually mentioned this many times to me. “This is my first time going. I think we have a shot. I mean we’ve done so much what else can we be expected to do to win it! We work so hard! I’m very excited though. I have three dress options, makeup is ready and my hair is going to look so fabulous! It’s my senior year too, oh I hope we win this.”
This also serves as a bonding moment between members of our staff. For those who hang out together all the time, sure they always see each other, but for the students who are even more involved on campus this is an opportunity to connect with their peers, “I fear I don’t see people like Owen or Guy that much outside of meetings. Maybe when we go out to the awards the staff who don’t get to interact that much will get to know each other and learn more about each other and each other’s jobs. I mean we kinda have to be around each other the whole day anyways.” Sophia continued saying.
What Do We Do If We Win… What Do We Do If We Lose … ?
Win or Lose this is going to be an amazing night. We each have our own little traditions to keep the night fun regardless of the outcome. One of those traditions is ‘Bronc Karaoke” on the bus ride to New York City! We pick songs, grab mics and just sing our hearts out! Annmarie Ehlers said she wants to sing “Defying Gravity” from Wicked, Clifford Russell said he wants the Black Coalition of Excellence to sing a Jackson 5 song, and me personally, I want to sing anything with words! It’s not about an award to us. It’s about showing up and being happy that we were acknowledged for all the work we do. So win or lose, we still are gonna keep our heads up and sing!
Are We Nervous About Going?
We’re preparing for the Marconi Radio Awards next Tuesday by promoting it like crazy! Mentioning it everyday when we read the station liners before going into underwriting announcements. Featuring it on the home page of our website as well as creating posts and reels for our social media and branding it every hout on air with sweeps and stabs by our incredible production team to help get the word out.
While this is all happening, by the way, we are preparing for one of our biggest events of the year, Scream Screen , submitting for the IBS Media Awards, and broadcasting and engineering high school football and Rider basketball games. If they gave these awards out based on creating content and managing workload alone, we would’ve won this every year for the past seven years.
But at the end of the day, this is just a normal week for us. For Shir Hami ‘27, “The Bronc is always busy! We’re always busy doing something, and we always want to be better. We were nominated because of that and we’re still working hard regardless of the nomination. I don’t think we’re scared, because now we know they’re listening to us. We still push to be the best regardless. We don’t need someone telling us they are rewarding us to do all that.”.
Check in with us on our social media on NAB Marconi Radio Award Day this Tuesday, October 20 to see if we win radio’s greatest prize on radio’s greatest night at the Edison Ballroom in Times Square.! Wish us luck!!