Joy of the Rovers
| 22:00 UK time, Thursday, 30 March 2006
One of the key aspects of getting a good live audience programme going well is the standard of Roving Mic Producers (from now on RMPs) you have at your disposal. These are the people who speed to your seat with a microphone as soon as you even nod or shake your head to a point you've heard.
In this team i have WHYS staffers Fiona and Peter. Two of the best. Eyes in the back of their heads, their senses are so attuned they can SENSE when someone wants to chip in and they're on their way, mic lead trailing behind them. In New Orleans it worked well with the only problem being when Peter got so engrossed in the programme he turned his back on me (at least that's what he said) leaving me waving like a maniac at the people in the audience who were trying to join in.
In Atlanta, the nightmare every RMP dreads happened. In the coaching manual it's known as 'bunching' and it's not a pretty sight. usually the RMPs divide the audience into 'zones' and cover from there, only going into a rival 'zone' to help out. On Wednesday a woman (who was on the edge of both zones) put her hand up and both Fiona and Peter went for her.......to make matters worse so too did Anu and all of a sudden, in microphone terms, the audience member had gone from famine to feast. Our contributor looked as if she'd suddenly called a press conference with all the mics pointing at her. Sensibly, she chose the middle one and made her point.
We had a production de-bried after the programme and we looked at the RMP textbooks and we'll be trying to put it right in Washington tomorrow.
When we got to Washington late last night one of the staff at the hotel we're in saw our bags and asked us if we were 'World Have Your Say'. I was proud to say we were and he told us he loved the programme because 'ordinary people around the world get to talk to each other'. It was a very pleasing moment and I honestly don't think he was simply after a big tip.....
