I work on The Strawberry Alarm Clock on FM104. We’re Dublin’s biggest breakfast show.

Really strange

Last year was tough. Last year was really strange because you couldn’t do stuff. We have to think about different ways to be creative for safety reasons; government advice, to make sure everyone’s safe. You can’t be doing things that you probably could have done in 2019 or 2018 so last year was very challenging, very strange. That’s been an interesting curve ball for me because I’ve never had that before, I’ve never had those road blocks before.

Disney+ >>View Video>>

Before, you’d be able to go into someone’s house, you’d be able to hand someone a prize, tell somebody, “We wanna take you and we wanna send you to Spain, we wanna send you to America, we want to give you a car”. Everything was physical. But that can’t happen now, we can’t be telling people that we want you to flout the rules and go off somewhere or do whatever.

How do you adapt? What do people want at the minute? You’re in your house now, what do you want? You want to send someone a free dinner, you want someone to pay for your Netflix, you want someone to pay for your Disney+, you want somebody to give you clothes, give you a voucher for clothes. What people want now is different to what they wanted in 2019.

Constant  >> View Video>>

I’ve a friend who lives on his own and the only person he hears everyday is on the radio, or sees, is on TV. So if you’re on the radio or on TV, you’re that person. You just being there is probably enough for a lot more people than you think.

Instead of thinking, “Oh my god, I need an interview or I need a competition”, sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you’re that voice for somebody when they wake up every morning or when they’re going to bed at night or when they’re tipping about during the day – you are that person for them. I don’t think people in the media realise how important they are to somebody. You are that one constant in someone’s life, so just be that person constantly for them.

White board >> Watch Video>>

These next few weeks are tough, they’re gonna be awful and you might get so swamped under going, “Oh there’s nobody texting in, there are no competitions, there are no ads on my show, there’s no sponsorship on my show.” Just try and get through it. Breathe and plan ahead. That’s what I’ve been trying to do, everything is about planning ahead.

Get a white board out, get a pen and paper and start planning what are you doing for Christmas this year, what are you doing for Halloween this year, what are you going to do in the summer time this year and I think that’s probably the best thing for anybody who’s working in the industry, planning ahead.

At the moment, we’re planning.

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