There’s A Bit Of Jargon That Comes With Radio

I've been working in this building for a hot minute now. Pretty much since 2003, I think.  Sure, there was a blip where I was out of it for about two years, but pretty much this is all I know how to do.  That's kind of sad when you spell it out loud like that, but hey.  I like to think I've gotten somewhat good at it, at least. I mean sure, I'm no shock jock or morning zoo or whatever, but it's me.

Over the years I've picked up a lot of jargon and slang in "the industry".  Sometimes I catch myself using it around people who have no idea what I'm talking about (read: Husbando).  So here are a few terms, and what they mean - to the best of my knowledge, that is.

Spot - A commercial.

Cart number - An idenitfying number we use on a commercial so we easily schedule them to play at what time.  You can label them with words, yes, but if you have, for example, five commercials from one company that are all different audio, it can be heard to distinguish which is which.  So that's where the number comes in. Why a cart, you ask? WELL, back in the days before I was even working here, they used to have to load up individual tapes with commercials on them, and those were called "carts".  The term stuck and here we are.

ISCI - This is another way to identify a commercial. It stans for "Industry Standard Coding Identification".  You pronounce it like a word, not as letters.  So it sounds different, like "Is -Key". 

Copy - That's what we call the words said in commercials.  Someone writes up a whole script, but we call it copy.

Front Sell - That's when we're talking on the radio as the introduction of the song plays. Usually it's telling the listener  what we're going to play. If you tell them what you just played, that's called a "Back Sell", obviously.  If you get it just right to stop talking before the singing starts, that's called "hitting the post".

Log – This is the  written record of what transpires at the radio station, including: music, commercials, you get it. A music log is a list of the songs played for the day, a commercial log shows which commercials were played during the course of a day.

Stop Set - This is where commercials are scheduled on the log, which you just learned about.

And there are so many abbreviations.  So many.  And half of them sound dirty. I won't get into that.  Anyways, I've just scratched the surface, that's probably enough for today.

Are there specific terms of jargon or slang you use where you work?

Jargonly yours,

Behka