Matt Knight Celebrates World Radio Day
Today (February 13th) is “World Radio Day”, where we celebrate the medium that we love and have made careers out of…but also to celebrate the listeners that count on us for music, entertainment, news and overall good times here at 100.1 WJRZ!
I’ve been in the radio business for over 20 years, getting my start as an intern in New York City in 1998. Connections were made and I ended up moving to New Jersey in March of 2000 to begin my radio career. I knew I wanted to work in radio when I heard my voice on the air at 14-years-old as a phone caller to a sports radio station talking about the New York Giants. From there, I began to take classes to lose my “New York accent” so I didn’t sound like some jabroni from Brooklyn.
From high school, I just loved the medium of radio. From listening to Howard Stern and all the music stations available to me, I knew this was what I wanted to do for a career. I’ll never forget my first on-air shift at a top 40 music station. It was a Saturday morning 12midnight-6am shift as my “audition.” Streaming live on station websites hadn’t come into its own in 1999, so my parents drove from Brooklyn to the Monmouth Rest Stop on the Garden State Parkway to hear some of my first ever live shift. I remember that I wasn’t nervous as much as I was excited (and it sure was evident in how high powered my talk breaks were for 4am haha.) After that audition, I would never work another overnight shift as I was moved into the weekend afternoon shift and eventually the full-time night show. 20 years later, I’m playing the music I grew up listening to in my parents minivan when I was a kid (and throughout high school/college) here at 100.1 WJRZ.
The best part of the job is meeting our listeners. Going out and putting faces to the names we get on our request lines or contest winners, getting to thank them for listening…it’s really humbling. When you’re in the studio, you can feel alone sometimes and not realize that so many people could potentially be listening to you. Then, you go out and meet the listeners and they tell you a story about how something I said brightened their day or a song I played really lifted their spirit. To provide a service that changes the mood of a person is a truly rewarding feeling.
I hope you celebrate “World Radio” Day with us by having 100.1 WJRZ on your radio, web browser, mobile app and I look forward to meeting you when we’re out at an event real soon!
