80s Deep Dive airs Mondays thru Thursdays at 1pm eastern (replay at 8pm eastern) here in Charlie’s 80s Attic. It’s a two hour show that highlights those 80s gems that did not crack the Top 40 on the Billboard Hot 100, and in some cases, songs that did not even crack the Billboard Hot 100 at all! The show is a labor of love for Charlie, who came up with the idea for the Charlie’s 80s Attic Radio Station based on the very songs featured on the 80s Deep Dive Show….the 80s songs completely forgotten about by the average 80s stations.
It may be a two hour show on the air….but behind the scenes a TON of work goes into each episode! Let’s take a look at how a show comes together:
First Charlie has to decide which songs to play on that episode of Deep Dive. He does that by taking a look at the spreadsheets he keeps which tell him if a song has been played on a previous episode of Deep Dive, how long ago, and if the song was simply played, or if Charlie showcased (talked about the song) on a previous episode. The * next to the date indicates Charlie spoke about the song on a previous episode.
Charlie then makes his picks the old fashioned way, by jotting them down on a notepad! The songs with the * next to them are the ones Charlie has selected to talk about on the show:
Once the picks are made, Charlie has to enter them into the broadcast system and ensure his picks for each hour don’t exceed an hour (timewise) and that he leaves himself enough time to talk about the songs picked on the show. If the total combined time of the songs is way too short…no good…if it is too much…no good. It has to be just right! (See top right corner of picture below for timing)
Here is hour two of the show:
Once the timing is confirmed to be correct, Charlie is good to go! He can now plot ALL two hours worth of songs on that master spreadsheet showing that the songs were played on that specific date, in this case, November 1, 2021.
Once all the computer work is done, Charlie does his research! He jots down facts and figures about the songs he chose to speak about. Where they landed on the charts, which album they are off of and so much more. Charlie does that the old school way as well…with pen and paper!!
After the selections are made, the computer work is done and the research is done, it’s time to go on the air!
The average two hour on air show, takes a total of about 4 hours (including on-air time) total to bring to you when you factor in all the behind the scenes work!
And of course we can’t forget all the trips made to the vault by Charlie & Kilroy to grab all the records…something Kilroy is supposed to do BEFORE we go on the air!
We hope you enjoyed this behind the scenes look at 80s Deep Dive!
