On January 19, 2009, we visited BCC’s HQ inTaipei around 9:30 AM. We interviewed the famous radio show host - Ms. Mei-ren Yu. Normally, she doesn’t put on any make-up while hosting on BCC. But because she was going to be interviewed by Wun De Elementary School, she dressed up and put make-up on. She even brought her twins to work. Ms. Yu told everyone that experience is very important and that one can gain precious experience from each job, which will be quite useful later.

      When Ms. Meng-yan Lu was presenting the introduction of BCC’s Taipei HQ for WunDe Broadcasting Explore Team, she mentioned that BCC was 81 years old, had a different CEO and the size of HQ was smaller than what it previously owned, but its goal for servicing the audience doesn’t change.

      The 12F at Taipei HQ is the main control center, which is the heart of BCC and it relays signals to all the relay stations all overTaiwan the entire year without rest. There are 3 shifts serving in the control room and one person per shift. People working on the shifts are professionals in charge of maintaining the machines. Because BCC is all about sounds and voices, if the sounds and voices don’t get out, it would be embarrassing. Also, the sound source cannot be interrupted. Programs are recorded otherwise they’ll be lost for prosperity. The main control uses large capacity hard disks to record them. If no recording is done during live, one can request the main control to record in advance. Some sounds, such as the presidential speech of ex-president Chiang Kai-Shek, must be preserved and archived in the broadcasting studio. During the 921 earthquake, there was no electricity and people couldn’t receive TV programs; they depended on radio completely. The listenership of radio was the highest in history at the time. The main control is like the chef in charge of a kitchen. The broadcasting studio plays music live and the program is presented to the listeners inTaiwan through satellite signal and decoder for authorization. If the main control does not detect any program, it will play some music immediately to avoid obvious gaffes.

       10F at HQ has stations i Like Radio and i Radio. i Radio play music only so there are no guests. The DJ prepares everything the night before. The size of i Radio’s broadcast room is small. i Like Radio have famous hosts like Sisy Chen and Ms. Mei-ren Yu, whom have assistants. Most hosts sit in the microphone room, but some don’t. A host cannot do everything himself/herself. For example, when Ms. Mei-ren Yu is giving out books, she must ask the assistant to process. The program director writes planning project and changes are made for some hosts. For example, Chian-heng Wu’s scheduled time during the week changes. Some programs are played once a week, talking about one topic. The program production must write the schedule. When interview began? When to present the gift? When a sponsor is purchasing one period, which host would the sponsor want?

     The9F is the news center. There are 3 areas: translation/edit, editorial review, and editorial broadcasting, there are two shifts for the news network, and there are 7 to 8 people per shift, each person works 7 and half hours and rests 3 days every two weeks. The total length of commercials cannot be over 12 minutes. In addition, there are pre-configured sets (backup plans).

Report of Visiting the headquarters