Back in the days when I first got started in broadcasting, being a radio air personality was a sit down job. All the radio and television audio consoles were at desk top height and the air chairs we used were the old “secretary” chairs made of steel with cloth covered seats and backs. What made them “secretary” chairs was that’s most of them did not have arms. Being armless made them much better for air work, one could move around to cue up records or load carts in the machines or tapes on the reel to reel machines that in many cases were actually behind the disk jockey.
Left: Me as "Johnny Foxx" at WCOS - AM in 1967. This was a typical sit down radio control room configuration. Then sometime in the 70s, someone got the bright idea that radio announcers sounded better when they were standing up, a throwback to the studio microphones on floor stands in the cavernous studios where radio dramas and live variety shows poured out to the airwaves in the 30’s and 40’s. I never really cared for stand up studios. They were fine for an announcer on a 30 minute or hour long show. But we worked 5 to 6 hour on air shifts. So it wasn’t long before disk jockeys brought in bar stools. We were sitting down again, just a little bit higher than before.
The next bright idea was to make these bar stools ergonomic by putting in a height adjustment. Letting the user adjust the chair to fit their anatomy sounds like a good idea but like all good ideas, there are unforeseen consequences. In the case of air chairs that consequence is the “DJ Air Chair Behind Boogie” sometimes known as the DJACBB. At least for me it is! You see, like most old school DJs, I can’t sit quietly while the song is playing. I got to move my groove thing and sing along at the top of my lungs.
The problem is that all that bouncing around is hard on the lifter mechanism of the chair. I start off each show with the chair adjusted to the top of its range and by the time the first half hour has passed, it has slipped down half way to the bottom stop. Most of the time that slippage is so slow that I don’t notice it. But sometimes it slips an inch or so while I’m talking. At WUSC, it seems to be when I am doing the weather. It also happens sometimes when I do in studio interviews. I think is because I have to turn the chair to the right to see the monitor where the weather shows up or to look at the person that I’m interviewing in the studio.
The Air Chair at WUSC has another ergonometric feature that annoys me. The back of the seat can be locked into any position from straight up to about 20 degrees back. That’s fine for the younger DJs but it is a hazard for me. Not being the young stud I was back in the day, I rely on that back being upright and in the locked position when I pull my feet up to the console desk to take my Monday Rockin’ Socks photos at the beginning of the show. If that back is not up and locked, I feel like I could roll backwards over the chair and onto the studio floor. There is a saying that you “can’t teach an old dog new tricks” and I’m a prime example of that. After years of catching my hands under the console desk to avoid tipping over, I have finally begun to check the back lock before executing the old “feet lift” maneuver.
I am fortunate in that WUSC-FM is the only station where I have worked that has a stand up studio. Most of the “stand up” craze came during my TV days. The closest I had to another was at WIS Radio. But when they moved their studios out to the transmitter site northwest of the city they maintained the sit down configuration that they had downtown.
These days, radio stations have a mix of sit down and stand up studio configurations. All but one of the stations where I have pulled air shifts in the past decade have sit down configurations. Of the three recent studio builds that I’m familiar with, two of the stations have stand up studio configurations. One of those has four stand up studios! Although it seems nationally that the stand up studio wave is passing.
I opted for a sit down configuration when I built the studio for Our Generation Radio at home. I’ve gone through two air chairs in the ten years I’ve been doing shows in there. Both times I’ve chosen nice leather covered swivel office chairs. They were great!! Almost!! I can’t find a chair that does not have that height adjustment feature. Sure enough, at the beginning of, and several times during each show, I must reach down and grab that control and stand up to allow the seat to rise to the top. These chairs also have the ability to rock back and forth to the music, giving my DJACBB an added dimension not available in the other studios. Unfortunately, the rocking mechanisms in these chairs get squeaky after six months of use. So I have to make sure that I’m sitting up straight and still in the chair before I turn the microphone on. Hey, that forces me to open up my diaphragm so that I can project my voice while announcing. So it is all good! Oh MY!
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