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Love 97.2FM’s Wendy Tseng on what it takes to be a deejay today

We live in the age of the Internet, where information about anything and everything can be found in a heartbeat. One only needs to go to Google or YouTube to access thousands, if not millions, of tutorials on anything. But to many, there is nothing quite as intimate as hearing someone familiar share his or her tips and address your concerns on radio.

We live in the age of the Internet, where information about anything and everything can be found in a heartbeat. One only needs to go to Google or YouTube to access thousands, if not millions, of tutorials on anything. But to many, there is nothing quite as intimate as hearing someone familiar share his or her tips and address your concerns on radio.

And at MediaCorp Radio’s Love 97.2FM, deejay Wendy Tseng has become one such voice, particularly for those interested in health and beauty.

“If you host an infotainment programme, especially on topics like health, you can’t just make things up! When listeners call in asking questions I cannot answer, I usually tell them I have to ask an expert before I respond. I take down their contact information, ask an expert and then call them back to tell them what I’ve found out,” said Tseng, who added it’s particularly challenging giving make-up tips on radio, when you can’t refer to photos or models as examples. “Even if there is only one person out there listening to my show who benefits, I will have achieved something. Because you never know if that person might benefit from that information for a lifetime.”

If Tseng sounds like she knows what she is doing, it’s probably because she’s worked very hard over the last decade to learn the ropes and establish herself as a credible host. Although you wouldn’t have guessed it, the chatty and affable Taiwan-born Singaporean deejay, who started out as a television host and actress in 1995, was overwhelmed when she first made the switch to Chinese radio 11 years ago. Tseng said she broke down and cried when a manager asked her to deliver cakes to listeners on her own — which may not sound like the worst thing in the world, but it was shocking to a young actress who was used to being taken care of everywhere she went.

“I cried because I felt so helpless! I didn’t know how to handle the situation, because as a television artiste we never needed to handle any of our own matters,” she said. “Then I told myself that it didn’t matter how many years I had spent in the television industry. I had to learn how to start from scratch, and accept any challenges that came my way.”

Since then, Tseng has been on a very steep learning curve. In addition to hosting, singing and acting — she stars in the upcoming Channel 8 series House Of Fortune — deejays at Love 97.2FM have to learn how to dance, perform at musicals and concerts, and even play “tour guide” on trips to places like Bhutan and North Korea with their listeners.

“Deejays now must know how to do everything. We have to go out to do roadshows, or host events, and the companies that hire us sell everything — make-up, health products, kitchen appliances, food and electronics. And when you explain something, you have to sound like you understand what you are saying, and not like you are reading from a script,” said Tseng, who also recently did a roving report for work from Uzbekistan.

Even after so many years, Tseng said she is still finding ways to make her shows more exciting and informative, to keep her listeners and fans engaged.

“I think you can go very far with radio, although it’s not like it was in the past. You cannot be long-winded, and you have to grab your listeners’ attention very quickly. It’s an art,” she mused. “I hope I will be able to do a good job with my shows in the future, so the people who listen to my shows now will still find a reason to talk about it, ten years from now.”

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