Aircheck

In the radio industry, an aircheck is generally a demonstration recording, often intended to show off the talent of an announcer or radio disk jockey to a prospective future employers. A scoped aircheck contains only segments where the announcer is actually talking. An unscoped aircheck is simply where all programming is left intact, including music, commercials, newscasts, or whatever happened to be on the air at the time the recording was made.

Not all airchecks are made by the announcer or board operator at the station. Some are made by listeners, who simply record programming "off the air."

Some airchecks of older radio programs are highly prized by collectors, due to their nostalgia value. For example, "baby boomers" often enjoy listening to airchecks recorded from "top 40" radio stations in the 1960s and 1970s, particularly if they are airchecks of the same stations that the person listened to when they were a teenager or young adult. Another class of aircheck has to do with transitions between formats, where recordings are made of the final hours or early beginnings of a station (at least when such changes are scheduled in advance).

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Categories: Radio