Guy Perryman, Virgin Mega Station program manager Maki Nibayashi

Calling all DJs! Virgin Megastores wants you. Maki Nibayashi spoke to Virgin Mega Station Program Manager Guy Perryman about opportunities for talented jockeys.

Please tell us a bit about your organization.
Virgin Megastores is one of the world' largest and most well-known music retailers, founded in London by Richard Branson in 1970. Virgin Megastores Japan opened up our first store here in Shinjuku in 1990. Now we have over 30 stores across Japan, and on April 21 we open our brand new Shinjuku Virgin Megstore, which is in a new building and will be our flagship, largest and most technically exciting store in Japan.

What kind of people are you looking for?
We are looking for DJs to join our small, professional and dedicated team of DJs and producers who run Virgin Mega Station - the Virgin Japan Group 24-hour cable radio station that is played in all Virgin stores, Virgin Cinemas and Marui department stores across Japan.

What qualifications does the right candidate need?
Ideally, the people we are looking for will be bilingual (Japanese/English) with some radio, DJ or broadcast experience. He or she must be interested in music and media, self-motivated and able to work within a small team. The job will include being an on-air DJ (one-man style), recording narrations for on-air promotion spots, writing promotion spot scripts and interviewing artists on the air and during in-store events. We will also need the DJs to assist with production of programs and commercial spots on MD and computer production facilities - in this area we can provide some training.

As you can see it's a varied job in radio broadcasting, which is unusual in Japan, where most radio stations use different people for each of the above jobs. Obviously, we are not a major player in the radio market. However, over three million people get to hear Virgin Mega Station each week, so we take the task at hand very seriously. We provide a very high-quality service of promotion for the Virgin brand and a great atmosphere for customers and listeners. This is not essential, but we would like the voice of a Japanese male to complement our on-air sound. We currently have male English and female English/Japanese on the air, and it's very interesting that there are very few male bilingual DJs/broadcasters in Japan.

Can you tell us a bit about salary, benefits, etc.?
The salary is negotiable depending on experience. Plus, we have to determine which DJ is suitable for particular programs, days and hours of work. Basically it will be approximately 6-18 hours per week. We also need people on call who fill in if a DJ is sick or away. It's a great place for someone young who wants a career in broadcasting or the music industry to start out and get experience at ground level. Plus, it can lead to other career opportunities within the Virgin Group, and of course the person gets a discount on CD's! Also, as all of our DJs do other broadcast work outside of Virgin, on-call people can make some good contacts for other experiences - for example I run radio:on, my own cable radio station and DJ bar, so I am always looking for new DJs to join that project.

Contact Info:
Please send your profile, photo and DJ demo (on MD, CD, DAT or cassette) to Guy Perryman, Virgin Mega Station Program Manager, Virgin Megastores Japan, Keiou Shinjuku Oiwake Bld, 3-1-13 Shinjuku, Shinjuku-ku 160-0022.

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