The Clock Rules - Not the Content

[FredLeonard]

The Broadcast Clock, the Diagram That Rules Public Radio

There’s a term that epitomizes what we radio producers aspire to create: the “driveway moment.” It’s when a story is so good that you can’t leave your car. Inside of a driveway moment, time becomes elastic—you could be staring straight at a clock for the entire duration of the story, but for that length of time, the clock has no power over you.

But, ironically, inside the machinery of public radio—the industry that creates driveway moments—the clock rules all.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_eye/...lock_the_diagram_that_rules_public_radio.html

Here's an example of station meddling to the detriment of the on-air NPR product. NPR started with a flexible clock and the idea that a story should run as long as it took to tell it. But soft breaks were not convenient for the stations. So, now Morning Edition and ATC have hard breaks and we are treated to Inskeep asking his usual convoluted questions (intended to show how smart he is) and then cutting off his guest as soon as the guest tries answer.

"Driveway moment" is a typical NPR conceit. I by-pass the member stations (and their constant pledge drive preemptions) and access NPR stories on-demand via download. When I get to the driveway, I hit pause. But NPR people still live in an "Outer Limits" fantasy-land in which "we control what you hear."

 

[TheBigA]

Here's an example of station meddling to the detriment of the on-air NPR product. NPR started with a flexible clock and the idea that a story should run as long as it took to tell it.

I worked at NPR, and before that I was at an NPR station. To the best of my knowledge, NPR NEVER had a flexible clock. I know Bill Siemering, but he was gone from NPR after a few years. He never had anything to do with Morning Edition. And the clock was created more FOR the stations than BY the stations. I never recall them meddling in the ATC clock. From day one, shows had a certain length, and breaks were scheduled. Most interviews you hear on NPR are pre-recorded and edited to fit the segment times. If a host is telling a guest he has to hit a hard break, he's usually just being polite. I think if you ask anyone who has ever worked at NPR or a member station, this has always been the case. The fact is that there are way fewer limits or breaks in NPR shows than there are in the commercial world.

 

[FredLeonard]

Most interviews you hear on NPR are pre-recorded and edited to fit the segment times.

Most? Some clearly are, more likely on ATC. Morning Edition clearly does have live interviews as evidenced by Inskeep telling guests they only have 30 seconds (or so) and then using up most of that with a convoluted question - or a question too complex to answer in 30 seconds. Barney Frank famously called him on that (live, on the air). There is no reason for a host to tell a guest he has to hit a hard break in a pre-recorded interview. The guest can finish his answer and the answer (even if long-winded) can be edited.

In any case, I hope Inskeep takes the buy-out. He is an incompetent interview with delusions of celebrity. He's a coal country red neck who came to NPR from reading ball scores. He never should have been hired. Decent pipes but he certainly is unqualified for an journalistic function. At most, he should be relegated to reading TOH newscasts.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

But I noticed something: he has the job.... you and I don't.

 

[TheBigA]

He's a coal country red neck who came to NPR from reading ball scores.

Really? I thought NPR only hires blue state liberals. When I met him, he was covering Wall Street.

The point is that you're wrong to say "NPR started with a flexible clock." From Day 1, stories had a fixed length. The reporters and producers knew in advance, and could easily time their "driveway moments" to fit in their allotted time. They've been able to do it for 40 years.

 

[FredLeonard]

Perhaps you missed this.

When NPR began in the early 1970s, show clocks were much less regimented—or they didn’t have clocks at all.

One of the early champions against the fixed clock was Bill Siemering, a founder of NPR who helped design the network’s overall sound. He came up with the name All Things Considered (original title: A Daily Identifiable Product).

Siemering liked a clock that was more free-form, because it allowed for spontaneity and unpredictability.

 

[TheBigA]

No I read it. That story is false. Bill was the one who designed the clock. He was from commercial radio, and wanted NPR to be like NBC.

 

[FredLeonard]

No I read it. That story is false. Bill was the one who designed the clock. He was from commercial radio, and wanted NPR to be like NBC.

That makes sense. I remember thinking early on that ATC resembled Monitor.

 

[TheBigA]

Exactly....that was the model.

 

[fybush]

On a purely practical level, the clock is an absolute necessity for public radio as it's practiced in the 21st century. For every larger station that has a live body in the control room during every hour of ME and ATC, there's at least one other smaller station that finds its limited resources are better used elsewhere and thus depends on automation to keep all or part of drivetime running.

Even for stations with live bodies, the clock is essential. I speak from experience here, having spent nine years on and off as one of those live bodies at my local station. For many of those hours, I was the only live body in the building, and the routine of the clock allowed me to carry out all the other functions needed for local programming - conducting interviews, taking in feeds from reporters, writing local newscasts, and so on - without having to be constantly listening for a floating break that might or might not be coming at any random time.

The regularity of the clock also makes it possible to plan for regular local features at fixed time. For ME, in particular, there are numerous opportunities for local stations to cut away, which would be far more complicated if you don't know how long the national segment is that you're covering.

And the clock does allow for a variety of segment lengths in both ME and ATC. A typical day's rundown these days includes pieces that are as short as a minute or two, and as long as the maximum segment length for each show - just under 9 minutes for the A and E blocks in ME, just over 11 minutes for the A block in ATC. For the very small handful of stories that absolutely demand a greater uninterrupted length, ATC does occasionally do "format breakers," which can run as long as 22 minutes (A and B block combined with a skipped break in the middle). This wreaks havoc with automated stations, always causes stations to howl, and so it's not done very often...and really, these days, there are more logical outlets for longer-form stuff at times when listeners are more likely to be able to give their undivided attention.

 

[FredLeonard]

Especially, Sunday Night Monitor was was the most news-oriented segment of Monitor.

"NPR News in Washington" never sounded quite as impressive as "Radio Central."

It also seemed that Monitor served as the model for NIS, as well. Unfortunately, the news-magazine format was not as well suited to all news radio.

Anybody who has no idea what we are talking about, check out http://www.monitorbeacon.net/.

Also http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4700009.

"Monitor: The weekend radio service of the National Broadcasting Company."
"Monitor: Going places and doing things."
"You're on the Monitor Beacon."

Of all the dumb things NBC has done, firing Sigourney's old man ranks right up there.

Scott: I defer to your expertise in this stuff but it's my understanding that automation can be cued by tones or other electronic signals, not just the clock. I also understand that European broadcasters are far ahead of the US in this.

 

[fybush]

Automation can be - and is, often - cued by contact closures that are sent from the network. We're just as sophisticated at doing it on this side of the pond as the Europeans are, and automation of that sort is commonly found at both commercial and public stations. (It's even possible these days to run most network sporting events on automation, letting the network's cues trip the local ads and IDs and return the station to regular programming whenever the game is over.)

However... there still has to be some sort of a clock to allow local stations to program their end of the automation system. Instead of the fixed break between the A and B blocks of ATC 19:00 to :20:30 after the hour), I suppose you could have a floating break that falls, say, somewhere between :16 and :23 - but the break itself would still have to be of a fixed length, and by depending on NPR TOC to reliably send the closure to trigger the break, you're adding a new point of failure along the chain. (You're also wasting a lot of time for the hundreds of live bodies at local stations standing around waiting for the floating break to hit instead of doing something more productive for those few minutes. Yeah, it doesn't seem like much, but when I was doing ATC, just about every second between 4 and 6 was accounted for, and seven minutes wasted waiting for a floating break would have been a significant hit to my productivity.)

 

[Jacko]

It also seems that some NPR stations, such as 90.9 WBUR in Boston, can delay the national feed if their local break runs on too long. This typically happens during Morning Edition, when the transition to the A block should be at :10:00, however WBUR host Bob Oakes can either be long-winded or just simply takes up too much time, and sometimes the national A block doesn't start until :10:30 or even :11:00. Crosstown 89.7 WGBH doesn't seem to do this, and if you flip back and forth, WGBH is 30 seconds to a minute ahead of WBUR. I imagine most NPR stations do not do this.

Jacko

 

[fybush]

Good ears, Jacko. Yes, WBUR was an early test bed for a device called the "Audio Time Manager" (ATM) developed right in the Boston area by a company called 25/7.

http://www.25-seven.com/products/atm

Using the "ATM" lets WBUR cram more content into an hour not only by delaying the national feed but by compressing it slightly so they can catch up to network breaks. It also helps that WBUR has a huge newsroom staff with dedicated producers for the local segments of each show. They can do a lot of things with that staff that are hard or impossible when you've just got one or two people handling news anchor/program host/board op/producer/writer/tape op duties for the entire shift.

 

[TheBigA]

For the very small handful of stories that absolutely demand a greater uninterrupted length, ATC does occasionally do "format breakers," which can run as long as 22 minutes (A and B block combined with a skipped break in the middle).

Another way to handle long pieces is in the weekend version of ATC, which has fewer breaks, especially in the second half. The news break at the bottom of the hour is shorter, so there's a much bigger content window. But fewer stations run WATC, so free lance producers aren't as excited to be heard on that show.

 

[FredLeonard]

WGBH should be kicked out of NPR. They own a competitor, PRI. Yet they vote for (and sometimes sit on) NPR's board. Clear conflict of interest. Same for Minnesota Public Radio/KPCC.

 

[TheBigA]

The rules say that if you qualify for membership, and pay your dues, you're a member. NPR is different from PRI and MPR in that it was created by an Act of Congress. That means it has different rules than typical companies.

Ironically, NPR was pitched Prairie Home Companion by Minnesota Public Radio, and turned it down. That led to the founding of PRI. Additionally MPR was heavily involved in the creation of All Things Considered.