• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Automation question

V

vchimpanzee

There may be another place where I should be asking this.

On the other hand, I don't know where to ask this question. Earlier this week, a commercial began running on a radio station before Carl Hampton had stopped talking. Then another commercial started running on top of that one. You couldn't hear either one. I wonder how such a thing could happen?
 
vchimpanzee said:
There may be another place where I should be asking this.

On the other hand, I don't know where to ask this question. Earlier this week, a commercial began running on a radio station before Carl Hampton had stopped talking. Then another commercial started running on top of that one. You couldn't hear either one. I wonder how such a thing could happen?
Click to expand...

Many possible reasons... the most likely is that the command data that tells the automation that one item has ended was placed at the wrong place or not included at all.
 
Even with advances in satellite technology. Network programming still screws up. Traveling around the South I hear some really poor programming (technical) in large and small markets. With hard drive technology, I wouldn't touch it. but, that is just me. N/T and sports stations would be the exception.
 
DavidEduardo said:


Many possible reasons... the most likely is that the command data that tells the automation that one item has ended was placed at the wrong place or not included at all.
Click to expand...

Was a radio network involved? Another possible scenario is separate commercials on the left and right channel of the network feed, which are supposed to be sorted by the receiver. Sometimes it doesn't work out that way. Would explain the "double audio". Would not explain why the spot(s) started before the announcer was finished.
 
Dial Global is the music supplier. I thought by mentioning Carl Hampton I had made that clear, but I guess not everyone knows who he is even if they do post here.

I went to the post office during the news so I wouldn't miss too many songs, but after I got back I noticed there were no station ID's, and a feature called "Senior Moment" which airs during a commercial break was not on. Dial Global sends out two sets of commercials, and they provide songs for stations that want them during two other commercial breaks and during the news. The clock radio turns itself off after two hours and I usually just let it do that so I won't make a mistake that will cause it not to turn back on, so I don't know whether this has been resolved. This being a holiday, it's not like I know who to call.
 
vchimpanzee said:
I went to the post office during the news so I wouldn't miss too many songs, but after I got back I noticed there were no station ID's, and a feature called "Senior Moment" which airs during a commercial break was not on.
Click to expand...

they make a program called Senior Moment, and it sounds like they have an automation machine that is having a Senior Moment. :cool:
 
Goat Rodeo Cowboy said:


they make a program called Senior Moment, and it sounds like they have an automation machine that is having a Senior Moment. :cool:
Click to expand...
I was hoping you had an answer. I'll know in a few minutes whether they got it fixed because i have another clock radio coming on.

They have advice for senior citizens like staying active physically and mentally, eating right, and being careful when the weather is bad.
 
The news just came on like it was supposed to.

They usually have obituaries at noon. I don't know whether they would do that on a holiday but if they did that would mean someone showed up to fix the problem.
 
"Senior Moment" has been coming on as usual.

That program is at least eight years old. I think I am correct they were doing this when the station was ABC Memories. I remember thinking old people don't like that music, but then old people seem to like oldies, so maybe they did. ABC Memories was on the conservative side of oldies.
 
semoochie said:
That has to be the worst name I've ever heard! It sounds like it would offend seniors and drive away everyone else!
Click to expand...

I can only agree! What was their second choice, "Oldtimer's Disease?" Automation up here is hit-or-miss at best. One station group here recently moved into "state-of-the-art" facilities in a building called the "Technology Village," which would imply it's full of pocket-protector types (the Technology Village People?) but is in fact more occupied by architects and ad agencies. Shows play over each other (auto racing over music, for example,) breaks, including legals, get missed; while at other times unsold air gets filled with one station break "snipe" after another (really annoying,) breaks fire too soon followed by CBS countdown beeps; and voicetracked local newscasts fail, resulting in three minutes of the most eloquent dead silence you've ever heard. "Wally Ballou" segues are also common. One local newscast last week was marked by all the sound bites playing at "Chipmunk" speed. (This may, however, have been an improvement...)

Wisconsin Public Radio had a beautiful smash-up a few weeks ago; their three-hour Saturday-night lineup of old-time radio shows fired off one after another without the host's intros and bridges...then some of the intros AFTER all the shows were over...mercifully cut short by a (student?) engineer who played jazz records to fill the remaining time.
 
Last edited:
OK, I'm 60 years old and the only reason I've heard of Wally Ballou is because I saw Bob & Ray in television appearances LONG past their prime! Even so, I don't understand the inference at all.
 
semoochie said:
That has to be the worst name I've ever heard! It sounds like it would offend seniors and drive away everyone else!
Click to expand...

Only people lacking a sense of humor or too full of themselves. As a senior myself, I find the name amusing. But then, I don't have a stick up my place where some people have sticks.

What offends me is the use of automation systems that don't work well when there are human beings who could do the job effectively and who need the work. Automation systems that do work well don't offend me. I don't like them, but I don't take offense at them.
 
Last edited:
semoochie said:
OK, I'm 60 years old and the only reason I've heard of Wally Ballou is because I saw Bob & Ray in television appearances LONG past their prime! Even so, I don't understand the inference at all.
Click to expand...

In the Bob and Ray cast-0f-characters, Wally Ballou was their remote, on-the-scene reporter. And it was like a religious symbolic act that anytime Wally Ballou was introduced, he ALWAYS, WITHOUT EXCEPTION had his circuit activated just a bit late, so EVERYTIME he came on on-the-air, he would give his "by-line" and it always sounded like this: "....ally Ballou here at the scene of this horrible accident...." "....ally Ballou broadcasting from the scene of this devastating bicycle wreck." "... ally Ballou here from the campaign headquarters of the losoing candidate in the dog catcher's election race...."

So the post was about an automation machine that regularly executed "the Wally Ballou" cut-in, aburpt, late start.
 
I don't know whether this is related to this topic, but one of the commercials for a bookstore is reminding people that Mother's Day is May 11.
 
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.


Back
Top Bottom