I don't know if I'd call it "the presenter has messed up their back timing" but rather the hour was short due to scheduled music and spots not timing out for any number of reasons. We had a list of fill songs to use for that exact occasion. Nowadays flex scheduling allows stations on autopilot to add/drop predetermined categories as the hour goes, but it used to be the last song of our hour was a drop song if we were over, and we had a list to rotate through if we were under. But it was hardly because anyone "messed up"
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Short Songs (~3 minutes unedited)
- Thread starter kfbkfb
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And, of course, in 2022, back timing into live network news is rarely done, because relatively few music stations air network news at all, and those that do often delay it by a little bit so they don't have to bother back-timing.
However, automation systems aim to hit set times on their clock for national spots, followed by locals. If a station is running a national format or using out of market VT, it's important to hit those times, even without network news. Especially at the end of a shift.
At my current station, I load network news (directly from the computer) into the rotation (Christian talk station). Since I know the play times of nearly everything, I can usually hit it so close to the top (or bottom) of the hour, so that it still sounds professional. When I started (back) at this station, I questioned whether the news would be several hours old by the time that it aired, but I was told that it automatically updated. Just recently returned to this station after a long absence, so I still have a lot to learn!
The Beatles topped themselves with that one! "Sgt. Pepper's Inner Groove" (as you hear it on the Rarities album), clocks in at TWO seconds! Okay, you can say that that wasn't a "song," but then neither was their longest "song," "Revolution #9."
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I can't find it now, but the Oak Ridge Boys once had a one-minute version of their song "Baby When Your Heart Breaks Down." I believe that it appeared on one of the CDXs. I can only find a more standard version of it on youtube. Apparently the one-minute thing was intended as some sort of gimmick.
Right. This is the difference to back-timing within 5 or 10 seconds, and back-timing within a couple minutes.
On stations I have listened to, there have often been instrumentals before the top of the hour. This was with satellite formats.
One station which dropped the satellite and had network news often started a song and then seconds later had the legal station ID. I never understood why they couldn't figure out how to make everything come out even.
When I was coming up in the biz instrumentals for backtiming were for wimps
That's true. In the days when it was important, juggling the final songs so you hit the TOH as the song length went :00 was key.
One of my favorite things behind the board. Now nobody cares.
I remember hearing that on the radio! It was on a promo CD sent to radio stations in 1999, with "Got a Minute?" on the cover:
The Oak Ridge Boys - Baby When Your Heart Breaks Down
View credits, reviews, tracks and shop for the 1999 CD release of "Baby When Your Heart Breaks Down" on Discogs.
www.discogs.com
Here it is -- I found it on a TopHitsUSA disc:
I think it was probably just me who used to balls it up! Normally by letting an interview segment run over (we were a local full-service station and would often have people in the studio or on the phone for a chat between songs). At the end of the hour, it would often be a case of fade a song half-way through or play a 2-3 minute selection, and we had a folder of songs around that length that fitted our (relatively loose AC/classic hits) format to pick from. Roll to Me was in there, a couple of Beatles tracks and a lot of Motown and what we call Northern Soul.
We had to hit the hour exactly on time, because we took satellite news. From memory, the TOTH into the satellite news always had to go on at exactly xx:59:38 - there was a sign on the wall!
How many of us deliberately put on a long song to use the bathroom? (It could have been two things!)
Dan Ingram referred to Richard Harris's version of "MacArthur Park" as "the relief record."
American Pie, Don Mclean :00/8:42 cold end
At KING Radio back in the day; it was cart #342
For who? Certainly not the audience.
Working 7p--Midnight, it was easy to track an Album Side. Plenty of time to step out and grab a coffee or a smoke...
That skill is something only Radio geeks cared about. It's obsolete now just like rotary dialing phones or the printed Yellow Pages...
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