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The Jet has no engineering department?

C

Cobra14

The morning show hosts talk about nominations and then continue on at the 4:50 mark or so and mention they repair and fix equipment themselves sometimes as it fails on air. ?

How is it that a media group in a city the size of Seattle can run without an engineering team on site? Seems like a slippery slope. And the hosts bring it up on their segment on TV for everyone to know. Weird business to be in.

Video in link.


 
Cobra14 said:
The morning show hosts talk about nominations and then continue on at the 4:50 mark or so and mention they repair and fix equipment themselves sometimes as it fails on air. ?

How is it that a media group in a city the size of Seattle can run without an engineering team on site? Seems like a slippery slope. And the hosts bring it up on their segment on TV for everyone to know. Weird business to be in.
Click to expand...
Lots of morning shows make bits out of inside events as they relate to everyone's job complaints.

In Puerto Rico, the morning show where I was VP of Operations made a character out of me. After trying once or twice, we had a thing where I'd play a gringo who knew little Spanish and confused words, often mispronouncing them so that they sounded like a cuss word or something dirty. We'd do it once or twice a week, and the bits always started with them "calling me from down the hall" to complain about something.

So some of those bits may be contrived, making a common issue to all people with a job into a shared... and usually amusing... incident.
 
Cobra14 said:
How is it that a media group in a city the size of Seattle can run without an engineering team on site? Seems like a slippery slope. And the hosts bring it up on their segment on TV for everyone to know. Weird business to be in.
Click to expand...
The Jet is an iHeart station. You may find this about iHeart's operations interesting, from 2+ years ago:

radioinsight.com

iHeartMedia Cuts Engineers Across The Country As It Begins Rolling Out New Tech Initiatives - RadioInsight

iHeartMedia instituted a round of cuts today focusing on engineering departments at its broadcast operations. The cuts come as the company continues to implement operational changes that began in the wake of the widescale cuts of January 2020. As the company stated in Thursday’s annual earnings...
radioinsight.com radioinsight.com

Of course, it hasn't been the case that an engineer would be on duty 24/7 for decades. So even if they did have a full-time engineer, (or two!) on the payroll, there is no guarantee they would be Johnny-on-the-spot during the morning show.
 
“The role of engineering has changed. No longer are they in the "fix & repair" business. They have far more complicated matters of IT and other high technology to deal with. Let the air talent fix the mic stand”

Ok so Simply stated, eng work deemed more important by someone can be done remotely from another city without local staff on hand. The hosts can take care of the physical hardware in studio. Sounds like a slippery slope still. Isn’t that a distraction from creating on air content for the masses? Or does the distraction become the content?

Or it could all just be a joke like David said. “Haha we’re so crappy we don’t even have engineers”. “You guys have everything you need here”. Here being Fox 13 in this example.

Then again they did cut a lot of engineer staff according to the link posted by ptboardop.

Sounds like theyre running on thin staff to me and trying to make jokes about it.
 
Cobra14 said:
Sounds like a slippery slope still. Isn’t that a distraction from creating on air content for the masses? Or does the distraction become the content?
Click to expand...

Exactly. In the case of Bender, he turned it into funny banter that he used on TV. Isn't that what creativity is about? If it didn't really happen, he might just make it up.

I hear people saying that having on-air staff also doing social media is a distraction. My view is that performing is performing regardless of the platform.
 
Wonder if the question was rehearsed or discussed before going on the air or if he had to answer on his feet and it was the first thing that came to mind that would fit as an answer. Maybe something that was bubbling under the surface and he thought it was a way to nudge and give attention to the issue and bring it to light. Can only speculate. Kind of cringe worthy though. If they have local eng staff they might not be to keen on the public criticism. Probably isn’t the first time. I’ve heard the guys on KJR sports make comments before of similar nature. “This place is a dump” etc. Might be time for some strongly worded memos from the guy or gal in charge.
 
Maybe the necessity of developing “thick skin” is what’s driving otherwise talented individuals to other platforms for self expression or utilization of their talents. The whole “you have to tolerate being treated poorly or disrespected” in order to rise atop and succeed in media has its consequences. But remember there’s sacred cows in media, they can do no harm and you should never criticize those sacred cows.
 
Cobra14 said:
Maybe the necessity of developing “thick skin” is what’s driving otherwise talented individuals to other platforms for self expression or utilization of their talents.
Click to expand...

Or perhaps the desire to work without a boss. Or work on their own schedule. But if you're on the air anywhere, you set yourself up to get criticized by listeners or haters or anyone with a keyboard. That's what I meant about having thin skin.
 
Well now that there are no longer cart machines and carts being eaten, on air in the middle of a song.
Yes Mic boom failure (fail to stay up) I have seen a few times. Cables in the mic boom fail/wear out.
Phones not working.
Computer automation locking up.
No AC Cooling, No heat.
Spills on equipment.
Production computer not recording or recording but voice is pitched down after a windows update (reset the sample rate).

The iHeart studios in Seattle are less than a year old, the place is not a dump. Those are the top of the line mic booms. But I have seen those booms fail.

I think his comment on "no engineering staff" is a dig at iHeart in general, for how engineering has been re organized at iHeart, versus dissing on their local engineers who are quality engineers.

If you ask me engineers need a thick skin and get little thanks for making it all work 24/7. Engineers are never thanked daily for when things are running good. They only hear about things when that trouble ticket comes in or They get that call that "we are off the air". And They have to respond any time of the day or night, weekends, days off. And yes morning shows are a tough situation for engineers because they usually are not there at 6am.
 
Good or bad attention from the public seems to be something many personalities or public facing individuals thrive on. Not all though. Some are still private in their personal lives. I’m not sure the same can be said for the support staff or behind the scenes people who may be blind sided by outside criticizing or being ridiculed publicly whether or not it’s a joke or content or whatever. I dunno I think everyone is just burned out now. Maybe not everyone. But I’m sure a department that’s spread so thin, “they don’t exist, we have to fix stuff ourselves” probably doesn’t like that type of “content”. Not my clowns not my circus tho.
 
Cobra14 said:
Wonder if the question was rehearsed or discussed before going on the air or if he had to answer on his feet and it was the first thing that came to mind that would fit as an answer. Maybe something that was bubbling under the surface and he thought it was a way to nudge and give attention to the issue and bring it to light. Can only speculate. Kind of cringe worthy though. If they have local eng staff they might not be to keen on the public criticism. Probably isn’t the first time. I’ve heard the guys on KJR sports make comments before of similar nature. “This place is a dump” etc. Might be time for some strongly worded memos from the guy or gal in charge.
Click to expand...
LIke @DavidEduardo alluded to, it was most likely just a "bit". Could have been spontaneous, could've been rehearsed or planned. In reading your posts it seems you may be taking their comments too seriously and overthinking them. Remember, first and foremost these "personalities" are entertainers and their job is to connect with their audience and be relatable. That sometimes includes including real-life details about things they've done recently, concerts they've attended, or things around the studio which their audiences can somehow relate to. Other times that may mean taking a minor occurrence and exaggerating it to the audience for comedic effect or to make it a more exciting or dramatic story than it was, or at times, they create stuff out of thin air or as David explained, creating and developing characters.

That doesn't actually mean that, in real life, they don't have an engineering staff or that the on-air guys are expected to repair equipment and solder cables. It also doesn't mean things are actually constantly breaking or failing.
 
You’re probably right. rather than a dig at the local eng staff it’s likely a mutual understanding of the staffing issue that there’s nobody there to fix all the things that can break locally. They probably share the frustration caused by the situation both parties have to deal with.
 
Mikey you may be right but I’m sure the hosts have a whole bunch of other topics in mind to bring up on live TV but the eng staffing situation was top of mind in that moment or seemed relevant enough to bring up. If it wasn’t an issue the discussion would’ve been about something else that relates to the demographic of the TV station or morning show audience. Like meeting an awkward movie star or musician or something like that.
 
xmtrland said:
Well now that there are no longer cart machines and carts being eaten, on air in the middle of a song.
Yes Mic boom failure (fail to stay up) I have seen a few times. Cables in the mic boom fail/wear out.
Phones not working.
Computer automation locking up.
No AC Cooling, No heat.
Spills on equipment.
Production computer not recording or recording but voice is pitched down after a windows update (reset the sample rate).

The iHeart studios in Seattle are less than a year old, the place is not a dump. Those are the top of the line mic booms. But I have seen those booms fail.

I think his comment on "no engineering staff" is a dig at iHeart in general, for how engineering has been re organized at iHeart, versus dissing on their local engineers who are quality engineers.

If you ask me engineers need a thick skin and get little thanks for making it all work 24/7. Engineers are never thanked daily for when things are running good. They only hear about things when that trouble ticket comes in or They get that call that "we are off the air". And They have to respond any time of the day or night, weekends, days off. And yes morning shows are a tough situation for engineers because they usually are not there at 6am.
Click to expand...
This sounds like a double edged sword. If the engineers are doing great and fixing everything and staying on top of stuff then nobody knows what actually breaks and may think nothing ever does. Like they only notice once stuff doesn’t get fixed .After they get rid of engineers. Yikes what weird conundrum.
 
God, someone doesnt understand a joke lol and took things too literally

Every station ive ever been at has a few inside jokes that kind of on purpose seep through on air to add to the overall.. attitude.. the station puts forth on air. makes the station and the people seem more human and relatable.
 
One of the things I’ve noticed since posting here is that a lot of the posters are replying with responses based on their perspective of having been in the business for decades or years or having been in the business at all. The point is, the responders have forgotten or don’t have perception of what it’s like to “be a general public” everyday consumer. Unless it’s a study group they garner research elements from. Management is blinded by decades in the business too. So much so that the thinking is being guided by a perspective that isn’t the same as the outside world that they are trying to reach. Your experience in the business is great, but you’ve been in it so long you don’t have the perspective of being a “civilian” anymore and you likely expect everyone to be thinking “on the same level” as those who have been in the business for most of their lives. 95-99% of the population hasn’t set foot in a radio station let alone worked at one. Those people are your audience.
 
SomeRadioGuy said:
God, someone doesnt understand a joke lol and took things too literally

Every station ive ever been at has a few inside jokes that kind of on purpose seep through on air to add to the overall.. attitude.. the station puts forth on air. makes the station and the people seem more human and relatable.
Click to expand...
Definitely being taken too seriously. Bender’s been in this business long enough, and is actually well respected both in the market and the industry. It wouldn’t be in his nature to just be cruel in a non-humourous manner.
 
Cobra14 said:
One of the things I’ve noticed since posting here is that a lot of the posters are replying with responses based on their perspective of having been in the business for decades or years or having been in the business at all. The point is, the responders have forgotten or don’t have perception of what it’s like to “be a general public” everyday consumer. Unless it’s a study group they garner research elements from. Management is blinded by decades in the business too. So much so that the thinking is being guided by a perspective that isn’t the same as the outside world that they are trying to reach. Your experience in the business is great, but you’ve been in it so long you don’t have the perspective of being a “civilian” anymore and you likely expect everyone to be thinking “on the same level” as those who have been in the business for most of their lives. 95-99% of the population hasn’t set foot in a radio station let alone worked at one. Those people are your audience.
Click to expand...
I’ve both worked in radio, and also have been an average “civilian” listener. Contrary to your post, I’ve observed listener patterns, music trends, changes in the industry, yet also have a much clearer understanding than the good majority of listeners, yourself included (likely due to the way my brain processes info)…but haven’t forgotten how a listener can process it. (This isn’t a dig at you, Cobra - far from it.) But when posters like David or BigA post something based on their experiences/careers, learn from and absorb it. Unless you’re just outright refusing to consider and understand their posts (I’ve seen firsthand how frustration spills over on here for years), posts from those that have worked in this business aren’t meant to be attacking or make one feel stupid.
 
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