When stations go off the rails.. dead air, double audio, the wrong thing playing....

[SomeRadioGuy]

....I've long said its an easy mistake to have happen and now I have a real understanding of how! I've been in programming/on air for years, but I've never been part of the team transitioning from one automation system to another

We're going from IMediaTouch to Zetta at KSKO.. and I am programming every single line of programming code for our programming 24/7 (see pic below)

If I miss one line.. one single line of code there, i could have two things playing at once, no things playing or local audio on top of a satellite feed.

So before you criticize a station, stop and think what might have caused it, what might be involved in a fix and if this has happened repeatedly? (and if it has, why havent you said ainything? Even the best stations cant monitor 24/7.. posting here to complain takes more time then it does to drop station staff a 2 line email...)

 

[Negin]

Gotta love computers. A couple of my relatives are in the radio business and more then once they cussed at the computer. One almost threw the thing out the window.

Before computers we had to worry about the overnight jock falling asleep. Actually seen/heard that happen when one station I listened to on the 3rd shift of a job I had get dead air. I called the station and after 12 rings the jock answered half asleep and told him of the dead air. After a few curse words to himself, he said thanks for waking him up!

 

[xkxrx]

....I've long said its an easy mistake to have happen and now I have a real understanding of how! I've been in programming/on air for years, but I've never been part of the team transitioning from one automation system to another

We're going from IMediaTouch to Zetta at KSKO.. and I am programming every single line of programming code for our programming 24/7 (see pic below)

If I miss one line.. one single line of code there, i could have two things playing at once, no things playing or local audio on top of a satellite feed.

So before you criticize a station, stop and think what might have caused it, what might be involved in a fix and if this has happened repeatedly? (and if it has, why havent you said ainything? Even the best stations cant monitor 24/7.. posting here to complain takes more time then it does to drop station staff a 2 line email...)



View attachment 8083

Some questions Paul. Why did you decide to switch to Zetta? Do you create one program for weekdays and another for the weekend and just duplicate them? Are you able to test offline before launching the new software?

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

Some questions Paul. Why did you decide to switch to Zetta? Do you create one program for weekdays and another for the weekend and just duplicate them? Are you able to test offline before launching the new software?

We need a more modern system with a ton of flexibility.. and most important 24/7 live support. pricey, but given the location and situation, its worth it

I have to do a line of code insertion for each single thing.. liner, promo, show segment that airs

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

A more detailed example of how things can go sideways so easily and quickly

If I miss or mess up ONE.. just one line of code or command... that could result in

nothing playing, two network feeds playing at once, local content playing over a network feed......a tone playing over NPR.

 

[NJnerd19]

Why are you programming every single thing by hand? Even Zetta's predecessor had Clocks. You schedule your macros, programming, and imaging in the clocks. You then generate the logs from there and merge the music/spots. Shouts//Imaging should have multiple cuts that rotate under the same cart number.

Downloading syndicated programming can be done from a batch file and automatically imported into the system under their specific cart numbers for day of the week, etc.

I hear ya on the double audio thing. I wish there were a way to detect it, but it's usually a listener email after the fact. A good failsafe is to put a "SOURCE OFF" command into the macro for each and every input not being used at that time. That eliminates two network sources at the same time.

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

Why are you programming every single thing by hand? Even Zetta's predecessor had Clocks. You schedule your macros, programming, and imaging in the clocks. You then generate the logs from there and merge the music/spots. Shouts//Imaging should have multiple cuts that rotate under the same cart number.

Downloading syndicated programming can be done from a batch file and automatically imported into the system under their specific cart numbers for day of the week, etc.

I hear ya on the double audio thing. I wish there were a way to detect it, but it's usually a listener email after the fact. A good failsafe is to put a "SOURCE OFF" command into the macro for each and every input not being used at that time. That eliminates two network sources at the same time.

im building an entirely new system so i had to code/write/work on the initial clocks. there was lots of copying, but it was still tedious.

We're working on a silent sense that when the wheatnet/zetta detects no audio it moves to the next thing in the playlist.

 

[wadio]

One common glitch I've noticed is when a streaming spot is the same as the OTA spot but the streaming spot ends a second sooner. My favorite example is, "Call now ... Ow!" Is there any way automation systems could fix that?

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

One common glitch I've noticed is when a streaming spot is the same as the OTA spot but the streaming spot ends a second sooner. My favorite example is, "Call now ... Ow!" Is there any way automation systems could fix that?

It requires absolute perfect timing on both ends .... some systems can stretch and squeeze to fit a pre determined time length of breaks.. but that doesnt always end up sounding good if its too over stuffed but in alot of cases, streaming that runs seperate breaks are triggered by a cue from the automation and are playing off the streaming server

could it be done? i think so..... but how much effort is it worth?

 

[NJnerd19]

It requires absolute perfect timing on both ends .... some systems can stretch and squeeze to fit a pre determined time length of breaks.. but that doesnt always end up sounding good if its too over stuffed but in alot of cases, streaming that runs seperate breaks are triggered by a cue from the automation and are playing off the streaming server

could it be done? i think so..... but how much effort is it worth?

Stretch/Squeeze works great if the :30 and :60 second spots you run aren't :33 and 1:02. I had to ask the production department to re-cut them occasionally. They understood after explaining what this does when you run network programming. You get two minutes for a local break and then :10 to identify the station or run a quick WX report. The network doesn't wait for us.

Imagine two long spots in a 2 minute break, followed by a :10 station ID. You step on the network. That's the one thing that made my blood boil because it sounds like crap and is completely avoidable. This really only applied to local spots.

 

[NJnerd19]

im building an entirely new system so i had to code/write/work on the initial clocks. there was lots of copying, but it was still tedious.

We're working on a silent sense that when the wheatnet/zetta detects no audio it moves to the next thing in the playlist.

That makes sense.

It's nice that you have control over that. I had a system that called my phone when dead air was on one of the stations. After about :60 a secondary system would trigger an alert to an ops center where they had some shmuck reading a magazine all night. If I didn't wake up quick enough and log in there would be someone who knows nothing about the station logging in and putting something (anything) on.

I like the idea of playing the next event as long as you have resyncs in place to keep the station on time. Having it fire a cart number with fill music or something would be great too until your hard-timed events got you back on track.

 

[vw86]

I hear the stream from music stations step on the rejoin all the time that aren't even on any kind of network feed. It's easily the most frustrating part of streaming, especially if you're listening to a syndicated show like AT40 and it steps on the opening of the segment.

 

[NJnerd19]

I hear the stream from music stations step on the rejoin all the time that aren't even on any kind of network feed. It's easily the most frustrating part of streaming, especially if you're listening to a syndicated show like AT40 and it steps on the opening of the segment.

Sounds like break times aren't being matched on primary and stream channels, or one is stretching while the other is squeezing. I'm sure i'm missing a condition or too as well. I used to keep tons of fill material :03, :05, :10, :15, :20 available for the streams to pick from so that it can match it as closely as possible.

These are the finite details that are part of being a PD. Sadly, nobody's at the helm sometimes.

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

Stretch/Squeeze works great if the :30 and :60 second spots you run aren't :33 and 1:02. I had to ask the production department to re-cut them occasionally. They understood after explaining what this does when you run network programming. You get two minutes for a local break and then :10 to identify the station or run a quick WX report. The network doesn't wait for us.

Imagine two long spots in a 2 minute break, followed by a :10 station ID. You step on the network. That's the one thing that made my blood boil because it sounds like crap and is completely avoidable. This really only applied to local spots.

That makes sense.

It's nice that you have control over that. I had a system that called my phone when dead air was on one of the stations. After about :60 a secondary system would trigger an alert to an ops center where they had some shmuck reading a magazine all night. If I didn't wake up quick enough and log in there would be someone who knows nothing about the station logging in and putting something (anything) on.

I like the idea of playing the next event as long as you have resyncs in place to keep the station on time. Having it fire a cart number with fill music or something would be great too until your hard-timed events got you back on track.

We dont stretch and squeeze particular spots.... just the entire hour, but ONLY within a preset limit.. X percent or when i know its needed.

We have one show, native american calling that with the show and any local content, falls about 40 seconds short of the hour on its own. were stretching and squeezing the entire hour to fill that 40 seconds.

But liek Rick Steves show.... were filling with 2-3X because we have that much time left over and will stretch and squeeze there because the time left over is the same each week.. and were using short fill songs.

To keep it simple, were simply having it fire the next event..... keeping something on the air even if were 30 or 60 minutes behind wont fuq us up too bad and keeps something on the air.... and i can easily correct it when i get in about 615am if were that far off.

Trying to keep the rate of failure wether human or computer down and keep it simple on me since im the only staffer. modulating the finals at 330am is more important than what is playing in case of a failure

 

[KUYI Hopi Radio]

This is great info as i attempt to sit alongside a wonderful Wide Orbit engineer as we attempt to input 70+ Content Depot/PRSS content.
When we get a little deeper i may start my own thread w/ more clear questions, other than, why in the world is there no solution other than hand-crafting clocks out of daily cut-IDs for mutli-day shows, let alone one off weekend shows (like the cited above Rick Steves) and why in the world did Wide Orbit limit their asset to four characters (attempting to populate from Content Depot cut IDs runs into duplicate file names). Whoops. Already started...

 

[Radio Bob]

Gotta love computers. A couple of my relatives are in the radio business and more then once they cussed at the computer. One almost threw the thing out the window.

Before computers we had to worry about the overnight jock falling asleep. Actually seen/heard that happen when one station I listened to on the 3rd shift of a job I had get dead air. I called the station and after 12 rings the jock answered half asleep and told him of the dead air. After a few curse words to himself, he said thanks for waking him up!

Fell asleep one early morning after a long night. I was the engineer on the board. The jock came in and kicked the chair out from under me.

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

Gotta love computers. A couple of my relatives are in the radio business and more then once they cussed at the computer. One almost threw the thing out the window.

Before computers we had to worry about the overnight jock falling asleep. Actually seen/heard that happen when one station I listened to on the 3rd shift of a job I had get dead air. I called the station and after 12 rings the jock answered half asleep and told him of the dead air. After a few curse words to himself, he said thanks for waking him up!

I ran the board at WGGH 1150 Marion, IL 6 to 12noon weekdays back 2009-2011. Owner couldve automated it but liekd having a human there, especially since I could do local cut ins during Rick And Bubba along with Dennis Miller's show. I did short form 3 to 5 minute interviews , local community calendar styuff and weather.

I was NOT a morning person at all back then, but a jobs a job... and i hate coffee.. so I drank soda.

One day i crashed ah... .. leaning on the l shaped counter next to the console arm up, head in hand.. owners wife came and shook me awake and said "paul youve got dead air" i missed the break. she never told him because she knew id beat myself up enough over it.

I still talk to the owner, I've known him since 2004... a big VO guy and among things hes done, he voice in the GTA Video game for one of their radio stations

 

[secondchoice]

As my Dad said: "to error is human, it requires a computer to really foul things up". Kinda makes you wonder what really happens when no one is in the station.
.

 

[RadioFan2J3]

As my Dad said: "to error is human, it requires a computer to really foul things up". Kinda makes you wonder what really happens when no one is in the station.
.

The difference between human errors and computer errors is that human errors tend to be random. Computer errors, particularly in regards to automation systems is that the error is repeated over and over at the same time in the process until the error is detected and corrected.

 

[wadio]

The difference between human errors and computer errors is that human errors tend to be random. Computer errors, particularly in regards to automation systems is that the error is repeated over and over at the same time in the process until the error is detected and corrected.

Excellent point! Until detected and corrected by a HUMAN. That assumes that a human cares enough to listen.