Even that doesn’t stop the errors. I have a friend who owns stations who does exactly what you’re suggesting. For some reason out dated forecasts still run. Or even wrong ones (not his market). He aired a red tide warning forecast not long ago. He’s nowhere near such a body of water
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Wrong time.
- Thread starter johnbasalla
- Start date
The wrong forecasts could be stopped easily if someone took the time to listen to them and make sure they were right before scheduling them.
With local radio staffs cut to the bone these days, it is no wonder that all kinds of stuff falls through the cracks.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
As was mentioned previously, there are companies (we use NowCast in ABQ) which provide updated forecasts throughout the day, voiced and loaded onto their server so the automation can FTP them and then play them back as scheduled. The morning forecast is available starting at 5:30am, the afternoon one at 11:30am, and the evening one at 5:30pm. We have the FTP program check every hour at :45 for an updated forecast and we air the weather at the end of the :50 stopset ... seems to work without hiccups.
99% likely a stale file in automation and whomever is in charge (probably a part-timer in another larger market) missed uploading a more recent file to the automation! Generally on the weekends MOST iHeart small market clusters are unmanned and if they are relying remote talent to update content things like this can easily happen.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Boy, does that bring home the point I was making about automatic FTP of such content.
At the collegiate station I am involved with, all of the Sunday morning programs were thought to be uploaded to our Wide Orbit (W.O.) system. Two of the programs made it to the server, but not to the main W.O. computer in the air studio. Instead, the system grabbed two later things to be aired, (a legal ID and the opening theme music for a live specialty show to be aired many hours later).
This seems to have occurred when uploading the programming while W.O. was turned off (Exit Application mode), as our back-up computer is, occasionally, used for over the air purposes.
This seems to have occurred when uploading the programming while W.O. was turned off (Exit Application mode), as our back-up computer is, occasionally, used for over the air purposes.
Something similar happened to us once on a now-gone statuon. Many moons ago when we switched from airing Casey Kasem on CD to receiving it via FTP download the download didn't render. However, since the process had started it had overwritten the show from the previous week so all of the files were empty.
At 8am the Casey legal ID fired off, followed by all of the spots and Casey rejoin liners that were scheduled around the show segments as each show segment file was there, but an empty file that was skipped over. Then around 8:30ish our automation (Maestro) was already playing out the 12pm hour of programming.
Fortunately I was 1) up to listen to Casey and 2) the live jock for the 12p-6p shift. I realized what was happening and showered and got to the station as quickly as I could and played the FTP files over the air in real time for the first 2 or 3 segments while I got the rest of the show loaded into the system, cleared out a few spots that I could move and got the show finished by about 12:20 without skipping over any segments
At 8am the Casey legal ID fired off, followed by all of the spots and Casey rejoin liners that were scheduled around the show segments as each show segment file was there, but an empty file that was skipped over. Then around 8:30ish our automation (Maestro) was already playing out the 12pm hour of programming.
Fortunately I was 1) up to listen to Casey and 2) the live jock for the 12p-6p shift. I realized what was happening and showered and got to the station as quickly as I could and played the FTP files over the air in real time for the first 2 or 3 segments while I got the rest of the show loaded into the system, cleared out a few spots that I could move and got the show finished by about 12:20 without skipping over any segments
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
I think your management failed to understand that Murphy's Law always applies to radio the first time we do anything different. It can be (as you vividly describe) switching from CD to FTP for a show. Or running a show for the first time. Or even changing the hot clocks.
I remember the first weekend we ran American Top 40: The 80s on KRKE. Our production director manually FTP'd everything and then dropped the "-001" extension from the filenames as he loaded each segment into the automation computer. That proved to be such a good "double check" in the process that we still do it that way, a year and a half later. (It also prevents the "A" show from running any week I opt to run the "B".)
As a backup to the process, I have access to Premiere's server myself and also access to the automation in Albuquerque to upload/overwrite any remnants of previous shows that somehow survived the usual process.
Technically, they weren't wrong because it was 11:30 somewhere.......
Likely a slip of the tongue. iHeart used to have long numbers for their recordings and pretty much infinite recording space, so their people could record as much as they needed and never run out of numbers or space. After multiple rounds of layoffs, their people are overworked and underpaid, and many are staffing multiple markets from one shop, often each sitting in a booth for hours on end, writing and recording news for stations from the time they arrive to the time they leave. Mistakes are going to happen on the air when the suits are leaving so few front-line people to do so much work. iHeart cares much more about growing their app, embracing AI and wearables, and hosting the next live Hollywood or Nashville awards show than putting any quality controls at all on their news/talk stations. Those will make them money whether they mess things up or not.
I blame Carmen Angelo. IYKYK 😄