590-KLBJ endless spots running now

[Dondd]

Tuned into the hard-right conservative radio station this a.m. All it's running at 8:48 a.m. CT is commercials and promos.
No content whatsoever.
All commercials.
Has been running since 8:30 a.m.

 

[radiofan2023]

Tuned into the hard-right conservative radio station this a.m. All it's running at 8:48 a.m. CT is commercials and promos.
No content whatsoever.
All commercials.
Has been running since 8:30 a.m.

It's a Memorial Day Nonstop Commercials Marathon... 😄

 

[Ryan Williams]

Tuned into the hard-right conservative radio station this a.m. All it's running at 8:48 a.m. CT is commercials and promos.
No content whatsoever.
All commercials.
Has been running since 8:30 a.m.

I would not generally describe KLBJ as "hard-right", but it's fair to describe it as right-of-center as a whole.

 

[bigdonho]

Station is probably automated and sometimes they just go FUBAR. I remember years ago a station that just ran liner carts for hours.

 

[frankberry]

You would think that someone on the staff listens to the station occasionally.
How about a system that calls the GM or someone else when the automation malfunctions?

 

[bigdonho]

You would think that someone on the staff listens to the station occasionally.
How about a system that calls the GM or someone else when the automation malfunctions?

The automation was perfectly happy, it had audio and a source was on the air. It just wasn't detecting the secondary cue or the stop cue.

The FM was easy listening, so the rock jocks who worked on the AM probably didn't want to bother with the FM as they were too busy being a star in their own minds and tolling for chicks.

 

[frankberry]

You would think that someone on the staff listens to the station occasionally.
How about a system that calls the GM or someone else when the automation malfunctions?

The automation was perfectly happy, it had audio and a source was on the air. It just wasn't detecting the secondary cue or the stop cue.

The FM was easy listening, so the rock jocks who worked on the AM probably didn't want to bother with the FM as they were too busy being a star in their own minds and tolling for chicks.

The automation was not happy. It was skipping events.

 

[Nearby]

Could be content that should have been running - maybe an info-merical, maybe a recorded show - hadn't been inserted into the automation, which will then grab whatever it can to fill. Probably / hopefully everything righted itself at the top of the hour. I'm very surprised that KLBJ - does not have a board op present, preferably all hours but at least by 8am!

 

[Dondd]

Was planning to listen only for a little while, expecting the station's hosts to continue defending the impeached Texas AG ("He should have his day in court," but always automatically condemning any of their opponents, those that don't share their narrow world view).

Expected the commercials to end at some point, but the spots and promos never stopped.

Another reason why I almost never listen to commercial AM or FM radio.
When my Grundig Yacht Boy radio goes out (it sounds like it's on its last leg), am not planning to replace it.

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

That automation wasnt grabbing things at random to fill space, it just kept going down the playlist. So what you heard was commercials and promos for the hours ahead.

I've worked with automation for 20 years and if a recorded best of or satellite feed cue is missing, it'll keep on chugging down the playlist.

And assuming everything is going to be ok, no ones listening right now/.

To be fair, i dont know anyone who listeners to their station 24/7, so this is kinda sorta understandable, if nto a bit sloppy. I dont listen to my station 24/7 and mistakes happen

and with audio present, theres no silent or trouble alarm to trip and alert the CE or GM.

Sounds like many here, with an exception or two are perfect themselves, never make mistakes, dont understand how things work and have no grace for others.

I aint perfect, and i get sloppy sometimes too. I know no one at KLBJ and have no dog in this fight.. but crap happens sometimes.

 

[Dondd]

Sounds like many here, with an exception or two are perfect themselves, never make mistakes, dont understand how things work and have no grace for others.

I aint perfect, and i get sloppy sometimes too. I know no one at KLBJ and have no dog in this fight.. but crap happens sometimes.

Except... this wasn't at a small town or an inconsequential radio station.
This was the large metro area's major (and almost only) talk radio station in one of the Top 10 fastest-growing U.S. cities.

Sounds like someone should lose their job, or receive a stern reprimand, allowing a station to go on "autopilot" repeating commercial after commercial ad nauseum during MORNING DRIVE.

When I was in radio, someone would've been dismissed over this.

Of course, it was a holiday, but still... no one's minding the store?

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

Except... this wasn't at a small town or an inconsequential radio station.
This was the large metro area's major (and almost only) talk radio station in one of the Top 10 fastest-growing U.S. cities.

Sounds like someone should lose their job, or receive a stern reprimand, allowing a station to go on "autopilot" repeating commercial after commercial ad nauseum during MORNING DRIVE.

When I was in radio, someone would've been dismissed over this.

Of course, it was a holiday, but still... no one's minding the store?

this is hardly a lose your job situation, i dont care that its austin.....this is an unfortunately ... easy mistake to make. someone needs a talking to, but id barely call it a reprimand.

 

[davideduardo]

Sounds like someone should lose their job, or receive a stern reprimand, allowing a station to go on "autopilot" repeating commercial after commercial ad nauseum during MORNING DRIVE.

With the radio industry's revenue at about one-third of that of 20 years ago, stations don't have "live staff" all the time. And stations on "auto pilot" can have things happen that are not predictable and are not the fault of a particular person.

I can remember, as an example, a case where a power outage occurred and in the brief time it took the generator to start, the automation missed a critical event and fill music played for quite a while. Since fill is the lowest scoring of songs that passed a music test, that meant "none of the good stuff" played until someone got the system back on track.

This is not necessarily a human's fault and will likely result in some internal chats about how to prevent it in the future.

When I was in radio, someone would've been dismissed over this.

Chances are that this was a malfunction, not human error.

 

[TheBigA]

Of course, it was a holiday, but still... no one's minding the store?

Yes it was a holiday. People get the day off on holidays. BTW people have today off at Sirius too.

How long did it last? You haven't said. I tuned in around 11AM and heard Best of Clay & Buck as scheduled.

I imagine Kilmeade aired as scheduled at 10, although it was probably a repeat.

Normally they're live & local in mornings, and everyone got the day off. Website & socials aren't updated either.

 

[Dondd]

The snafu ran a good 30 minutes. I tuned in at 8:30 (one of the rare times I listen to the one-sided station) and kept waiting for the programming to commence. I turned on the TV and had it in the background before turning the radio off at 9:00, when it was still running the spots one after another.

 

[Mark Roberts]

this is hardly a lose your job situation, i dont care that its austin.....this is an unfortunately ... easy mistake to make. someone needs a talking to, but id barely call it a reprimand.

A story from my past at KTRH in Houston, in its all-news incarnation.

In the summer of 1985, KTRH obtained permission for remote control of its transmitter site at Dayton from the studios at 510 Lovett Blvd. in Houston. Previously, operators with first-class tickets pulled 12-hour shifts at Dayton to monitor the station. They kept their jobs; they were just moved to 510 for board-operator and production work. The engineering staff rigged up a fail-safe at Dayton: two reels of public-domain beautiful-music tapes. They thought it would never be needed.

One morning, a 69-cent Sprague "Atom" capacitor blew in one of the audio processors (either Optimod or Dorrough, I forget which). No audio came through. The tapes were triggered. In morning drive.

There was an editor and news assistants and two anchors on duty. The editor had de facto management responsibility until the managing editor came in. Aforesaid managing editor's clock radio turned on at 6 o'clock. Instead of the hourly CBS newscast, there was music. Managing editor calls the newsroom. Managing editor talks to the morning editor. Managing editor asks the morning editor if they have called the engineer on duty. The answer was "no". Managing editor tells morning editor to do that. Then the managing editor gets dressed as fast as possible and rushes to 510.

Managing editor sees morning editor, news assistants, and anchors sitting, not doing anything. Managing editor makes some more calls, gets an engineer in, and the station finally gets back to normal programming about 7:30.

The news assistants didn't lose their jobs. Nor did the anchors. The engineers who came up with the fail-safe system weren't fired. (They were told to come up with another system!) The morning editor was fired, because they had the responsibility delegated to them to ensure that the news wheel was being aired but, instead, seemed not to know what to do.

(Your smart-aleck correspondent asked at the time why there wasn't a phone line to the Dayton site that we could dial up and feed audio to; anticipating dial-up modem technology, I guess. But such a thing wasn't in place, though I believe it would have been possible.)

So, yes, people can lose their jobs over technical faults - not because of the faults, but because they failed to take action to react to them.

Note that I wrote this in a slightly strange way, because all the people involved are, to the best of my knowledge, still around and might run across this at some point.

 

[TheBigA]

So, yes, people can lose their jobs over technical faults - not because of the faults, but because they failed to take action to react to them.

But typically the first question asked during the senior staff discrepancy meeting will be: How much money was lost? Do we have to make good any spots? In this case, the only thing that aired were spots. The automation may have gone through the entire invetory, or it may have repeated spots over, but the spots ran, and in fact the clients likely received bonus airtime.

 

[SomeRadioGuy]

A story from my past at KTRH in Houston, in its all-news incarnation.

In the summer of 1985, KTRH obtained permission for remote control of its transmitter site at Dayton from the studios at 510 Lovett Blvd. in Houston. Previously, operators with first-class tickets pulled 12-hour shifts at Dayton to monitor the station. They kept their jobs; they were just moved to 510 for board-operator and production work. The engineering staff rigged up a fail-safe at Dayton: two reels of public-domain beautiful-music tapes. They thought it would never be needed.

One morning, a 69-cent Sprague "Atom" capacitor blew in one of the audio processors (either Optimod or Dorrough, I forget which). No audio came through. The tapes were triggered. In morning drive.

There was an editor and news assistants and two anchors on duty. The editor had de facto management responsibility until the managing editor came in. Aforesaid managing editor's clock radio turned on at 6 o'clock. Instead of the hourly CBS newscast, there was music. Managing editor calls the newsroom. Managing editor talks to the morning editor. Managing editor asks the morning editor if they have called the engineer on duty. The answer was "no". Managing editor tells morning editor to do that. Then the managing editor gets dressed as fast as possible and rushes to 510.

Managing editor sees morning editor, news assistants, and anchors sitting, not doing anything. Managing editor makes some more calls, gets an engineer in, and the station finally gets back to normal programming about 7:30.

The news assistants didn't lose their jobs. Nor did the anchors. The engineers who came up with the fail-safe system weren't fired. (They were told to come up with another system!) The morning editor was fired, because they had the responsibility delegated to them to ensure that the news wheel was being aired but, instead, seemed not to know what to do.

(Your smart-aleck correspondent asked at the time why there wasn't a phone line to the Dayton site that we could dial up and feed audio to; anticipating dial-up modem technology, I guess. But such a thing wasn't in place, though I believe it would have been possible.)

So, yes, people can lose their jobs over technical faults - not because of the faults, but because they failed to take action to react to them.

Note that I wrote this in a slightly strange way, because all the people involved are, to the best of my knowledge, still around and might run across this at some point.

And those here most likely have no idea whats going on behind the scenes

I once had no audio from our statewide nightly 30 minute newscast.. i didnt think snow could obscure a satellite dish at the look angle weve got so i didnt look at that first.. i filled with about 10 mintues of oldies music as i ran through things in the studio, stepped outside, brushed out the dish then rebooted the reciever.

the scientific atlanta often needed a reboot after it lost lock

 

[Mark Roberts]

But typically the first question asked during the senior staff discrepancy meeting will be: How much money was lost? Do we have to make good any spots? In this case, the only thing that aired were spots. The automation may have gone through the entire invetory, or it may have repeated spots over, but the spots ran, and in fact the clients likely received bonus airtime.

Spots were not aired during the time that I described. Whatever happened on the commercial side for make-goods or whatever, I was not privy to, and I did not address that here because I try not to opine on things of which I have no knowledge.

 

[Delete My Account]

That entire cluster has seen quality decline since Sinclair took over.

They lost Dale Dudley from KLBJ, Deb, then Jason from 101X, Jeff Ward from KLBJ AM, and B-Doe from KLBJ FM and other stations/shows. Ward's back on 102.7 at least, but still.