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94.7 The Block

101tm said:
Shouldn’t the bigger concern over what’s on 94.7 be how terrible Audacy’s automation software is as a company?

Songs straight in to commercials, liners crashing in to vocals, 3 liners playing in a row, RDS doesn’t work half of the time, dead air, etc.

I’m not sure if this is happening in market #1, but it’s happening in Greenville-Spartanburg, Winston-Salem, and Norfolk. I’ve heard glitches on some other random stations as well. The Greenville-Spartanburg stations literally play commercials on top of each other at times. What the heck are they using? Almost every other company’s software sounds a million times better, of course iHeart is the gold standard and sounds great across the board, but Audacy sounds sloppy in too many markets, enough for it to look like a trend.
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I've listened to Audacy stations in NYC, Philly, Buffalo, Rochester, and have never heard a single issue that you're describing. Audacy also doesn't make their own automation system.

Conversely, I've heard a non-zero number of iHeart stations with exactly what you described: overlapping songs, voice tracks cueing early, etc.

If you're hearing issues at the station, it's more likely not a corporate issue, but a local engineering issue instead.
 
They use WideOrbit which is commonplace. In Chicago and probably New York, they have board ops on a lot of them. WBMX has (or had) live board ops pressing buttons even when nobody was on the air. This is more of a major market thing.

These technical problems are likely related to the smaller markets running remotely (DJs working remotely) and engineering shortages. RDS had been a mess in Milwaukee over the last year or so until recently. It would often get screwed up between shifts (Work fine one shift, screw up the next) They eventually got it fixed. Now that is as clean as it gets. Perfect Artist - Title.

Lot of flaws in these new setups, since remote work in a lot of these places (Aside from studio to studio voice tracking) was not really a widespread thing until 2020. There is a lot of tech stuff to solve with this stuff and not enough engineers in a lot of places. Milwaukee (As I mentioned) doesn’t have it’s own engineer. They’ve been looking for one for awhile. In situations like this, they’ll have to get to things like the RDS when they can. Usually that involves bringing someone from another market for a few days or hiring a contract engineer.
 
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Doesn't RDS vary place by place? Sometimes they may advertise a company, and sometimes they may only give the station name. Also, many iHeartMedia stations have no RDS, mostly in small markets.
 
Nick Cannon is doing middays....Who will do mornings?? Any predictions???

https://menu.****************/content/frontpage

Thanks to Radio Online for the scoop. This may be old news....So I brought it up for commentary.
 
TheBigA said:
To clarify, the station is adding Cannon's daily syndicated show.

radioink.com

Cannon Joins The Block NYC - Radio Ink

Nick Cannon Radio will be heard on 94.7 The Block (WXBK-FM) New York City. The show debuts February 21 on the Audacy station. Cannon is syndicated by Skyview Networks.
radioink.com radioink.com

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Yes Cannon is best known for his LA Show on KPWR Los Angeles but the LA show is produced by Meruelo. But his national radio show is produced by Skyview Networks.
 
From what content I've heard of his, it's not particularly good. He's a guy who's on the radio because he's a celebrity, not because he is a good broadcaster.
 
Cannon was the morning personality 10 years ago on the CHR, 92.3 Now, for around 2 years. But that station also had poor ratings. So probably relatively few people recall that show.
 
MarkW said:
From what content I've heard of his, it's not particularly good. He's a guy who's on the radio because he's a celebrity, not because he is a good broadcaster.
Click to expand...

He's not a broadcaster, he's an entertainer. People say they want to be entertained on the radio, and he knows how to entertain. He's been hosting TV & radio shows for 15 years, so he seems to know what he's doing. He has street cred with the audience and connections with a lot of stars that traditional broadcasters don't have.
 
An article about the Z100 documentary contrasts Z100's first few months with those of 94.7 The Block. When it started, Z100 already had a program director and on-air personalities. On the other hand, 94.7 The Block didn't have a program director until seven weeks after the launch and would remain without an on-air personality for several more weeks.

The article says,

It’s not an apples-to-apples comparison. Unlike Z100, 94.7 has yet to find a way to move its transmitter from New Jersey to Manhattan leaving it with multipath and a lesser signal in parts of the region. But after the same amount of time on the air in an era where it should be so much easier to build word of mouth through social media, there is little engagement about the new brand in the city that invented Hip Hop.
Click to expand...

In short, hardly anyone (outside of this forum) is talking about 94.7 The Block.
 
Marcos_C said:
An article about the Z100 documentary contrasts Z100's first few months with those of 94.7 The Block.
Click to expand...

Keep in mind that Z100 started in 1983. That was almost 40 years ago. How much of what happened 40 years ago has relevance now?

How many people (outside of this board) talk about OTHER radio stations today? Even the ones that have personalities?

People aren't talking about The Block because in point of fact, there's really nothing to talk about.
 
Marcos_C said:
Well, we didn't have the Internet or social media in 1983.
Click to expand...

I will say this: There is a difference in strategy between Z100 and The Block. The article is right that there is no word of mouth about The Block. They think the format itself will create the word of mouth. That's not how it works in 2022. Someone has to generate that word of mouth, and no one is.

Audacy is throwing these radio stations on the air like throwing spaghetti at the wall, seeing if it sticks. You can't do that and expect it to work. They blew up the Alt station in San Francisco and replaced it with an Adult Hits station, and it's doing about as well as The Block.

They have no plan, no strategy, no marketing, and as a result, no ratings. Compare and contrast that to Scott Shannon in 1983.

I keep reading people say they should put this format on a better signal, as though that's the only problem. It's not. It would be a bigger failure if it was on 92.3. Meanwhile, what are they doing at Alt? Firing staff one by one, and not replacing them with anyone. How is that supposed to work?
 
So The Block is bringing in a syndicated show, apparently from the West Coast. I realize that for many formats, that's quite OK.
But when I sampled the station, the liners were emphasizing New York. There seems to be a disconnect here.
 
Barry said:
So The Block is bringing in a syndicated show, apparently from the West Coast. I realize that for many formats, that's quite OK.
But when I sampled the station, the liners were emphasizing New York. There seems to be a disconnect here.
Click to expand...

So if he did the syndicated show in NY, that would make it OK for you?
 
JeremyAndrews said:
They use WideOrbit which is commonplace. In Chicago and probably New York, they have board ops on a lot of them. WBMX has (or had) live board ops pressing buttons even when nobody was on the air. This is more of a major market thing.

These technical problems are likely related to the smaller markets running remotely (DJs working remotely) and engineering shortages. RDS had been a mess in Milwaukee over the last year or so until recently. It would often get screwed up between shifts (Work fine one shift, screw up the next) They eventually got it fixed. Now that is as clean as it gets. Perfect Artist - Title.

Lot of flaws in these new setups, since remote work in a lot of these places (Aside from studio to studio voice tracking) was not really a widespread thing until 2020. There is a lot of tech stuff to solve with this stuff and not enough engineers in a lot of places. Milwaukee (As I mentioned) doesn’t have it’s own engineer. They’ve been looking for one for awhile. In situations like this, they’ll have to get to things like the RDS when they can. Usually that involves bringing someone from another market for a few days or hiring a contract engineer.
Click to expand...
Just thought on the topic of RDS I would throw in a couple of examples of what I was referring to. These issues have gone on for 10+ years and have never been fixed on both analog and HD radio. Either the song and title shows correctly, or more commonly NOTHING shows, it gets stuck on what’s supposed to show when a song isn’t playing or it’s a garbled mess like you see in the first attached photo.

These are both stations owned by Audacy, and all 5 music stations in the cluster have this issue. Unfortunately I can’t find how to rotate photos on this site and not sure why they got this way.
 

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