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97.1 repeats

firepoint525

firepoint525

Well, it has happened again, folks. Earlier this week (Monday afternoon around 2:00 p.m., to be exact), 97.1 let another song repeat. This time, it was "My Life" by Billy Joel. I heard it, then it faded down to nothing, then it started again after a few seconds of silence. (At least, when they do that, you can actually hear two songs in a row WITHOUT yet another reminder that you are listening to 97.1!) Previously, I heard two or three consecutive airings of "Piano Man" (they seem to like repeating Billy Joel, don't they?) and "In the Midnght Hour" by Wilson Pickett over 97.1. The "Piano Man" repeats were under previous announcer Lisa Lewis. "Midnight Hour" and "My Life" were repeated by Jay Patrick. All three occurred around 2:00 on a Monday afternoon. It's amusing to hear them come back on after the repeats, and act like nothing happened! :D So what else have we heard repeated over 97.1, and if you can remember, when did it happen?
 
Any LIVE jocks in the studio? ( I know funny right) if it happens around the same time going into the top of the hour most likely the hour was scheduled short and it's filling time to the top of the hour.
 
The thought occurred to me that there are probably precious few "bathroom songs" on their playlist anymore. "Life's Been Good," "Money for Nothing," and "Layla," but that is about it. Or maybe their djs need to avoid the Mexican restaurants during lunch hour on Mondays, and thus wouldn't need to make a "run for the border" right before 2:00 p.m.! :eek:
 
A little bit along the lines of Shadow's post... One instance of hearing the same song more than once within an hour or so (as opposed to five minutes on 97.1) could be during a shift change, i.e. the hour separating both spins separates a live jock and a VT'ed one.
 
DToTheJ said:
A little bit along the lines of Shadow's post... One instance of hearing the same song more than once within an hour or so (as opposed to five minutes on 97.1) could be during a shift change, i.e. the hour separating both spins separates a live jock and a VT'ed one.
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What I (and apparently others, too) have heard has been consecutive spins of the same song, within the same hour.

We had instances, back when I was in radio, when one dj would play a song, and then the next dj would play it again half an hour or so later, not aware that the previous dj had just played it. That happened quite a bit.
 
The thing I don't get is...how this is even possible. Even if they did have live jocks in the booth, all stations run automation, now it may be in the "Live-Assist" mode, where the jock is controlling things, but the computer still plays out a list of songs. Most automation systems have rules in them that do not allow the same song to be played twice within the same hour.. I suppose it could be something just not setup properly in the automation system so that rule may not be getting applied
 
Here’s my best guess for whatever its worth…

They use Scott studios at WRQQ. Scott uses a separate program called “Merge” to edit their logs. Any time you open and then close that days log, Merge re-exports the log. When the newly updated log arrives, (even if it hasn’t been updated) The Scott cues it to the next event in time based on the Scott’s system clock. This works great in theory, but in practice, if the previous hour(s) were under-filled by say 3 or 4 minutes, the log starts to get ahead, so while you may have scheduled “Still Rock and Roll” for 3:00, the computer was behind and ran out of stuff to play at 2:56, and it just kept playing right into the 3:00 hour, running still Rock and Roll. Then when the log is re-sent at 2:58, it will cue up Still Rock and Roll to play at 3, even though it just played at 2:56.

To my knowledge, there is no mechanism built into Scott to keep it from running the same song twice.

Your best bet is to wait until Scott has just started a new song, then send the log, and walk into the studio and do a “jump and recue”
 
techguy1975 said:
The thing I don't get is...how this is even possible. Even if they did have live jocks in the booth, all stations run automation, now it may be in the "Live-Assist" mode, where the jock is controlling things, but the computer still plays out a list of songs. Most automation systems have rules in them that do not allow the same song to be played twice within the same hour.. I suppose it could be something just not setup properly in the automation system so that rule may not be getting applied
Click to expand...

Music Schedulers typically have artist-sep rules .. However, the automation system will typically play whatever you throw at it.. If it's in the library so (in theory) a DJ could just load the same song into the log manually and let it play for hours.
 
BoyScout said:
Here’s my best guess for whatever its worth…

They use Scott studios at WRQQ. Scott uses a separate program called “Merge” to edit their logs. Any time you open and then close that days log, Merge re-exports the log. When the newly updated log arrives, (even if it hasn’t been updated) The Scott cues it to the next event in time based on the Scott’s system clock. This works great in theory, but in practice, if the previous hour(s) were under-filled by say 3 or 4 minutes, the log starts to get ahead, so while you may have scheduled “Still Rock and Roll” for 3:00, the computer was behind and ran out of stuff to play at 2:56, and it just kept playing right into the 3:00 hour, running still Rock and Roll. Then when the log is re-sent at 2:58, it will cue up Still Rock and Roll to play at 3, even though it just played at 2:56.

To my knowledge, there is no mechanism built into Scott to keep it from running the same song twice.

Your best bet is to wait until Scott has just started a new song, then send the log, and walk into the studio and do a “jump and recue”
Click to expand...

Even though we had Scott Studios/Merge when I was there, the same song played twice in a row gaffe NEVER happened at 88.5 WVCP...at least on my watch! I did early on in my college career play mostly "doubleshots" of artists (different songs, of course)

The only thing that comes close to what's happening at 97.1 would have be WVCP's 6 to 9 AM block, where the Scott Computer might have scheduled 2 or 3 different Beatles songs in an hour. That's because the traffic has 50s, 60s, & 70s songs prioritized between 6 AM & 9 AM, and of those 50s, 60s, & 70s songs, about 20% are Beatles songs.

The end result: About two or three times a week, barring requests, 2 or 3 Beatles songs can possibly be heard on my alma mater's station (88.5) in the 6AM, 7AM, or 8AM hour, but rarely back to back.
 
Okay, it's Monday afternoon. That can mean only two things! ;D
"Come Together" by the Beatles (X 2) at about 1:45 this afternoon, followed by a bonus double airing of "Don't Leave Me This Way" (X 2) by Thelma Houston! 8) Two sets of repeats! Twice as nice! 8)
 
Good grief. I listened to 97.1 for the first time in a few weeks today and the first song I heard "Lights go down in the city" went off....and then started over again! I was pulling for them in the ratings, but whatever crappy ratings received are well-deserved between the repeats and wimpy sounding sounds currently being mixed in.
 
I cannot believe what a joke this radio station has become. First, there's NO excuse for playing the same song three times in a row. What kind of idiots are running things over there? Never mind..a computer is doing it. But Jack FM has a computer running things and I've never heard them make even the slightest blunder for over six years. The liners on 'RQQ are about as bad as I've ever heard..."the last time you heard music this good you were at the drive-in in your El Camino" ... OK, whatever. But is that the extent of their creativity? I'm not saying I hate every song they play. They do play some good music and I don't mind hearing "Don't Leave Me This Way" followed by "Ticket to Ride". But FGS stop being so bland and boring. They're not even trying. And get rid of "classic rock nights"--(unless they were to change back to classic rock) and retire Bob and Tom already. Also the jingles are cheap and don't do a thing for them. Why don't they pattern themselves after K-Hits 104.3 in Chicago or at least EXPAND their playlist a little? Same old same old...will never be a top five (or top ten) station if they keep this up.
 
all extremely valid points...but only real radio people most likely notice all this..i wonder if the audience does..?? and if so..do they care ?? the total listening audience has been "dumbed down" for so long..I don't think they remember what great radio was..and most are too young to remember it anyway..that's my nickles worth..adjusted for inflation.. ::)
 
I am just glad to know they're still owned by Crumulus in their ID's. Sure, it's pretty much bland and boring. They haven't changed up the music in months, but it's still their best sounding locally produced station (that says it all...) Wait til they ruin KDF and what will they flip 104.5 to once football season is over and they have a 1.0 rating? I think unreal radiv people know radio is pathetic and are fully aware that it basically sucks.
 
roadrunner said:
I cannot believe what a joke this radio station has become. First, there's NO excuse for playing the same song three times in a row. What kind of idiots are running things over there? Never mind..a computer is doing it. But Jack FM has a computer running things and I've never heard them make even the slightest blunder for over six years. The liners on 'RQQ are about as bad as I've ever heard..."the last time you heard music this good you were at the drive-in in your El Camino" ... OK, whatever. But is that the extent of their creativity? I'm not saying I hate every song they play. They do play some good music and I don't mind hearing "Don't Leave Me This Way" followed by "Ticket to Ride". But FGS stop being so bland and boring. They're not even trying. And get rid of "classic rock nights"--(unless they were to change back to classic rock) and retire Bob and Tom already. Also the jingles are cheap and don't do a thing for them. Why don't they pattern themselves after K-Hits 104.3 in Chicago or at least EXPAND their playlist a little? Same old same old...will never be a top five (or top ten) station if they keep this up.
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Agreed about dropping Classic Rock Nights. (Anyone know why they moved the start time from 7:00 p.m. back to 9:00 p.m.?) Would much rather have Tom Kent back. And he fits the format. Also agree about Bob and Tom. But 92.9's jingles are worse. Also agree about the liners, but I would just simply prefer FEWER of them! Would it kill them to play two (different!) songs in a row, back-to-back, WITHOUT telling us who they are? Only time you ever hear two songs together back-to-back without a liner, jingle, or dj chatter between them is when they repeat something! Evidently they DON'T want you to know who they are when they repeat a song!
 
firepoint525 said:
...Only time you ever hear two songs together back-to-back without a liner, jingle, or dj chatter between them is when they repeat something...
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It could be worse - they could be repeating Bob & Tom at 9 AM! :D
 
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