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Above and Beyond the Call of Duty?

N

Nokmo True

Guest
With the holidays and vacation schedules and sick days and so forth this time of year, sometimes the staff is stretched a bit thin.

In your opinion, when there are no part-timers available and every other avenue for a fill-in, particularly for a scheduled vacation, has been exhausted, is it the responsibility of the program director to fill-in? Jock, news, whatever? If it's a position that's important when a person is present and doing the job, is it no longer important if there is no one to sub on a sick day or a vacation day except the PD? The PD should or should not be expected to go above and beyond the call of duty in the interest of service and consistency?

Just wondering what folks think.
 
I never rose to PD, but was a News Director for seven years at a station with a large news staff. If someone couldn't show up for a shift and I coudn't find a replacement, I was on the hook. That meant gretting calls at 3 am and dragging my butt out of bed to anchor at 5:30 am if need be, when my usual office hours started at 8:30.

On the other hand, at a small AM station where I worked in the late 80s, we had no automation equipment and it was a 24/7 station - less than 500 watts directional after sunset, however.

One evening I was at the station after covering a night meeting, and the overnight jock called off sick. The evening jock's shift was 6 to midnight, and morning drive started at 6 am. The PD, who was at home and did 2-6 pm, said, "If you can't get so-and-so (part-timer) to come in, sign the station off at midnight." He didn't even consider for one second coming in to do midnight to 6 am. And this station had been a daytimer that had fought hard to get a nighttime signal, heavily promoted going "24 hours" including a full-page newspaper ad when it got the authorization. And the PD was willing to just say "sign it off."

Automation takes care of a large part of this these days. Five stations in one building? There's probably only one live body overnights anyway - if that.

I don't miss the days of scheduling a 24/7 staff.
 
I never rose to PD, but was a News Director for seven years at a station with a large news staff. If someone couldn't show up for a shift and I coudn't find a replacement, I was on the hook. That meant gretting calls at 3 am and dragging my butt out of bed to anchor at 5:30 am if need be, when my usual office hours started at 8:30.
Click to expand...

And that, my good man, is why I never, ever, wanted to be PD/ND. Pretty nice having the title, of course. Lots of fun getting the call at 11:35 on a Saturday night, right? I was never much for that grin and bear it routine. Even as a "rank and file" employee of the broadcasting business, the call alone was the most compelling reason to have and maintain an answering machine, even back when they were more of a novelty than anything else - they saved my butt many times.
 
Two comments on this one:

-- When I was at Magic in 1992-1993, I was also running double duty as a fill-in producer on WARM for the talk shows. One week I was scheduled to work at WARM during the day when Magic said they needed me to do overnights (the regular overnight guy was doing middays and the PTer filling in got a case of strep throat). There was no way I could do both, and WARM was giving me more hours, so I said I couldn't do the overnight fill-in as well. The PD at the time (Mike Edwards) actually made the guy with strep throat go on the air because, as he so articulately put it, "I ain't f**king filling in doing f**king overnights. I'm the PD!"

-- When I was PD at 95.9 KXP in Bloomsburg from 1993-1997, I was blessed (and sometimes cursed) with the Arrakis automation system, so I never had to worry about anyone calling out. However, there were plenty of times that I had to go into the station and remove the manual stops when someone decided not to show up for a live shift. I remember working at least 60-70 hours a week back then, but I loved every minute of it (right up until two months before I left).

My own opinion is that the PD should fill in whenever needed, but with today's primma donnas in control (probably with "no OT" contracts), it ain't happening. Besides, most stations probably have the ability to automate at a moment's notice.
 
That is why some PDS have a APD to handle the part timers. The best thing for a PD and a APD to is hire about 10 part timers.
 
The Former Mac Austin said:
...Besides, most stations probably have the ability to automate at a moment's notice.
Click to expand...

Automation isn't the answer if the person who can't come in and who no one is available to fill in for is a newsperson.

Who should cover that shift? If there's absolutely no one, no part-timers, no one available. Does the PD cover that? The APD? Does no one cover it and despite daily, hourly news every other day of the year, you just don't do news that day?
 
Heh...it could happen. There are a couple of stations besides WILK that have news, at least drivetime. aren't there?
 
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