No, we truly don’t.
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Accuweather back on KYW Newsradio
- Thread starter Larry
- Start date
Both KYW and WINS had the teletype machine leading into the pandemic, the last of the all-news stations to keep it. Then when folks were anchoring from home, they turned off the machine SFX.
Most radio listeners may not remember that WCBS, WTOP, KFWB and other all-news stations had it if you go back to the early days.
I think WINS briefly brought it back as folks returned to the studio but then they cancelled it. And KYW had a new young news director who decided not to bring it back. I always thought it made the station subtly say "we're the all-news station" even if it was very quiet toward the end. The AM dial is now almost fully spoken-word so I think the teletype helps identify it.
But I recognize that maybe younger listeners don't understand it. After all, newsrooms no longer have large machines typing out news stories on rolls of paper. Maybe American all-news stations should do what Radio Reloj does in Cuba. Have a blip every second as the newscasters read their stories!
Most radio listeners may not remember that WCBS, WTOP, KFWB and other all-news stations had it if you go back to the early days.
I think WINS briefly brought it back as folks returned to the studio but then they cancelled it. And KYW had a new young news director who decided not to bring it back. I always thought it made the station subtly say "we're the all-news station" even if it was very quiet toward the end. The AM dial is now almost fully spoken-word so I think the teletype helps identify it.
But I recognize that maybe younger listeners don't understand it. After all, newsrooms no longer have large machines typing out news stories on rolls of paper. Maybe American all-news stations should do what Radio Reloj does in Cuba. Have a blip every second as the newscasters read their stories!
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Well, like I said, it was part of the brand. And folks who don't know what it was supposed to evoke knew they were listening to the station they intended to "tune in" when they heard the unobtrusive little background effect. When I was younger, even I didn't know what the sound was supposed to represent, but when I heard it, I knew I was listening to KYW. (And as a kid, when I heard it, I knew I was about to wait 10 minutes to hear them not call my school closing number!) It may have been a tiny purpose, but it did serve some purpose and, since it wasn't really problematic in any way, I still wonder why anyone thought to get rid of it. I suppose some brilliant young genius might have thought "It's an old sound and we want the station to sound younger." Without the ticker, does the station sound younger? Or does it just pretty much sound like any other station? That's really all I'm saying: It wasn't a problem and it was a (subliminally) well-known part of the station's identity.
That's pretty much what I was trying to say in a nutshell. I am very wordy and bad at putting anything in a nutshell!
I kind of thought the fact that they were reporting news and repeatedly said the station name kind of clued people in. That and maybe pushing the button they had set for it, on such radios. Or if they asked Alexa to play KYW, etc.
But brand elements also aren’t sacrosanct. Sometimes they can use some spiffing up and irrelevant pieces can be discarded. They kept the main brand, the melody of the jingles, traffic on the 2s et al.
But brand elements also aren’t sacrosanct. Sometimes they can use some spiffing up and irrelevant pieces can be discarded. They kept the main brand, the melody of the jingles, traffic on the 2s et al.
Only if the "noise" contains any of the multiple frequencies PPM looks for to place its data.
Why would any news station use the sound of a technology that went out the window in the 1980s? Might as well use Morse Code. And in the final years of “wire printers” it was likely a dot matrix machine was being used, with a very different sound.
Teletype sounds are meaningless and an annoyance to anyone within radio’s current target demos.
If someone handed me the reins of an all-news radio station in 2023 and the imaging budget to do it, I would reach out to one of today's electronic music producers and see what they could come up with for a background music sound that was more current than the teletype (and ideally with the right frequencies to mask PPM encoding, too.)
Alas, I don't think Audacy or Hubbard have that kind of imaging budget these days.
Alas, I don't think Audacy or Hubbard have that kind of imaging budget these days.
No.
That said, I probably wouldn't notice it if it were phased out, just as i didn't notice the disappearance of the teletype sound.
Not quite but I do wish they had found a different way to update the jingle instead of having a voice say “103.9” where the jingle singers sang “1060”
New Jersey 101.5 plays a recording of clacking keyboards and ringing phones during their news reports, to make it sound like it's coming from a bustling newsroom, instead of just one guy alone in the studio.
That would drive me insane as a listener
A likewise outdated bit of silliness. If they want to keep that mirage up, great. If they decide someday that they don’t, great.
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