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am1430...a news station?

I know some people at the station and have asked about the problems, here's what they tell me, in regards to the news replaying anyways.When they are automating there syndicated shows the news people have to record a newscast, and they usually do that between 5-10 minutes before it airs. Sometimes they have a server crash in the audiovault, and when that happens, the recorded newscast doesn't "make it" to the audiovault that's on the air, so it plays an older one. Seems like the problem is a shaky audiovault system, or just that they are automated. I can't fault the management of the station for being automated - thats just the reality of the radio biz these days and they probably have no choice in the matter. The owners should pony up the money to staff the station like it needs to be staffed, or at least make sure the audiovault is up to par if they don't want to do that.
 
The solution to their problem is to sell the station to someone who CARES.Either that or change to a format that automation works with. Obviously automatinga station that PRETENDS to be a News Station does not work. Personally, I like the idea of selling the station to someone who CARES. Did I mentionthat already?
 
Oh please. Do you really think the people that work there don't care? Do you really think that the fact that it's understaffed and the AudioVault sucks means that the people don't care? So some TECHNICAL mistakes got made, or the AudioVault crapped out the wrong newscast - the people there work really hard, and for all the kvetching you're doing about their news - if you paid attention, you'd notice that they are typically days ahead of the rest of the media in breaking stories - and that includes the 20-something staffed, lazy-ass WIBC. Abdul is the hardest working man in Indy media, and the ratings may suck, but I know for a fact that the rest of the media listens to his show religiously, as do all the influential politicians and policy-makers in town. There's some really good stuff happening on that show... it's a shame nobody pays attention or knows about it.WXNT is a helluva lot more entertaining than that drivel WIBC produces in AM and PM drive. Dave Wilson may be a really nice guy, but that is, without question, the worst "talk show" (and I'm being generous there) I've ever heard in my life. It's not the employees fault the AudioVault crashes all the time. Well, perhaps it's some employees fault - but not the airstaff.
 
Couple of thoughts:1. Why did Devon Scott decide to leave WXNT to become the 21st lazy ass in the WIBC newsroom?2. Audiovault is much more reliable if you are not using a Commodore 64 to run it.
 
spark gap said:
Couple of thoughts:1. Why did Devon Scott decide to leave WXNT to become the 21st lazy ass in the WIBC newsroom?2. Audiovault is much more reliable if you are not using a Commodore 64 to run it.
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She left? Congratulations to her on the new job!
 
In reply to the Bushwala reply to my message concerning who CARES about WXNT...I would ask Bushwala to reread my message. I did not indicate staff. I onlyindicated owners....big, big difference. I was referring to the ownership of thestation and whether they CARED if the weather report was a day or two old orthe newscast was from an earlier time. I do not know the staff at that stationand I do not in any way want to criticize them or their efforts. My main point, ifyou would read it without prejudice, was that an owner who lived and worked herein Indy would most likely not sit still for stale weather forecasts and the like.Thus, I was indicating that a sale of the station to someone local would most likelyresult in a much more professional and error-free broadcast facility and not simplyan investment tool necessarily.
 
CityRadio91.9 said:
In reply to the Bushwala reply to my message concerning who CARES about WXNT...I would ask Bushwala to reread my message. I did not indicate staff. I onlyindicated owners....big, big difference. I was referring to the ownership of thestation and whether they CARED if the weather report was a day or two old orthe newscast was from an earlier time. I do not know the staff at that stationand I do not in any way want to criticize them or their efforts. My main point, ifyou would read it without prejudice, was that an owner who lived and worked herein Indy would most likely not sit still for stale weather forecasts and the like.Thus, I was indicating that a sale of the station to someone local would most likelyresult in a much more professional and error-free broadcast facility and not simplyan investment tool necessarily.
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So what you are telling us is the owner doesn't care? How high are you? Of course the owner cares. If you didn't notice it is in the same cluster and shares offices with WZPL and the Track. You think they don't care? Please, get a reality check before you come out here and say the owners don't care. Unless you have some inside info you're trying to tell us.
 
I say they don't care much. I would venture to guess that right now 450pm on May 16th, you couldn't find more than one person inside the Waste Management Building in the 9200 block of North Meridian listening to 1430. The news person, who has a 50/50 chance that yesterday's newscast will air at the top of the hour, might be listening.
 
In response to BSURadioGeek's comments in which he/she questions my knowledgeof where the station is located...i.e. with WZPL and WNTR, I think my point iswell taken. Besides that, however, I again question the ability of a licensee toeffectively operate a NEWS station under the auspices of automation. The twojust do not seem to go together. Earlier I had thought that running Paul Poteetweather a day late not only hurts the station's image, but also that of Mr. Poteetand Channel 6. Many listeners do not understand automation, etc and wouldquite easily think that Channel 6 or Paul goofed. So now you have three elementsbeing damaged. As I understand it, all three of these stations mentioned above are owned now bya company called Entercom (?). Are you trying to tell me that the CEO liveshere in Indy? Yes, I would imagine the MANAGER of the station perhaps does.But is that person also the OWNER? So to bring this all together, I simply feel that if I owned a station in, say,New Jersey, yet lived here in Indy, would I care if the station erred sometimeswith the weather. I may not even be aware of it. I do not imagine my managerof that station would report that to me on some sort of regular basis.On the other hand, if I owned a station here in Indy AND lived here, listening toit as much as I could, and heard all of these late forecasts and stale newscastsbeing aired, I dare say new staff or procedures would be on the agenda byMonday morning!!!!!
 
Automation and a news operation can go together just fine, provided you have an automation operator that knows how to program an automation system. It would also help if the news department had a working knowledge of the automation system.Both scenarios would require the station to spend some money on it's operation; which kind of gets us back to caring. Once Abdul goes of the air, the thing is on auto-pilot. No one inside the building listening...I doubt the newsperson is listening to the satellite programming..probably watching Fox News Channel in the newsroom. They have no last line of defense...they assume it will run correctly. Unfortunately, the people that catch the errors are the listeners...as everyone at the station who is actively listening is listening to either WZPL or WNTR.Not to say the WZPL or WNTR jocks are paying attention, because I will bet all the money in my wallet that they turn the monitor down in the studio when spots are on the air. If the log says Cadillac...yet the air signal says BMW....I doubt the jock notices.With the exception of Abdul, WXNT is a computer in a closet with some satellite receivers that have relay closures that tell the computer Neil Bortz is done...start yesterday's newscast.If the owners knew, my guess is they would be upset. If the manager knew, my guess he would be upset
 
It is my guess the manager does know that the automation ain't stellar, but maybe constrained by budget and manpower and cannot do much about it.
 
I just wish we could have the best of both worlds. WIBC 24 hour newspeople, and some better programming like Abdul all on one station. But alas, it doesn't look like it will be that way.That said, 1430 does well for what it is advertised as, news/talk (hey, it is called newstalk 1430). Fox news 24/7, some local news during the day, and lots of good talk (Beck, Bortz, Hannity, Ingram, all better than what WIBC has to offer). Just because it is automated doesn't mean it's bad.PS. No, I don't work there, but I would if they hired me.
 
I just keep wishing WXNT were more, somehow, especially in terms of local news. I wish for an alternative to WIBC, because I find WIBC's morning show minimally acceptable and the afternoon show just a train wreck. So I tune to WIBC for the news, and then away.
 
mobilene said:
I just keep wishing WXNT were more, somehow, especially in terms of local news. I wish for an alternative to WIBC, because I find WIBC's morning show minimally acceptable and the afternoon show just a train wreck. So I tune to WIBC for the news, and then away.
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That said, why don't you wish for WIBC to be something more? Must be the ratings. They won't change because the numbers tell them not to.
 
Good point.
BSURadioGeek said:
That said, why don't you wish for WIBC to be something more? Must be the ratings. They won't change because the numbers tell them not to.
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The issue is the news person updating the news slot in the automation. Surely with the amount of airtime involved, recorded or not, you would want your best foot forward. If the newsperson doesn't update the newscast. That's their fault. NOT automation's.
 
What I've been told is that many times the news person does up date the news cast but the audio vault plays the older one anyway.
 
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