The problem isn't the voicetracking, it's the voicetracker. There's a difference. Some are better than others. The bar needs to be set higher, and there needs to be more competition for getting on the air. Don't just put someone on because he's convenient.
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Are there any major stations that DON'T do voice-tracking and are 100% live?
- Thread starter Alan Smithee
- Start date
The problem isn't the voicetracking, it's the voicetracker. There's a difference. Some are better than others. The bar needs to be set higher, and there needs to be more competition for getting on the air. Don't just put someone on because he's convenient.
I've got to agree with you on this point -- on long road trips, my partner and I have heard a lot of voice-tracked stations where the segments are exactly what you're talking about...some sort of stale celebrity gossip. And when that happens, we're generally off that station looking for something different within seconds. It's talk for the sake of talk, but there's nothing compelling or interesting about it.
That would also take us back to the days when the automated formats from Drake-Chenault and TM Productions were common on the FM dial in medium and small markets. And, yeah, I'd rather listen to something that sounded like one of those old tape-automated formats than a lot of the drivel that actually is broadcast.
Decent DJs could beat those automated formats when it came to attracting listener interest -- but in all too many instances, we simply don't have that anymore. So yeah...if the nationally voicetracked DJs don't have anything interesting to say, I don't think much would be lost by taking them off. Or at least doing what was done at the old RKO stations and put the DJs on a timer to keep them succinct.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
It works for us in Albuquerque, where I actually structure the format similarly to Drake-Chenault running on a Schafer 903 automation system circa 1980. We call it "clutter-free" and I think that approach holds it own against the streaming services, etc. Pretty low overhead, too ... I think the biggest monthly expense is paying me to program KRKE and monitor operations at the owner's other stations scattered around the state.
You nevertheless must get paid a pretty decent sum, given your skills and extensive experience. Money well spent, given how well KRKE has been doing!
So, you program your modern system to emulate a Schafer 903 from 1980? That's interesting.
As an aside, I wonder if any of those old tape-based automation systems are still in service anymore?
c
I hesitate to say no because there's always an exception. But it has been so long, more than 30 years, that maintenance becomes a problem.
I'm not aware that anyone provides radio programming on tape anymore. That stopped when satellite distribution started in the 80s. Tape was too expensive, it was too inexact, too non-standard. It was easier to distribute on vinyl disc than tape. Then they transitioned to CD. Now it's online.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
I don't know of anyone who was still providing service on tape by the end of the last century. I think BPI was the last player on that field, having acquired Drake-Chenault's non-satellite division in 1991:
That article also gives the years that BPI acquired Peters Productions, Radio Arts, TM-Century 21, and Kalamusic. As pointed out, at the time BPI and D-C were the two last major players in tape-distributed syndication; a lot of the lesser players had already dropped out by then (or were about to ... the last reference to Toby Arnold & Associates in Broadcasting was only about a year after the BPI acquisition of D-C; I found several references to them in R&R during the 90s, but only in reference to their production libraries).
I would be interested in which broadcast automation software you are running, if you'd share.
And, which music scheduling software? (Obviously you do your manual tweaking, I get that.)
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
MusicMaster for scheduling and BSI Simian for the automation. MM allows me to export the log, Simian-formatted, on a minute-by-minute basis, which I use to emulate the old 903 format file and time file system; all the music and imaging elements output to the log sequentially across a block of minutes and has gaps in the sequence where the traffic log merges in.
I like MusicMaster a lot, because of its nearly-infinite flexibility. If you are familiar with it, you know of its Rule Tree which can tweak the scheduling "thought process" to a very fine level; I have mine tweaked to the point that I rarely get a failure requiring manual attention (it actually only happens when I change a rule to correct something that is bothering me, and then other rules are affected in ways I did not predict ... in those cases, tweaking the other rules solves the problem).
It's nice to have scheduling software that "thinks" like I do.
To update the history, Jones Radio bought BPI in 1999, then Dial Global bought Jones and Westwood One, and now Cumulus owns the whole stack.
They spun off TM as it's own company a few years ago.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Yeah, I knew that, but BPI was the last tape syndicator by then anyway.
I would have guessed Selector. I personally like Powergold, but I have never used MusicMaster. I have heard good things about it.
I've been out of the loop so long I've never used any of the modern automation systems. I have used Station Playlist and Creator, but I doubt many non internet stations use it. It's pretty good for what it is, though.
Read post 105 and 106. In the 90s, some networks were using DAT for their repeats.
Carts went digital in the 90s. Music & commercials were off hard drives. No tape. In the early 2000s, we had a desktop program called "InstaCart" that had the image of a cart machine on our screen, but was triggered by the keyboard. That became obsolete 15 years ago.
And, somewhere along the line, that clever name got appropriated for an on-demand delivery service.
c
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
One with a very dumb Super Bowl ad. Thanks, Ben Stiller.
91.9 WGTS Washington DC is Live from the morning show to midnight weeknights. They do track the weekend shows. 88.3 WPOZ "Z 88" Orlando still has live talent on air in most dayparts and even on weekends.
I don't care about sports but I've watched every Super Bowl ad for years. Or most of them. Every year there is a special program with classic commercials and some of the new ones, and some of the old ones I never saw.
Thank you for that article...I'd long wondered when these tape automation formats died out -- especially the Stereo Rock Top 40 format, since I had listened to that format on three different stations between 1979 and 1990.
Frankly, if the last of these tape-automated stations was still running in the late 90s, that's longer than I thought they would last. I know that the last of the Stereo Rock stations that I listened to (KDSQ 101.7 in Denison/Sherman, TX) dropped the format in 1990 because their tape automation gear was getting worn out and needed to be replaced. Rather than do that, they dumped the format in favor of SMN's dreadful "The Heat" Top 40 format.