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Automation on WBRU

J

Jacko

I have noticed that from time to time, especially on the weekends, that WBRU's "clock" seems to fall a bit ahead or behind time. For example, Saturday morning's "Retro Brunch" is supposed to air from 9:00 to 10:35am (95 minutes), however it appears that yesterday it started around 8:30 and ended shortly after 10:00. Also, from looking through Yes.com, the alt-rock ended shortly before 5am this morning, and apparently 360 programming began. After the Sunday morning Gospel show, the same hour or so of 360 programming from 5am was repeated at 10am. Living in the Boston area, I don't often get to listen to 95.5 over the air unless I go south of town, so I don't know if 'BRU runs jockless, has live jocks, or is voicetracked on Saturdays, but I would imagine that if they were staffed live, the jocks would at least have the liberty to add a track or take a track out in order to line up with the top-of-the-hour ID, spots on the :15 and :45, and so forth. If in fact they're automated or voicetracked on Saturdays, wouldn't the automation program go ahead to add / subtract a song in order to line up with the clock? I'm not very familiar with how these automation programs work, although the one I remember from my college station about 10 years ago, this was possible. While most listeners probably wouldn't notice any of this (but we radio dorks do!) shouldn't a class B commercial station in a medium-large market, despite being a college station, be able to make sure they're programming is lined up with the clock? I feel like this is one of the those radio "fundamentals."

Thoughts?

Jacko
 
I remember WBRU using the ENCO DAD system, the same I use at WVCH. If the on-air computer's clock isn't synced to a server like time-b.nist.gov, it will lose time over the course of a few days if not corrected. Not sure if the station is still using ABC's FM feed at xx;15. If the clock drifts, the network join would be sloppy.
 
Does WBRU run Enco by choice or by necessity?

To explain, I'm a recent transplant to Providence but I lived for years in CT and MA close enough to listen to WBRU on at least a sporadic basis, if not regularly, and I always loved it...in part because I was always impressed at how good their airstaff sounded. Clearly all, or nearly all, student DJ's...but they sounded pretty professional nonetheless. Now I can understand having automation around to guarantee 24/7 operations even during breaks when the number of students around drops like a brick. But I'd be a little surprised if student involvement/interest had dropped to the point where it was really needed even during the school year...???

To answer the original question, if the start/end times of certain shifts are consistently off (i.e. starts early, ends early) then it could be a problem with the time-sync on the actual Enco computers. I'm not sure how exactly they're using the system; if they're literally pre-recording a block of programming with a fixed time, then the amount of time it's early (or late) should be extremely consistent...quite possibly down to the second. If it's more that there's a playlist with voicetracking (more likely) then it'll be harder to tell as the playlist is just choosing tracks that come close to fitting the time needs and some wiggle room is usually allowed (excepting for network joins, which, of course, must be at specific times unless they're downloaded and rebroadcast...I don't think ABC News does that).
 
Jacko said:
I have noticed that from time to time, especially on the weekends, that WBRU's "clock" seems to fall a bit ahead or behind time. For example, Saturday morning's "Retro Brunch" is supposed to air from 9:00 to 10:35am (95 minutes), however it appears that yesterday it started around 8:30 and ended shortly after 10:00. Also, from looking through Yes.com, the alt-rock ended shortly before 5am this morning, and apparently 360 programming began. After the Sunday morning Gospel show, the same hour or so of 360 programming from 5am was repeated at 10am. Living in the Boston area, I don't often get to listen to 95.5 over the air unless I go south of town, so I don't know if 'BRU runs jockless, has live jocks, or is voicetracked on Saturdays, but I would imagine that if they were staffed live, the jocks would at least have the liberty to add a track or take a track out in order to line up with the top-of-the-hour ID, spots on the :15 and :45, and so forth. If in fact they're automated or voicetracked on Saturdays, wouldn't the automation program go ahead to add / subtract a song in order to line up with the clock? I'm not very familiar with how these automation programs work, although the one I remember from my college station about 10 years ago, this was possible. While most listeners probably wouldn't notice any of this (but we radio dorks do!) shouldn't a class B commercial station in a medium-large market, despite being a college station, be able to make sure they're programming is lined up with the clock? I feel like this is one of the those radio "fundamentals."

Thoughts?

Jacko
Click to expand...

Did you actually tune 95.5 OTA or online and note these anomalities? Or are you just going with whatever Yes.com told you?

-
 
It was between Yes.com and Tunegenie. They seemed to be off by a minute or two from each other, but relatively close. When I have listened online, Yes.com seems to be pretty accurate, although if you scroll back more than a few hours, it seems that Yes.com has a lot of blank spots (probably newer songs). On Tunegenie, often I'll check the Friday 7pm hour for the 12 cuts list (they don't post it online anymore), which was what I was doing the other day. It seemed on time then, but through the overnight and though Saturday, it seemed that they were jumping ahead a couple minutes every hour (56-58 minutes of programming for every hour). Yes, I'm being nitpicky, but I would think someone on the staff would pick up on this and try to correct it.

Jacko
 
If it happens in the overnight through a Saturday, the part-timers won't catch it even if you train them to catch it. It just happens. A few minutes is a really minor issue, and happens A LOT since the days of hitting the network news at the top of the hour are long gone. You'd be hard-pressed to find a DJ who's really good at backtiming! It's just a lost art, and pretty unnecessary at this point in history.
 
Because I have nothing better to do on a Saturday morning... it appears that this morning, WBRU aired 2 hours of 360 programming from 6 to 8 a.m., according to Yes.com. Tunegenie did not, as it often does not, pick up the 360 songs, and seemed blank for a couple of hours afterward. Again, I can't listen OTA and I wasn't awake early enough to listen online. I'm wondering if this was a new feature, or another automation blooper.

At the moment, the "clock" seems to be on time. I apologize for my perseveration on this topic...

Jacko
 
I awoke right before 7 to Aaliyah. I went back to bed because i thought it was Sunday. I was late because of this... Bastards! Although it was good to hear Aaliyah in the 7AM hour!
 
reelyreal said:
If it happens in the overnight through a Saturday, the part-timers won't catch it even if you train them to catch it. It just happens. A few minutes is a really minor issue, and happens A LOT since the days of hitting the network news at the top of the hour are long gone. You'd be hard-pressed to find a DJ who's really good at backtiming! It's just a lost art, and pretty unnecessary at this point in history.
Click to expand...

The usual practice in the industry is to schedule two or three extra songs in each hour, with a command to skip any unplayed songs at the top of the next hour. No backtiming required.
 
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