This thread should be made into a show children should watch ;-) Many thoughtful and informative posts, answering questions and giving reasons for or against the requirement.
Opinion's about the forced nature of E/I, the impact it has on station revenue and added work load and uneeded red tape it creates.
I thank all of you that contributed to an exchange of thought's and idea's. To those who chose to decide I did not read the article or make comment's about my writing style and skills, please feel free to add any comment that may contribute to the subject of E/I, which is the subject here, or please find something better to do than see your "oh so funny" insults and accusations in type.
My typing is sub-par at times, I have arthiritus, which has caused me to lose some control over my fingers. It is a condition that I have had for a few years now and it is progressive, should I not contribute to this forum because of this problem? I won't bore you with details except to say, that it is painfull at times to write and type. That is my burden, we all have things to bare, you stay positive, you do the best with what you have and live. I could use some sort of device that would be easier for me, I choose not too. For the record, I hope that this meet's with your satisfaction, my brother(Hello) is typing this post for me :-].
I said that we recieved a big fine for having the time off by an hour in the public file, when we were payed a visit by a civillian(field agent) who stopped by on a weekday to see the file. We are obligated and happy to show the public file to someone wishing to see it. We spent a lot of time maintaining it, I was glad someone actually wanted to read it! I suspected it was an agent, I was not worried about it, I worked hard to keep that file up to date and thought I had done it properly.
The ONLY thing wrong was that one hour time mishap on paper. We DID show the proper amount of E/I programming for that day, this did not matter, because that ONE number was off on a Sunday morning(which was a Sunday that we changed the time at 2AM), we recieved a fine.
I worked for the radio station NOT the tv station, I did this for the owner of the station who was not good with all the red tape. Yes I think it is a money motivated on behalf of the government to take advantage of a private business owner who was barely making it. If you think this is appropiate so be it.
We were a TV/AM/FM standalone in a small market, we did many things to help our community. We went so far as having one of us stay at the stations over night if there was a threat of severe weather. Most of the time very bad storms did not occur, we still checked the weather in advance and made sure a warm body was there to go live, if needed. I was once there and gave out emergency information on the track of the tornado warning, on both tv and radio, from begining to end. Our competition was asleep. The tornado did some heavy damage to one corner of town. A few people were hurt, no one was killed!
Was it because we informed people hours ahead of time, had someone giving regular updates and going wall to wall that saved some people? For at least one older couple, yes. They had left the radio on when going to sleep, when we blared our own severe weather tone(you can only use the official tone when it comes through the EAS system), they had time to get up, get in the bathtub and cover themeselves with pillows and blankets. The bathroom was the only room in the house that was undamged. They made sure to come to the station many times with lunch or dinner for us to show their gratitude.
That is public service, not forcing station's to show shows that most kids don't watch.
Thanks to government meddling, the stations are closed at 5PM, there is no news department anymore and the FM was moved miles away to a bigger city. They were able to move the COL because we were not the only local service. They used another small town as the COL, they do NOT serve the COL as we did and the station is syndicated at all times except morning drive.
The FCC is fine with this, one hour off on a worthless file? They are all over you. Does this upset me? Yes. I'm sorry that you can't understand that and seem to imply I was looking for an exuse to "rant"
Have a good day,
GBTN
