Extreme radio automation

[Chuck]

About a year or two ago, the local Dallas SBE chapter was invited to tour the ABC Radio Network Operation Center in North Dallas. I believe it is currently owned by Cumulus, so things may have changed, but probably not much. It is an impressively huge facility. I believe there were something like 26 studios for the various network feeds.

To be fair, we did visit after 6:00 PM so it was "after hours," but it was remarkable how few people we saw. There was a Security Guard at the front door, as well as our host engineer and her assistant. There may have been a couple of other people in the building, but I don't recall seeing many. Every studio we entered was running some type of voice tracked automation. The Rack Room was the most impressive part of the operation. It was huge, with tons of servers, routers and Ethernet cables running very neatly in overhead racks. Clearly, it was the heart of the operation.

This facility feeds hundreds (if not thousands) of local radio stations with at least some of their programming. I'm sure the regular business day, there are a lot more people buzzing around, but at least at night, nobody was home. Just the computers...

 

[TheBigA]

This facility feeds hundreds (if not thousands) of local radio stations with at least some of their programming. I'm sure the regular business day, there are a lot more people buzzing around, but at least at night, nobody was home. Just the computers...

If you went to Sirius XM in DC, you'd see pretty much the same thing. There's no need to sit and babysit turntables any more.

Back in the old days, the main reason to have live bodies at night was to take hourly transmitter readings. That went away as computers were able to continually monitor and adjust transmitters.

 

[bossbill]

I had the opportunity to tour the ABC facility perhaps ten years ago. Yes, the rack room is impressive. When I was there, every studio had a live show with a jock and a producer.

If you go to the Dial-Global facilities in Denver, I imagine you'll see the same empty building at night. You know the future of radio when you find that a voice-tracking system is feeding a hundred local stations, many of whom have live/local morning shows.

 

[amfmxm]

jc103, here's a wacky idea for you. To one degree or another, radio & TV have always been "automated."

Even when I was a rookie disc jockey in 1966, I was keenly aware that the Beatles were not physically present at 980/WITY in picturesque Danville, Illinois, playing their tunes. It was an illusion. Nor were the preachers there on Sunday mornings--they were pre-recorded. Same with all the commercials--a "live" spot was a rarity, even 47 years ago.

Deep into the seventies (or eighties?), most FM stations in America had zero employees. They were a box in a closet.

 

[Chuck]

I think the big difference is the box has gotten smaller and much more reliable.

I have a Schafer 901 automation system on display in our lobby. It is housed in three 6 foot racks, and was considered to be a "small' automation system back in its day. Now a standard PC can do the job, and thanks to modern software, do it a lot better.

When I was in college in the 1960's, I landed a job at a station that had a large automation system including a couple of racks of Gates "55" cartridge players. These things would jam up at least once a day and were a major chore to "un-clog." The reel to reel decks were always missing cues, or rewinding too far, thus needing human intervention to reload the tape. You also had to continuously clean tape heads and change tapes. It was pretty much a full time job, just to keep the automation humming. Now, you really can set it and forget it.

But totally automating a radio station is nothing new. It is just better now.

 

[radiophiler]

AMFMXM has a good point: beautiful music FMs (and also some early AC and CHR FMs) were automated for the most part.

But, there were DJs 24/7 in the building, running the AM primarily, and keeping an eye on the FM, possibly adding things like weather updates. And with the government limits on ownership, no one DJ was responsible for more than two stations at one time.

These days, I wonder how many smaller stations are left completely unattended for vast portions of their broadcast weeks. As long as there is proper remote access, studios can be left empty, with the exception of having someone available during business hours to give a listener access to the public files as required by the FCC.

And if DJs were voice tracking in the 70s, in many cases they were people located in the local market. Sure, there were "voiced" tapes for the above mentioned early automated FM ACs and CHRs. But it was much more likely that any early examples of voice tracking were done by a local jock: maybe the afternoon drive jock on the AM station then "voiced" the evening shift on the FM, for example.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

Not that I have a need for one today.... but it has been half a dozen years since I took a serious look at what automation today is capable of.

When I look at what other kinds of software include in their "bag of tricks" today, I suspect radio automation has been just scratching the surface.

I haven't come across the term "artificial intelligence" for a few years now. It was a mystical buzzword for a while. A few years ago I talked with a fellow who had a station that ran about as un-attended as possible. He refused to buy a music license for SESAC and had dropped them. With automation, he knew what was in his library and he had removed anything that was a SESAC piece of music. But he realized there were a couple of major artists getting on up there in age and he could see the day a news story would run on the network news he carried, and the network would likely play 15 or 20 seconds of a song of a "departed from life that day" artist. I learned about GOOGLE alerts from him. Any mention of the two or three artists he was concerned about would come to his smart-fone thanks to Google Alerts, and he had a mechaism that allowed him, from his smart-fone to drop network newscasts from his automation system, til-further-notice.

Yeah, I'm sure SESAC has nothing better for their auditors to do but sit outside non-subscribing stations waiting for such an infraction!!! ;D But, wait a minute.... if WE can set up a Google Alert, so can SESAC... or anyone else.

Here is a business idea for some young entrepreneur: Create a clearing-house cloud-based database for all kinds of factoids that could interest broadcasters.... (or other lines of business for that matter) and set up a coding system. Sell subscriptions to people/businesses who have a need for a business change based on some predictable event.

Not only could you set a broadcast automation to SKIP certain programming events based on the alignment of the stars, the size of the obituary, or the number of building permits issued, but set the automation to ADD certain programming events.

The longer I think about a project like that, the more my head hurts. Sorry I brought it up. :

 

[TheBigA]

But, there were DJs 24/7 in the building, running the AM primarily, and keeping an eye on the FM, possibly adding things like weather updates. And with the government limits on ownership, no one DJ was responsible for more than two stations at one time.

There were quite a few combos that ran beautiful music on both AM & FM, and it was all automated.

But as I said earlier, this was in the day when you needed a licensed operator to watch the transmitter. That began to end in the 70s, and transmitter readings were all computerized by the 80s. Also, after Docket 80-90, there were so many stations, and Reagan slashed the FCC budget, so there was no staff to enforce the rules.

And if DJs were voice tracking in the 70s, in many cases they were people located in the local market.

Maybe. Maybe not. Wolfman Jack was bicycling tapes of himself to lots of stations in the 70s.

 

[TheBigA]

Here is a business idea for some young entrepreneur: Create a clearing-house cloud-based database for all kinds of factoids that could interest broadcasters.... (or other lines of business for that matter) and set up a coding system. Sell subscriptions to people/businesses who have a need for a business change based on some predictable event.

I actually know people who have done exactly that. And you'd be surprised how hard it is to get broadcasters to pay for that information, even when they're shown how it can save them money. Or maybe you wouldn't be surprised.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

I actually know people who have done exactly that. And you'd be surprised how hard it is to get broadcasters to pay for that information, even when they're shown how it can save them money. Or maybe you wouldn't be surprised.

No, I wouldn't be surprised. It would make an interesting new thread topic to discuss the mind-set of radio broadcasters. Granted, there are a number of mind-sets depending on the kind of market, and the kind of frequency/channel they operate on.

In the radio you may not learn to be comfortable buying tickets to entertainment events because you expect tickets in return for the promotion and publicity. You may not be comfortable paying dues and serving as an officer of a local service club (Rotary, Lions, etc) because to feel like to provide them with all the publicity and news coverage they can eat. The list of things that cause a typical broadcaster to have a different view on what is going to have to be paid for and purchased vs. what you are entitled to have and use for free.

A few years ago I immersed myself into being a automobile-dealer computer/IT Guru. The market may have changed by now but at the time the vendors charged an arm and a leg for hardware, and pretty reasonable prices for software. It turns out that since dealers sell "hardware", tangible things like cars and trucks, they appreciate the perceived value of "heavy iron". But software was not something they could look at, hold in their hands, display to their competitors and customers. I had a computer room right in the middle of the show room with great big windows like and old fashioned radio studio. My boss wanted people to see his collection of IRON. He didn't know how to display software.

I can't put into words what I observe about the radio industry, but my memory is.... the people I worked for didn't like paying for outside services. "I'm paying a lot of high priced help. If they can't do it during their duty hours... I probably don't need it."

 

[davideduardo]

AMFMXM has a good point: beautiful music FMs (and also some early AC and CHR FMs) were automated for the most part.

During much of the 70's, a very large percentage of FMs used taped formats, ranging from Beautiful Music to things like Drake-Chenault's Hit Parade.

And, as automation improved in the mid-70's, even major market CHRs and personality AC's were automated.

But, there were DJs 24/7 in the building, running the AM primarily, and keeping an eye on the FM, possibly adding things like weather updates.

Not necessarily. Many AM FM combos used syndicated formats with voice tracking all or part of the time on both stations. Or they did locally produced automated formats, and used voice tracks from daytime dayparts in evenings, overnight and weekends.

For a #1 automated Hot AC in Market 15, look at the automation system at WQII which is about 2/3 of the way down the page at http://www.davidgleason.com/1975-1979-E.htm

And with the government limits on ownership, no one DJ was responsible for more than two stations at one time.

But the taped formats run on thousands of stations came, generally, with announcing. Some even came with the odd and even time checks and 50 different temperature cuts.

And if DJs were voice tracking in the 70s, in many cases they were people located in the local market. Sure, there were "voiced" tapes for the above mentioned early automated FM ACs and CHRs.

We had SRP (Shulke) Bonneville, Churchill, RPM, KalaMusic, FM100, Drake-Chenault, TM, BPI, Peters Productions and others doing most every kind of format from Country to CHR with voice tapes as part of the package. Together, those companies had thousands of clients.

 

[firepoint525]

When I was in college in the 1960's, I landed a job at a station that had a large automation system including a couple of racks of Gates "55" cartridge players. These things would jam up at least once a day and were a major chore to "un-clog." The reel to reel decks were always missing cues, or rewinding too far, thus needing human intervention to reload the tape. You also had to continuously clean tape heads and change tapes. It was pretty much a full time job, just to keep the automation humming.

That is almost as labor-intensive as just going ahead and running it live!

I'm sure that there were some "free-form" FM stations back then that were de facto automated by just playing a whole album side. Even in the late '80s/early '90s, I knew of some stations that were "automated" like that, but they were usually in the process of a format or ownership change. Or the djs had other jobs to do during his board shift.

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

The "Poster Child" for Gates Radio and the 55 cartridge player was not far from you, firepoint525, though you may have been too young to be taking bus-man's holiday trips to radio stations. (You may have still been a twinkle in your mother-to-be's eyes!)

WDXL in Lexington, TN.

It was Spring Break... probably last week in March or first week in April, 1968, when I visited the station. It was a weekend so I didn't get to see the machine "boogie" and hear the output. The manager/owner at the time was name Enochs. When I got back to Indianpolis, I sent him a spool of tape and asked him to record an aircheck of the machine at work and send it back to me, which he did. He sent along a note which said: "You may not be too impressed by how we sound. We don't have big-city announcers here. But you should have heard what we sounded like before we put the machine in."

He was using the machine more as a quality-control-and-improvement-device rather than a "how-many-heads-can-we-lop-off" device.

 

[Chuck]

One of the most ingenious uses of early automation was WRKO-FM in Boston about 1965 or so. It was a Top 40 FM station, perhaps one of the first. They made no bones about it. The station was run by "Arko the Shy But Friendly Robot." Arko would dutifully announce the top ten songs, do liners and even tell the time in an electronic sounding robot voice that was similar to Sonovox. It was pretty cool for it's time...

 

[firepoint525]

One of the most ingenious uses of early automation was WRKO-FM in Boston about 1965 or so. It was a Top 40 FM station, perhaps one of the first. They made no bones about it. The station was run by "Arko the Shy But Friendly Robot." Arko would dutifully announce the top ten songs, do liners and even tell the time in an electronic sounding robot voice that was similar to Sonovox. It was pretty cool for it's time...

WCMT-FM of Martin, TN (mentioned by me earlier in this thread) had a "voice" which back-announced the titles of songs that they had just played. This was early '80s when they apparently still played what were then current songs. They had dropped this back-announcing by the time that I later worked there. I didn't actually hear this one, but on one such occasion, the back-announcer supposedly said, "I ran from a flock of seagulls." ;D Unintentionally funny!

 

[TheBigA]

But the taped formats run on thousands of stations came, generally, with announcing. Some even came with the odd and even time checks and 50 different temperature cuts.

The thing that made it obvious, even to the uneducated ear, was the same voice was heard 24/7 doing everything including front and back announces of songs, time checks, and general weather updates.

 

[Chuck]

The "Poster Child" for Gates Radio and the 55 cartridge player was not far from you, firepoint525, though you may have been too young to be taking bus-man's holiday trips to radio stations. (You may have still been a twinkle in your mother-to-be's eyes!)

He was using the machine more as a quality-control-and-improvement-device rather than a "how-many-heads-can-we-lop-off" device.

I was voting age in 1968, but your point about automation as a quality control effort was, and is, a valid one. I suspect you would be hard pressed to find very many radio stations today that do not have some kind of automation, even if they only use it in the "live assist' mode. It is simply a better way to do business. By it's nature, the system logs everything that happens, which makes billing a lot easier and relieves the announcer (if there is one) from having to fill out logs by hand. Because you can schedule things in advance to happen at a given time, you can be pretty sure that they will play as planned. There is a log to prove it. That takes a lot of human error out of the equation.

Because the music and spots are stored on a hard drive, you don't need a million CD's, records and/or tape carts floating around the station. It is hard to lose or misplace something when it is in a computer. Let's not forget the dreaded "cue burn" that was the fate of many popular records, or the sound of a tape cartridge machine jamming up or missing the stop cue. All that goes away with modern automation.

Even talk radio uses it as a way to schedule and play spots and generally organize the program. It helps keep things on time and makes life much easier. Lastly, let's not forget the stations that wouldn't be economically viable without the use of automation. Not every format can support a staff of 24/7 announcers. Without it, many would either be forced off the air, or relegated to running one infomercial after another (which would probably be automated a well.....).

 

[Goat Rodeo Cowboy]

It is simply a better way to do business. By it's nature, the system logs everything that happens, which makes billing a lot easier and relieves the announcer (if there is one) from having to fill out logs by hand. Because you can schedule things in advance to happen at a given time, you can be pretty sure that they will play as planned. There is a log to prove it. That takes a lot of human error out of the equation.

I was almost at the right place at the right time... but I could not get myself attached to the right station to put my "genius" to work. About the same year as the earlier story... 1968. IGM came to town. Salesman had a motel room/suite out by the airport in Indianapolis and they had shipped in a full blown IGM automation system and set it up. What was unique about this showing was the IBM Selectric Input/Output typewriter.

They could put data on the track that had the cue tones (or maybe a third track... I don't remember that little fine-grain detail) and as the automation did it's little boogie, it would type the program log on the typewriter.

I had already connected with a bank in Indy that was trying to sell excess computer capacity. They had created a subsidiary to do doctor billing. Send in little tickets for each patient visit and the bank people would key-punch them, and do the monthly billing.. postage, licking the envelope flap and all. And enterprising sales people had learned businesses other than doctors could make use of the service. They were doing the billing for the radio station I was running.

Back to the IGM in the motel suite. Charming salesman. After looking his system over and listening to him ooh and aaaah over all the features, I focused on the Selectric that was attached. "What are the chances you could attach a device that would key-punch computer cards instead?"

I got the most puzzled look I have ever seen on an adult face. His response: "Why in the hell would ever want to do something like that?"

At the time... all he (and maybe the company) could see was automating the programming. Automate the billing? No comprende. Speak English please.

My next gig was in Louisville. The station had a big-honker IBM Tab Machine with punch cards all over the place. They let the machine print the program log, they let the machine do the billing. Let the machine do the programming? No comprende. Speak English please.

 

[firepoint525]

With automation, mistakes are rare, but they DO happen. And it is usually much more glaringly obvious on the rare occasions when it DOES happen. At my last station, a Christian talker, which was "live-assist" automated during the day, somehow a 15-minute program got dropped by the computer, and they were running 15 minutes AHEAD of schedule, apparently for several hours, before a listener called the station to inquire about it. The PD's office was just across the hall from the studio, and he apparently never caught it! (Until they got the call about it!)

 

[Chuck]

With automation, mistakes are rare, but they DO happen. And it is usually much more glaringly obvious on the rare occasions when it DOES happen. At my last station, a Christian talker, which was "live-assist" automated during the day, somehow a 15-minute program got dropped by the computer, and they were running 15 minutes AHEAD of schedule, apparently for several hours, before a listener called the station to inquire about it. The PD's office was just across the hall from the studio, and he apparently never caught it! (Until they got the call about it!)

You say that was "Live Assist?" I guess the warm body didn't do much good.... Even with automation, it is a good idea to actually listen to the station.

The old saying, "To err is human, but to really foul things up takes a computer," comes to mind. Of course it is people who load the play list, programs, spots, etc. into the computer. If something isn't there, it will just go on to the next event.