How do They do Interviews on the Jim Scott Show

[nicomp]

When Jim Scott interviews a national personality, it sounds as if he is just reading questions and the responses are pre-recorded. There's no give-and-take and the flow sounds like it's chopped together. I am speculating that every CC market uses the same sound bites and just provides a local body to read the questions. Am I right?

 

[nmoore6676]

I don't think it is a CC policy because I've never noticed it here in LA. It would be interesting if someone could verify that it is being done. As I recall from my childhood it was commonly done in the 50's and 60's when someone was promoting a new movie or record release. Rather than trotting them across country to every radio and TV station they would pretape the celebrity answering a list of questions that the local personality would read and they would edit them into an "interview". Now they put them into a studio and do it via satellite, or ISDN whatever. I would be very surprised if someone had resurrected the old procedure and especially Clear Channel.

I also recall Mad Magazine doing a spoof of the procedure wherein the local guy got off script and the humor was in how the answers mismatched the questions.

 

[Arbitorn]

Most of Jim's show today was recorded yesterday or a few days ago. The interviews are actually being done by Jim, but they last 7-8 minutes and are cut down to air length by his producer. Sometimes, the interview is recorded and edited during a newscast only a few minutes to an hour before you hear it, like with Stephanopolous or Donaldson. Some are live, but rarely.

 

[kirkiefan]

Just like Weird Al Yankovic's interviews???
(ha-chi-chi-chi-chi-chi-chi!)

 

[Corky Marlowe]

As I recall from my childhood it was commonly done in the 50's and 60's when someone was promoting a new movie or record release. Rather than trotting them across country to every radio and TV station they would pretape the celebrity answering a list of questions that the local personality would read and they would edit them into an "interview".
I read in a biography of Johnny Carson that when he was working in radio in Omaha just out of college, he would mess with those records kind of like was described above in Mad magazine. The example given was an "interview" with Peggy Lee where the DJ was supposed to ask, "How old were you when you first sang in front of people?" Johnny would instead ask, "You're really known for hitting the sauce. How old were you when you first started?", and follow with her pre-recorded answer, "When I was 5 or 6, I used to get up and do it." Premiere (and I'm sure lots of other prep services) offer "interviews" in this form. Depending on the interviewer or the producer, it can sound kind of real, or it can sound like "What was it like to do a love scene with Jessica Alba?...Play Cut 5."

 

[TheGrudge]

Arbitorn has it correct. The interviews are recorded beforehand about 50-75% of the time and edited for time. It's such a tight show time-wise it HAS to be done that way. A lot of the interviews are completely live though. Wall street journal, the Colonel, Compton, etc. stuff like that are live. Jim's questions are almost always his own though. His producers can and will sometime help out with some questions or direction if it's a particular interest to them and they may know about a subject more than Jim so they help out. It's what a producer is supposed to do.

and I know because I produced it for a year.

Rock on.

 

[glieb]

I have also observed that the interviews sound canned as if done by someone else. Also, when it's 6:15 AM and he's interviewing someone in California, it's a good bet that they didn't get up at 3 AM just to do an interview for Jim Scott. Jim uses the term "live" loosely at times, as when he says "we'll talk to (name) LIVE next..."