well, once again during an emergency situation with irene in our area, i couldnt find a radio station giving out important info on road closings, trees and wires that were in the roadways, evacuation info on flooding areas. wilk did come on at 11am after the fact,asking callers to give them info. wouldnt you think with all the advance warnings, they would have been prepared to be on the air bright and early with ema,city officals and other town and county officials. radio just isnt what it use to be. and our local tv stations werent much better. good luck..
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irene
- Thread starter cowboy72
- Start date
Since we had no on-line access because Verizon's automated phone alert said they were experiencing techical problems in -- of all places -- 'The Scranton area', we had the radio.
KYW 1060 and WCBS 880 NYC were excellent. (We don't get WINS here that well, and with T-102 there was no way we would've heard NYC's New Goat In Town.)
The FMers in Philly were useless. 106.1 had some anchor on from Channel 6, but that visual stuff never translates well. So our info was all from AM. Since a lot of the good-signalled AM stations here were out of Irene's range, their normal programming served them as well as could be expected.
But you're right, Cowboy. No normal listener in this area is going to tune in two AM stations in a disaster (the closer station being 100 miles away) and vector in the conditions to plan their Sunday. Yet, I have to side with the AM stations we have here around Schuylkill County in these times of need. At night there really aren't any with a signal. Makes you wonder how people fifty years ago managed not to freeze or drown or fall into a fissure. It couldn't have been from listening to WKBW or WOWO for local conditions here.
What regional station *would* have been the biggie for this sort of stuff back, say, 1963? WLBR? The Voice of America?
KYW 1060 and WCBS 880 NYC were excellent. (We don't get WINS here that well, and with T-102 there was no way we would've heard NYC's New Goat In Town.)
The FMers in Philly were useless. 106.1 had some anchor on from Channel 6, but that visual stuff never translates well. So our info was all from AM. Since a lot of the good-signalled AM stations here were out of Irene's range, their normal programming served them as well as could be expected.
But you're right, Cowboy. No normal listener in this area is going to tune in two AM stations in a disaster (the closer station being 100 miles away) and vector in the conditions to plan their Sunday. Yet, I have to side with the AM stations we have here around Schuylkill County in these times of need. At night there really aren't any with a signal. Makes you wonder how people fifty years ago managed not to freeze or drown or fall into a fissure. It couldn't have been from listening to WKBW or WOWO for local conditions here.
What regional station *would* have been the biggie for this sort of stuff back, say, 1963? WLBR? The Voice of America?
good points steve.. back in 1972 during the agnes disaster, in our area, warm, wbax and yes even a little 1000 watt daytimer in pittston wpts, all ams were all on giving great info so people new what to expect, and what to do. plus all three local tv stations were on 24-7 with information.now of course that was a major storm, but it scares me to see what our local stations wont cover when we have a storm such as we had on sunday. first, radio is there to give its listners information during any emergency situation. music, talk, playing games, and all the rest is secondary. you cant come on the air after the fact for two hours. that wont cut it. you cant call a two hour recap such as wilk did on sunday special coverage.
Schuylkill County is unrated. I believe a few diaries from the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton survey get distributed in this county's area closest to up that way. But that's the extent of this county's voice in such matters.
Yet, there are 148,000 people here. The figure goes down each census. But that's apparently enough wallets and purses for the marketing PTB to've put up not just a Lowes in Pottsville (which plunged half the area's hardware stores into oblivion) but a Home Depot two miles north (which put the other half out of business).
The Home Depot was an addition to the mall neighborhood occupied at first solely -- go figure -- a somewhat new Wal-Mart.
The main highway road through here is Route 61 (originally U.S. 122). And when Interstate 81 was put through to crosscross Route 61, developers from a dozen states salivated at the symmetry of the intersection. I'd read somewhere that developers earlier had their eyes on Hazleton as they drooled at the area where I-80 and I-81 intersected. So, heck, why should Frackville be any more immune from the position-jockeing of corporate speculation? It took them a while, but they put a mall there. One end of the mall now looks like an abandoned neighborhood where even Carl Kolchak wouldn't investigate. This local indifference to a fairly-recent mall began long before the most recent recession, by the way.
They recently put up about 20,000 windmills in the hills outside Shenandoah, Frackville and Ashland. But word is that the power they generate goes to Philadelphia, not us.
Clear Channel owns two Class A stations along the stretch of Route 61. These stations are not there to serve Mt. Carmel or Shamokin. Don't make me laugh. We all know that the purpose is to take the nickels and dimes from those two towns and put them on the stagecoach to San Antonio.
Now this sort of neon siege would have succeeded grandly in places like north-central Florida. In east-central Pennsylvania, though, this attempt to transform the response and priorities of the locals into Orlando isn't working well -- for the local people. They may as well expect this region to support a new major-league expansion franchise in Minersville -- and then blame us for non support upon moving the team elsewhere when the team finishes 121 1/2 games out of the wild card race.
You know the local scene probably better than I do, Cowboy. You might have ten times the number of corporate gambling examples to offer. I just reiterate these somewhat misguided instances of avarice to illuminate the neglience and default/disregard for public safety and even the welfare of the people actually doing the work.
I say that there should be a requirement that the biggest signalled stations in each market bear the responsibility for keeping their coverage area informed during such times. Maybe even the highest-rated stations should be drafted for the occasion. The numbers are there, after all, via Arbitron.
The President and governor have declared the following counties as potential 'disaster areas'
16-10 inches of snow in Northumberland county? You're it, 94 KX.
New volcano in Centralia? You're on stage, T-102.
Flooding evacuation in Berwick? Put on the warpaint, WFYY.
2500 word proof-of-performance expected in triplicate by 0800 Tuesday morning. You will be graded for attendance and preciseness upon license renewal time.
Will this happen? Nah. We'll see the Pottsville Maroons become the next NFL expansion team first.
And again reiterating from an earlier thread : This sort of garbage is happening to radio in every market, not just here.
Yet, there are 148,000 people here. The figure goes down each census. But that's apparently enough wallets and purses for the marketing PTB to've put up not just a Lowes in Pottsville (which plunged half the area's hardware stores into oblivion) but a Home Depot two miles north (which put the other half out of business).
The Home Depot was an addition to the mall neighborhood occupied at first solely -- go figure -- a somewhat new Wal-Mart.
The main highway road through here is Route 61 (originally U.S. 122). And when Interstate 81 was put through to crosscross Route 61, developers from a dozen states salivated at the symmetry of the intersection. I'd read somewhere that developers earlier had their eyes on Hazleton as they drooled at the area where I-80 and I-81 intersected. So, heck, why should Frackville be any more immune from the position-jockeing of corporate speculation? It took them a while, but they put a mall there. One end of the mall now looks like an abandoned neighborhood where even Carl Kolchak wouldn't investigate. This local indifference to a fairly-recent mall began long before the most recent recession, by the way.
They recently put up about 20,000 windmills in the hills outside Shenandoah, Frackville and Ashland. But word is that the power they generate goes to Philadelphia, not us.
Clear Channel owns two Class A stations along the stretch of Route 61. These stations are not there to serve Mt. Carmel or Shamokin. Don't make me laugh. We all know that the purpose is to take the nickels and dimes from those two towns and put them on the stagecoach to San Antonio.
Now this sort of neon siege would have succeeded grandly in places like north-central Florida. In east-central Pennsylvania, though, this attempt to transform the response and priorities of the locals into Orlando isn't working well -- for the local people. They may as well expect this region to support a new major-league expansion franchise in Minersville -- and then blame us for non support upon moving the team elsewhere when the team finishes 121 1/2 games out of the wild card race.
You know the local scene probably better than I do, Cowboy. You might have ten times the number of corporate gambling examples to offer. I just reiterate these somewhat misguided instances of avarice to illuminate the neglience and default/disregard for public safety and even the welfare of the people actually doing the work.
I say that there should be a requirement that the biggest signalled stations in each market bear the responsibility for keeping their coverage area informed during such times. Maybe even the highest-rated stations should be drafted for the occasion. The numbers are there, after all, via Arbitron.
The President and governor have declared the following counties as potential 'disaster areas'
16-10 inches of snow in Northumberland county? You're it, 94 KX.
New volcano in Centralia? You're on stage, T-102.
Flooding evacuation in Berwick? Put on the warpaint, WFYY.
2500 word proof-of-performance expected in triplicate by 0800 Tuesday morning. You will be graded for attendance and preciseness upon license renewal time.
Will this happen? Nah. We'll see the Pottsville Maroons become the next NFL expansion team first.
And again reiterating from an earlier thread : This sort of garbage is happening to radio in every market, not just here.
steve..all i can say is, since the mom and pop radio stations were all bought up by the BIG guys,after deregulation, the bottom line is $$$$. these guys dont care about the community,they serve, unless its good for ratings, and have you ever heard of corperate passing out a big thank you, or job well done, or god forbid give the employees a christmas bonus? when stations were owned by people who loved broadcasting, and really cared about the cities and towns they covered, that was radio. all we have today is used car salepeople who know nothing about broadcasting. i worked for a g.m. from n.y. and a p.d.from pittsburg who never ran a board,and, didnt know what sound bites are, and couldnt ad-lib for 30 sec. i enjoyed your input steve. in our area theres still a few pros, but they only work part time. rob neyhard, and tom woods come to mind.
Stunning. How can that be. It's a rhetorical question. Not questioning your veracity. Stunning.cowboy72 said:...i worked for a g.m. from n.y. and a p.d.from pittsburg who never ran a board,and, didnt know what sound bites are, and couldnt ad-lib for 30 sec.
cowboy72 said:steve..all i can say is, since the mom and pop radio stations were all bought up by the BIG guys,after deregulation, the bottom line is $$$$. these guys dont care about the community,they serve, unless its good for ratings, and have you ever heard of corperate passing out a big thank you, or job well done, or god forbid give the employees a christmas bonus? when stations were owned by people who loved broadcasting, and really cared about the cities and towns they covered, that was radio. all we have today is used car salepeople who know nothing about broadcasting. i worked for a g.m. from n.y. and a p.d.from pittsburg who never ran a board,and, didnt know what sound bites are, and couldnt ad-lib for 30 sec. i enjoyed your input steve. in our area theres still a few pros, but they only work part time. rob neyhard, and tom woods come to mind.
Cowboy...In many cases, you are absolutely right. Mom and pop stations pay closer attention to the local needs. Those stations were right there when the weather turned sour or some other emergency occurs. Also, these other stations that you referred too in general are most likely voice tracking especially on weekends. Many programmers tend to get "laxed" over a period of time once they get hooked on voice tracking and computer generated programs. They lose their sense of responsibility and awareness. Anything that is not "business as usual" is very discomforting to them. They would rather let the event pass by and hope that no one noticed. Once upon a time, an emergency was one way a programmer could show off their station by promoting the station', " We are your station to tune in for breaking news and updates!" Today, "We are your station with 15 in a row" or "We are your station with the most music with commercial free hours!" It doesn't matter what music format station you listen too, they sound alike in that way. Even some of the news/talk stations could do more for the locals instead of relying mostly on content from the major radio networks.
To sum it up and unfortunately, this trend will continue and it will be the listeners who are the biggest losers.
trixter said:Trixter.....you are correct. local radio for the most part is gone for good. I remember an NAB convention in 1984 when a communitactions lawer spoke to the radio lunchen and said the recient de regulations that had just gone into effect or were about to take effect would "ruin local radio". many broadcasters in the audiance actualy booed him for saying that....but he was correct.cowboy72 said:steve..all i can say is, since the mom and pop radio stations were all bought up by the BIG guys,after deregulation, the bottom line is $$$$. these guys dont care about the community,they serve, unless its good for ratings, and have you ever heard of corperate passing out a big thank you, or job well done, or god forbid give the employees a christmas bonus? when stations were owned by people who loved broadcasting, and really cared about the cities and towns they covered, that was radio. all we have today is used car salepeople who know nothing about broadcasting. i worked for a g.m. from n.y. and a p.d.from pittsburg who never ran a board,and, didnt know what sound bites are, and couldnt ad-lib for 30 sec. i enjoyed your input steve. in our area theres still a few pros, but they only work part time. rob neyhard, and tom woods come to mind.
Cowboy...In many cases, you are absolutely right. Mom and pop stations pay closer attention to the local needs. Those stations were right there when the weather turned sour or some other emergency occurs. Also, these other stations that you referred too in general are most likely voice tracking especially on weekends. Many programmers tend to get "laxed" over a period of time once they get hooked on voice tracking and computer generated programs. They lose their sense of responsibility and awareness. Anything that is not "business as usual" is very discomforting to them. They would rather let the event pass by and hope that no one noticed. Once upon a time, an emergency was one way a programmer could show off their station by promoting the station', " We are your station to tune in for breaking news and updates!" Today, "We are your station with 15 in a row" or "We are your station with the most music with commercial free hours!" It doesn't matter what music format station you listen too, they sound alike in that way. Even some of the news/talk stations could do more for the locals instead of relying mostly on content from the major radio networks.
To sum it up and unfortunately, this trend will continue and it will be the listeners who are the biggest losers.
I think that it need be noted that within the realm of voice tracked stations that there are two distinct varieties:
1. Voice tracked at main studio and hub studios (SS32 which is the predominant system in NE PA)
2. Internet voice tracked (IVT) (mainly only available with RCS Mastercontrol and Digital jukebox systems)
It should be noted that some systems are a mix of these two; Nexgen/Prophet can have what they call a WAN studio (requires VPN setup), a voicetracked studio at a remote location with a special piece of software...more complex than IVT but also more reliable.
Internet voicetracking allows the voicetracker to work at home or any other location (hotel if traveling); these systems allow one to change the voice track up to 15 min. before it airs, on the quick fly. In emergency situations this allows close to real time updates at any time. Over Hurr Irene, gem's afternoon guy, Hoyt kaiser (lives near the studios in Tunkhannock, anyway) was able to provide emergency updates and information through the storm from the main studio, his home studio, or anywhere else internet or wireless internet was available.
I'm not sure what the other larger groups did during this emergency, but at Shamrock extra people came in to the main studio to make sure emergency announcements and information were provided during the storm.
Of course I roamed all the transmitter sites that Saturday , Sunday, and Monday keeping everything on the air! We were really lucky and most everything stayed on. Wayne, Wyoming, and Sullivan(PA) counties were worst hit; lot of trees down over power wires. Had to run Salem on generator for 4 days (power comes up from Wayne County there).
1. Voice tracked at main studio and hub studios (SS32 which is the predominant system in NE PA)
2. Internet voice tracked (IVT) (mainly only available with RCS Mastercontrol and Digital jukebox systems)
It should be noted that some systems are a mix of these two; Nexgen/Prophet can have what they call a WAN studio (requires VPN setup), a voicetracked studio at a remote location with a special piece of software...more complex than IVT but also more reliable.
Internet voicetracking allows the voicetracker to work at home or any other location (hotel if traveling); these systems allow one to change the voice track up to 15 min. before it airs, on the quick fly. In emergency situations this allows close to real time updates at any time. Over Hurr Irene, gem's afternoon guy, Hoyt kaiser (lives near the studios in Tunkhannock, anyway) was able to provide emergency updates and information through the storm from the main studio, his home studio, or anywhere else internet or wireless internet was available.
I'm not sure what the other larger groups did during this emergency, but at Shamrock extra people came in to the main studio to make sure emergency announcements and information were provided during the storm.
Of course I roamed all the transmitter sites that Saturday , Sunday, and Monday keeping everything on the air! We were really lucky and most everything stayed on. Wayne, Wyoming, and Sullivan(PA) counties were worst hit; lot of trees down over power wires. Had to run Salem on generator for 4 days (power comes up from Wayne County there).
Kevin Fitzgerald said:I think that it need be noted that within the realm of voice tracked stations that there are two distinct varieties:
1. Voice tracked at main studio and hub studios (SS32 which is the predominant system in NE PA)
2. Internet voice tracked (IVT) (mainly only available with RCS Mastercontrol and Digital jukebox systems)
It should be noted that some systems are a mix of these two; Nexgen/Prophet can have what they call a WAN studio (requires VPN setup), a voicetracked studio at a remote location with a special piece of software...more complex than IVT but also more reliable.
Internet voicetracking allows the voicetracker to work at home or any other location (hotel if traveling); these systems allow one to change the voice track up to 15 min. before it airs, on the quick fly. In emergency situations this allows close to real time updates at any time. Over Hurr Irene, gem's afternoon guy, Hoyt kaiser (lives near the studios in Tunkhannock, anyway) was able to provide emergency updates and information through the storm from the main studio, his home studio, or anywhere else internet or wireless internet was available.
I'm not sure what the other larger groups did during this emergency, but at Shamrock extra people came in to the main studio to make sure emergency announcements and information were provided during the storm.
Of course I roamed all the transmitter sites that Saturday , Sunday, and Monday keeping everything on the air! We were really lucky and most everything stayed on. Wayne, Wyoming, and Sullivan(PA) counties were worst hit; lot of trees down over power wires. Had to run Salem on generator for 4 days (power comes up from Wayne County there).
That's fine with all of the technologies available for a broadcast studio (or remote from home) under normal conditions. During an emergency, which anything can change at any given minute, nothing beats a live announcer behind a mic! The internet goes down, power outages become wide spread, computers crashing, emergency traffic constantly changing to be passed on the air, and other duties. Of course, this is provided if the station (or tower) has a back up generator to stay on the air.
You will be surprised to find out that there are many stations that do not have this luxury and is dark during an event like this.
In my lifetime, I have been with some companies that an emergency is second nature and the staff handles the event professionally. On the other hand, I remember a station across town would have been better off to stay dark than try handle the emergency.
As far as personnel, I'm sure staffing would not be a problem until the event is over. Cluster stations in the same city would simulcast and use air talent from their sister stations. Format concerns during an emergency are not an issue. People will listen! Actually, I went over to some of the other threads on this site and saw some posts relating to these things implemented during the Irene event. Good for them!
Anyway, those are just a few of my experiences and thoughts on the subject.
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