Ok, is all the trafic that OKC has is several non-injury accidents and a couple injury accidents a day? Seems as if that's all KMGL reports. Also, has anyone noticed that they cut off the commercials abruptly and go to internet only commercials? Then it sounds like they mess up the return into the music, although that's not as bad as it was a couple weeks ago. They just got back to the music and it came in in the middle of the song.
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KMGL, trafic and commercials
- Thread starter bobdavcav
- Start date
I've heard people talking about this on other boards, too, and, having worked at several stations that stream their on-air signal, I can tell you this is because there's usually a slight delay in the computers firing their respective spots. You'll either go too late or too early almost every time.
I've been told you can mark your spots that can't air on the internet so your streaming system knows not to air them, but the most common way to handle it is to send your streaming system a list of spots numbers that aren't allowed on the web. Some systems will block the audio as soon as you fire those spots, and that will usually cut off the last half second of the jock's talk before the break, while others will take a split second to fire the internet spot and will continue to stream the on-air signal until the replacement spot fires. The obvious way to prevent the former problem is to implement a delay before firing the replacement ads out of the break, but you'll still have the latter problem doing that because no jock fires the spot break at exactly the same time and no computer starts it at exactly the same time when fired.
I've been told you can mark your spots that can't air on the internet so your streaming system knows not to air them, but the most common way to handle it is to send your streaming system a list of spots numbers that aren't allowed on the web. Some systems will block the audio as soon as you fire those spots, and that will usually cut off the last half second of the jock's talk before the break, while others will take a split second to fire the internet spot and will continue to stream the on-air signal until the replacement spot fires. The obvious way to prevent the former problem is to implement a delay before firing the replacement ads out of the break, but you'll still have the latter problem doing that because no jock fires the spot break at exactly the same time and no computer starts it at exactly the same time when fired.
I've heard this both ways, yes, and each is rather annoying in its own way. How does Cumulus and some other companies make it so seemless? I listened to WBZN for a while and they only had problems a couple of times, while WRQX has problems almost every break. KMGL is interesting though, they seem to play the first spot fine, then go to the next one, where it fades out and goes to an internet-only commercial about halfway through. Subsequently, the next song is cut off at the beginning. I also am really puzzled about the trafic reports is that really all they do?
Bob, It's because KMGL actually hires humans to sit in their studio and be live DJs opposed to the CC and Cumeless way of roboting everything past morning drive. Timing of what's on-air vs. the webstream can be off a bit from someone talking, or a commercial that runs a bit longer than another one, etc. Since the OTA is LIVE there is less urgency for commercials to strictly stay :30 and :60 seconds. Elements like traffic and contests and other things are LIVE. So, without being extremely careful about how they replace commercials on the web, it suffers a bit. Considering the last few Arbitron ratings, I'd say that KMGL must be doing something right for their OTA listeners. Understandably, the cut-off can be annoying, but the OTA is pretty flawless. The most annoying thing to me being in the industry is that stations even have to deal with replacing spots due to some damn "talent" union that seems to think their cheesy spots are worth more on the web (AFTRA). Considering this problem and how the blood-sucking jerks at the Record Industry Association of America (Sound Exchange) gouges broadcasters and burdens them with reporting that makes tax codes look easy it's a wonder anyone would even bother. Mister Renda for several years chose to not even stream because of these burdens. I, for one, am glad any OTA broadcaster bothers to stream.
On that last point, me too. Honestly, Seattle radio can get kind of boring, and outside of morning drive, our stations are pretty average. The station I'm listening to now, KCDA, is quite good. I would assume that KMGL is pretty good, as are most stations, on commercials. Isn't the spot problem getting better though? The only thing I don't like about the way Cumulus runs their commercials is that they run the same ones every set. The station I listen to on weekends, Q98, plays the cumulusradio.com commercials at least once if not twice per set, and the Sweet Jack commercials, which have only been out since the beginning of the year are already starting to get annoying. Are the high rates the only reason some stations don't stream? Here's a couple of things I find annoying, let's see if you agree.OKCRadioGuy said:
1. The companies like Bicoastal Media which only seem to stream some of their stations and there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to what is streamed and what isn't, except for in Longview WA, which has one website for the three stations.
2. The really good stations like KRAO - Colfax that don't stream. I haven't heard a Hot AC that good since and probably won't until I can get over there again.
3. Last but probably most annoying, the stations that streamed sometime in the past and no longer do. Examples of these are WAOL, WBEB and WBVI. All of these stations are in a list of 282 stations that do not stream, which is another annoying one, the number of stations still not on. Is it possible to give a brief explanation of what broadcasters deal with? When I was looking to start an internet station I got really confused. I see the following requirements,
1. You can't play the same song less than 3 hours from the last time it was played. In that case how can some CHR stations that play songs every hour and a half to two hours stream?
2. You must display song data. This works for most stations, but how can stations like KSKR-FM stream? How can stations stream syndicated programming where song data isn't displayed?
OKCRadioGuy said:
The way I understand it, that's not entirely true. It's really more of a case of increasing the paychecks of AFTRA talent. While you have to replace AFTRA spots, you can replace them with other AFTRA spots so long as said spots are cut exclusively for web use. The national ads you hear for companies like Progressive and GEICO on streams are AFTRA spots for the web, and they sound exactly like the ones that go out over-the-air. Airing on-air spots on the web essentially results in a 100% penalty for the ad agency, though I've been told the same spot for a web stream costs much less than the one cut for on-air use. There would likely also be penalties for airing a web spot over the air, though the risk of that happening is remote.
It's definitely high cost and a burden, but it's ultimately where everything's going. Broadcasters need to see themselves more as content providers than as broadcasters. The transmitter is simply another way to distribute content.
bobdavcav said:
Cumulus owns SweetJack. I don't know how many markets have SweetJack available right now, but it will be in more markets. As for why stations don't stream, there are probably as many reasons as there are stations. Royalty rates, however, aren't the only high costs in streaming. I understand it's getting better, and the last stations I worked for actually traded it out, but bandwidth can still be cost prohibitive in some areas. There are also a lot of technical headaches in streaming, though outsourcing your streaming can alleviate that to some degree.
WBEB said it was no longer streaming because of the increase in royalty rates a few years back.
This is the so-called "performance compliment." As I remember that rule, it actually prohibits you from streaming more than four songs on the same album or in the same box set in a 3 hour period and no more than three songs consecutively. I didn't think it prohibited streaming the same song more than once during that period (though it did prohibit streaming it more than four times during that timeframe), but I can't swear to it as I've never had to program around it. The last station where I did any music scheduling was an AC that ran its powers on a 4 hour rotation. The "performance compliment," by the way, doesn't apply to most terrestrial stations. Terrestrial stations who are members of the NAB are exempted from it unless they opted out of the NAB's settlement agreement with SoundExchange and the RIAA.
I believe this also doesn't apply to most terrestrial stations. The rules for pure-play webcasters and terrestrial stations are different.
Hi Kent. The point I was trying to make is that AFTRA members (talent) think that running something on the internet after it's already being paid for playing on real radio is worth extra money. It isn't. It's just another stumbling block to being able to easily stream for OTA stations. Similar to RIAA, everyone seems to think that they should get more for 1/100 or less of an audience. The greedy little jerks should be happy with what they get, because, acutally, it's more than what it's worth. Personal opinion... I'll get off the soap box. LOL!
Yes, they are charging less for the stream version as they should. Since most of the audience is OTA and they are getting plenty for that "service", they shouldn't be charging anything for the stream. Add the couple hundred people to the OTA audience and charge that way. Number of listeners should be the number of listeners regardless of where they come from if they charge at all for it.
Truth is, I 90% agree with you. I don't think we're nearly as far apart on the issues as we sometimes seem. I agree with you that the current AFTRA policy really isn't good for much of anyone. Since more than 90% of streaming is local, it makes better sense for the radio station, the talent and the client to have their spots stream on the web. I do, however, understand what AFTRA is trying to prevent as CBS had previously said it would have its talent cut spots for the internet for no additional pay. It seems, to me, that AFTRA is really trying to kill a fly with an atomic bomb as I'd think there would be a way to insure talent is compensated fairly without shafting the station and its advertisers.
Exactly Kent. They, like RIAA, are just unreasonable. I'm all about people getting paid for what they did, but it's the burden on stations trying to just stream I don't like. Like most things, the "good people" always get inconvenienced by the minority of those that are trying to get something for nothing etc.
I remember back in August 2011 when KMGL starts adding "smooth jazz" songs to their internet-only commercials, it was really annoying. I'd rather hear ad-council ads or internet-only all the way through. They keep on gradually adding smooth jazz songs until where most of the commercial breaks are taken up by one 2-4 min smooth jazz song and many times the whole commercial break is taken up by two smooth jazz songs without any ad-council ads or internet only commercials at all.
When KMGL, KOMA, and KRXO had their only streaming back on again back in May 2011, KMGL had that problem where the internet-only commercial break is misaligned by 30 secs after the normal airtime which causes the internet-only commercials to start and end 30 secs late which causes the internet-only commercials to start 30 secs after the commercial break started which lead the first 30 secs of the over-the-air commercials to leak into the first 30 secs of the commercial break on the online streams. At the end of the commercial break the internet-only commercials continued into the first 30 secs of the song, overlapping the first 30 secs of the song. It also causes song data to display 30 secs after the song had started playing if you noticed it. They fixed this problem a few weeks later. Later around July they had this problem again that lasted about a week and a half then got it fixed when the only streaming player went offline and back on later. They never had this problem at all throughout the fall except it came back again about the week before the flipped to Christmas, but got it fixed in 4-5 days. They never had this problem throughout Christmas. After Christmas, actually, about a week after Christmas, this problem came back and it's worse than ever, it's misaligned by 90 secs which means you'll hear 90 secs of local over-the-air commercials at the beginning of the commercial break while have the first 90 secs (half) of the song cut off due to the internet only commercials overlapping it. This time it causes song data to display 90 secs after the song had started playing. The problem goes on for weeks and months this time which they never had last year back when they had their online streaming back on again. I believe it's just a system error they're having that causes the internet-only commercial to delay. It's kool to hear local commercials sometimes, but we're not suppose to hear local commercials on the online streaming, they should fix this since they aren't suppose to have any local over-the-air commercials leaked into their online streaming, but the very annoying part is that it cuts of the first 90 secs of the song. The internet-only commercials are suppose to cover all the local over-the-air commercials, not leaving any space.
Btw, good thing that KMGL isn't playing much smooth jazz during internet-only commercials over the past few months though. They were very, very heavy on smooth jazz during internet-only commercials last fall of 2011 and it really annoys me, I'd rather hear ad-council ads all the way through. They never played smooth jazz at all during internet-only commercials throughout the end of spring of 2011 and throughout the summer of 2011, but start introducing smooth jazz into internet-only commercial break starting the last week of August 2011.
The worst thing that when they had the problem (mentioned above) where the internet-only commercial delayed 30 secs back in Thanksgiving which lead the smooth jazz songs to cut off the first 30 secs of a song after the commercial break, very, very annoying, but they fixed that problem in about 4-5 days, phew!
When KMGL, KOMA, and KRXO had their only streaming back on again back in May 2011, KMGL had that problem where the internet-only commercial break is misaligned by 30 secs after the normal airtime which causes the internet-only commercials to start and end 30 secs late which causes the internet-only commercials to start 30 secs after the commercial break started which lead the first 30 secs of the over-the-air commercials to leak into the first 30 secs of the commercial break on the online streams. At the end of the commercial break the internet-only commercials continued into the first 30 secs of the song, overlapping the first 30 secs of the song. It also causes song data to display 30 secs after the song had started playing if you noticed it. They fixed this problem a few weeks later. Later around July they had this problem again that lasted about a week and a half then got it fixed when the only streaming player went offline and back on later. They never had this problem at all throughout the fall except it came back again about the week before the flipped to Christmas, but got it fixed in 4-5 days. They never had this problem throughout Christmas. After Christmas, actually, about a week after Christmas, this problem came back and it's worse than ever, it's misaligned by 90 secs which means you'll hear 90 secs of local over-the-air commercials at the beginning of the commercial break while have the first 90 secs (half) of the song cut off due to the internet only commercials overlapping it. This time it causes song data to display 90 secs after the song had started playing. The problem goes on for weeks and months this time which they never had last year back when they had their online streaming back on again. I believe it's just a system error they're having that causes the internet-only commercial to delay. It's kool to hear local commercials sometimes, but we're not suppose to hear local commercials on the online streaming, they should fix this since they aren't suppose to have any local over-the-air commercials leaked into their online streaming, but the very annoying part is that it cuts of the first 90 secs of the song. The internet-only commercials are suppose to cover all the local over-the-air commercials, not leaving any space.
Well, the cut-off NEVER took place at all throughout the fall except for the one that occurred the last week before flip to Christmas which only lasted 4-5 days before it got fixed and their numbers were really high in the fall ratings. It occurred twice in the summer lasting a few weeks before it got fixed and I don't think it's the case that got their numbers a little low, I think it took people time till the fall to recognize KMGL playlist update back in the first week of May 2011.
Btw, good thing that KMGL isn't playing much smooth jazz during internet-only commercials over the past few months though. They were very, very heavy on smooth jazz during internet-only commercials last fall of 2011 and it really annoys me, I'd rather hear ad-council ads all the way through. They never played smooth jazz at all during internet-only commercials throughout the end of spring of 2011 and throughout the summer of 2011, but start introducing smooth jazz into internet-only commercial break starting the last week of August 2011.
The worst thing that when they had the problem (mentioned above) where the internet-only commercial delayed 30 secs back in Thanksgiving which lead the smooth jazz songs to cut off the first 30 secs of a song after the commercial break, very, very annoying, but they fixed that problem in about 4-5 days, phew!
Me too, I like the local ads too, I actually liked the whole commercial break on their online streams to be local ads, cause the internet-only commercials is boring. It's same thing over and over again, usually. It's mainly/mostly Ad-Council ads. The reason why they don't let us hear local ads on their online streams is because of the AFTRA thingy, they can't play their local over-the-air ads on their online streams, so they had to cover it with Ad-Council ads and some of the national ads like GEICO, State Farm, etc. which isn't too bad at all.bobdavcav said:
KMGL also cover their local ads with 2-3 minutes Smooth Jazz songs (starting August last year) which I really dislike though. I think Lincoln Financial Media's AC WLYF/Miami used to play Jazzy songs during commercials along with national ads to cover their local ads on their online streams. Now, they play lyrics-less tunes that doesn't sound like Jazz. They also gotten really creative and play new songs like Lady Gaga's "You And I", David Guetta feat. Taio Cruz's "Without You", Bruno Mars' "It Will Rain", The Script's "Nothing", Christina Perry's "A Thousand Miles", etc. at certain periods during the commercial break on their online streams only and ask their listeners opinions about it before they add these new songs to their regular over-the-air playlist. They also do the same thing for the older songs from the 70s, 80s, 90s, and 00s with Creed's "With Arms Wide Open", Christopher Cross' "Ride Like The Wind", Seals & Crofts' "Summer Breeze", Gloria Estefan's "Can't Stay Away From You", etc. during commercials on their online streams only. I thought KMGL should do the same thing too, but it would cost them money though. I wonder, if it cost them money to add those smooth jazz songs then it would cost them the same amount of money to add different tunes.
There are a number of reasons why the break away and rejoin from internet only commercials can get out of sync.
First a brief over view of the system. Incoming program audio without profanity delay from the studio workstation/automation goes into the input of the stream machine. Spots that are covered are designated by category i.e. "com" etc. The trigger for the internet spots comes from the main playout automation via TCP/IP or RS232. When a spot is fired on the control room automation/work station, the stream adinjector in the stream computer will fire a cover ad. Hence the audio to the stream computer input has to be real time.
To make the process seamless :60s have to be :60, not :59 or :61 but :60. Same with all other commercial content. If you wish to cover a :90 then a :90 should be in the cover spot bin. The adinjector module in the stream machine is located after the input but before the output in the stream computer.
To keep the levels consistent from studio audio to cover audio, processing is done before the composite audio is sent to the encoder module for streaming. Some stations use the Orban 1100 card or dual sound cards with external processing.
The adinjector works as a FIFO buffer, first in/first out and looks at the play time of the covered spot and duration of the stop set and fills accordingly. It is a pain in neck to make it good, but with proper quality control on spots length you can have a system that will be seamless.
Jay Walker
First a brief over view of the system. Incoming program audio without profanity delay from the studio workstation/automation goes into the input of the stream machine. Spots that are covered are designated by category i.e. "com" etc. The trigger for the internet spots comes from the main playout automation via TCP/IP or RS232. When a spot is fired on the control room automation/work station, the stream adinjector in the stream computer will fire a cover ad. Hence the audio to the stream computer input has to be real time.
To make the process seamless :60s have to be :60, not :59 or :61 but :60. Same with all other commercial content. If you wish to cover a :90 then a :90 should be in the cover spot bin. The adinjector module in the stream machine is located after the input but before the output in the stream computer.
To keep the levels consistent from studio audio to cover audio, processing is done before the composite audio is sent to the encoder module for streaming. Some stations use the Orban 1100 card or dual sound cards with external processing.
The adinjector works as a FIFO buffer, first in/first out and looks at the play time of the covered spot and duration of the stop set and fills accordingly. It is a pain in neck to make it good, but with proper quality control on spots length you can have a system that will be seamless.
Jay Walker
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