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KSFM 102.5 fires its airstaff

Most companies are probably now looking at AI to replace on-air hosts.

No, they aren't.
Not yet, anyway.

Unlikely.
For the foreseeable future, at least.

Beyond that, who knows?

c
 
Ask yourself....what's cheaper than a few people voicing multiple markets? NO PEOPLE! Especially when you can type on a keyboard and tell your presenter EXACTLY what to say.......EXACTLY! What current radio company wouldn't want that considering their behavior of consolidation and downsizing in the last 20 years. It's utterly FOOLISH to think they won't do this.....at least on some scale.
 
Ask yourself....what's cheaper than a few people voicing multiple markets? NO PEOPLE! Especially when you can type on a keyboard and tell your presenter EXACTLY what to say.......EXACTLY! What current radio company wouldn't want that considering their behavior of consolidation and downsizing in the last 20 years. It's utterly FOOLISH to think they won't do this.....at least on some scale.
Not for some time. First, the trials being done at a station in the Northwest show that there are issues of "humanity" (warmth, feel) that don't quite make it. Then there is the question of saying the right thing at the right time,

Not now, and not in the most near future. It will arrive, but will need full human supervision for some time to come. As AI harvests terms, expressions and vocabulary mostly from the Internet, it will pick up a lot more slang and offensive terminology since it is not presently just FCC and socially acceptable things.

Yes, you can now get AI to do IDs and stock liners as they can be done from samples of the very same person you already use. But for ad libs, every one I talk to questions letting an AI system fully do a personality based show. Again, the keyword is "yet".

Heck, most of the AI systems that "talk to me" on the phone for customer service can't even pronounce my last name, which is one of the most famous in TV history ("Eduardo" is a given name).
 
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I don't think the near future will see large owners replacing their live local hosts with AI. As others say above, the technology is too new.

The easiest thing is what iHeart is doing with many of its formats in medium to smaller markets. Just voicetrack someone from a large market. Most iHeart Classic Rock stations below Market #50 get the same DJs... Maria Milito, Marc Coppola and Ken Dashow from WAXQ New York, Big Rig from WXTB Tampa. Even in a market as large as San Diego, KGB-FM runs Coppola as the midday host.

For each station they pre-record an I.D. that plays after every music set. Something like "KGB 101, San Diego's Classic Rock." Then the computer plays what they recorded for that break, either about the song or artist just played or some concert coming up. Apparently it's not hard. Milito and Dashow are live on Q104.3 every weekday for five hours. But they still have time to do their voicetracked shows as well, probably talking about the same things they said on Q104.3.
 
"For each station they pre-record an I.D. that plays after every music set. Something like "KGB 101, San Diego's Classic Rock." Then the computer plays what they recorded for that break, either about the song or artist just played or some concert coming up. Apparently it's not hard"

Interestingly, this is what KYBB was doing in the mid 80's when I started working there. They used the Transtar (Trans star) network. Music and DJ's were on network. Each break started with firing a cart with the station ID recorded by the network DJ who knows when, and then the network DJ talking as if they were local. Commercials were on cassette tapes (I am not joking) on a half rack full of stuff called "systemation". The computer that ran the whole thing was a Commodore Vic 20. The trick was to remember to swap the ID carts at the top of the hour when the DJs changed shifts. Many times, the jock on KWG AM was supposed to do it, but forgot. Then you'd have one voice say the ID and a different voice take it from there.

Many kudos to Tony Barroga (Tim Anthony was his radio name) for hiring me to run the board and fix the looseness during the mid days.
 
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