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live overnight people

J

JoelLiz

Guest
Thinking about this tonight, just wondering...

What stations are still live overnight? How many are left?

I was attempting to make a list in my head, I came up with:

95.5 WPLJ
Mix 98-5

And, in my market of Milwaukee:
103.7 Kiss FM (Where I am the live overnight guy, hence why I am wondering)
FM102-1


And thats about all I got.
 
WIKY Evansville is local in the overnights. They run Delilah in the evenings.
 
A lot of groups have one live body on the air overnight. Frequently, it's one of the signals aimed at a younger audience that gets the live jock.

Somebody's got to be in the building babysitting the remote controls and EAS for the rest of the stations in the group. You can still get somebody who'll work for board-op wages in order to have the chance to be on the air.
 
SirRoxalot said:
A lot of groups have one live body on the air overnight. Frequently, it's one of the signals aimed at a younger audience that gets the live jock.

Somebody's got to be in the building babysitting the remote controls and EAS for the rest of the stations in the group. You can still get somebody who'll work for board-op wages in order to have the chance to be on the air.
Click to expand...

The smaller the markets one can find a bunch a stations late at night run by..nobody.

In the last market I was in Clear Channel ran five stations in one building. After midnight..nobody is there unless they working in total darkness since there have been quite a few nights when I drove by and not only is it totally dark but not a single car is in the parking lot other than the company van.

and just down the road from Clear Channel is yet another group of stations ( 2 in this case plus their TV cable channel ) and they too...nobody is there late at night and in their case..weekends too.
 
SirRoxalot said:
A lot of groups have one live body on the air overnight. Frequently, it's one of the signals aimed at a younger audience that gets the live jock.

Somebody's got to be in the building babysitting the remote controls and EAS for the rest of the stations in the group. You can still get somebody who'll work for board-op wages in order to have the chance to be on the air.
Click to expand...

My situation exactly.. atleast the door was open.. I would love a better opportunity for 22 years in radio.

"Feel free to call... Large or Small I have worked in all sizes."
 
SirRoxalot said:
A lot of groups have one live body on the air overnight. Frequently, it's one of the signals aimed at a younger audience that gets the live jock.

Somebody's got to be in the building babysitting the remote controls and EAS for the rest of the stations in the group. You can still get somebody who'll work for board-op wages in order to have the chance to be on the air.
Click to expand...

Keep in mind that a lot of LP's for the EAS are live and local in the overnights. Where I live, KTXY 106.9 is the only station live in the overnights. The other big cluster, which is owned by Cumulus, has someone there, but he's a producer and AudioVault technician, not a jock. He does all the pre-packed production for the morning show on KFRU (News/Talk 1400) and babysits the AudioVault for the FM stations.

When I first worked that shift on a fill-in, the overnight guy had to produce the morning shows for the FM stations, too. It really wasn't difficult; you just had to make sure you were in the studio and had the right satellite feeds and AudioVault carts open. I only filled in for a few days over a 2 week period. The next time I filled in not quite a year later, the overnight guy no longer had to do the FM morning shows' production since most of that was now set to auto capture, but you had to check to make sure the various segments and bits were where they were supposed to be so you could catch the re-feeds if there were any problems!
 
98.9 KWJZ Seattle
All ran locally overnight. DJ's are:
Monday-Friday: Cedric James
Saturday: Steve Mills
 
I am a live overnight guy in Nashville at WPRT 102.5 the PARTY. Sorry to bring this back, I too am looking for other live overnighters.
 
A little off topic....

I, like most of us, started on overnights, an FM Rocker on the NC Coast. Small market, lousy pay, but the best radio experience. I would venture to say most on air folk started on overnights or even weekend overnights. This is where radio has lost its way. Pay a few bucks for someone to be live overnight and you are then creating possibly your next morning show or afternoon drive jock. Howard Stern didn't start on top, it took him years to hone his craft and create his on air personna. By not having rookies on overnight, we are not creating the next generation of radio, we are letting the art die to save a few bucks now.

Also, there have been some great overnight personalities thought the years that stayed on at that time because that time fit their personality. Thats something that is missing from radio now, that voice that was just talking to you, your friend overnight. For me it was Jean Shepherd, and musically Allison Steele, but that was a long time ago. Now its some voicetracked liner card reader telling me I just heard the Rolling Stones "Satisfaction",,, ,DUH. Tell me something I don't know.

Overnights was called "paying your dues", It rarely felt like paying dues, it felt like I had finally started the journey. I hope the few overnighters there are, feel the same way and are enjoying the ride.
 
I know this would be frowned on today, but my first paying job was to sign the station off at 1AM. In fact, at the time, most of the stations in my area signed off around that time. No audience, not worth paying someone with no spots. Heck, during my shift (10P to 1A) I had maybe 2 paid spots an hour? Not many more. They were probably bonus. It was around that time that Larry King got his start, offering live radio coast to coast. But I bet a third of the stations in the country signed off for at least a few hours every night back then.

Howard Stern never worked overnights. Most people I know who worked overnights never got anywhere. Their bosses didn't want to move them off the overnight shift because they'd be impossible to replace. So they'd stay there until they quit. That's what I did. I was there for a year, realized I had no shot at a full time gig, and left. Got more experience, went into a different side of broadcasting, and survived. Sort of put the car in reverse, as they say.

Same thing with weekends. I finally got a job where I was hiring people to work weekends and overnights. I hired a few dozen people while I was there. None ever did anything else. They don't call it the graveyard shift for nothing, folks. No one wants the job, and you can't get out of it once you take it. It's no stepping stone. The people we hired for top spots were successes at other stations. Not overnight workers who put their time in.
 
I've seen people on the overnight shift get somewhere in the business. However, you're right when you say it's often not at the same station. I can think of a few exceptions, but I know the overnight producer at KFRU and Premier Radio's FM stations had that position for over 10 years. He was fired right before Cumulus took over, and the guy who replaced him has moved up nicely within the cluster. He replaced me after I left about four months later and moved to nights on KBBM about a year after that.

Carly Rush, who currently does mornings on KBEZ with Steve Smith, is another good example of someone moving up within the same cluster. After graduating college, she became the overnight personality on KAYI and was promoted to night talent two or three years later. She was also one of the few who survived the station being sold to Renda Broadcasting in '93, when it underwent a major makeover and became KHTT. She remained at K-Hits until about two years ago, and she was morning co-host by the time she moved to KBEZ.

KTXY had an overnighter who didn't move up very far at the company after several years. However, he eventually became a minor player on the morning show, more by accident than anything else, and moved up to working for Cumulus in Kansas City shortly afterward.
 
Kent said:
Carly Rush, who currently does mornings on KBEZ with Steve Smith, is another good example of someone moving up within the same cluster. After graduating college, she became the overnight personality on KAYI and was promoted to night talent two or three years later. She was also one of the few who survived the station being sold to Renda Broadcasting in '93, when it underwent a major makeover and became KHTT. She remained at K-Hits until about two years ago, and she was morning co-host by the time she moved to KBEZ.
Click to expand...

I remember Steve Smith.. Wasn't better gentleman in Phoenix to work for.
 
Overnights used to be a place for newbies to gain skills, and refine their act. Some smart PDs used the overnight show to try out prospective talent, to test programming elements, and even look for reaction to an incremental shift in music programming.

I actually enjoyed working overnights early in my career. I got to try out ideas that wouldn't have flown during the daytime, and developed a lot of phone skills putting the overnight show crazies on the air - on delay, of course. Overnights were more intimate, more one-on-one than other dayparts because you have an audience sharing an experience that is atypical of "normal" life.

There is some truth to the idea that few overnight people move up on the same station. I did have that happen, but only after I had years in the biz and moved up to a much larger market. I took an overnight shift to get into the market, and ended up with a daytime shift in less than a year. It's about timing - if there's an opening, you may get the shot. In my case, they created an opening because the PD liked what I did so much that he wanted to get me on during the daytime.
 
Loads?

TheBigA said:
SirRoxalot said:
Overnights used to be a place for newbies to gain skills, and refine their act.
Click to expand...

These days newbies have loads of other places that didn't exist when I started.
Click to expand...

And those other places would be? I'm talking about places where there's actually a programmer who can teach you the business, and an audience that will give you some reaction.
 
Re: Loads?

SirRoxalot said:
And those other places would be? I'm talking about places where there's actually a programmer who can teach you the business, and an audience that will give you some reaction.
Click to expand...

College radio. Lots of former radio programmers are now running college radio stations, teaching the next generation of radio folks. You get a whole lot more attention there then you do at 2 AM. You're on the air, getting audience reaction, and learning the ropes. I can give you a list of a few hundred schoolw where this is going on. Also seach the Broadcast Education Association. Great group of folks.
 
Name one college radio station that is run by students 24/7. I can't do it.
 
PTBoardOp94 said:
Name one college radio station that is run by students 24/7. I can't do it.
Click to expand...

Give me a state.

I know both WRSU-FM at Rutgers and WSOU at Seton Hall in New Jersey are 24/7 student run.

Those that are professionally run, like American's WAMU, use students in various roles throughout the day.
 
PTBoardOp94 said:
Name one college radio station that is run by students 24/7. I can't do it.
Click to expand...

My alma mater, WBRS at Brandeis University in Waltham, MA.

WBNY 91.3 over at Buffalo State University in Buffalo.

WCDB 90.9 at SUNY Albany.

There are more...
 
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