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Longest On Air Shifts?

I do a live 6 hour midday shift 5 days a week. No voicetracking here. Music is all on CD, jingles on carts (remember those?), manually fired spot breaks from the not-so-gracefully-aging hard drive. When the morning or afternoon guy is gone I cover their shift as well. ;D
 
In the 80s, McKinney, TX had a radio station (KWPL, 95.3) that ran from 6 AM to Midnight with three DJs...and all live. So each DJ did have a six hour shift.I don't assume that was ever common, and as cheap as automation gear is today I would suspect that Banjomax's station must be pretty close to unique in having him work a six hour live shift.
 
People still do 6 hour airshifts?Must be small market.
 
The new owner of KWRD/Henderson is just about the only voice you'll hear while they're on the air (6a-6p)
 
If you add college radio into the mix, during the off-sememter periods, many times stations used to let anyone on staff fill-in for as many availible hours possible, I know I used to do anywhere from 8-12 hours on Mondays (the only day empy on the schedule) from morning to evening shifts. I miss those days, but sometimes I'd forget to pack enough food.
 
DJKraze said:
If you add college radio into the mix, during the off-sememter periods, many times stations used to let anyone on staff fill-in for as many availible hours possible, I know I used to do anywhere from 8-12 hours on Mondays (the only day empy on the schedule) from morning to evening shifts. I miss those days, but sometimes I'd forget to pack enough food.
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College radio was where my longest shifts were. I attended Western Illinois University in MaComb Illinois. One of the stations was a top forty cable access station available on the Residence Hall cable system. WHEN The first three leters of the Residence hall where the staion was, and might still be, located, During finals week we would go 24hours live. did midnight to ten AM a couple of times. We used CD's, records, remember those, and carts.
 
Used to do Sunday 7:30am-5:15pm (though some of it was taped church programs). I once did 9 hours live when somebdoy didn't show up.
 
I once worked 24 out of 30 hours. Pulled a 6 hour shift until midnight, then crashed in the lounge until 6am, then worked til midnight. Fortunately, the 18 hours was broken up by some church programming, an NFL game, and syndication. And I was so broke at the time that I actually volunteered for the marathon.As far as completely live, I pulled 11 hours once when I was working 7-12mid and my overnight guy didnt show up....
 
KEOS in Flagstaff, invented a number of unusual small market operating methods in the seventies, mentioned in one of former owner Jay Jenning's books ("It's Not the Big, etc."). Six hour shifts, six days a week, high energy full service AC news talk, live assist, tired staff. Oh, and Tradio...created by us, dammit. :eek:
 
I had my share of long airshifts during my near 21 year career. One of the longest first came to me in 1987 when I was working at KKTX/KOCA in Kilgore, TX. I've worked for up to the last six months before being let go 12 hour shifts. I was working overnights for KKTX (back when it was CHR) and another six at KOCA running gospel programming until noon. It was from midnight to noon. During that time I did the impossible: I worked two stations at the same time. Talk about the most unhealthy of my well being. During that summer, I worked 12 hours straight for two Sundays at KKTX while at changing up gospel programmng that morning at KOCA. At the time KKTX was running ABC Radio's Reeling In The Years[i/] while at KOCA (AM station playing nostalgia) was in gospel mode for six hours. Sometimes it's hard to stay up to do everything, but I perservered and waited until 12 noon came so that I could go home and get some sleep. I'm just glad that I don't work that many hours. It's like working at an oil refinery for 18 hours straight.....UGH! The second longest was nine hours, but, I don't want to get into too much detail on that. I'm just glad that I'm working 4 hours on the air. Six to twelve hours seemed like a death sentence.
 
Man,that will kill a person.I remember 6 hour shifts in a little East Texas AM station about 28 years ago.Actually, My shift would change depending on the time to sign off at sunset....it was odd but it worked.
 
the longest I did was 12 hours. today I just did 8 hours for my last show of the semester and probably til the fall
Musicradio said:
Man,that will kill a person.I remember 6 hour shifts in a little East Texas AM station about 28 years ago.Actually, My shift would change depending on the time to sign off at sunset....it was odd but it worked.
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In 1970 at KLTZ in Glasgow, Montana I did 8.5 hours or so every Sunday in addition to my regular 5-11PM shift on weekdays. About 10 years later when KHJ-AM San Diego (now KLSD) went to all-news KCNN, I anchored each day from 6AM to NOON - another guy came in and anchored NOON to 6PM and each of us recorded six 60-second newscasts that ran from 6PM to 6AM (by the time some of those aired they were so old they were history, not news). It was a cheapass operation for sure but they did eventually hire third anchor to cover 10-2PM.
 
Small city McMinnville, Oregon, KLYC, only has two dj's and a couple voice trackers. I only hear one voice after 5pm until 6am when Eve comes in for the morning show!
 
Did my regular Sunday 7p-12a in '87, and then stayed til 6 when the overnighter had car trouble. On the way home, I called the fire dept. when I saw a local eatery caught fire. Doing afternoon talk in suburban NYC when Gulf War I broke out. Started at 3p, was getting ready to sign off at 7. We got reports of the bombs dropping at 6:36, I was on the air till midnight. Did 3-11 the next day, and 3-10 the day after. Working Metro Traffic in NYC, I worked 30 of 36 hours during the Nor'easter in '92. Then did Metro mornings (4a-noon) and LI afternoons (3-7p) for five weeks in '94.
 
Back around the time dirt was invented....WALE, 1400, Fall River, MA.3pm-11:30pm with zero prep time. Block programming.Contemporary music 3-5News block, some network, mostly local 5-6:30Obituaries. Stolen from local newspaper with 78 RPM funeral parlor organ music played over and over on one turntable. When lacking enough to fill 15-minutes, be creative and invent people to kill off being careful not to use anybody real who was still living.Recorded public service (ETs...max 15 minutes to a side)Basketball or baseball in season*Hour of show tunes (one show, ad-lib commentary)Hour of jazz (sponsored)Hour live dramatic presentation with 1-3 "players". They brought in their own scripts and sound-effect/mood music discs, allowing about 20-minutes before air time to review and try to get it right.Half hour news block, live before sign-off.Oh yeah, I was 16 years old at the time and it was my first job in radio.Initially paid 75-cents an hour, increased almost immediately to $1.00/hour because the minimum wage was rasised.*Station was to cheap to pay for phone lines or rights to a pre-game show, so basketball was rebroadcast off a Boston FM (WHDH-FM) but we couldn't just air their pre-game. Undaunted, the announcer was required to plug a set of 'phones into the FM tuner and repeat word-for-word what Johnny Most said while also cueing up reel-to-reel spots to cover the WHDH-FM spots.Wonder, perhaps, why I am intolerant of folks who whine when the automation system screws up an event?
 
I have only ever done one 12 hour shift. It was a board-op shift from 6am till 6pm. Used to do regular Sunday 6 hour shifts. These days, I couldn't think of anything worse. This might sound bad, but Automation and multi skilling are the best thing (in my opinion) to happen to radio. I see so many jocks at one of the stations where I work, that just have very little to do (due to the very tight format), that it makes you wonder why they just don't automate it and go and get another job to fill in time. Places where I have been on air, auto was standard, and quite often second fiddle to you main duty.
 
marko83 said:
Most on air radio shifts are from 3 to 5 hours. Are there any LIVE voices out there that go for more than 5??
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Back in 1977, while at KAAY/Little Rock (it was still a big top 40 player back then), we had what amounted to a complete staff change. I was called on to handle 6AM-11 PM on a fall Saturday, for 17 hours. It was fortunately broken up by an Arkansas Razorback foortball game that afternoon. Plus, the new PD brought in lunch from Taco Bell. Otherwise, I was live and playing the hits of the day (Abba, Foreigner, EW&F and such). At 11 that night, we switched over to the transmitter for Beaker Street -- which was not long for the world after the PD and staff change.Of course, this was a one time shot. Normally shifts on KAAY were a reasonable 3-4 hours.
 
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