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Loudell Hosting WDEL's Saturday Morning News Block

Hello all.

Starting over a month ago, each full-time WDEL news anchor/reporter has anchored a Saturday morning shift. (My turn was Aug. 16th.)

We had been looking for areas where we could make little changes with the hopes of not having to make any big changes. I give credit to the news staff for giving up one Saturday every six weeks so that we could reallocate those resources to other areas.
 
One way to look at this, is by having the full timers pull a Saturday morning shift (once every 6 weeks) and moving their weekender (Edie Scott) another time slot, where they must also need a live person, WDEL saves money by not having to hire another weekender to work that Saturday morning shift.

Of course another way to look at it is those full timers just took a pay cut as they now have to work a Saturday morning every month and a half (and probably all are salaried not hourly, so it costs WDEL no extra cash to have those full timers work on Saturday's.) It's not a major sacrifice for those folks to make, but it's not as good as working 5 days a week Monday thru Friday.
 
MikefromDelaware said:
One way to look at this, is by having the full timers pull a Saturday morning shift (once every 6 weeks) and moving their weekender (Edie Scott) another time slot, where they must also need a live person, WDEL saves money by not having to hire another weekender to work that Saturday morning shift.

Of course another way to look at it is those full timers just took a pay cut as they now have to work a Saturday morning every month and a half (and probably all are salaried not hourly, so it costs WDEL no extra cash to have those full timers work on Saturday's.) It's not a major sacrifice for those folks to make, but it's not as good as working 5 days a week Monday thru Friday.

That's called Pete Booker cheap 101. All for me
 
warmland said:
That's called Pete Booker cheap 101. All for me

Warmland,

Just to clarify, although we were told by DBC management to look for ways to reduce expenses, this was not Pete Booker's idea.
 
I believe I heard Sean Green, one of WDEL's traffic reporters doing the Saturday morning news today. So even the traffic guys are taking a turn on Saturday mornings.

In fairness to WDEL, they probably now have the largest radio news organization in Delaware (WILM used to be able to make that claim, but their staff has shrunk considerably from what it was during the 12th and French Sts days). So in this time of a slow economy, and AM radio not being the money maker it used to be, it is understandable that WDEL management, which I guess would also include input from Pete Booker as President of Delmarva Broadcasting, would say that we as a business need to cut costs, watch the bottom line, etc, etc. My guess is, Delmarva management made a similar request to all their stations, not just WDEL. That's exactly what the industrial businesses have been doing for years. Bottom line, WDEL, Delmarva Broadcasting, and WILM, are all businesses and their main goal is to make a profit. They've got a bottomline just like DuPont, Bank of America, GM, etc. So if WDEL can better make it's bottomline by having it's fulltime salaried employees pull an occasional Saturday morning shift then that move might keep WDEL from laying off a full timer. Industrial companies use temporary employees this way. When times get slower they'll cut back on the temp help, thus saving fulltimers their jobs. Obviously, if things get too bad then they end up cutting into the fulltime employees, but those temps act as a buffer generally.

Sure as a former weekender, who worked at various radio stations (WNNN-FM, WNRK, WAMS, WILM) in the Wilmington metro area for many years, it would be great to hear a weekender fill that position, but from a business point of view, I can understand why they chose to take the path they did.
 
Chris Carl said:
warmland said:
That's called Pete Booker cheap 101. All for me

Warmland,

Just to clarify, although we were told by DBC management to look for ways to reduce expenses, this was not Pete Booker's idea.

That's right. I forgot he doesn't have any original ideas.
 
Mike,

Sean Greene is only on the roads for TrafficWatch for about 35 hours a week. He fills out his 40-hour work week by doing some sports reporting and anchoring sports on Saturday mornings. I don't know how long he's been doing that, but it's probably been a couple of years.

Oh, and Warmland, don't be bitter.
 
Shows you how observant I am. I remember Sean doing traffic for the traffic service WILM used to use a few years ago when I was a weekender there. By the way Carl, WDEL's traffic reports having someone in studio for the major part of the report with minor parts being from the traffic vans has really improved the sound quality.
 
That is funny that you should commend the sound quality of the traffic reports, Mike. I have noticed the opposite.

Since Robin Bryson has been confined to the studio, I have notied that his microphone is muddy, over-modulated, or just plain LOUD sounding. This is when compared to whomever he is on the air with, Loudell, Holmquist, etc. I am wondering about the cause of that.
 
I agree, but at least it doesn't cut out right in the middle of what he's saying. It may be muddier, but you can understand what he's saying and you don't hear "there's an accident on --------------------traffic not getting through. On Route -----------there's a medivac helicopter in the middle of the ------------------------Robin. Traffic is at a -----------------------------highway causing a major tie up this afternoon------------------------Bryson WDEL Traffic watch. Other times there'd be much static, so even though it didn't cut out you still couldn't hear what he was saying making their traffic reports useless.

WILM uses a traffic service, but this cutting out hasn't been a problem for their traffic reports at all. So WDEL's move to have one of their traffic team in studio has improved what they put over the air so that you can at least get some usefull information from their traffic reports. My guess is they'll get the muddy sound corrected. I've got to believe that Allan Loudell as well as Robin Bryson have complained about it.
 
As a follow up to my comments from October 1st. I've listened to WDEL's traffic reports (as well as the rest of their morning newscast) these past two days and as far as my ear is concerned, the muddiness is gone and the sound is great. Nice and clear, fitting in much better with the sound and style the WDEL morning report is producing (they've got a great sounding morning news show). So I stand by my statement that having one of the traffic reporters broadcast in studio is far better than having to put up with poor audio quality and the breaking up and static of the moble phones.
 
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