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News 96.5

I was listening between 5:00 P. M. and 6:00 P. M. Saturday the 11th. There was a girl on the air "attempting" to do the news. She stumbled in every story except one! Coming out of an actuality she regularly left a second or so of dead air before reading again. Some guy comes on and does a weather conditions update and stumbles thru that too! Absolutely incredible.
 
The news on this station is bad enough, but the traffic reports are absolutely USELESS. I got stuck in horrendous traffic jams twice on my last trip to Orlando. No mention of either problem on WDBO. One was a bad crash on State Road 434 at I-4, where I sat for nearly 40 minutes.

I have worked on 3 N/T stations, 2 in markets bigger than Orlando, and would CLEAN HOUSE for the egregious incompetence I've heard on this also-ran, sorry excuse for a radio station.
 
And replace them with another batch of $10/hr parttimers? Because that's all your budget will allow. Competence costs money. Good luck with that.
 
Nice try, genius. Budget restrictions are not an excuse for poorly trained or coached staff. Following your logic, if I'm the OM or PD at a N/T station, I should just hire anyone who can fog a mirror and "hope for the best" because I can't pay a higher wage or salary. Great attitude.
 
Given the difficulty of finding any job right now, am I wrong to think that there are pros on the street who would jump at the chance to make ten dollars an hour doing radio news while they wait for something else to come along?
 
And what's even more amazing is WDBO-FM just changed it's slogan to "News 96.5." As if it's an All-News station, not the home of mostly syndicated Conservative Talk hosts and weekend infomercials.

I wonder if similar sized markets like Kansas City, Salt Lake City and Milwaukee have similar Talk stations that try to pretend to be News stations but invest so little into news, traffic or the personnel to do those jobs? Kansas City has Entercom-owned KMBZ-AM-FM and Cumulus-owned KCMO as their Talk stations. Salt Lake City has Bonneville-owned KSL-AM-FM and Clear Channel's KNRS-AM-FM. Milwaukee has WTMJ, owned, as its call letters indicate, by The Milwaukee Journal, as well as Clear Channel's WISN.

I have the feeling those stations are better-staffed. I've heard KSL and it's a great station, with real All-News blocks in morning and afternoons. They dropped Hannity to run All-News in the afternoon. But I don't know for sure about the others.
 
stereolane said:
Nice try, genius. Budget restrictions are not an excuse for poorly trained or coached staff. Following your logic, if I'm the OM or PD at a N/T station, I should just hire anyone who can fog a mirror and "hope for the best" because I can't pay a higher wage or salary. Great attitude.
Click to expand...
First off, the insult and the tone are not appreciated. Secondly, read what I wrote. I never said hire anyone who could"fog a mirror." I'm pointing out that in this day and age, GM's are not spending on talent, in any format in a market this size. It's running it as cheaply as possible that is the goal. Talent costs money and ownership is not willing to spend it to do it right. If you've run N/T, you know that to do it right takes producers, reporters and credible anchors. All that costs money, and I mean more than the lousy PT wages this market pays. You get what you pay for. Go ahead and "clean house," I wish you good luck in getting your GM to pay what it would take to you make those improvements. Plus, who is going to coach them? Nowadays, OM's are stretched between multiple stations, plus all the corporate BS they have to deal with. We're on the same side here -- I believe in good radio, I just don't think it's possible for DBO to be much better given the budget they probably have to work with. I know I'm good, but I wouldn't do it for 10 bucks an hour. Would you?
 
If a PD/OM thinks they're too busy/important to be concerned about their on-air product, then they aren't much of a PD/OM! The gentleman who said there are pro's on the street who would love to get back on the air for $10 per hour is absolutely 1000% correct! Some are on Social Security and can't earn much more. They would jump at the chance!!! However, the insecure "management" probably would feel very uncomfortable being around people who actually know how to do N/T!
 
SAMPLE AD FOR WDBO:

"WDBO is seeking professional, very experienced and seasoned news pro's. Maybe you're retired but would absolutely LOVE to get back on the air a few hours a day...stop dreaming and contact us. Your love of the business and a chance to rekindle your love affair will be the best compensation you can ever get. We need the help and we need your authoritative voice/expertice! Call us TODAY!!!"
 
In the job market at large, far more people are now competing for fewer openings. Ask anyone who's looking how hard it is even to get a response from an employer. And everyone here surely knows how consolidation and voice-tracking have negatively affected the employment situation for radio talent.

It's difficult to recalibrate mentally after being unfairly fired from a job you worked so hard to get. You wouldn't have reached that level if you weren't very good at what you do. And yet none of that seems to matter now. What's even worse is that you can't even make a lateral move because there's such a glut of qualified applicants in the same situation and stations are trimming their budgets so drastically.

It's not easy, but some of us have to swallow our pride, accept reality and face the fact that ten dollars an hour is about as good as it gets right now. It puts food on the table and...hey, at least it's radio.
 
DXDXDX said:
SAMPLE AD FOR WDBO:

"WDBO is seeking professional, very experienced and seasoned news pro's. Maybe you're retired but would absolutely LOVE to get back on the air a few hours a day...stop dreaming and contact us. Your love of the business and a chance to rekindle your love affair will be the best compensation you can ever get. We need the help and we need your authoritative voice/expertice! Call us TODAY!!!"
Click to expand...
Granted, this is mostly comparing apples and oranges, but WVLG's airstaff is mostly retired radio people, some even from legendary stations such as WABC and CKLW and I would suspect these people are doing it for their love of radio and not necessarily because they need the money.

drt,
st. petersburg,fl
 
My understanding is that most of the WVLG jocks are volunteers - no money at all. They are all very good though, even if the music mix can be a little strange.
 
I was listening today during the six o'clock hour and heard Anez, some guy and a girl doing the news block. Anez sounded good, the guy stumbled a little but not much. The girl, on the other hand, didn't stumble much either but sounded off mike the whole time. Surely there was a board operator there, right? He/she would have heard the difference between Anez and the girl. Why didn't that board operator advise the girl so that being off mike didn't last the whole block???
 
DXDXDX - They are probably in a separate news booth from the producer pressing their own buttons. Shouldn't you yourself know when you are off mic and fix that yourself?
 
DXDXDX said:
I was listening today during the six o'clock hour and heard Anez, some guy and a girl doing the news block. Anez sounded good, the guy stumbled a little but not much. The girl, on the other hand, didn't stumble much either but sounded off mike the whole time. Surely there was a board operator there, right? He/she would have heard the difference between Anez and the girl. Why didn't that board operator advise the girl so that being off mike didn't last the whole block???
Click to expand...

Why is it that the Cox N/T station in Dayton, OH (WHIO) which has the same positioning, same format, etc, sounds very polished, and professional, and WDBO is a complete and total clusterf***?
 
Just completed a 4day stay at Disney and listened to News 96.5 every day we were there.

Being from Illinois, I listen to Chicago regularly, which has a true all-news staton (WBBM) and two good talk stations (WGN & WLS), there are some red flags about it that I wondered about.

1. Do they want to be a news station, or a talk station? I heard constant emphasis about "the three big things you need to know every fifteen minutes", "triple team traffic every 6 minutes in the morning", and "when we're not giving the news, we're talking about the news". A news station to me would be the entire morning, midday, and afternoon.

2. The odd all-news blocks are a problem. After the half hour updates during Herman Cain, they offer traffic every 6 minutes and constant news for a full hour at noon. Then another full our at six. Again this relates to the news or talk problem.

3. Can they follow other stations and do LOCAL talk programs??? Cain and Clark are fed from sister WSB in Atlanta, which is a better station serving a larger market. I would get Herman Cain off of there for a local personality. This could be done at sister WOKV in Jacksonville, which has only a morning show for local offerings.

4. 96.5 needs to secure an identity. Not emphasizing news when there is talk programs throughout he daytime and evening hours. Maybe News/Talk 96.5 or something like that.
 
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