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OA: Big Ed Blasts Cincinnati Affil

F

fred flintstone

Guest
Old Akronite is reporting on his Ohio Media Watch site that Ed Schultz is blasting Clear Channel Cincinnati for technical glitches during this show and for lack of marketing support. Akronite quotes Big Ed as saying, ""You can't develop revenue and ratings with dead air, double programming, programming playing on top of each other." OA reports Schultz based his comments on technical issues from listener complaints.

CC Cincinnati Ops Manager Darryl Parks recently shunted progressive talk to a station with a poorer signal and publicly expressed a lack of confidence in the viability of the progressive talk format. OA says Big Ed wondered during his rant whether Clear Channel's conservative talk station had similar technical problems. All Access says Parks says he is happy Big Ed is following his (Parks') directions not "to let the facts get in the way of a good talk show."

Dead air and double programming on automated station usually mean (1) the traffic department is not doing the automation logs right and (2) nobody is paying attention to what's going out. Such problems are chronic on other automated talkers - including turn-key AAR stations, most notably WLIB, New York (which does not carry Big Ed's program syndicated by Jones Radio.

This is radio. Clear Channel fires good people; Darryl Parks keeps his job. If there is dead air and double programming, he is reponsible (so he makes a lame joke and denies it ever happened). And, like many in radio, he does not look favorably on progressive talk, so he appears to be setting up the format to fail in his market, so he can say he was right about the format not being viable.

http://ohiomedia.blogspot.com/2006/08/ed-schultz-rips-cincy-affiliate.html
 
The Cincy station is a joke! I've listened occasionally (after dark, when they were on 1530). Their automation software would air two programs at a time, air satellite-delivered news or actuality feeds as they came in (over whatever was currently on the air). Liners would air for several minutes back-to-back. Shows abruptly cut off. Anything that could possibly go wrong with automation has gone wrong with WSAI/WCKY.

I'm sure nothing's changed since they moved to WSAI.

For a company like CC in a big market where they own so many stations, they should be ashamed of themselves for allowing this to happen. Somebody send in a computer tech to see what the hell's going on.
 
We have the same problem on WROC-AM (Entercom). CNN satellite feed audio left open leading to double programming which can run for tens of minutes, spots repeating multiple times, dead air, late joins, and is the case with most libtalk affiliates - absolutely zero local promotion outside of free publicity the local press offers up during launch. Meanwhile, cross-promotional spots will air on stations informing listeners about other corporate radio outlets in the market, but nothing around here for the libtalk format.

It's clearly a turnkey operation locally.

Their promotional spots and ID's are also extremely odd, playing with literally ominous sounding background music in the background. I have no idea what the message is supposed to be with that.
 
Indeed, dead air, double audio and the like are far from only being a problem in Cincinnati. And really, I wouldn't be surprised if it did happen on occasion on WKRC/550, for example, or even in nights/overnights on FOX Sports Radio on 1530. WLW is live/local 24/7, so it won't happen there.

BTW, the quote from Mr. Parks reported above was actually from our own report. We dropped him a note after we posted it, and he replied quickly.

-OMW
 
Obviously Parks has no clue what is going on with his stations.

I've heard it, seems everyone else has heard it. Schultz and Randi Rhodes have complained about it. Does Parks even listen to his stations?
 
it's a red herring...

I wouldn't take Bid Eddie's tirade too seriously, considering it was the day after his buddy Joe LIEberman lost the primary. Ed's righteously indignant vituperations were nothing more than a way to avoid mentioning the significant Lamont win, and sure enough he never mentioned it once during that show.

After that fiasco I'm really disappointed with Ed, he has shown himself to be out of touch with democrats generally and his loyalty to LIEberman and not the voters is egotistical and partisan. I'm now taking liberals a little more seriously when they tell me that Ed Schultz is not really a "lefty".
 
Actually, I did hear WLW make three attempts at an EAS test before they got it right very early one morning, so even the Big One isn't immune. It's the whole post-consolodation thing, what would get you fired from Sidney, Ohio is now commonplace in big markets all over.
 
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