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Obsolete Terms Still Used on Radio & TV: Name One!

davideduardo

davideduardo

Moderator/Administrator
Staff member
Tonight I was watching our local news on TV and our "under 30" meteorologist was calling for viewers to send in pictures of the splendid fall sunsets we see in the Desert.

She said the best pictures would be seen "on the air".

Probably 85% of TV viewer don't get video signals "on the air" but use cable and streams, so "on the air" is terminally out of date.

What other terms are used in electronic media that represent defunct or obsolete technology or practices?
 
Some radio announcers still say an artist is coming out with a new "album." Of course, listeners know the jock is referring to new material that is likely being released digitally. Vinyl is making a bit of a comeback, though.
 
Cordelia Chase said:
Some radio announcers still say an artist is coming out with a new "album." Of course, listeners know the jock is referring to new material that is likely being released digitally. Vinyl is making a bit of a comeback, though.
Click to expand...
And "album" comes from when a bunch of individual songs on 78 rpm discs was packaged in an "album" with sleeves for each song.
 
How about the word "record". Came to mean a physical piece of plastic with a song or batch of songs on it. Today, we get digital files.

Hey, Dua Lippa has a new "digital file". Have you heard it?
 
Not just on radio, but also on TV and in movies: playing a dial tone to indicate that someone has been hung up on, even though when that actually happens, you just get silence... unless you were in Hollywood in the 1930s when that trope started:

 
"and the [insert home team mascot] take over on the 25 yard line. Looks like they are setting up in the pistol, 2 wideouts flanked to the right, moving left to right on your radio dial".

For a few years now, I've been wondering how many of those high school kids listening to me are wondering what's a radio dial, and what makes it move in any direction?
 
I figure record is short for recording. A cassette, CD, vinyl record, mp3 file etc could be a record--even video, a video recording.

Someone on Cleveland radio, maybe
Mike Trivisonno, used to say to callers,
"Hello, you're _in_ the air"
 
On TV a football game is on and the announcer is saying one team is moving left to right. In radio we imagine the action in lack of a picture so announcer
helping us to visualize.
A dial (round) used to be on a radio,
so don't touch that dial. (Volume control
could still be a round switch.)

Radio simulcast of a tv newscast: "those
of you in green areas are getting rain; in
blue, it's snow".. well, not much help to
those on radio...best to say, "if you're north of the Mass. Turnpike snow will continue, rain or mix to the south"
 
I think the terms “film” and “video” are still used even when that isn’t the physical media used to record or capture an image.
 
Larry said:
I think the terms “film” and “video” are still used even when that isn’t the physical media used to record or capture an image.
Click to expand...

....and not just by old people in media.

On vacation, if I'm shooting touristy video on my phone, and someone wants to talk to me or find out if it's okay to walk by, they'll ask "are you filming?" as often as "are you recording?" No one has ever said "are you video-ing?".
 
Last edited:
rosecitymedia said:
"and the [insert home team mascot] take over on the 25 yard line. Looks like they are setting up in the pistol, 2 wideouts flanked to the right, moving left to right on your radio dial".

For a few years now, I've been wondering how many of those high school kids listening to me are wondering what's a radio dial, and what makes it move in any direction?
Click to expand...
I'd heard that used on University of Tennessee football as well.
 
What about saying, "I'll give you a ring," when you're going to call someone? Since many people don't use the actual ringing sound on their phones anymore, what do you say, "I'll give you a whatever song or tone you've downloaded and paired with my name?"
 
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