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On Time Delays

R

Radio1360

Guest
Have anyone (besides me) notices that there's a ten-second delay in the hourly news? Not only here in Atlanta, but the others stations (those "50,000 watt blowtorches") that I listen to at night. I've been a D-Xer since 1972. back then, I used to hear news straight at the top of the hour. Well since 2004, when I moved here to Atlanta, I now that there's a ten-second delay from stations such as WOR, WABC, WCBS, WINS (New York), and WHAS (Louisville) to name a few.

Stations with longer news on the hour delays are KMOX (St. Louis, :15 sec), WWL (New Orleans, :20 sec), and WGST here in Atlanta :)20 seconds also).

So what gives with the delay? Do the stations and the companies that owns then know this? And does this have to do with them having to carry both analog and HD broadcasts?
 
you've got the HD related delay (analog and HD should match)...and the "profanity delay" also in place...
usually adds up to about :16 seconds. some stations "ramp in and out" of the delays for live sports.
 
Preset some buttons on your radio to stations that carry Coast to Coast AM and have fun poking around to check out the different length delays. (Some stations vary delays from night to night. Others, like WGST, have a delay of a few seconds at the beginning of the hour and much longer near the end of the hour - I guess to squeeze in more spots.) :p
 
I noticed this a while ago on 810 WGY which is right near my local 790 WTNY. Both of them carry some of the same talk programs and there is a several second delay on WGY.

I've never checked to see how close the top hour jingle used on CBS affiliates matches WWV, but sounds like a good thing to check when I have time. The clock on digital cable boxes matches WWV exactly (they must sync to the NIST servers over the internet) and TV programs are usually delayed. Watched the ball come down on New Years and the cable box went to 12:00 when there was still nearly 7 seconds left on the TV feed.
 
For AM stations in HD, why bother having both a profanity delay and an HD delay? Just let the HD be uncensored and if someone says the f word, mute the analog transmitter for 7 seconds. No one's listening in HD anyway. If the f word airs only on an AM HD station, and not on the analog, did the f word really air at all?

If someone actually is listening in HD, and they take the time to complain, and the FCC goes after the station, that just proves that AM HD has listeners.
 
The analog delay used in HD is built into the processing (or sometimes the transmitter). It is a fixed delay, and there is no "dump button" attached to it for the studio operator to remove naughty words.

For practical purposes you really have to have a separate delay system to deal with the f-bombs.
 
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