Poorly done "fictional" radio stations

[K.M. Richards]

Yeah...especially in big markets with a ton of receivable signals, it's easier just to fictionalize a signal. TV shows do it all the time. Before NBC started using its shows to promote its own newscasts (E.R. and West Wing) by using affiliate logos for scenes involving TV stations, L.A. Law would have scenes where the TV vans or mic flags were wearing a fictional set of call letters and channels 3, 6 or 12 (none of which are L.A.).

Not to mention (so I will) that the fictional television station in the first Die Hard movie (the one where Richard Thornburg -- or "Dick", as Holly McClain calls him in the second movie -- works) is KFLW-TV 14. In real life, channels 14 through 17 were reassigned to land mobile use in the Los Angeles market in the late 1970s.

 

[K.M. Richards]

(I have no idea why, but you have to click "Watch on YouTube" to hear it)

Played fine embedded here, Mike.

And that reminded me of when XEPRS used to broker the late night/overnight hours to a top-40 format, tehy used to say "fifty million milliwatts" in their ID ...

 

[Santa fe]

In the really old movies from the 30s and 40s in scenes where there was a
broadcast event they often used mike flags from real stations at the time like WHN and WJZ in New York or KFI or KFWB in Hollywood. You also see a lot of Mutual mike flags. Product placement?
And in Akron native Jim Jarmusch's film, "Down in Law", one of the characters is an unemployed DJ who taks about how he supposedly worked at the best stations like WHLO, WAKR and WKYC.

 

[K.M. Richards]

Not product placement; that concept was decades away from being even conceived of.

Back then, using real radio stations' microphone flags was designed to create "realism".

 

[Yabadabado1]

My god that was a dreadful show.

I think that was on ME TV or one of those other "retro" channels. Watched two episodes and that was enough for me. Good thing I never saw it when it was first run, I'd probably never have gotten into radio if I thought it was like that.

 

[MarioMania]

Does Good Morning, Vietnam count?

 

[Miss Tuned]

Watching 'Stranger Things' is like being stuck in a violent video game. I don't see the appeal of this show beyond teens, or early 20's, and fans of video games or Dungeons and Dragons. The 80's factor wasn't enough to keep me interested.

I did like seeing the old refurbished Continental transmitter with the glowing tubes. 😊

I don't watch much at all these days. It feels like all the "big" streaming shows - Stranger Things, Squid Game, Fallout, etc etc - are designed largely to shock with nasty graphic violence to get themselves a bit of social media buzz. Even Industry, which I loved, jumped the shark when they had that guy's wife shot in the head at the end of season 3 (and it's set in the UK, that stuff just doesn't happen here!).

Nobody seems to be able to make a drama like Mad Men, Halt & Catch Fire, etc any more. It's all violence and misery and trauma, and why would I want that at the end of a long work day? I find it a bit creepy that this sort of nasty horror is what most people are sitting and watching nowadays.

 

[geoffpeters]

While it isn't a movie about a radio station "Three Days of Rain" from the early 2000s, set in Cleveland features Lyle Lovett as a DJ who serves as the film's narrator.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0162838/

 

[michael hagerty]

Does Good Morning, Vietnam count?

Studio layout and equipment are extremely accurate for the era. Robin/Adrian appears to start Martha and the Vandellas by manually spinning the turntable rather than pushing a button or flipping a switch, but other than that, I think they nailed that one.

 

[xmtrland]

I could nit pick about that Continetal 317C2, I have one sitting next to me as I write this. They don't have lighted meters, although it could have been modified to have them. I have seen several and none had the lighted meters. The Center Cabinet has the Peak and Carrier tubes that have insulated chimneys over them for air flow so no way you can see those tubes Glow, the next cabinet to the left of the Peak and Carrier tubes have the Rectifiers in them, no tubes.

The 317C2 had alot of air blowing through it. I have seen some with the Blowers in a basement and it makes the transmitter more quite but even then you hear the air flowing through the Peak and Carrier tubes. All of this leads me to think the 317 and there are two in the show, were modified to present better for the production. You can tell the difference in the two rigs that both look to be the C2 version but one is the older light tan versus the newer mustard yellow.

The 317 does have Fluorescent lights in each cabinet that do give off a yellow light and I do see that in the rigs used in the production but I would not be surprised if they were LED retrofits. Keeping the older fluorescent lights going can be tough with the sockets and the starter/ballast.

What I was most impressed about was the basement of the radio station. That look very authentic, down to the old 5KW power rock in some shots and old gear on the shelfs. That kind of basement they could have easily had the blowers and the plate transformer cabinet in the basement (when the transmitters were actually operational) as I have seen with some 317 installs.

As for the three console in the studio shots, One is a Gatesway 80 Stereo, one looks to be an LPB? And of course the Sparta 5CH stereo board, almost every station had one for production.

Other nit pick is no fence around the tower. Another Artistic Liberty for production. Wonder if that and the tower were AI recreations I'm sure they were.

Now to go play with my 317C2 and Gatesway 80 (Mono) console! I also have a Sparta Console too in my collection of broadcast stuff. Taking care of a legacy site is fun but it's also like taking care of an old house.

 

[xmtrland]

And here is the Center cabinet with the Peak and Carrier Tubes and the Blower mounted below. Just noticed I have a light out on the left rectifier cabinet. After I replace the light Ill take a picture of it.

 

[michael hagerty]

I could nit pick about that Continetal 317C2, I have one sitting next to me as I write this. They don't have lighted meters, although it could have been modified to have them. I have seen several and none had the lighted meters. The Center Cabinet has the Peak and Carrier tubes that have insulated chimneys over them for air flow so no way you can see those tubes Glow, the next cabinet to the left of the Peak and Carrier tubes have the Rectifiers in them, no tubes.

The 317C2 had alot of air blowing through it. I have seen some with the Blowers in a basement and it makes the transmitter more quite but even then you hear the air flowing through the Peak and Carrier tubes. All of this leads me to think the 317 and there are two in the show, were modified to present better for the production. You can tell the difference in the two rigs that both look to be the C2 version but one is the older light tan versus the newer mustard yellow.

Short version: It's a cool transmitter. They wanted it to look cooler on TV and so they made it light up.

If you're lighting the booth properly, the only way the transmitter is going to look like a transmitter is to do that.

Other nit pick is no fence around the tower. Another Artistic Liberty for production. Wonder if that and the tower were AI recreations I'm sure they were.

Nope. A purpose-built temporary exterior set built (and torn down after filming) in Chattahoochee Hills, Georgia (35-ish miles southwest of Atlanta):







The interiors were built to scale on a soundstage in Atlanta, complete with what would be a finished exterior including steps and a door to facilitate tracking shots from exterior to interior:



Honestly, we really need to rename this thread. These guys did amazing work.

 

[xmtrland]

I agree they did an amazing job. The basement looked so authentic, made me want to take in all I could see of that set. And yes to make the 317 pop for the show they did what needed to be done while preserving the authenticity of a 317. There was a 317 listed on Ebay a year or so ago. I wonder if it was bought and used for this project. It had the older color.

As some one that has had to make a 317 run I did have to chuckle a couple of times while watching. I think they did a good job in presenting what a combined studio/transmitter site is like. Some of the details while exaggerated did present well and got the point across. There were also subtle details that just really made the presentation of radio station with a combined studio and transmitter feel so authentic. It had me asking if they filmed it at the real site it was modeled after. The fact that it was a re creation on a sound stage while looking at pictures of the real site illustrates the attention to detail they put into the set.

I agree the title of this thread does not reflect the work they put into creating the station interior.

 

[Identnut]

Not many FMs talk about their effective radiated power.

Tell that to Mexican radio stations, who feel the need to do it whenever they ID on the hour.

 

[michael hagerty]

Tell that to Mexican radio stations, who feel the need to do it whenever they ID on the hour.

I’ll pass that along to the producers of Cosas Mas Extranas.

 

[Miss Tuned]

It never shows the studio (in fact, I don't think it ever really leaves the car) but the BBC sitcom Peter Kay's Car Share from a few years ago features Forever FM playing in the car throughout, a very on-the-nose parody of a certain type of northern England AC station that was prevalent in the 2000s. They used an actual local radio DJ, Rob Charles, as the presenter. There's not much of it out there, but there is this silly commercial:

Peter Kay's shows have often featured local radio. His sitcom Phoenix Nights featured a fictional station called Chorley FM, and the very first scene of the first episode starts with a link from the station:

A few years later, there was a real life Chorley FM, and he tried to sue them for using the name. He got nowhere as it was an FM station in the town of Chorley, and you can't trademark the name of a town or a generic term like FM.

 

[Yabadabado1]

By the way, referring more to the portrayal of the "employees" not the actual station equipment.

 

[michael hagerty]

By the way, referring more to the portrayal of the "employees" not the actual station equipment.

This?

It's like an old Mickey Rooney "Hey kids, let's put on a show" version of a radio station where they have high school kids running the station.

I mean, the point of the radio station subplot was that it was a way for Robin and Steve to send signals about how to get Hopper into the upside-down (again, I had to look this up---we bailed two seasons ago).

But again, I'll point back to one of my posts from last week:

As for the "kids running the radio station", Hawkins, Indiana is supposed to be a small town, 10,000-20,000 people.

There were a lot of times when I, between the ages of 15 and 17, was the only person in the building at KIBS in Bishop (population 3,500).

The oldest jock on the staff of KSLY in San Luis Obispo (population 30,000) when I was there, was 24. I had just turned 18 when they gave me morning drive.

And at KUKI in Ukiah (population 10,000), I was the morning man at 19. The Chief Engineer was 19. And our production director had just turned 18 and was finishing his final semester of high school.

As for this...

And the DJ plays a record, not once but twice, and TALKS through the whole damn song. I know there's such thing as "hitting the post" but they don't mean the very last word on the record as it's sung. Why, why, why, oh why, do they continue to portray stations so badly on TV?

She's Rockin' Robin. It's the top of her show. The record she talks over is "Rockin' Robin" by Michael Jackson:

She's using it as a show theme.

And even if she weren't, nobody wants to watch her say nothing for 2:31 while "Rockin' Robin'" which has a cold open and no intro to talk over, plays.

 

[gr8oldies]

Does Good Morning, Vietnam count?

I remember that the real Adrian Cronauer had said that almost nothing in that movie tracked with his life except for his signature "Good Morning Vietnam" greeting. That includes the guy in a uniform censoring news stories.

 

[davideduardo]

I remember that the real Adrian Cronauer had said that almost nothing in that movie tracked with his life except for his signature "Good Morning Vietnam" greeting. That includes the guy in a uniform censoring news stories.

There were a number of jocks who did the AFN morning show in 'Nam. Among them was Cramer (last name "Haas"), who spent decades at Y-100 in Miami. The model for some of the more "morning zoo" stuff came from him.