radio train wrecks

[John C]

I was listening to a local station last weekend that was supposed to air "The Deep End" at 6 a.m. After 30 minutes of commercials, (at least 3 were HUGE) promos and "the Deep End will return in 2 minutes or less" whoever was there plays 2 songs and then intros a local show. And then...nothing but dead air. I had things to do so I don't know how long this went on. We've all heard our share of dead-air, open-mics, album skips, 2 commercials airing at the same time. My hope is that some of you long-time veterans will share some stories about on-air mishaps and such. There's enough bad things going on in radio these days, I thought we could use a break from that discussion on this thread. Warning- if this thread gets hijacked by The Big A I'll take it to "Take it Outside" myself!

 

[Element9]

I was listening to a local station last weekend that was supposed to air "The Deep End" at 6 a.m. After 30 minutes of commercials, (at least 3 were HUGE) promos and "the Deep End will return in 2 minutes or less" whoever was there plays 2 songs and then intros a local show... Warning- if this thread gets hijacked by The Big A I'll take it to "Take it Outside" myself!

LOL. Truly good line. The man/woman does get pedantic. Let's leave it at that. What you likely heard was due to an code or command error (remember DOS coding?) in the automation or a poorly merged music and commercial log. In layman's speak, the technical process of combining the music and the commercials did not match. Sand in the gears. A good friend of mine is fond of saying, "I wish computers would do what I want them to do rathe rthan what I tell them to do." If there was a live body in the control room, the problem would be resolved in 30 seconds or less. But...

 

[Mike Sheridan]

We have a Spanish language station where I live. The audio pops on and off all the time like there is a bad connection somewhere or the STL isn't working right....yet no one seems to care.

Further back, I worked at a small FM that had a Harris automation system with 2 IGM instacarts. The instacarts were supposed to be better than the carosels they replaced becuse you could call on any try at any time. Trouble is the heads would get a little dirt on them and the carts would skip there cue tone. With the instacart if one tray was live all 48 were live. It was easy to have 2 or 3 things on the air at the same time. After awhile we quit using them and went live.

Clear Channel had such a bad time with their automation going crazy on the weekend and overnight that they actually hired babysitters to watch over the stations. The guy over the part timers told me these people were not very good at moving quickly when there was dead air. They weren't as conditioned to reacting as fast as we old jocks!

 

[Bob1370]

I assume we're talking about electronic and electromechanical glitches as opposed to the human ones (which are usually way funnier and involve spoonerisms, off color jokes before an open mike that wasn't expected to be, excessively liberated interpretations of the indecency regs, and the like). That would be a whole other thread and I'm afraid I could contribute a few dillies in the spoonerism department myself. Another time, maybe...

Possibly the most consistently messed up station in terms of technical train wrecks in recent memory was WROC-AM in Rochester under its old progressive format, because they just had so many crashes, so often. They merged multiple networks, program sources, and local and national spot sources, along with occasional live or pre-taped local weekend specialty programming, on a system that apparently struggled to keep track. In a given week they regularly ran days-old pre-taped newscasts, outdated spots, multiple sources at once, and misfired satellite programs on an almost daily basis. Their current sports format, which depends on only two main sources of programming (ESPN network feed and the WGR studios out of Buffalo) and has fewer cut-ins for local live spots and breaks than the old format, seems to be closer to mistake-free. But it's also drawing significantly fewer listeners, since it gave up commercial format exclusivity in the market for a head-to-head contest with another similar competitor with a somewhat better signal. Wonder if they'll be happy with the results because of the demos they draw, or if they'll look for still another format to try, and if so, how well that next format will be run?

 

[listener-in]

Possibly the most consistently messed up station in terms of technical train wrecks in recent memory was WROC-AM in Rochester under its old progressive format, because they just had so many crashes, so often. They merged multiple networks, program sources, and local and national spot sources, along with occasional live or pre-taped local weekend specialty programming, on a system that apparently struggled to keep track. In a given week they regularly ran days-old pre-taped newscasts, outdated spots, multiple sources at once, and misfired satellite programs on an almost daily basis.

At last! Someone from the industry has acknowledged the validity of my complaints about WROC’s lamentable technical housekeeping when it aired progressive talk. I had thought that maybe I was alone in the twilight zone. Does anyone still believe that WROC’s unprofessional (yes, I’ll use that word again because it’s deserved) stewardship provided a fair test of progressive talk in Rochester? Maybe some other management will step up and fill the gap, only this time do it right.

 

[therealjm12]

I used to listen to WROC a lot when they had the progressive talk -Stephanie Miller, Ed. Shultz & co. I really enjoyed the format.
Every Sunday as I returned from Syracuse I would listen to a replay of Randy Rhodes. At aprox. 5:45 PM every week they would cut off Randi and go to an insrtumental music format. Same songs and jingles in the same order. Usually cut off CNN news at 6:00 or run double audio.
I don't really understand why this happened. I know they ran the station off a recent version of Audio Vault. Shouldn't have been a problem with timing. It's still a mystery to me.

 

[Mark Giardina]

The following posts should prove once and for all that while technology is great, there is nothing that can beat having a live person behind the control board engineering a show.

Even if the computer system screws up, a live person can always insert a commercial, PSA, read the weather, imitate Susan Boyle singing, which is a hell of a lot better than having dead air or other screw ups, like what was mentioned on here.

But as we know it is cheaper to have a computer running unattended than hire someone for $7.50 an hour plus have to deal with sick time, vacations, and all those other "pesky" things that are associated with keeping people employed.

 

[Savage]

From "reliable sources" I was told that the constant technical meltdowns at WROC were largely due to network feed problems. AAR would neglect to send network closures, or would send closures at inappropriate times. As a result the programming would get out of step with the automation so breaks would fire at inappropriate times, causing cascading mistimed programming. Of course the station was unattended so the problems would indeed "train-wreck" before they were detected and fixed.

We had similar problems in the brief period we ran locally- and regionally-produced news programming after AP All-News Radio died in 2005. Part of our patched-together imitation ANR included Westwood One's feed of CNN Headline News. It was a technical disaster and a programming joke. Apart from the constant visual references and "closed-captioning" announcments, not only would the Chicken Noodle Network frequently just stop sending network closures - causing us to stay with TV audio in breaks and missing all of our local spots - they would simply lie, or not answer their engineering trouble number when you called. Or they would try to blame it on Westwood One.

Another cute little trick CNN HLN would pull would be they would suddenly discover that they needed more commercial avails. So, sometimes with as little advance notice as eight hours, their format clocks would be revised. Frequently this happened the Friday before a holiday weekend. So we'd have to sit for hours reprogramming the automation to accomodate the new formats - which sometimes, were wrong anyway. Needless to say we dumped CNN and went with our current talk lineup as soon as we could.

An example of the utter numbskullness of the CNNH-Westwood radio syndication was how, with a week's notice, we were advised that the network was going to start featuring three hours of Glenn Beck nightly (one live with two replays.) I demanded to know how, or why, they thought we would actually program an hour of a guy who was a key part of our main competitor's daily lineup - and got stupefied silence at the other end of the phone. I guess it never occurred to them that primary GB affiliates might have something to say about competing stations featuring one of their hosts. I often wondered how many lawsuits that spawned.

Needless to say, having an uncooperative, clueless or unprofessional network partner is a constant nightmare. And everybody always blames the affiliate local station because on-air is where the screwups manifest themselves. If AAR was anything like has been alleged or anything like Headline News (the radio edition) I fully sympathize with WROC.

 

[Mike Sheridan]

Speaking of network screw ups I have a good one. Our station rant the old Mutual network for news on the hour. One night at the end of my shift the news open comes on and then just an open mic no one in the booth.... This goes on for awhile, and then I hear off in the distance "Hello... is anyone in the booth?" In hindsight I should have dumped the network and gone back to music, bad call on my part. I fully expected someone to come racing down the hall to do the news. Then I heard someone in the background say something about the President speaking and then someone else said "no that's a channel 4 only event". Mutual was one of the first networks to go on the satellite and I guess the President's speech was not being carried on the main channel. Nobody told the anchor that. I went back to music but was able to pot up the network a short time later.

I should have dumped the network sooner but in all my years in radio something like that had never happened before. I didn't get yelled at but I did get made fun of on the Christmas party tape.

 

[John C]

I assume we're talking about electronic and electromechanical glitches as opposed to the human ones (which are usually way funnier and involve spoonerisms, off color jokes before an open mike that wasn't expected to be, excessively liberated interpretations of the indecency regs, and the like). That would be a whole other thread and I'm afraid I could contribute a few dillies in the spoonerism department myself. Another time, maybe...

I really don't care if they are electronic/technical or human errors. The more the merrier and I'm sure some good stories are waiting to be told.

 

[listener-in]

From "reliable sources" I was told that the constant technical meltdowns at WROC were largely due to network feed problems.
. . . . . I fully sympathize with WROC.

While network problems obviously occur, I'm wondering why they have been comparatively rare on other stations that I've heard airing feeds from AAR and CNN. Also I wonder what the "reliable sources" meant by "largely". Sounds like they may have been trying to pass the buck. I would also add that WROC was totally unresponsive to complaints about such problems. One would think given a minimal interest in good public relations, an apology and an explanation would have been forthcoming from the station's management; the lack of same makes it difficult to "sympathize".

Anyway, let's say that AAR did have, and may still have, more than its share of technical defects. Very well. If it was at one time the primary provider of progressive talk, that is certainly no longer the case, and any station that wanted to air a strong line-up of progressive talk could easily do so without relying on any AAR programming.

 

[SirRoxalot]

Oh boy! Another "we need progressive talk" rant. Woo-hoo!

 

[listener-in]

Oh boy! Another "we need progressive talk" rant. Woo-hoo!

WROC’s technical lapses were one of two big reasons it didn’t make a go of progressive talk (the other was a complete failure to promote itself and engage its potential audience). It’s a legitimate connection and I offer no apology for making it.

So when you see a civilly expressed and well-founded complaint or an argument or opinion that doesn’t correspond with yours, the best you can do is to dismiss it as a “rant”? If that’s typical of the attitude within the industry towards us, the listeners who ultimately supply your bread and butter, no wonder it’s in trouble.

 

[SirRoxalot]

Need I dredge up links to the multiple threads where you've flogged this horse into a fly-infested bloody pulp?

You HIJACKED a thread about technical snafu's to promote your own personal agenda. If you want to reopen the "progressive" talk discussion, please create your own thread. That will make it easier to avoid for those of us who have no interest in participating.

BTW, it's not just "progressive" talk that I'm sick of. It's also "neo-con" talk, and every other form of propaganda that doesn't seriously include opposing points of view. Blather is blather, no matter which side of the political spectrum it comes from. I'm also in favor of avoiding discussions of MAB - Mutually Assured Blather - a/k/a "The Fairness Doctrine". To me, one-sided shows are just variations on Colon-Blow, and readily availble via Internet broadcast, podcast, SASE, etc.

I understand that you feel slighted that "the other guys" get airtime, and "your guys" don't. Guess what? Life ain't fair.

 

[Savage]

"A fly-infested bloody pulp!" Thanks, Rox, I was just biting into a prime rib sandwich for dee-nayyy..

listener-in, the problems with CNNH on the radio were not "rare." They were constant. I can't answer your assertion to the effect that you've never heard many problems on other stations, which I am sure is true....although I am unaware of any station in the region carrying CNNH. It's mostly parked on little AMs when the owner can't figure out what else to do with the signal. I'm telling you: almost two years of experience with the feed comprised an unending technical disaster. (Which, not for nothing, is the subject of this thread, not format choices....as Rox has noted.)

The source who told me about AAR would certainly be in a position to know and would have no reason to prefer one format over another. The technical problems were a major reason for dropping the format.

 

[turmoil1000]

i was listening at 6 this morning and 950 was all sorts of out of whack, but not nearly as bad when it was progressive. i wish they would dump those 2 knuckleheads in the afternoon, schopp is absolutely awful(does that guy know anything but buffalo sports?) and bulldog is sorta intelligent but sometimes doesnt have much to say. i love all the espn and thank god somebody broadcast the nba on the radio, considering i had to work it was nice to hear the playoffs on the radio. keep up the good work boys, i might be the only listener but in my mind i'm the only one that counts.

 

[Mike Sheridan]

Now that we are on the subject of news networks what is the thought here about the networks that seem to be in favor with the religious broadcasters these days. There are probably lots of them out there but one I can think of is the USA Network (not to be confused with the cable network). Is there a conservative slant to the USA network? I've never listened long enough to find out.

 

[JustPastBuffalo]

This one comes from the analog era when WGR-FM was running automated Solid Gold, possibly from Drake-Chennault, pre-Super Q. I listened to the station only occasionally but once heard the fastest ten minutes in radio when the (od minutes) time-check cart deck went on a tare: "It's 6:21, it's 6:23, it's 6:25, it's 6:27..." After it reached about 6:49, the Solid Gold jingle fired and a song played. Can't remember what the song was, but after the runaway time checks, it would have been amusing to hear "Time Is On My Side" by the Stones or the Zombies "Time of the Season."

 

[Bob1370]

"I listened to the station only occasionally but once heard the fastest ten minutes in radio when the (od minutes) time-check cart deck went on a tare: "It's 6:21, it's 6:23, it's 6:25, it's 6:27..." After it reached about 6:49, the Solid Gold jingle fired and a song played. Can't remember what the song was, but after the runaway time checks, it would have been amusing to hear "Time Is On My Side" by the Stones or the Zombies "Time of the Season."

Maybe this belongs in the "And the stiffs just keep on coming" thread... but wouldn't the best cut out of that mess be the Chambers Brothers' "Time Has Come Today"?

 

[SirRoxalot]

"I listened to the station only occasionally but once heard the fastest ten minutes in radio when the (od minutes) time-check cart deck went on a tare: "It's 6:21, it's 6:23, it's 6:25, it's 6:27..." After it reached about 6:49, the Solid Gold jingle fired and a song played. Can't remember what the song was, but after the runaway time checks, it would have been amusing to hear "Time Is On My Side" by the Stones or the Zombies "Time of the Season."

Maybe this belongs in the "And the stiffs just keep on coming" thread... but wouldn't the best cut out of that mess be the Chambers Brothers' "Time Has Come Today"?

"Time" by Pink Floyd would have been a precursor of "97-Rock".