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Royals Baseball on Sports Animal Tulsa FM 97.1/AM 1550 On a Tin Can Phone

G

Glenn Quagmire

Why do Royals games sound so bad when they are broadcast on both stations? The game appears to be patched in over a phone line onto the air. This is 2008, not 1948. Surely the owners and management of the Sports Animal can provide a better sounding game than this.
I'm not a dieheard Royals fan, just someone who likes to tune into an American League game every now and then.
But when I tune in and it sounds like it's being broadcast from someone's tree house via tin can phone line, chances are I'm going to keep searching the dial or listen to the game on KGGF AM 690 out of Coffeyville, KS.
The Sports Animal should take a cue from KRVT AM 1270. KRVT doesn't have the strongest signal at night in all parts of the area, but they do a flawless job in presenting the Cardinals. The Board Op hits his or her cues, plus the pre and post game shows always seem to be carried in their entirety.
Good job KRVT, I hope your fellow competitors can do the Royals, it's fans, and broadcasting some justice by providing a clear sounding presentation.
 
Many sports broadcasters seem to offer inferior audio for some of thir content. Any other format including other spoken word formats seem to care more about audio quality in general than sports stations.
 
Let's think about who the board op might be at Citiplex on a weeknight? When you have *1* local show a day, you don't necessarily pay for the best in the business. I'm not saying that's the case here, but it sounds like it.
 
I know what you mean by "cheap" board ops. I think that explains why the first 2 minutes of an inning are sometimes covered up with commercials or promos.
But the "tin-can" sound quality of Royals games on 97.1/1550 is inexcusable. If the Royals weren't so hard up for fans, if I were them I'd yank affiliation with both stations if they can't make the games sound like they're supposed to.
 
I don't know what's going on over there, but my suspicion would be that they are too cheap to purchase the receiver to get the game off of the bird... the other alternative is to get a raw phone feed, and I'd guess that's what they're doing.

If they're getting it over the phone, though, they HAVE to have a live board-op... if somebody's gotta be there anyway, why not pull a feed off the internet? (And if the team isn't providing an internet feed, shame on them!)

You can get near broadcast-fidelity (10KHz) at 48kbps mono using nothing more than Shoutcast... using AAC+ and you can go even lower than that, although I doubt they'd use AAC+ just because of compatibility issues... the last thing you want is an angry affiliate calling who can't figure out how to install a plug-in. :)

The easiest way is to spring for the receiver and set up your triggers. The whole thing can run itself at that point, and you save the cost of a board-op. I'm pretty sure that's the way AM 970 KCFO was doing Arkansas Razorbacks football (not sure they're still carrying it). They started out on phone but upgraded ASAP and then were about to automate the whole process, squeaky-clean.

As to why the first two minutes of an inning are covered up with spots: that's either an inattentive board-op OR it could be a sloppy traffic person scheduling too many spots. Most board-ops will only play what's on the log, and stop only when it stops... so while the board-op should catch it (and report it so it can be fixed), it's likely there's somebody else up the food chain to blame as well.

Having said THAT, it's also worth mentioning that some networks seem to think the best way to communicate their clock is in hieroglyphics, so the log may be a best guess as what they're going to do...

...Still, it all points to somebody asleep at the wheel over there, nobody caring, nobody listening, nobody bothering to fix it.

Disappointing, but not surprising. These are the same people who have the stereo pilot on their rim-shot sports talk station... ::)
 
Phonelines have been used for sports broadcasting for decades. But it's disappointing to hear that the Royals or the Animal are still using them. Or it could be KAYL's control room has a cheap phone patch instead of a good one?

(BTW I wish KRVT would stream on the web. I caught a little of them traveling north on I-35 heading to Wichita 3 weeks ago before KSOK at 1280 started bleeding in. Love those KAKC-inspired jingles!)
 
KRVT is a damn good little station. Where are KRVT's studios? For some reason I thought they were in the Mabee Center at ORU.
The sad thing about Royals baseball on 97.1/1550 is that the sound quality has gotten worse. Last year the games sounded fine, now they've been downgraded into a tin-can phone system. I invite anyone who reads this to tune in this weekend, tonight or tomorrow night to hear how bad it sounds. Then flip over to KRVT and hear how good the Cardinals sound on AM, then flip to KGGF to hear how good the Royals can sound on AM.
I've heard 97.1/1550 has been on the uptick ratings wise, but the quality of the product (spots, Royals games, promos, etc..)doesn't sound like it. I think that station can do better.
 
Keep in mind that part of the reason the sound quality for the Royals may have changed from last year is that, I believe, the organization has changed partners again. I know Union Broadcasting had them for WHB and the former KCXM, and I believe that arrangement stopped last year. It's now Entercom and KMBZ that is their flagship.
 
I'm not sure the Royals changing from Union to Entercom made a whole lot of difference. Unless they changed with the Entercom deal, the games were still uplinked from WIBW in Topeka. (Not sure why)

I wonder if KYAL's dish for the Royals games is off-site and they are using a phone line to get it to the studio. If you use a ISDN/T1 line, it can sound great. If you are using something else, not so great.

BTW, the Royals "flagship" is actually KCSP (the former WDAF-AM). Sunday afternoon games air on KMBZ.
 
The bottom line....it has sounded terrible. Is there any way we can get the attention of an engineer or someone within that station via this board. I'm going to tune in tonight to see if the situation has improved.
I know last sesason it did not sound this bad, and I think even earlier this season it sounded like it used to. I invite everyone to tune in and listen for yourselves.
 
joelr said:
I'm not sure the Royals changing from Union to Entercom made a whole lot of difference. Unless they changed with the Entercom deal, the games were still uplinked from WIBW in Topeka. (Not sure why)
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I've seen it make a difference on the college and minor league levels, though I really wouldn't think it would make a huge difference for major league sports. While the Cardinals had a few issues of practically all kinds when first on KTRS after decades on KMOX, they got them taken care of very quickly (certainly well before the season was more than half over).

I wonder if KYAL's dish for the Royals games is off-site and they are using a phone line to get it to the studio. If you use a ISDN/T1 line, it can sound great. If you are using something else, not so great.
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I think I still have a couple of Royals network affiliates in my area (I'm not a big baseball fan, and I change the station immediately if it comes on). I'll have to give them a listen sometime and see if I can notice any of the same issues.

BTW, the Royals "flagship" is actually KCSP (the former WDAF-AM). Sunday afternoon games air on KMBZ.
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OOPS! I guess I'm about 10 years out of date. I haven't lived in Kansas City since 2001, and it's still hard to imagine KMBZ billboards without the 3D Royals baseball on it. I still remember when one of those fell off, and a KQRC listener found it and got it it to Johnny Dare, who held it for ransom and taunted the staff of 99.7 KY with it. Nightaire may remember it, too. I'm thinking he was in town when that happened, though he wasn't at either of those clusters. Thanks for the information!
 
Kent said:
I've seen it make a difference on the college and minor league levels, though I really wouldn't think it would make a huge difference for major league sports. While the Cardinals had a few issues of practically all kinds when first on KTRS after decades on KMOX, they got them taken care of very quickly (certainly well before the season was more than half over).
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The audio quality hasn't changed much fromeither station (WHB to KCSP/KMBZ) here in KC. Plus, I have listened on a couple of stations in KS. Not much difference from year to year. If the whole operation is uplinked out of Topeka, I would assume Entercom can't screw it up.

OOPS! I guess I'm about 10 years out of date. I haven't lived in Kansas City since 2001, and it's still hard to imagine KMBZ billboards without the 3D Royals baseball on it. I still remember when one of those fell off, and a KQRC listener found it and got it it to Johnny Dare, who held it for ransom and taunted the staff of 99.7 KY with it. Nightaire may remember it, too. I'm thinking he was in town when that happened, though he wasn't at either of those clusters. Thanks for the information!
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RIP 99.7 KY

The funny think is I've been a Royals fan since '89. As soon as I moved from OKC to KC, a Royals affiliate popped up in OKC (1640 barely) and in Tulsa (KYAL). Oh well.
 
Did somebody ACTUALLY do the right thing and switch off 97.1's stereo pilot?

[/applause]
 
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