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Satellite or Hard Drive in Small Town KY
- Thread starter kayman
- Start date
I travel a lot in the Southeastern part of Kentucky and have listened to some very good stations. For the most part they seem to be a mix of local with satellite. I guess satellite is cheaper than having to program local all day. Weds. morning I was traveling thru Harlan County and picked up one for a few minutes on the a m band. Never did catch the call sign but it was on 1280. Very good D J and very much local. Had a good sound even thou it was country. Several other stations both a m and f m in that area. 103.9 is local in the mornings but appears to be satellite after that. 97.9 I think its Hyden has a fairly good sound not sure if they are local/sat or all sat. I do know the news is local. Is there anywhere in Eastern Kentucky that 101.1 does not come in? I think it is Hazard. I do know they have a local show in the morning or at least did the last time I listened to them. It being I am from the Lafollette area I listen to QLA for music and NOX to see what Pirkle and Co are doing and up to.
When I worked at a station which was 24/7 satellite, we'd often get letters addressed to the satellite DJs. Every once in a while, we'd take it local, and have the news guy "fill-in" for one of the satellite DJs. Or, since one of the satellite shifts was 6p-10p, we'd be local on Friday nights for 40 minutes before and after a ball game. Most people didn't realize that the DJs were not within a thousand miles of the station.
I think a good satellite network will make your station sound better than 100% local automation. However, it is important that you can take the station local without breaking format if the need arises.
I think a good satellite network will make your station sound better than 100% local automation. However, it is important that you can take the station local without breaking format if the need arises.
If you do opt for satellite, look long & hard at this. Hands down, this one sounds the most local and requires almost no local effort to make it sound that way--even gives local forecasts & temperature. The only giveaway in a small town where everyone knows everyone is that no one will know any of the jocks & people may talk. Is that an issue? I can't say... http://www.dial-global.com/
kayman said:
In Western Kentucky the best example of a small town station that owns its region is WKDZ in Cadiz, KY. Local for the entire day and juke boxing at night off their own library. Only satellite on there is the news feeds from Fox and KNN (plus UK & Titans sports). This should help answer your question. BTW, they are only popping at around 13,000 watts too.
There isn't any reason a 20,000-100,000 watt signal should be on autopilot (WQXQ-Central City)...anywhere! Local & at least half live is the best, and safest, route to go in the Bluegrass.
Country- too much "Lia" and "The Big Show" crap which is all horrible sounding.
Top 40- Clear Channel (Premiere Radio) just sucks overall.
Classic Rock- sounds better with a local show or just juke boxing at night.
News/Talk- well, throw this in the air and let the cards fall where they may. All talk show host sound alike anymore.
Sports- better be somewhat local in this state considering how important it is to "everyone".
The country station that I'm at currently has "Lia" on in the evening. The listeners can tell she's not local fairly easily. Part of that is because the show is just horrible sounding and the other reason is because she doesn't follow the format as well as the local dayparts.
I worked with both. Satellite appears cheaper but really is not. The hard drive is a lot more flexible and reliable.
The satellites formats’ breaks are “set in stone” time length wise. For example: you have two or three direct competitors (for example auto dealers) on the air (good problem) each running two or three commercials an hour, who do not want their commercials in the same break (two or three minutes protection in the scheduling software) with their competitor, you have to “open” up five or six breaks (usually 3 or more minutes each) each hour and “fill” a lot of the breaks with freebee commercials or PSA’s. After more than eighteen minutes of commercials an hour, if there is another station that plays the same music guess where your listeners are going. One of the reasons The True Oldies Channel failed in Atlanta: Citadel had to “open” every commercial availability for auto dealers, while their competitor was Hard Drive and only plays “revenue” commercials. Citadel now is live and local 6Am till 6PM and a jukebox at night.
Hard drive systems do not have “sun fade” or ice in the dish issues. From personal experience: ice in the dish happens late at night or 3 or 4 in the morning when there is no one around. Murphy’s Law # 69: lightning has always strikes the dish even when there is a 200 foot steel tower on the other side of the building. If you are doing a remote you still have to have enough music on hand to fill the breaks. One time I was doing a remote and the sponsor wanted us to play his new “favorite” song he heard on our station. The satellite service had it we did not.
Either way hopefully: you will need several “voices” for locally produced commercials. Having your salespeople cut and write commercials is wasting their time. They need to be selling! A couple of these voices need to be local for the last minute commercial flights that are just part of radio. Since you will have to have local voice talent, put them on the air a couple of hours a day. You can voice track a day part if needed. This is really not as expensive as it sounds. When you satellite: you are “stuck” with the service’s announcers.
Another “expense” that is always a big asset is a good local news department. Not just reading the two day old newspaper but having someone calling the local fire and law enforcement public information officers, mayor’s office etc. daily and becoming the “go to source” for local information, rather than the local newspaper.
The satellites formats’ breaks are “set in stone” time length wise. For example: you have two or three direct competitors (for example auto dealers) on the air (good problem) each running two or three commercials an hour, who do not want their commercials in the same break (two or three minutes protection in the scheduling software) with their competitor, you have to “open” up five or six breaks (usually 3 or more minutes each) each hour and “fill” a lot of the breaks with freebee commercials or PSA’s. After more than eighteen minutes of commercials an hour, if there is another station that plays the same music guess where your listeners are going. One of the reasons The True Oldies Channel failed in Atlanta: Citadel had to “open” every commercial availability for auto dealers, while their competitor was Hard Drive and only plays “revenue” commercials. Citadel now is live and local 6Am till 6PM and a jukebox at night.
Hard drive systems do not have “sun fade” or ice in the dish issues. From personal experience: ice in the dish happens late at night or 3 or 4 in the morning when there is no one around. Murphy’s Law # 69: lightning has always strikes the dish even when there is a 200 foot steel tower on the other side of the building. If you are doing a remote you still have to have enough music on hand to fill the breaks. One time I was doing a remote and the sponsor wanted us to play his new “favorite” song he heard on our station. The satellite service had it we did not.
Either way hopefully: you will need several “voices” for locally produced commercials. Having your salespeople cut and write commercials is wasting their time. They need to be selling! A couple of these voices need to be local for the last minute commercial flights that are just part of radio. Since you will have to have local voice talent, put them on the air a couple of hours a day. You can voice track a day part if needed. This is really not as expensive as it sounds. When you satellite: you are “stuck” with the service’s announcers.
Another “expense” that is always a big asset is a good local news department. Not just reading the two day old newspaper but having someone calling the local fire and law enforcement public information officers, mayor’s office etc. daily and becoming the “go to source” for local information, rather than the local newspaper.
secondchoice said:
Funny you bring this up because during my time at Cumulus' WLRO (Arrow 101-5) in Lexington, KY, we had issues with the cold weather up there freezing out the John Boy & Billy Show signal on our satellite on top of Kincaid Towers. Once the sun came up the signal would stabilize, but until then it would sometimes flutter. Also, concerning the lighting statement, this always seemed to happen at a cluster of christian stations I used to work at in Hardin, KY (WVHM-WAAJ-WTRT). WAAJ was fed music from WAY-FM in Nashville and the satellite was always a target despite it being NEXT to the 70+ foot tall WVHM STL tower.
DJonaStick: Amen to too much Lia. How we can go from having a live, local jock taking requests & interacting with the audience from 7P-12midinight to Lia in just 10 years is sad. People lost the interactive nature of local radio so they went to their own iPods, which--you guessed it--are interactive. We had it, we are quickly losing it. Whether you go with Satellite or Hard Drive (I prefer Hard Drive as a listener), please spend as many hours a day as possible doing stuff on air that encourages real time interaction (via phone, Facebook, text, email etc) with a real live person at the local radio studio. You'll be doing yourself and the industry a service.
BobOnTheJob said:
One of the guys I work with at WFGS used to work with Lia in Seattle and he said she is an a$$ hole in person. Very stuck up and condescending to other staffers in the building. He tried to be nice to her a few times but she just turned him off with her pathetic "I'm better than the world" attitude. So in return, he wouldn't help her staff when they were having technical issues with their feeds. Better be careful who you tick off!!!
Me personally, I was working nights at "The Beaver" in Hopkinsville-Russellville when her show came on the scene. Back then I felt it was fine for stations that couldn't afford to have a body in the studio and didn't have the best automation software. Now that she's basically on every station that Whitney Allen isn't, including the one I'm at currently, I get to hear her garbage more than I care too. Her shows are loose, her "local" package is typical Dial-Global (Jones Radio) BS, and her on air presence is too much like Delilah (which is equally as pathetic). I have no use for her. If I absolutely had to have an automated show on at night, it would be Whitney Allen because she's least likely to put me to sleep. But saying that is even a stretch.
Years ago the magic of satellite radio would be ruined when the automation system would miss a mandatory break. Then you would hear, "Okay this is a closed circuit feed for WZAZ in Squeaky Hinge, Tennessee". The next sound would be spots running at double speed.
I lean towards hard drive because the satellite radio product....well....sucks today. I go back to the early days of SMN when they hired talent. Today most of the satellite formats hire individuals that have what I call "Diarrhea of the Mouth", they can't shut up and God help you if they have a music bed then it goes on forever. Plus with a hard drive system there is more versatility than fitting your needs within the few local avail minutes an hour. You could go longer but it sounds like a car wreck when you jump into or out of programming at will.
I lean towards hard drive because the satellite radio product....well....sucks today. I go back to the early days of SMN when they hired talent. Today most of the satellite formats hire individuals that have what I call "Diarrhea of the Mouth", they can't shut up and God help you if they have a music bed then it goes on forever. Plus with a hard drive system there is more versatility than fitting your needs within the few local avail minutes an hour. You could go longer but it sounds like a car wreck when you jump into or out of programming at will.
radiorob2.0 said:
If you're automating an AM at night, that's one thing. But there isn't an excuse for a 50-100,000 watt signal like WVVR, WQXQ, WFGS, WLXX, I could go on....but there isn't an excuse to have their signals sat. fed at night. I'm sorry, but that's just stupid considering these stations are major sources of programming throughout the state. These are just a few stations that come to mind, but you guys get the point. Heck, in many mid-major markets they are hiring night jocks as part timers just to keep it "financially feasible" to have a warm soul in the seat at night. Gone are the days of paying a person a full time salary to be there at night now. I see that happening then click over to the front page here and see how Emmis, for example, exceeded their own goals in sales last year and I scratch my head. Problem is many execs. and programmers in radio now are too lazy and don't think of sat. automation as a "band aid" but rather as a part of the air staff.
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