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Scrambled broadcast, more than one audio sources over one another simultaneously.
- Thread starter thezak
- Start date
Talk 1200 has been doing it about as often as not for several years. They also have been known to repeat the Thursday weather forecast on Fri/Sat/Sun/Mon on a holiday weekend, and will usually continue giving the daytime forecast well into the evening.
Tired Of It All
Banned
Every...single...weekend....and sometimes during the week...top of EVERY HOUR two newscasts overlapping and when one finishes then there's station ID and an ad over the FOX newscast that's still airing....I have sent them pms/emails/vmail...first one was back in January of this year, no response, no acknowledgement of any kind and the nonsense still goes on...it tells me no one, not one soul from the station, actually listens to the station. SMH...and let's not forget the same local newscast over and over and over and now there's constant ads done by kuhner....the reason I listen to Talk1200 is because I don't want to listen to him.....painters/dentist/eye specialist, he also does the 'win a 1k' word to text...SMH....it's all kuhner all the time...during the week from noon to three...EVERY HALF HOUR, there's a promo for his show and at the half hour it's the 'win a grand' secret word....#MAKE...IT...STOP
No one in Boston listens to the station either. Except you.
Three times as many people listen to WERS as listen to this station.
It's just the iHeart technology platform running as well as expected at Talk 1200. Same as here on the cape - WXTK which is normally the highest rated station has the same awful stuff going on - dead air, multiple audio sources at once, etc. No one's home and no one cares. Garbage in, garbage out.
The "technology platform" is iHeart's own RCS, which is an excellent software portfolio (considered "best" by many) for scheduling and operation. But technology only follows instructions and if a station or cluster is understaffed, particularly during this pandemic, errors will happen.
My supermarket is out of stock on about a quarter of the things I order. Same with the drugstore. Amazon "Second Day Delivery" can take five to seven days... and so on throughout the economy.
Radio is in dire straits, with station groups that release public data averaging about 50% declines in revenue in the 2nd quarter of this year. For survival, they have to reduce costs all around. No new equipment, fewer people. And then most are working from home and adapting to new ways of managing station operations.
I'm sure they care. But with fewer people working remotely and no new hardware we have to "give them a break".
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No, this has nothing to do with the pandemic. Standard operating procedure at WXTK for years. I'll admit, it happened prior to iHeart ownership as well and iHeart getting involved didn't help it at all.
Its obvious no one working there listens to the station. Pretty sad since like I said it is the highest rated in the iHeart cluster. You would think maybe they could get someone like the GM or a sales person to listen to it if they have no engineering or on air people to do it.
Strangely - Mix96, the new streaming station started by former iHeart staffers on the cape has none of that and they are run out of a living room.
Its obvious no one working there listens to the station. Pretty sad since like I said it is the highest rated in the iHeart cluster. You would think maybe they could get someone like the GM or a sales person to listen to it if they have no engineering or on air people to do it.
Strangely - Mix96, the new streaming station started by former iHeart staffers on the cape has none of that and they are run out of a living room.
The programming of program automation is not done by an engineer; they install the gear and then the programming and sales departments program the commercials and the programming. Engineers are not supposed to listen to hear misplaced promos or overlapping spots or whatever.
12 of the Boston stations individually bill more than all the Cape Cod MSA stations do combined. It's a tiny market, just barely in the top 200. And right now, given what the economy on the Cape is based on, revenue must be off at least 60%. So there are likely just a few people, from home, checking the station.
And before the pandemic, this was still a small, over-radioed market. Sort of the Key West or the USVI of the North.
If you want to blame anyone, blame the FCC for allowing as many stations as will fit on the dial.
True enough but I'm not sure that the cape economy has suffered as much as elsewhere or if the radio revenue impact has been the same. If anything the hesitation to fly somewhere or go on longer trips may have helped with local New England vacationers coming in. The real estate market has been very strong as well with people leaving the cities (have new neighbors moved here from Queens - just a single example).
With the way things are going anything the FCC did with overpopulating the radio bands pales in comparison to what internet streaming will bring as it gains more traction. The big players cutting popular personalities drives the trend as people go seek out hosts that were let go. You see that with the former WEEI morning hosts, Bradley Jay from WBZ is doing audio online again and then the #1 morning show on the cape let go by iHeart now has set up their streaming operation and has some decent sponsors to get it launched. Will these all survive - no - will it dent the established players - yes.
Tourist based economies, like Traverse City, Sedona, St. Croix, Hilton Head, Palm Springs and Aspen as well, have a lot of their economies based on hotels, restaurants and shops that cater to tourists.
While many are moving out of big cities to those areas, those people are taking refuge. They are not going to restaurants and tourist attractions. So the economy overall suffers because a huge piece is not getting customary jobs and incomes.
Tired Of It All
Banned
EXCEPT....I started notifying them back in January, long before remote working...I've left a vm and sent emails/pms on twitter and fb....someone is running the fb and twitter accounts....the frustrating part outside of the screw ups is that no one bothered to acknowledge the emails/pms, so no, I won't 'give them a break, there's no excuse for being rude.
Tired,
I'm with you on this; iHeart (or any other big owner/operator) should NOT get a pass for sloppiness and/or negligence. This has gone on too long, way before the pandemic.
I can't speak for you, but my expectation is that SOMEONE currently working for iHeart reads this and the other radio board, and, therefore, some corrective action should've been taken, or at least, one's enquiries acknowledged. That's common courtesy. I don't care whoTF programs the much-ballyhooed automation system - it's now alleged to be either sales or traffic - but these screwups should not be occurring with today's electronic wizardry.
Tired Of It All
Banned
nowradioguy.....I even notified iheart HQ and like the rest of them, no acknowledgement at all and no resolution to the problem. There's no excuse for this nonsense going on for months and months, other than....they don't give a flying bleep. I'm guessing a monkey can program the newscasts etc. better than whoever is doing it now...how freakin' difficult can it be? And it's sad to know that no one from the station actually LISTENS to the station.....back in the day if you worked for a station you were obligated to LISTEN to the freakin' station! I won tickets to a Hall & Oates concert from Kiss108 back in the late 70's or early 80's....they had a bus (the party bus??) that took us to the Worcester Centrum....the bus radio was cranking Kiss 108 tunes.....anyway....someone on the bus mentioned that another station was having a Hall & Oats count down to the concert, playing all the H&O tunes...the 'talent' on the bus from 108 said they could not change the station on the bus, it was not allowed, we had to listen to 108....everyone booooooo'd so the bus driver changed the station! It..was..epic!
That’s my point - this is supposed to be the premier radio owner and every time they let staff go they brag about how their superior technology is what enables the cuts. But plenty of stations had better on air product decades back with carts, reel to reel tape and records than iHM gets with its supposed great tech. Maybe they have the best systems known to mankind but what does it matter if the on air product has frequent screw ups. I’m not talking content or local vs syndicated either - that’s a whole other topic - just strictly the number of foul ups with playing the content.
All I can do is avoid iHM stations which I do. Stations I used to listen to for hours a day I barely or never put on anymore. The impact of one person won’t matter of course but it gives me some satisfaction.
Even if someone from iHM reads this it won’t matter. They don’t care at the top and those lower down are unlikely to make waves or they will be on the next layoff list. They run the place like they are going out of business on AM/FM and are just trying to migrate some people to the iHeart app streams and podcasts while they wind the over the air operation down.
All I can do is avoid iHM stations which I do. Stations I used to listen to for hours a day I barely or never put on anymore. The impact of one person won’t matter of course but it gives me some satisfaction.
Even if someone from iHM reads this it won’t matter. They don’t care at the top and those lower down are unlikely to make waves or they will be on the next layoff list. They run the place like they are going out of business on AM/FM and are just trying to migrate some people to the iHeart app streams and podcasts while they wind the over the air operation down.
Another thing that 1200 keeps doing is playing a promo about the midterm elections, which were 2 years ago.
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