Seven stations off the air this morning

[kellim]

"kellim", let me introduce you to "TheBigA". He doesn't like talent. He doesn't like engineers. He doesn't like most sales people. He does like iHeart, and thinks their management is filled with geniuses.

Now that we've got that out of the way, I still don't see why they couldn't send an alternate stream to the transmitters via the Internet. If they can stream the stations, they can link up a VPN at the transmitter site. Any number of boxes can even provide fail-over for such a set-up, and allow a receiver to feed audio to the transmitter. Will they lose some quality? Then again, audio quality ain't exactly like it used to be - especially on AM.

"kellim" indicates that the management of Entercom Buffalo simply isn't allocating enough resources to engineering. Must be that expenses dig into their bonus structure. Short-term gain is more important that the long-term cost of poor or non-existent maintenance if you don't plan to be here in the long term. Maybe somebody at corporate needs to look into that. Entercom certainly can afford it these days.

Meh, people like The Big "A" are nothing new. Radio is filled with people who think they know everything but don't know sh*t. So is IT. So are a lot of fields. Par for the course. There's a reason my phone still rings every day and I get paid to answer it... Because, you know... I'm just a "feather bedder" and "A"'s a genius. Hahahahahahaha!

As for internet as an STL... I really doubt a lot has changed in six years. None of the sites have internet. Not that they couldn't, except maybe the WLKK site. This was something I had talked about years ago. Heck, I was using 2.4 gHz WiFi for TSL/STL links in the early 2000's at other places and used Shoutcast and the internet as a backup STL more than once.

 

[kellim]

Did I say YOU were? No. Boy talk about a guilty conscience. Carly Simon wrote a song about you.

You haven't said one nice thing to me or about me at this point, but you've sure implied negative things, so whatevs, man. Go sniff your own fart or whatever it is you people who are full of yourselves do when you're not posting on message boards.

 

[TheBigA]

There's a reason my phone still rings every day and I get paid to answer it... Because, you know... I'm just a "feather bedder" and "A"'s a genius. Hahahahahahaha!

No because you're a telemarketer. Hahahaha! Quit making crap up.

 

[kellim]

No because you're a telemarketer. Hahahaha! Quit making crap up.

If being paid to design call centers and build large scale PBX's is telemarketing, sure. Take your own advice. What is it you do? Voice track a bunch of satellite fed jukeboxes?

 

[davideduardo]

You haven't said one nice thing to me or about me at this point, but you've sure implied negative things, so whatevs, man. Go sniff your own fart or whatever it is you people who are full of yourselves do when you're not posting on message boards.

OK, this is getting non-productive.

Until we know exactly what happened inside the building, it's all conjecture.

We can talk about the cost / benefit analysis process for creating redundancy and the shortage of broadcast engineers, but understanding what actually happened here is simply not grounds for condemnation of a company or its manager.

And, kellim, BigA is a knowledgeable and reasonable poster who has contributed much to all of us on the board over the years. But like most of us, we have a breaking point when pushed or abused.

 

[kellim]

And, kellim, BigA is a knowledgeable and reasonable poster who has contributed much to all of us on the board over the years. But like most of us, we have a breaking point when pushed or abused.

I've not said anything to him up until now that pushed or was abusive. Look back and you'll see where that started, and it wasn't me. Anyway, I don't really care. Have fun.

 

[tbolt909]

The WBEN FM simulcast that replaced The Lake was a huge success, right?
Radio companies never flip formats for any reason.

If 7 stations went off the air and no listeners or staff cared,
Then maybe silence is preferable to the product...

 

[TheBigA]

If 7 stations went off the air and no listeners or staff cared,
Then maybe silence is preferable to the product...

All we really know for a fact is that only one person on this board was listening at 6AM. It's obvious if you look at the station's Twitter feed (I posted one here) that the staff cared a lot.

 

[TheBigA]

Guess what! The Buffalo News reported the story today at 2PM. Around the time of my post #35.

The GM blamed a "core switch" that "locked up."

http://talkintv.buffalonews.com/201...bs-simms-keeps-on-talking-to-twitters-regret/

Sounds similar to what kellim was saying earlier.

 

[dand5780]

Guess what! The Buffalo News reported the story today at 2PM. Around the time of my post #35.

The GM blamed a "core switch" that "locked up."

http://talkintv.buffalonews.com/201...bs-simms-keeps-on-talking-to-twitters-regret/

Sounds similar to what kellim was saying earlier.

It's not so much a story as it is a "he said, she said." To a listener, or in this case, a reader, I still have no idea what happened. I just know that their are a few inaccuracies from someone who wasn't listening himself.

Maybe the core switch was "locked up," whatever that means, from 6-9:10 am, but I was able to listen to all of the stations after about 7:25. So anything wrong technically had no effect to the audience, unless one of them went off the air intermittently for a brief time after that.

Anyone listening Thursday or Friday wouldn't have heard John Zach, technical problems or not, since he was off. So he really wasn't silenced, the early news was.

WGR being the only station not impacted is simply not true, unless they were not on the air for other reasons. All I know is that I specifically checked that station along with the others that I don't usually listen to (KISS, STAR, ESPN, ALT) to see if they had the same issue.

Thanks for the link to the article.

 

[Kelly A]

David makes a good point. Back in my former corporate group engineer role, all of our TV and radio stations had backup power at the transmit sites but few did at the studios/offices. When the argument arose from a station about backup power at the studios and offices, we had them help make the analysis over a ten year period, how much revenue was lost due to past power outages at the studios, verses the capital cost(s), maintenance, and potential rent increase of having a generator and UPS system capable of running the entire studio/office facility. In every instance, any past revenue lost through make-goods and irritation to clients, was miniscule as compared to purchasing keeping emergency power around. That and public utilities in most markets where studios exist, are by nature very reliable.

The incorrect assumption is listeners will leave and never come back.