As a DXer I want the ID given very slowly or in morse code
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From what I understand, most Clear Channel stations are programmed by the hour, so if I were to start an hour, I'd always start it with the top of the hour ID. What's interesting is WQSM has an ID they play where the legal one should be with a bunch of artist names and what not that at the end sings Q98 Fayetteville. Should be easy enough to tweak the schedule or throw in a WQSM Fayetteville in there. If I remember right, KQXY does the same thing, but the legal ID usually lands at 2 or 3 till the hour, and the one like Q98 has appears at about quarter after. I haven't listened to KKOB since the sale to Cumulus, but when they were Citadel they would get back to the music at the top of the hour but wait on the legal ID. WDVD Detroit does this too, but it's only about 3 minutes late. Somehow, what KHKS does makes sense, even though the ID is a few minutes early every hour. They could shore it up on the hours where they don't have any shows, but when they do the Mini Mix, it does work.
There are stations...I've worked at some, that run the hours from the :50 mark to the :50 mark, so your 1pm hour would start with the 12:50pm break into a sweep of the top of the hour
B
bilco
Guest
My favorite was when I was the market engineer in Tucson for 4 stations including KRQQ. The station always talked of being KRQ, all the time, except at the top of the hour when it was "KRQ (long pause) Q Tucson" . Made it sound like the Q format. Perfectly legal, even if a bit sneaky.
Bilco
Bilco
The very first time I had to play the LEGAL ID we were simulcasting The FOX News Channel and they were in the middle of something at the top of the hour and didn't play their normal sounder at the top of the hour (which is when I would've played the ID) and finally at 7 after 2 I abruptly cut off the feed of Fox News Channel (muted the channel) and played the LEGAL ID cut off the CD player. "WNTY Southington-Bristol-Hartford is Connecticut's Newest Style of Radio. NOTTY 99." Then I un-muted the FOX News Channel Feed. The station was still in transition mode in the process of getting its new format up and running (and not having all the equipment up and ready to go) and all I had to do was play the Legal ID once an hour.
Until we got all the equipment up and running our line-up was:
7AM-9AM Charlie & Glenn in the Morning (Local Show)
9AM-10AM Paid Programming
10AM-2PM The 2002 Winter Olympics (from Westwood One)
2PM-4PM FOX News Channel
4PM-5PM Dead Doctors Don't Lie (then called Let's Play Doctor)
5PM-7PM FOX News Channel
7PM-12AM The 2002 Winter Olympics
12AM-7AM The 2002 Winter Olympics
We even had a special Legal ID for the Olympics. "When you're listening to the 2002 Winter Olympics You're Listening to WNTY Southington. NOTTY 99".
Until we got all the equipment up and running our line-up was:
7AM-9AM Charlie & Glenn in the Morning (Local Show)
9AM-10AM Paid Programming
10AM-2PM The 2002 Winter Olympics (from Westwood One)
2PM-4PM FOX News Channel
4PM-5PM Dead Doctors Don't Lie (then called Let's Play Doctor)
5PM-7PM FOX News Channel
7PM-12AM The 2002 Winter Olympics
12AM-7AM The 2002 Winter Olympics
We even had a special Legal ID for the Olympics. "When you're listening to the 2002 Winter Olympics You're Listening to WNTY Southington. NOTTY 99".
Wow, I remember when I played my first legal ID in 2006. All I remember is that I had to remember to hit the button to start the playback at just the right time and was very nervous! When Scott Fybush was in Portland, he got a recording of that legal ID that I had to play (http://www.tophour.com/audio/Portland%20OR/am1360_2006-09_kuik_sfybush.mp3). Thinking back on it, if he recorded this on the weekend in September I was probably the one that played it!
News, Talk and Sports. Westside Radio, AM-1360 KUIK Hillsboro-Portland
News, Talk and Sports. Westside Radio, AM-1360 KUIK Hillsboro-Portland
The old WABB-FM in Mobile would do their ID in the commercial breaks between the sets of 10 songs in a row. On 9/11/01 I remember an ID randomly firing off near the top of an hour during a press conference.
EMF's Air1 Network would consistently ID closer to :45 past the hour, but a few years ago that was changed to be closer to :00 like its sister network K-Love.
EMF's Air1 Network would consistently ID closer to :45 past the hour, but a few years ago that was changed to be closer to :00 like its sister network K-Love.
A
atrainradio
Guest
The TOH for WRNR 103.1 is this "This is WRNR Grasonville, Annapolis, Baltimore" The COL is Grasonville. I guess they just wanna list all the cities, even though their signal is Baltimore is iffy at many times. Still one of my favourite stations EVER though.
A
atrainradio
Guest
same!
I may have mentioned this on another thread, but the automation at the area's Wisconsin Public Radio station often fails to put in the legal ID's while running state network or NPR programs. You hear a series of audible cueing tones, then ten seconds of silence, then the next program. Occasionally you might even hear the break from another station down the line!
Listening to recorded old time shows, you hear some examples of ID's containing the station owner's name; like "From Columbia Square, this is K...N...X, CBS, Los Angeles," or "KFI, Los Angeles, the radio service of Earle C. Anthony, Incorporated." (Anthony was an auto dealer and used his station breaks to "plug" his main business.)
Listening to recorded old time shows, you hear some examples of ID's containing the station owner's name; like "From Columbia Square, this is K...N...X, CBS, Los Angeles," or "KFI, Los Angeles, the radio service of Earle C. Anthony, Incorporated." (Anthony was an auto dealer and used his station breaks to "plug" his main business.)
K
K.M. Richards
Guest
Let me know if that accommodation for DXing ever happens, as I will drop dead on the spot.
What I also don't understand is why stations that have a set top of hour sweeper choose not to do a legal right there. An example is KKCW They will play the legal at 49, "From the Less Schwab Tire Center studios, this is KKCW Beaverton Portland. Available anywhere you go on the iHeart Radio app, download it now." That would be followed by a quick promo, which was also in the ID, followed by a jingle into music. That would be followed by a jingle into music. Then at the top of the hour they would play a jingle with the voices coming in saying "Start the morning with Bruce, John and Janine. Then get 2 all music hours at 8:30 and 10:30," followed by a sung jingle. I don't understand why the legal isn't somewhere in there.
K
K.M. Richards
Guest
Some stations do, some don't. In my experience the ones that "bury" the legal in a stopset between two spots tend to be the ones whose COL is a smaller community in the metro, and the ones that are licensed to a major city do the legal by itself at the TOH.
You should have heard some of the tricks I used back when you had to be +/- three minutes of :00 and you couldn't add additional cities after the COL. The example you gave is mild by comparison to some things I did.
Do you have any airchecks of those? I would like to hear them. You were right until I heard Alpha Portland, though KQMV, licensed to Bellevue, is the fourth largest city in the area and as far as I know, they're the only station that buries the legal in a stopset. Meanwhile in Portland, KBFF and KUPL both licensed to the city itself bury the legal in a stopset. WDAY-FM in Fargo used to do the same, but they've moved theirs up to the song before the top of hour jingle.
That's because it isn't the city that's being buried. It's the call letters. "KBFF" stood for "Best Friend Forever" when they were "Hot AC" but any reference to that was dropped when they switched to CHR. It is always referred to as "Live". KUPL was known for about 40 years as "Couple" but switched moniker to "The Bull".
In fact, a lot of stations that use names which have no connection to the call letters regard the calls as a distraction and try to keep them out of music sweeps where more important imaging can be done.
The classic location for the legal ID is out of a stopset going into a music sweep in the form of "WZZZ Anytown beginning another 30 minutes of non-stop music on Z-100"
K
K.M. Richards
Guest
I entirely forgot about that. You're absolutely right ... when KCBS-FM Los Angeles was calling itself "Arrow 93" the legal was said hurriedly, low level, and buried in an electronic sound effect, right before "All Rock and Roll Classics ... Arrow 93".
And that was here in market #2.
Come to think of it, KYSR, which is also COL Los Angeles, got those calls when they were modern AC "Star" but now the legal is tossed in between two spots in the last break of the hour, as they are now called "Alt 98.7".
David, Star here in Seattle has been programmed that way for years and I don't mind it. What I would mind is if they re-alligned their breaks to be at 15 and 45 but kep the legal coming out of the break. I think Scott would be proud that tophour.com has set my standards for a legal. When the legal is buried between two spots, there's absolutely no way to know what the station actually sounded like at the time, unless you can find the full aircheck from which that legal came, which is hard to do a lot of times. What's also interesting is KBKS, which hasn't rebranded since 2007 and that was only a slight tweek in branding, never used to bury the legal, but that's what's been happening the last month or so. Meanwhile, sister station KKRZ, which has buried it for years, now has a really cool one that is in the format David describes coming back into music.
I'm not sure how it works in the PPM era, but music stations used to time things to sweep quarter hour points with music, so having breaks including station ID's, sweeping quarter hour points was a no-no. In other words Bob, I wouldn't worry about breaks occurring at :15 or :45 if they aren't by now.
PPM research tends to show that placing the spots over the quarter hour transition points twice an hour, in hourglass or bow-tie positions, is the most effective.
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