Perhaps if I were more experienced with automation systems this wouldn't even be a question, but I heard something on the radio last hour that doesn't make any sense to me, and the station is doing it again this hour. The station is KRVC serving the Medford-Ashland market. If I wake up late on Sundays, I usually try to catch the start of Throwback2K here. The station takes shorter commercial breaks than are expected by the program, requiring a fill song at the end of the hour. This in itself isn't a problem for me, but I would think the program should start at the top of the hour. KRVC isn't doing that today, and it doesn't make sense. Doesn't the automation keep track, and skip a song or two if it is running behind? Two fill songs were played at the top of the 1:00 hour, causing the third hour of the program to not start until 1:07. That caused the hour to end at 2:04. At that point, another fill song was played, the next hour kicking off at 2:07. Shouldn't the automation realize it is running behind and kick off the hour on time by cutting the fill songs?
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starting the hour on time
- Thread starter bobdavcav
- Start date
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
My best guess is that the real-time update flags were missing from the automation program log. Absent those flags, the automation would simply play everything in the log in sequential order until it found a flag later.
The automation is just computer software. It doesn't "keep track" like a live board-op would. Nor does it "realize" the update flag was missing.
I had similar issues keeping our Sunday morning broadcast of American Top 40: The 80s running on time at KRKE. What I ended up doing was to look at the cue sheets to see how much time the program will take, then look at our traffic log to see how much local commercial time is scheduled. I have a bunch of direct response (800#) ads loaded on the server and now I add them to breaks that run short of the local insert window.
Doing it that way, all I need is the time update flag at the beginning of the show and it runs without hiccups until the first update during the regular format afterwards. No fill music to get in the way.
And once in a while someone actually calls the toll-free number and we make a few extra bucks.
The automation is just computer software. It doesn't "keep track" like a live board-op would. Nor does it "realize" the update flag was missing.
I had similar issues keeping our Sunday morning broadcast of American Top 40: The 80s running on time at KRKE. What I ended up doing was to look at the cue sheets to see how much time the program will take, then look at our traffic log to see how much local commercial time is scheduled. I have a bunch of direct response (800#) ads loaded on the server and now I add them to breaks that run short of the local insert window.
Doing it that way, all I need is the time update flag at the beginning of the show and it runs without hiccups until the first update during the regular format afterwards. No fill music to get in the way.
And once in a while someone actually calls the toll-free number and we make a few extra bucks.
When I was CE at stations that aired some satellite music programs I would end the hour before the sat join with a flag at xx:59:45. It would force a 5 second fade of the song that was playing. Next was a flag at xx:59:50 to fire the ID, and finally one at yy:00:00 to join network.
I can only guess they are using the "natural break" loophole the FCC allows for station ID being late. Anyone who takes the time to read the manual (or internet instructions) that should come with any automation software should have fixed this just to keep the commercial playing close to when they are scheduled.
IMHO: it's a minor point but it just shows how inexperienced sloppy operators accelerating the decline of radio.
How does any of that top-of-the-hour stuff matter to the average listener?
I suppose it doesn’t, though if one is expecting a particular program to start at a certain time the automation clock should have playout elements timed properly. Smartphones are now a primary way to know what time it is, and they are locked to accurate time reference sources. Gone are the days of people using manually set clocks and watches that could be inaccurate by many minutes.
It doesn't really. But radio prides itself on a polished, slick presentation with everything on time and neatly in order. Some older listeners, like bobdavcav are quite used to this in such a way that when it's not done like that, it's painfully noticeable. I too am of that age.
And professional broadcasters are expected to run a tight ship. That's what separates them from the 10 watt college stations, LPFMs and streaming. The mention of automation cues are understood by professionals here who program these things, if not the lay listener.
Back in the day you use to have to submit an affidavit of when a commercials were played for some accounts (agencies). The ones I saw usually had "approximately" in the fine print. Starting 10 minutes late is not "approximately". If the format is really 70 minutes, in 6 hours your are an hour late, if there is no "hard" next event reset time. The sales folks might care.
Now if it is a PPM market you might get an extra quarter hour being 10 minutes late.
Today, there is no such thing as being "late" as long as a station can justify that "at the time of the first commercial break" is a natural break. Music stations can certainly say that interrupting a nicely programmed music sweep with an extraneous station ID is not putting it in a "natural break".
The FCC should allow legal IDs to be done digitally.
I worked in one country where using the call letters to identify a station was not permitted as the calls were "given for international regulations only" and stations had to have registered names!
I agree completely. A neat presentation is everything.
But it's also a migraine to learn this software and there are a number of easily missable things that can effortlessly slip right past you if you're not completely on the ball when you schedule. It's not for amateurs.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
These days, with computer-based operation, I can do all of that with a single line command macro, followed by the audio events in sequence.
Example: Every year on Good Friday, I pay homage to the worldwide broadcast of "We Are The World" from 1985, complete with a short narrative ahead of it explaining why we're suddenly playing the song, which is not in any of the regular format categories.
Here's the sequence in the Simian log:
09:48:32@ DECKFADE CURRENT,CURRENT,0,5000,UNLOAD,RETURN
09:49:00+65402F Good Friday Intro/ AUDIO 01:48
09:50:00+65402 WE ARE THE WORLD /USA FOR AFRICA MUSIC 06:52
09:51:00+65402T Good Friday Tag / AUDIO 00:10
What that @ flag does is make Simian jump to real-time and force whatever is on the air to be faded at 9:48:32, then five seconds after that fade starts, my intro plays, which leads into the song and my tag at the end. The "unload, return" at the end of that macro unloads the faded "cart" before it would finish playing on its own offline.
Works flawlessly ... in fact, "WATW" starts precisely at 9:50 (the same time as the worldwide simulcast took place in 1985) because I set the macro time based on the actual length of my intro. In your example, the macro time would be 09:59:45, and the following entries would be the ten-second ID and the network source.
I seem to remember @SomeRadioGuy mentioning that might have been done at a station where he worked
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
Of course, translators are allowed to do something similar by using the frequency shift keying method. There isn't a good argument against letting full-power FMs do the same.
A digital ID, invisible to the listener, is also a good idea, but I am inclined to agree with those countries who have eschewed the call letters being announced (the U.K. is probably the largest country to have that policy) that they are completely superfluous. It is pretty simple, engineering-wise, for the FCC to figure out which station they are monitoring by triangulation and frequency. Call letters are unnecessary, unless a station ties its on-air branding to them throughout the hour.
Amen.
However if you are in a diary market, you should frequently mention "the brand".
A "brand name" IS "call letters" and COL / what ever your market name if different, would not hurt once an hour.
Stations aren't even doing that properly. The HD Radio station ID field used to be strictly for call letters, but now more and more stations are using it for their slogan instead: "LITE" instead of WLTW; "Q1043" instead of WAXQ; "Rumba" instead of WUMR (yes, it supports lowercase!), etc.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
If there are any programmers who don't already understand that and do it, they deserve the low ratings that they'll get as a result.
I'm not so sure announcing it that blatantly is always a good idea.
"Alt 98.7 is KYSR Los Angeles" is more confusing than just dropping the legal in by itself between spots, as the example station does.
K.M. Richards
Program Director, The Eighties Channel™
There was never a legal requirement to make that field call letters only, AFAIK.
It is even more important in the PPM. That is because the PPM frequently shows lots of "little" bits of listening and you want listeners to be reminded to come back or stay with you.
It's just confusing. I have always found companies that want to have their corporate name part of the ID to simply be introducing confusion into station identity.
The only exceptions would be where the company brand is bigger than the station. "Back in the day" that would be when Westinghouse, General Electric, Crosley or the big local newspaper owned stations. Today, the only case I see would be iHeart, a company that has successfully branded itself through shows and other activities.
I hear a lot of talk about getting rid of top-hour call-letter/COL IDs. But to me and many, many others, that's killing a uniquely American radio tradition.
As obsolete as it may be technically in the 21st century, it's not going to kill anybody broadcasting on the terrestrial airwaves to put call letters/COL at the top of the hour. There are internet broadcasters that would LOVE to become actual radio stations and proudly say call letters/COLs.
That's what separates streaming from real radio beside the advertising. Call letters (real ones, not that "KQZY-DB" scam.) and a transmitter are still highly prized amongst many independent professional internet webcasters.
Call letters seem to add a legitimacy that overused to the point of cliche monosyllabic radio brands like Smooth, Mix, Magic, Hits, Warm, Cool, Hot, Bear, Fox, Cat, Bull, Wolf, Mountain, River, Island, B, C, Q, X, Z, Kiss, Lite, Spirit, Movin', Star, Sunny, JACK and BOB (Insert FM frquency here) simply don't have on their own, no matter how ubiquitous they are.
Because one of the last walls separating local control from a seamless full scale coast to coast networking of radio is the top-hour mandatory ID
It's interesting that in a large number and variety of nations where call letters are not used on the air and where there are full national networks we find that radio revenue is a much higher percentage of all ad expenditures than it is in the United States.