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Studio Engineers

B

Boardengineer12

I'm just curious how many stations in the Chicago Market still utilize engineers to operate the on-air boards and/or perform production functions. I've been told that WLS and WGN Radio still maintain a staff of engineers for on-air operations. Any information would be most helpful.
 
Pretty much any Live News or Talk formatted station requires a "board operator" to maintain the correct flow of the program pieces. Automation still exists in that scenario but not to the degree it does in Music formats.

There are some News-Talk stations that air satellite delivered shows and that part of their day is fully automated.

BTW: I believe the term "board operator" is what you are refering to. The person that does that job, these days, certainly lacks the skills to be considered an engineer.
 
ddybas is exactly right. Until the late 70's or early 80's, stations such as WLS, WBBM, and WGN had union engineers operating the board as well as performing maintenance functions, making great salaries and benefits.

Since then, the union engineers have given up jurisdiction of the control board, and board operators usually are part time, have no benefits, and barely squeak by financially.
 
ddybas said:
Pretty much any Live News or Talk formatted station requires a "board operator" to maintain the correct flow of the program pieces. Automation still exists in that scenario but not to the degree it does in Music formats.

There are some News-Talk stations that air satellite delivered shows and that part of their day is fully automated.

BTW: I believe the term "board operator" is what you are refering to. The person that does that job, these days, certainly lacks the skills to be considered an engineer.
Click to expand...
Yeah, used to be that some poor slug would have to drive all the way in to the station from somewhere like Joliet, then have to work a full 8 hours running the board AND then they'd want him to clean the cart machines or something too. Ooh man, that's a lot of work...hey!
 
That's right Mister...hey....being a board operator was alot harder than working at the Citgo plant (cough)...at least there if something was broken you could paint right over it and make it look like it was fixed.
 
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