We're not talking about 15,330 radio stations. We're talking about ONE radio station: KRTH. They play files from a computer. The scenario described in post #437 is pure fantasy on many levels.
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The old KRTH
- Thread starter David Shapiro
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We're not talking about 15,330 radio stations. We're talking about ONE radio station: KRTH. They play files from a computer. The scenario described in post #437 is pure fantasy on many levels.
Today's digital automation is very very unlikely to have phase issues. In fact, phase issues were generally a problem with reel tape and tape (ugh!) cartridges.
A song or audio cut put on a digital system is generally going to play back true tens of thousands of times. CD are subject to dirt on the lens, scratches on the surface of the disk, etc. Tape is subject to all kinds of issues related to the tape crossing the playback head at incorrect angles as well as wear and distortion of the media itself.
While there are some stations that do lay rare cuts off CD and even, occasionally, vinyl, nearly every station today uses a digital system... ranging from free ones like Simian to paid ones like Zetta and WideOrbit.
Personally, I do not know of any station using mechanical systems only.
Forgive me...I'm still laughing about "the overnight jock" having an intern. In all my years, I don't know of ANY jock, in any daypart having an intern. Even jocks on WKRP in Cincinnati didn't have interns. In my experience, interns aren't assigned to people, but departments. And they don't work overnights.
Most of us have ample proof based on seeing similarly absurd ideas fail. This is based on observing the industry over what are often decades while at the same time having access to very detailed information on different stations' ratings, playlists, etc.
It will certainly get the intern (none of whom work overnights) dismissed. It will possibly get the jock fired.
Of course, that's and impossible scenario as songs are not selected by the jock and are pre-programmed on the digital storage / automation computer; they play in the sequence the programming department established and any deviation from the music log/schedule will be the subject of considerable anger the next morning. Shit will hit the fan.
The scenario is further impossible as most overnight shifts are voice tracked and run with nobody in the studio.
And yet more impossible because "Stagger Lee" is not going to be on the KRTH digital system... and even if it were, it would not be accessible to the air studio as access would be denied. Many studio's don't even have mechanical media reproduction devices in them any more.
KRTH could care less about "credit" for a re-do of a song they do not play in a current version which they would not play. Most stations do not take requests, anyway.
Yes, the jock (were there one) who would be trying to figure out where their next paycheck was coming from.
Not if there is good management and HR lets it be known that infractions regarding the playlist are firing offenses.
It might happen at some small station in a distant part of the country where economics don't allow adequate supervision. But certainly not in a significant major market station.
I can recall back during my first Top 40 experience in 1963 in the largest market of the Hemisphere: the jocks did not pick the music, they could not change the music. If they did, they got fired. And that was 53 years ago. The station was not being "ultra rock hard safe". It was simply playing the songs that they interpreted that most people wanted to hear in their format. They did research and stuck to it.
I'm laughing at the idea of a live person doing overnights!
Since you seem to be enjoying a good laugh, I thought it appropriate to put this in the Comic Sans font.
Okay, maybe you haven't worked at that many stations, or at least very many stations that mattered. You've certainly never ventured over to KRTH in the overnight hours. I remember Al Conners filling in for Bill Stephens and I knew Al well. He invited me by one night and guess what? He introduced me to someone that was in the booth with him that he described as an intern from a local community college. So there blows a couple of your theories.
Still yukking it up now?
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Now that would have been how many years ago? I think Bill Stephens was on 1995-2005... decades ago. I recall he got axed by Maureen Lesourd, made famous by KFI's "Live by Lesourd, Die by Lesourd" liners.
I have worked for "stations that mattered" for pretty much my whole adult and even some of my teen career. What you describe was more the norm a quarter century ago.
Today, any interns have to be part of a program that gives them time in several departments. They can't be go-fers for a jock or the programming department. There is now more paperwork than it is worth to have an intern. There have been a number of legal cases in this area, and the state labor laws and regulations prevent an intern just been given a menial task to do with no learning. The last interns in LA I could get by legal and HR were around 1994 at KHJ, in fact.
In any case, KRTH is automated with voice tracking overnight. There is nobody in the studio, nobody to change the playlist, no intern, no warm body. Lots of beg market clusters just have one person on duty in a building with 7 or 8 radio stations. They take care of little emergencies, verify that the music and commercial logs loaded at midnight, put on coffee for the morning shifts, etc. And in the case of an emergency, they can "hold the fort" until more staffers get there.
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Let's take all kinds of chances, substitute our homework for guesswork, all on somebody else's dime with somebody else's radio station (and the careers of those who work there). Bring on the "Dominque", Debbie Boone and Donny Osmond. By the time a jock makes it to L.A., he or she has certainly got over "let's throw in a song I brought from home because I think it's cool" phase.
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Vinnie, c'mon. Let's look again at what AMFM's orignial question about KIIS, KROQ and KPWR in the 80s and 90s was:
Didn't listeners of KRTH today listen to those stations back then?
And my answer was that only those who lived in L.A. 20 and 30 years ago did. How is that opinion? Why would I need proof that it is true? How is it based in fear? They can't have listened if they weren't in Los Angeles.
And the next part of my answer was that of those people who lived in L.A. 20 and 30 years ago, only some of them listened to KIIS, KROQ and KPWR. That's a given, to anyone who isn't logic-challenged.
And the final part of my answer was that of those who were in Los Angeles, and listened to KIIS, KROQ and KPWR, only some cared about the jocks. And that's been a universal since the beginning of radio. The vast majority of the audience is the "shut up and play the music" folks.
As for being afraid to take chances, I likened it yesterday to deciding to answer a text while driving on the freeway. Maybe you won't hit anything. Maybe you'll dent a fender. Maybe you'll die. The smart move is not to answer the text. Same with taking any unnecessary chance. If you're in a desperate situation where a Hail Mary pass might save the jobs of the people who work for you, then fine. KRTH's the farthest from desperate it's ever been.
All of which has nothing to do with the Eurythmics and Stagger Lee (?!?), which I've saved for a separate reply.
Wow.
Where to begin?
First of all, you DO know that we live in the age of automated segues so the intern (who wouldn't be in the building at 2 a.m. anyway) doesn't have to get from one song to the next while the jock's in the little DJ's room, right? The software handles that.
Also, things have progressed a little bit more---there's not a roomful of records including ones the station doesn't play just lying there for an intern (you know, the one who wouldn't be there in the first place) to grab and slap on the turntable that's not there either.
No, Vinnie. No carts or cart machines either.
If it's not on the playlist, it's not where the jock (or the non-present intern) can access it on the studio system, unless he or she hacks in and puts it on, and that's a fireable offense (or a loss of building privileges and class credit for the intern).
Which brings us to your question of why, even at 2 a.m., it would be a bad thing if it happened:
Because if it can happen, it can happen again. And if it happens enough that the KRTH listener who likes what they're doing there now, tunes in and hears a song that doesn't fit the expectation he or she has of the station, the perception of the station changes from "Every time I turn to KRTH, they're playing a song I love" to "KRTH used to play great music, but they're starting to play some weird s*** lately."
That's the general answer. Now let's get to your specific sub-questions:
"What if enough listeners called and requested it?"
KRTH draws 3 million listeners every week. Just how many requests are enough to offset "Stagger Lee" not being in the format, which probably means the music tests, which have worked spectacularly well for KRTH of late, showed target listeners would prefer NOT to hear it?
"What if a major label band were out there and heard that at 2 in the morning and it inspired them to re-make the song which went on to be a bigger hit than the original and KRTH were given all the credit for it?"
Please tell me you were joking, drinking or both when you wrote that.
I'm going to answer it as though it's a serious question, though, just in case:
First, a big current hit record does a classic hits station exactly.......carry the three......ZERO good at all. If it's a monster hit, it drives up the time spent listening for KIIS. Which could come from the shared audience with KRTH. In other words it could hurt them.
Second, being given the credit doesn't translate to ratings.
And finally....
"With the possible exception of the intern, do you actually think that would have been the worst 3 minutes in anyone's life?"
I have a multi-part answer:
A) Yes, the Program Director's.
B) Yes, the jock who had an intern in the building at 2 a.m. and left them unsupervised to break format.
3) But not the typical listener. He or she would have enjoyed two minutes and 45 seconds on the next station they tuned to. And God knows how long it would be before he or she tuned back to KRTH.
I can picture Jim Ladd or Jimmy Rabbitt with a groupie in the studio. The GM drops by unexpectedly, half in the bag from some cocktail party and, in a cloud of marijuana haze, Ladd or Rabbitt saying "She's the intern."
For those who've already seen the posts that come after, I should note that I read and reply in chronlogical order--so I'm probably piling on.
Vinnie: Know your audience. David has a resume' that would choke a horse. Some major league calls. I don't know who BigA is, but I'm sure I'd know his name and some of his stations if he ever cared to divulge it. You're in a room full of pros (don't mind Oldies76 over there---he's an intern).
If it was Al Conners filling in for Bill Stephens, you are talking about 10 years ago, at least. Maybe as much as 20. I was in that big white mansion at 5858 Sunset Boulevard a few times in the 1970s. They have turntables and cart decks and great DJs--- Dick Whittinghill, Geoff Edwards, Wink Martindale, Gary Owens, Roger Carroll and Johnny Magnus. They talk as much as they want and they all get paid hundreds of thousands of dollars a year! I should drop by again. I'm sure nothing's changed.
Seriously?
And Al could have been using the same approach I imagined Jim Ladd or Jimmy Rabbitt using. "This is an intern" was a useful cover---until Bill Clinton kinda loused that up.
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I work in a top 10 market. We have a live overnight jock Monday - Friday on one of the stations.
Weekend overnights are tracked with a board op overseeing things.
If a daytime jock is on vacation, the overnighter fills in and overnights are tracked.
Part of the reason we hang onto this operational relic is that policy states that the studios can never be unattended. (We bill major dollars. Rule #1, we don't miss spots. Rule #2, see rule 1, and having someone on duty means that we can react quicker and not miss spots.) So you have to pay someone to be up there anyway and he's been faithfully doing this for close to 15 years.
Part of the reason is that we're successful, so as long as we continue to win and make money, Corporate will leave this alone.
But yeah, we automate 7 to midnight 6 nights a week and have a live jock from midnight to 5 5 nights a week. It's the only live overnight show for miles around. I'm sure if he ever leaves he'll be replaced by tracks. But it's nice having a real jock on duty when the weather turns to crap.
But none of us would ever add a title that's off list, no matter what hour. Somebody who matters is always listening, and it's not worth wrecking a multi-million dollar enterprise for the sake of playing a worn out tune that's now out of the format. I'm not worried about my boss hearing it. I'm worried that someone with a meter would and turn us off.
Hold your horses there, partner. Why would you dismissively refer to Oldies76 as an "intern?" Sounds like you're trying to pre-qualify him and to marginalize him. Why is that necessary? I know this man and have actually been working on a project with him for over a year now. The operative word there is that I know him. The rest of you in the group don't know him, nor do you know me.
A funny thing happened a few days ago. Not 30 seconds after I was finished leaving a post, I receive a notification that I have been banned from the site and that the ban would never be lifted. The reason it gave was "insults." Hmmmm .....
I've noticed a double standard here. When people on this board have no knowledge of me or my resume, and base what they "assume" they know about me on something that I've posted, they end up replying with mischaracterizations that are patently false, and have nothing to do with where I'm coming from. What that does is insult my intelligence and integrity. But no one ever gets called on that, yet I get called out because I took a dig at someone who had made such tacit assumptions about me and got me frustrated enough to take a dig.
What you did there in being dismissive of Oldies76 is just one of dozens of examples that I could point up. I was always taught not to assume anything on anybody. Always ask 20 questions first.
Because if there's one guy who'd slip Lloyd Price's "Stagger Lee" into KRTH's format figuring it couldn't hurt anything, it's him.
I think we have a branch thread here: how many stations are there which are still live in overnights?
Yours is a heritage case, with a jock who has been there a while and who is doubly economical by doing a show on one station and being the "watchdog" for the others in the cluster.
Most larger clusters have one body in the building for the reasons you mention regarding revenue protection. They check that the commercial log is loaded and that there are no issues before 5 AM or 6 AM spotloads start running. In an emergency, they are the body the engineer can talk to for troubleshooting a technical issue. In some cases they are also likely monitoring news sources in case there is something astoundingly important or which can be noted for the morning show to focus on.
If you get in the Wayback Machine, it is fun to note that stations started doing overnight shows to avoid an equipment failure when the gear, turned off and cold, was shocked into life at 6 AM. And the reason was the same: to prevent loss of revenue.
We've "known" Oldies 76 for half a decade, and he is definitely an "intern" in the sense of not having enough knowledge of radio to be left on his own.
This "intern" has a very slow learning curve. He still confuses personal taste with the preferences of a mass audience. He does not understand the "broad" in broadcasting. Until he learns to make the distinction, he will always be an "intern" or worse... a groupie. And "groupie" at most stations is a synonym for "pest".
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