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Voicetracking

Back about 2000, I was passing through the small town in which the first radio station for which I had ever worked (back in the early '90s) was located. I stopped off to (try to) pay a visit to that station during normal business hours and found the doors locked, and no one was home! And this was at about 2:00 on a weekday afternoon! Now I knew that the station had been off the air for a couple of years in the mid-'90s, but they had returned, under new ownership, in the late '90s. I knew that no one there would know me (if anyone had actually been there!), but that was fine with me.

I should point out that this station's studios are located in the downtown business district just a couple of blocks from the town square (Can't say "court square" because it is not a county seat town.) Had this station's studios been located on some dead-end road out in the middle of nowhere (like where their transmitter is located, for instance), I would not have thought much about it not being "open for business," but to me, it just did not look good for no one to be there in the middle of the afternoon!

The trip was not lost, however, as I also paid a visit to a small museum just a block or two away from the station while I was in town.
 
radiophiler said:
This was all at small or medium market stations. I have to wonder if staffing the overnight gets any better in large or major markets.
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Large non-US market with 4 stations in a row of studios. One went off the air at about 2 AM. One of the other jocks called me saying that the "other" station was off, and nobody was in the studio. I asked him to put an album on and at least get music on the air. Reply: the studio door is blocked and I can't open it.

Fast drive to the station. The door was barricaded. But it was my door, so I kicked it in. Nobody in the studio. Closer inspection revealed that the jock was hiding in a little utility closet in the studio. He had seen gremlins in the hall, and was hiding. Of course.
 
You were never a PD or GM in the 70's or 80's unless at least one of the overnight jocks was found curled up under the console for whatever strange reason.

Yes, times have changed. It just isn't economically feasible to run a small/medium market station with jocks 24 hours a day.
 
Groove1670 said:
You were never a PD or GM in the 70's or 80's unless at least one of the overnight jocks was found curled up under the console for whatever strange reason.
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1975: In what is now a Top 15 market, I left a show quite late, and put the station on. I heard the classic thuk-thuk-thuk of a record that had run out and was trying hard to play the paper label. I drove to the station, and noticed that all the lights in the lobby and hall leading to the studio were out.

I hit the master hall light switch by the front door, and down the hall were the jock, a gopher and two "friends" of the opposite sex, all naked, doing a pretzel imitation outside the studio on the brand new thick shag carpet.

I got to run the board for the next four or five hours until the morning guy came in.
 
Yep. With modern automation you might see a chip of two go out, but never a pretzel :)
 
"Yes, times have changed. It just isn't economically feasible to run a small/medium market station with jocks 24 hours a day."

And I'd argue that it wasn't economically feasible to run at least some small market AM stations with live talent 24 hours a day back in the 80s, too. The AM station I worked for from 86-88 didn't make a profit. With 24/7 jocks, even at a low rate of pay, it was a break even station at best. There was no automation equipment. It had been a daytimer that got nighttime authorization at wattage that barely covered its COL. How much would automation equipment have cost back then for a fairly simple to run music station?
 
At a station cluster of which I play an extemely minor part, one of the jocks is able to voicetrack part of his show if he needs to leave early to help cover football games. I sincerely doubt that anyone can tell the difference.
 
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