WABC shpuld get their act together

[deff junction]

I am listening to Imus right now. The levels are all over the place. Imus is okay but Charles is very low. I know its only the second day but this is WABC in NYC. Some time ago I had an interview there for a board op position. I come to find out it paid all of 10 bucks an hour,17 if you screened callers. Screening callers and running the board there was a disaster waiting to happen. The interviewer also complained that some ops made the station sound like a college station but they were (are) a lean company, Well; sometime after that, I was listenening to Bob Grant and heard the F bomb twice as he was screaming "Hit the dump button"
What ever happened to standards? Didn't anyone check and double check that studio to make sure everything works? Was the board op properly trained? Do these things matter anymore or does mangement only care if there us a warm body there?

 

[wxgirl]

actually-they're broadcasting from a tv studio - and imus said the engineer overslept - and didn't get there till 15 mins to air time. and yes, it was ugly listening to the show. mccord's mic wasn't on. did they assign an intern to run the show?

 

[deff junction]

Thats what I get for posting before having my coffee. I asked the moderator to pull MY comments about WABC.

 

[Julius Leonard Marx]

The board op arrives 15 minutes before the show (instead of 30) and he still can't monitor sound levels and ridge gain on different mics? Deff, sounds like your comments are valid and they do have a problem here. Besides, it's not as if this is a start up operation. They had been doing a morning show before yesterday. Running board for Curtis and Kuby can't be much different than running board for Imus.

$10.00 an hour? Is union scale in the number one market really that close to minimum wage?

 

[WTUX]

Board ops in Wilmington, Delaware make $10 an hour. WABC doesn't pay more? That's hard to believe.

 

[deff junction]

Ten bucks an hour was the going rate about 10 years ago. Time does fly even when you are not having fun

 

[DToTheJ]

WABC shpuld get their act together

Someone shpuld get their grammar together... But I digress... ;D

But seriously... This is what happens when upper management calls the shots: Citadel saw good billing opportunities by bringing back Imus, who, to beat a dead horse, didn't even muster half the ratings Curtis & Kuby did. But sometimes ratings aren't always everything (read: WPLJ, WOR)... By comparison, upper management from Clear Channel brought in Delilah, but for different reasons (actually they did end up saving a few bucks). I'd rather hear the localized, watered-down presentation of Delilah on WLTW over Imus, and I can't stomach Delilah.

 

[tk]

I am listening to Imus right now. The levels are all over the place. Imus is okay but Charles is very low.

Levels still all over the place Tuesday 9-9:15am!!! I certainly hope we're just listening to a feed on the internet
without a limiter...and it's not on the legendary WABC that way. If that's the case...unbelievable!

 

[zeem]

Amusing... Seems Board Ops don't make enough, blame it on the oversleepers....But it's deeper than that which rolls downhill... Yep, Imus is back. Yes, there are great tech difficulties obvious today --- The rhetorical and actual questions would be..... WABC has committed a large chunk of bucks - as has RFD TV..... Imus is too stubborn to do tech rehearsals and expects that WABC and RFDTV have previously accomplished stand in rehearsals, and things will work cold.....It's assuredly in his contract... He moaned constantly with CBS/MSNBC that things didn't work... then goes to WABC and RFD, and it's obvious there was no pre prep by WABC. I'd be pissed also if I was in his position.... but to blame it on the Board Op is unfair... In professional radio, one should be able to discreetly communicate with board ops, engineers and producers, and know that studio mics are operable, muteable, with quality. Love or Hate Imus - he does have a fairly good grip on technical broadcast standards - His Philosophy - It works, now, the way he wants it... or he walks......... Gotta love the old bastard don't ya????

 

[LIradiofan226]

All I could think about was Curtis driving home after his 5-6 shift probably listening to the man who stole his job and probably chuckling at the whole debacle.

 

[Julius Leonard Marx]

All I could think about was Curtis driving home after his 5-6 shift probably listening to the man who stole his job and probably chuckling at the whole debacle.

He can always go back to being a subway vigilante. ;D

Meanwhile, Ron Kuby gets to sleep late and even have time for a little lovin' before he starts racking up billable hours.

Any bets on which station will pick up Curtis and Kuby? And how long their time on the beach will be (probably less than Imus' was)?

WOR?
WWRL?
WEPN?
WFAN?

I say they are back in less than 90 days.

 

[kevinsealy]

Re: WABC should get their act together

Julius Leonard
Marx,

I doubt if any station will pick up Curtis & Kuby. I only see Curtis alone.

Outside of WABC, I don't think management at WOR thinks very highly of Ron Kuby. This is ONLY my opinion and I could be very wrong.[/b][/b]


Thanks,
Kevin L. Sealy

 

[Mark Giardina]

Re: WABC should get their act together

I stream Imus' show on my computer at work and I thought my speakers were broke. The levels were all over the place.

Thanks for clearing up the situation. Even Imus complained about the sound of the show. Maybe the problem will be fixed now.

 

[DubbaDon]

After years at MSNBC, IMUS Remotes frequently were Train Wrecks. Sometimes the studio operations were Train Wrecks. I think the $10 Pay Scale hits it on the head. When Money is On The Line, you pay for what you get - across the board. When you have McDonald's Fry Chiefs getting higher pay than Radio/TV Board Ops, you lose audience and advertisers.

 

[newsperson]

Board op pay only $ 10.00 per hour?

How do they expect to keep anyone?

In San Francisco Infinity/CBS would pay $ 12.00 to $ 15.00 at a non-union station.

At KGO I beleive it is much more becasue they called them engineers and there may be a union. Thye also have seperate screeners.

At KSFO it is a little different because it is mostly network programing. They also cut to Metro Networks for news and I haven't noticed any problems.

At KGO when there is a new engineer there have been screw ups and they have missed local news not becasue of the anchor, but becasue of the engineer.

I imagine a WABC board engineer earning more around $ 20.00 per hour. Is there anyone here that has any direct knowledge of board engineers pay?

Newsperson

 

[Element9]

Twenty bucks an hour in NYC. Market #1. $40k per year. How does one live on that kind of money in NY-NJ-Conn where the cost of living is through the roof? That kind of money might be a princely sum in Syracuse, but in NY? C'mon! OK, I know NYC cops start at around 39k and people live five to an apartment the size of a tool shed, splitting the rent five ways, but really. It's amazing that a company would entrust their inventory (what's a 60 second spot go for in morning drive, $2500?) to a board op who doesn't make a livable salary. Then again, it's Citadel, so what's the surprise. Feh!

-9-

 

[majoradio]

http://www.breitbart.tv/html/9057.html

 

[Julius Leonard Marx]

Re: WABC should get their act together

Julius Leonard
Marx,

I doubt if any station will pick up Curtis & Kuby. I only see Curtis alone.

Outside of WABC, I don't think management at WOR thinks very highly of Ron Kuby. This is ONLY my opinion and I could be very wrong.[/b][/b]


Thanks,
Kevin L. Sealy

That may well be, but the two of them together are better than either of them alone.

 

[RadioFixerCLE]

At KGO when there is a new engineer there have been screw ups and they have missed local news not becasue of the anchor, but becasue of the engineer.

In defense of the control operator, when you're on a new and unfamiliar board, it takes a little bit to get acclimated to the pacing of the shows, the equipment, the program elements, establishing a rapport with the man on the "other side of the glass" -- what he expects, wants, etc. If there is a mistake you sometimes panic a little. It's normal I think.

For instance, after I returned to the controls following a 10-year hiatus, my first day was a little rough (we run spots off CDs and minidisks with the remotes on the board not working), but a couple hours later, things started smoothing out noticeably. And what I'm doing is mostly fill in work for other people, so I'm not there every day.

If you're at this job on a daily basis and after a week or so and you keep making the same mistakes over and over and over, then definitely something is wrong with you. But the first day? Go easy on the person. :-\

 

[R.F. Burns]

Re: WABC should get their act together

Lou Rufino is Imus's engineer. He is not a 10$ an hour "board op". The issue is that Imus and crew are a remote of their own show. Yesterday morning there was no return cue with interupt between WABC's studio (where Lou is located) and the MSG studio across the street, where Imus and crew were working. I found it interesting that Bernard is back in the WABC studio as opposed to being with Imus. Another issue which caused problems with the Imus show was microphone levels. I would guess that there is someone at the MSG facility who mixes all of the remote elements to a mono or stereo feed which comes up on the board at WABC. Lou takes that feed and creates a mix minus, where Imus can hear all elements minus his own audio (If they don't do that he will end up feeding back upon himself). The Imus remote studio feeds Imus's own audio back to his headphones mixed with Lou's mix minus feed. That way everyone hears everything but interupt can be accomplished without cuing ending up on the air. I believe the engineer missing was not the board op as has been mentioned but was the person in charge of constructing the new Imus set-up. Actually, what they have to do is quite simple technically, if you know what you are doing. The fact is that each form of engineering is a specialty. If you've never done this kind of work, which most local radio stations (and RFD TV) have not, it's easy to get things wrong. It apears that each microphone position has its own mic switch so that isn't an issue as long as the user remembers to turn their mic. on. Levels are simple to check prior to air. There isn't a lot of movement on the show, so once a mic. level has been set there should be little more to do. They could always use some light proccesing to smooth the overall sound from the remote site before it arrives at WABC, where Lou would have no ability to make adjustments to each seperate microhone located in the Imus studio across the street.