The commercials on WABC's internet stream are too loud. When I listen to their internet stream, I have to lower the volume when the commercials come on. When the radio shows come back from the commercial break, I have raise the volume again.
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WABC's internet stream has loud commercials
- Thread starter TTalkradio1
- Start date
F
FredLeonard
Guest
TTalkradio1 said:
Another guy is complaining that they run annoying PSAs repeatedly. You say they are running commercials and the commercials are too loud. Which is it?
gordonlee said:
It's a stream. They probably don't have the time to bother making it sound perfect. Just be glad they have a free stream.
If they're inserting substitue spots to prevent ones that don't have national clearance from airing on the stream it's likely due to the spot insertion system. Now you have to find something there who not only knows how to deal with the system but who cares. I noticed the station hitting the dumper ever since Cumulus took it over.
I haven't listened in 3+ months, but they used to play music (instrumental version of "Viva la Vida" - Coldplay) during El Rushbo.. Over and over. And when they didn't play that music, they played "WABC will be back soon". HORRIBLE programming. It's not that they don't have time, it's that they don't care. It's case and point of what is wrong with radio - more specifically talk radio - that digital isn't important and they only care about the on air product (which they don't care enough about either - it's horrible, too).
Have a top notch online stream and sell it. It's pretty damn simple. It's much more likely that I'm going to listen to a stream, all day while in the office, than a radio.
Have a top notch online stream and sell it. It's pretty damn simple. It's much more likely that I'm going to listen to a stream, all day while in the office, than a radio.
It wouldn't take much effort for them to fix the audio levels. I use a piece of software called Breakaway Audio Enhancer that does a fine job of leveling streams with audio levels that are all over the place like WABC's. It's 30 bucks and takes about 15 minutes to set up. Think Cumulus could spring for that? The leveling should be done at their end, not mine.
Sounds like a config issue with the stream encoder computer. The ad-injector might not be passing audio through the final stream encoder processor, going straight to the encoder or the program feed is hitting the stream encoder without passing through processing while the ad-injector is processed. I've had streaming computers lose the correct config and end up with a similar issue.
The audio level issue isn't unique to WABC, in fact talk stations with a level final output seem rare. Maybe music stations do a better job because generally they're more concerned about the sound.
A question: shouldn't it really be up to StreamTheWorld, iHeart, etc. -- the outfits that do the streaming to add the final processing? Radio stations should insist on that (if they actually gave a damn, that is.)
A question: shouldn't it really be up to StreamTheWorld, iHeart, etc. -- the outfits that do the streaming to add the final processing? Radio stations should insist on that (if they actually gave a damn, that is.)
wadio said:
Short answer NO.
Also I'm pretty certain there would be issues with ad-injection latency. Since spot injection usually relies on "category" covering i.e. "COM" as a commercial category so when the board operator fires off a COM (commercial) in the Audio Vault/Prophet etc. the ad-injector receives the command via TCP/IP or serial and covers that specific category. Most systems use a FIFO method (First In, First Out) to allow for variances in stop-set length versus cover stop-set length.
The stations I dealt with were both music and talk. The stream levels and spot injection were always processed just before the stream encoder. I've ran various systems, dual Digigram VX-222 cards using external processing or the single card solution which was always the Orban 1100 card.
So more than likely the problem at WABC is a config error in the audio routing on the stream encoder/ad-injector computer...and it's pretty easy to correct.
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