We pause 10 seconds for...

[robgrayson]

Just curious... how serious is the FCC about station ID's? When I listen to live sports on some local stations, quite often I hear "We pause 10 seconds for station identification" followed by NOTHING. I would assume they have it covered in another break, but I didn't hear anything. I know in 2011 nobody but cranky old DJ's care, but at best it sounds sloppy, at worst, it violates rules.

 

[Tynosaur]

Lordy, we used to carry the Indy 500 on WREC. I happened to be PD then and was driving to Clarksdale to visit my folks one of those Sundays and, along about Tunica, I heard, "We pause now for this 60-second message from your local sponsors," followed by 62 seconds of live racing sounds. This happened three more times before I got to Clarksdale, ran into my house, said hi to my parents, sprinted for the phone and called the control room. The phone rang for 30-40 seconds and a sleepy voice said, "Hullo." The part-timer running the race worked overnights at a C-store and he'd just dropped off to sleep. I couldn't berate him or fire him - I remembered how it had been when I was a stock boy in the Top Value stamp warehouse in Jackson while working at WJDX-FM and WJMI-FM every day as well.

 

[snazzyjazzy]

I hear a lot of dead air on weekends and at night because of automation systems not being programmed right. I knew to put in an ID for the Razorbacks games, when I was running the board at KSUD in West Memphis.

 

[TheBigDaddy]

That grates on my ass, too, Rob. I'm certain that in 90% of those situations that "nobody is home"...or even worse "nobody cares". In my day, you simply did NOT miss a top of the hour LEGAL ID.

 

[sidchase]

I was also fearful that the FCC would take away my Class 3 radio operator license that I studied so hard for if the id was not within 5 min of the top of the hour. And when they came in they find out that i really did not know how to read the meters either....

 

[firepoint525]

When the network calls for a station ID, is it always at/near the top of the hour? I seem to recall Atlanta Braves baseball (when we carried them over WDXN in Clarksville calling for an ID usually shortly after coming out of a commercial break, not necessarily at the top of the hour. I remember the former GM berating me over missing one of these IDs, but I also recall that we occasionally had an unsold :15 seconds coming out of some spot breaks, so I would usually drop IDs there, if it was one of those unsold breaks. (I also remember him berating me for not reading the sponsors' "billboards" near the beginning of a game, but I pointed out to him that I did not have a list of sponsors, nor had I ever been instructed to read a list of sponsors. Hey, you get what you pay for!)

 

[robgrayson]

The situations I have heard have been at or near top of the hour.

 

[snazzyjazzy]

I'm afraid nobody cares about the ID's anymore. I didn't get into radio until 1994, which was near the beginning of the consolidation craze. There were three things I was taught back then. Play the ID near the top of the hour. Don't have dead air. Don't have expletives go out over the air.

 

[Meepster]

I have run full speed (whilst zipping my fly) down the hall to the control room to try to beat that :10 ID window many times as a young radio guy.

But then, we still had TWO microphones for stereo, 1 three-stack cart machine, and two huge belt-driven turntables that had sppeds of 78,45,and 33&1/3 on them.
All we lacked was a clutch to shift between speeds.

Anyone remember when those belt turntables would get slow, so you'd have to back the que up farther and farther until you'd finally have to "slip-que" records until the engineer would get it fixed?

Does anyone remember the term "Slip-Que?"

Or the patch cords so you could play the Sunday morning program on air from the production room? (When two or three "Dollar a Hollars" were back-to-back?)
Or those Disc programs of "PowerLine" with Brother John Rivers?"

 

[snazzyjazzy]

I used to run 20 the Countdown Magazine on Sundays at KSUD in West Memphis from 1996-1999. I actually played the 2 CD's it came on back then. They weren't loaded into some computer automation system.

 

[DouglasB]

Just curious... how serious is the FCC about station ID's? When I listen to live sports on some local stations, quite often I hear "We pause 10 seconds for station identification" followed by NOTHING. I would assume they have it covered in another break, but I didn't hear anything. I know in 2011 nobody but cranky old DJ's care, but at best it sounds sloppy, at worst, it violates rules.

The audience doesn't care and the FCC only cares about your EAS equipment, your public file, and the fence and gate around your tower. The rest....no profit, no care.