I don't doubt it. Visitors were always treated well. It was the non-engineering staff which was a threat and treated poorly - they feared (and in hindsight, obviously with good reason) that highly-paid union engineers weren't needed to cut tape and run boards. The less we knew, the easier it was to fight off the impending switch of "non-technical" work to news and programming staffers - and delay the wholesale gutting of the IBEW shop.
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WEEI during the Blizzard of 1978
- Thread starter Fenway1912
- Start date
And just yesterday, there was this news item on the other board about those nice forward-thinking folks at iHeart corporate:
iHeartMedia Cuts Engineers Across The Country As It Begins Rolling Out New Tech Initiatives - RadioInsight
iHeartMedia instituted a round of cuts today focusing on engineering departments at its broadcast operations. The cuts come as the company continues to implement operational changes that began in the wake of the widescale cuts of January 2020. As the company stated in Thursday’s annual earnings...
radioinsight.com
Broadcast revenue has been declining for a long time. With Covid, it was down 19% last year.
Hard to justify spending money in areas were revenue is in decline:
Pittman: iHeart Poised For Return To 2019 Revenues By End of 2021.
While it’s difficult to predict with accuracy the pace of the COVID-19 ad recovery, senior executives at iHeartMedia said Thursday that their business is on track to return to 2019
Meanwhile digital is up 50% and podcasting up 100%. That's where the "forward thinking folks" are spending money.
And engineers are needed in those areas too, but with different skill sets than traditional engineers.
Because everything works so smoothly all the time.
Or perhaps because even with all those engineers, things have NOT been so smooth.
Radio is a business which continues to have declining revenue. Investment in technology demonstrates major station owners are dedicated to find ways to remain viable. Engineering staffing is not the key to a quality presentation as demonstrated on this board. We need to embrace investments as the only way to secure radio’s future.
and people wonder why I ended up driving a bus and owning part of a body shop with a "First Phone" ticket.
Engineers were the first group of employees deemed non essential by the FCC and bean counters.... staff engineers got sent packing and contracted as 1099's back in the mid 80's IIRC, and eventually the licensing requirement went away leaving us holding those fancy pieces of paper with something to laminate to use as a place mat.
Thanks for the memories of the old WEEI
Engineers were the first group of employees deemed non essential by the FCC and bean counters.... staff engineers got sent packing and contracted as 1099's back in the mid 80's IIRC, and eventually the licensing requirement went away leaving us holding those fancy pieces of paper with something to laminate to use as a place mat.
Thanks for the memories of the old WEEI
Exactly, and the major radio companies are doing that, investing in related technologies that also represent the areas of revenue growth.
In keeping with advancements to technology. There was a time when doing a radio show required a lot of technical knowledge. Every year, the technology becomes so easy and cheap that anyone can host their own radio shows on the internet. Radio companies with staffs of engineers are competing against streaming stations run by one person in his spare bedroom.
I actually tried my hand at radio broadcasting on November 5, 2000. I won a contest to be a guest DJ on WKLS FM 96.1 in Atlanta Georgia and actually end up mentioning my dad, Les Woodruff... http://www.nathanwoodruff.com/04_Nathan Woodruff_Track 4.flac
Cap'n,
I assume you were using sarcasm in this remark, and if so, then I am in accord with it.
So, any of you on this board who work for iHeart: how many engineers (or technicians) are left to service iHeart Boston? We've all heard several times that the program content on Talk 1200 and WRKO and, on some occasions, even WBZ, tends to run amok. Might I enquire who (or is it now, WHAT) will fix this? And 'BZ's audio quality is a far cry from what it was at 1170 SFR. Perhaps the latter is because a good part of 'BZ's talent is heard from their respective homes via low-quality AoIP equipment. And how about all the myriad of news servers for 'BZ, not to mention all the music servers for the iHeart FMs? And does anyone really believe that little-to-no maintenance is required for high-powered AM transmitters? that tweaks to directional antenna phasors are no longer needed? or that periodic visual inspections of FM transmitters/antennas are no longer a priority?
And how about managing all those podcasts and the IP streams of on-air content?
Is everything really working THAT smoothly all the day?
Was it working that smoothly six months ago before the staff changes? Apparently not.
Then why should those staffs be retained if they didn't fix the technical mistakes that people here complained about?
As for the podcasts and non broadcast content, that is managed by a completely different staff, and they were not affected.
Inside Story: Why iHeart is Dividing Its Business Into Two Operating Groups.
To give investors greater visibility into the performance of its two main businesses, iHeartMedia is reorganizing its operating structure. Separating its fast-growing streaming audio and podcasting business from the more
Please remember that WBZ is the highest rated station in Boston!Was it working that smoothly six months ago before the staff changes? Apparently not.
Then why should those staffs be retained if they didn't fix the technical mistakes that people here complained about?
As for the podcasts and non broadcast content, that is managed by a completely different staff, and they were not affected.
Inside Story: Why iHeart is Dividing Its Business Into Two Operating Groups.
To give investors greater visibility into the performance of its two main businesses, iHeartMedia is reorganizing its operating structure. Separating its fast-growing streaming audio and podcasting business from the morewww.insideradio.com
An AM station with no FM is number one in 2021 with 6 and up listeners.
Quite an accomplishment!
The facts show the station is managed well and continued cost reductions are required to keep that performance given the revenue reductions. Embrace change as it is the only way radio will be viable.
The facts show that there was a contentious election and a pandemic.
>>> Motown: We need to embrace investments as the only way to secure radio’s future.
Who is "we"? I thought you didn't work in Radio.
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The readers on this board who are passionate about radio and want it to be viable.
;-)
Sure and WRKO is getting its best ratings ever. In fact iHeart has four stations in Boston's Top 10.
I don't remember reading that the fired technical staff members were replaced with others who might be able do the job, just that positions were eliminated. That to me implies any "technical mistakes" have closer to zero chance of being corrected now.
How is that different from the situation before? We had someone saying he heard the same double audio for weeks.
There is a RadioWorld article that counts the total number of engineers eliminated company wide at 39 for over 800 stations. That's a pretty small number in a company this size.
Please look at the ratings for WBZ and WRKO again. WBZ is the most listened to radio station in Boston, ages 6 and up. WRKO is number 8.
Best ratings in many years. Prudent cost reductions need to be continued. These stations are successful as is and revenue will not go up by adding non essential personal. Listeners don’t care about
small technical issues so why spend needlessly. The ratings demonstrate the cost reductions have no impact so they need to continue.
Did you miss what I said to you in post #36?
So yes I know all about their ratings.
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