Keep in mind these are not normal times with a pandemic and coming off a contested election.
Both have served WRKO and WBZ well.
These might not be "normal ratings" either.
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WEEI during the Blizzard of 1978
- Thread starter Fenway1912
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Keep in mind these are not normal times with a pandemic and coming off a contested election.
Both have served WRKO and WBZ well.
These might not be "normal ratings" either.
Let's see if that is the case when the pandemic anxiety is over and politics gets put on the back burner.
Then we'll see and be able to make a judgement if the stations are "sucessful as is" without a contested election and a pandemic.
Ah, right, now even more iHeart stations can air "the same double audio for weeks".
Does the RadioWorld article report how many engineers/technicians remain in iHeart's employ at these 800+ stations?
Only if their audio chain was designed by the engineers in Boston.
Where did you see that "technicians" were eliminated? That's a different pay scale.
In a union shop, maybe. But in commercial stations there is a wide range of what "engineer" or "technician" may mean.
At one station I was with, there was a Chief Engineer, and a studio technician and a transmitter technician. Both the techs were engineers in the sense that they had (or would have had if required) the equivalent of a First Ticket.
In recent years, I have not seen the term "technician" used much in radio. Obviously, in some places the hierarchy is different but I would not read too much into titles, particularly when looking at different broadcasting companies.
If you want to take that approach, in a non-union shop, there are no requirements for engineers or technicians in normal daily operations. Thus studio operations don't actually require engineers or technicians. They can employ board ops. Those are under the domain of the programming department, not the engineering department. They don't even have to be full time. At one place I'm familiar with, they were often temporary staffers.
But that's not what we're talking about. Here's a link to the aforementioned RadioWorld article. It's pretty clear what they're talking about in the article.
Reports: iHeartMedia Makes Cuts to Engineering Staff - Radio World
Its move to regionalization reportedly leads to reductions in engineering
www.radioworld.com
From actual engineers who have been laid off, we have anything from group chief engineers to studio and computer maintenance folks. All are part of the "engineering" department.
But there is a necessity for "engineers" however they are called to maintain the hardware, the transmitter sites, the computers and, today, the in-home studio setups for staff working remotely. Whatever their title, they have to have specialized computer and broadcast engineering knowledge.
Whether on staff or on contract or on call, they are still engineers in the radio vernacular.
And as the article plainly states, there is a plan in place for handling those functions.
David, thanks for making this point. Back in the early 60s when I first got to visit radio stations, the people who ran the audio consoles at a union operation or who kept watch at the site of a directional AM were all referred to as engineers, even though only a very small minority had degrees in engineering per se. Properly speaking, non-degreed technical staff would more likely be classified as technicians in other industries, but broadcasting didn't make that distinction.
And I'm sure it covers double audio at stations such as Talk 1200, fuzzy audio at WBZ.....
Not sure you can make that generalization. When I was in NABET (The National Association of Broadcast Employees and Technicians), we were very specific about who was called an engineer and who was called a technician. The roles were different, as was the pay. They were not interchangeable, under penalty of grievance.
Once again, all of that happened BEFORE the layoffs.
Oh, goodie, it will never happen again AFTER the layoffs. 
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