Why people interested in a broadcast station technical information turn to social media is beyond me. Facebook? How about picking up this thing called a phone, pressing the buttons for the phone number published on the station website, and asking to speak with someone in the engineering department? Of if textual communication is all you have the stomach for, there is this thing called E-mail.
I turned to Facebook because corporate stations don't publish their engineer's e-mail address, for obvious reasons. In fact, I don't see any e-mail addresses of any kind (not even sales) on most of the iHeart and Cumulus websites I've visited over the years. Which leaves telephone…
If you want an immediate response, pick up the phone and call the station. Tell them that you have a serious issue and that you need to speak with the Chief Engineer.
I've done this before, and the results have been a less than successful. The stations are usually in a cluster, which is staffed by a receptionist who doesn't know who the engineer is, where he or she is or how to get in touch with them. Yes, there are occasional exceptions but by and large engineers are harder to reach than sales or the GM, if there's even one on staff at the time at all. It usually involves leaving a message and number and them calling back a few days later. Which is cool.
That's assuming you can even find a proper listing for a radio station in the phone book. The last station I tried to contact directly, WJTQ in Pensacola, was not listed under that name. Or even their moniker "100.7 The Jet". It's listed as "Arrow 100.7" which is a name they haven't used in probably 15 years
! That's when it dawned on me to search by parent company. But I doubt John C. Listener knows their iHeart from their Summit from their Bluewater. Hell, I barely know and I've been following this stuff for years.
Strangely enough, this station DID respond by Facebook, and fast. They acknowledged the issue and were really nice about it, thanked me for listening, and had the problem fixed eventually. (It wasn't HD related.)
I should note that this issue is strictly corporate in my opinion. Small town, family run stations are wonderfully easy to get in touch with. Especially when the engineer is also the swap shop host and the guy who makes the coffee and sweeps the floors at night. But few of those run HD or other unreliable wizardry.
Anyone here ever do a job where management gives you a new duty or aspect of your job which you think is an absolute waste of time? People in this situation do not actually rush out to fix something like that especially if they are already overworked.
Of course, that's called
working any job, ever. And good employees do the work, which is why poor over-worked engineers still take care of the HD when they can, time and money permitting. I don't hold them accountable for the failures of something beyond their control, but I do wish there was an easier way to let them know that some people are in fact listening.
Over the years I've cultivated a small roster of helpful and friendly engineers in other markets, but I don't know anyone down here. So really it's my own home area where I have trouble getting in touch with radio engineers (TV is a different story, they're always quick to answer questions or field calls.)
Oh, and it's not just the under-35 crowd who eschews the telephone as old-fashioned. According to my phone's call timer, I've talked for approximately 65 minutes… since December of last year. Most of that was spent on hold for doctors.
