I remember when iHeart used that type of thing as fill content during spot breaksRemember the QuickHitz format from around 2014 where the consultant edited songs down to approximately half their length, promising twice the music?
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WNCX
- Thread starter ProgrammingVet
- Start date
In today's technology, you can either speed the entire recording up -- resulting in a slightly higher pitch, or you can digitally change the speed AND the tempo while keeping the pitch the same.
I have been converting old tapes that were recorded on different cassette decks from decades ago and now sound noticeably slower or faster on the current cassette player used to transfer to digital.
With the Audacy digital recording/conversion app on my computer, The app can manually adjust the pitch and/or the tempo back to what it originally sounded like, OR if I wanted to, it can alter the audio to play faster without changing the pitch of the song. Yes the tempo is faster, but it does not sound choppy, like when the consumer level technology first came out.
So in today's radio technology days, if a station can get away with digitally altering a 3:00 into a 2:45 or 2:50 song, yet the artists are smoothly singing and playing in the same original keys to the naked ears listening, they might try to pull it off.
When top 40 songs started getting longer in the late 60s-70s, record companies issued "Radio Edits", shortening some to 3-3:30 or so.
Good example is "Time has Come Today" by the Chambers Brothers. Problem was FM AOR stations played the whole track, so listeners caught on and got ticked off. When "Hey Jude" hit, programmers realized they couldn't continue that without losing audience.
But digital pitch and tempo alterations are less obvious and are used more than one might notice.
As far as TV cable...that's another forum/thread for sure.
Good example is "Time has Come Today" by the Chambers Brothers. Problem was FM AOR stations played the whole track, so listeners caught on and got ticked off. When "Hey Jude" hit, programmers realized they couldn't continue that without losing audience.
But digital pitch and tempo alterations are less obvious and are used more than one might notice.
As far as TV cable...that's another forum/thread for sure.
MeTV and their sister networks do this as well with programming longer than 22 minutes in length, though in recent years it has been far less noticeable. Usually it's done during certain parts of the show, causing certain dialog to be hard to interpret or the background music to sound "glitchy" due to parts of the audio track skipping every other few nanoseconds. Never really noticed any adverse effects in the video, such as sped up movement.
I noticed a long time ago that WMJI was slightly sped up, comparing a song that they were playing to a digital copy that I had. To the ear, it wasn't very obvious. WDOK, on the other hand, clearly sounded like a tape player that was running on slightly higher voltage than it should.
The one thing that really pissed me off was the fact that some of these cable "retro" stations were fading out the ending joke/sequence or whatever and fading or slamming a commercial over the end of that particular sequence or in some cases just cutting to commercial just as a punchline was going to be delivered. I can only assume they're thinking "Ehhh, everybody's already seen this show a million times, they already know what the next line is so they can say it to themselves." One of the reasons I quit watching those retro channels and either get the full DVD sets from the library or purchase them.
MeTV is pretty good when it comes to this, although some shows are edited down by the distributor. Some use digital transitions that don't look good when compared to the analog transitions originally used in the program, which is a dead giveaway that something was cut.
I remember watching cartoons on USA Network back in the 90s, and those cheap executives shoved an additional commercial break in places where they were not meant to be, while trimming down the show at the same time with sloppy editing. Why even bother airing the program if you are going to do stupid crap like this?
What I hate the most are the FAST streaming channels. Most of them will abruptly cut to a commercial break in mid sentence, and in mid scene. I used to watch the This Old House channel on my Samsung TV, the show of which originally airs on PBS, so there are no designated commercial breaks. At first they would cut to commercials in-between segments, which was fine, but then they started cutting right in the middle of a segment and in mid sentence, ruining the flow of what they were talking about. I complained to them about that, but apparently they didn't care.
I hate dynamic ad insertion too! The reason that happens is because it looks for pauses in the audio and throws in an ad break.
Here is a link for WNCX on the day it flipped from CHR/AOR to Classic Hits back in February of 1987. The original format only lasted five months.
Radio This Week Back Then #54: February 2-8
Radio This Week Back Then #54: February 2-8
From what I understand, the format was changed after less than 5 months due to Metropolis Broadcasting's money troubles as suggested in the Radio This Week article: "....and the flip was surprising since the rock format did not get a full ratings book to establish itself." The major programmers and air talent employed in October 1986 were quickly replaced by interns and other cheapies. Soon after, Metropolis sold all their stations. Pretty obvious that Metropolis did not have the financial capability to sustain.
I know it got short shrift, I didn't even get a chance to apply there before the format got changed faster than a newborn's diaper.
John Gorman was the PD at WNCX after he quit WMMS when he was passed over for corporate VP of programming there. He brought several staffers with him, including WHK pd Bernie Kimble.
Ironically when he took over his former ratings rival he fired the WGCL staff except for Danny Wright who had a contract. Gorman put him as the all night board op hoping Wright would quit but he served out his contract and drained all that money from them.
WNCX was to have stood for North Coast Express. Kid Leo, who replaced Gorman at MMS, got wind of that and had MMS service mark the phrase so WNCX couldn't use it. Now that's competitive radio!
Ironically when he took over his former ratings rival he fired the WGCL staff except for Danny Wright who had a contract. Gorman put him as the all night board op hoping Wright would quit but he served out his contract and drained all that money from them.
WNCX was to have stood for North Coast Express. Kid Leo, who replaced Gorman at MMS, got wind of that and had MMS service mark the phrase so WNCX couldn't use it. Now that's competitive radio!
When at WMJI (90s) and still playing CDs (and carts) we used the Denon CD players. They could be pitched up... we had all 4 CD players in the Control Room pitched up... IIRC 1.5%. When we got Prophet (CFS), the precursor to NexGen, the same could be done with the music. Did it in Raleigh, too.
There was nothing ironic about the firing of the WGCL airstaff when Gorman took over WGCL when the station was sold. He and the new owners agreed that 98.5 would be reimagined as a more sophisticated, new music-oriented rock format as WNCX rather than the limited, 18 singles G98 format hosted by screaming jocks. Danny Wright's style was completely at odds with the new format. Reportedly, Gorman wanted to pay off his contract but the new owners refused, possibly a hint of the shaky state of the new owners' financial resources which resulted in the new station (WNCX) being gutted and put up for sale only a few months later, sold to Norman Wayne and Bob Weiss who changed the format to Classic Rock library stuff. By the way, WMMS found out about the "North Coast Express" moniker because one of the new owners foolishly revealed the name to the press before the station signed on and never followed through on Gorman's request to immediately service mark the phrase.
The irony, if I am using the word correctly, refers to John Gorman and his staff also being let go after just a short while.
I liked his format, which today might be described as Rhythmic AC or CHR. He was a little ahead of his time with that and we will never know if it would have taken off.
Historically, NCX made a good decision to go Classic Rock, picking up the audience as MMS faded. And gathering a great local staff with Bill Lewis, Michael Stanley, Mr. Classic and so many more under Doug Podell and others, taking a chance and picking up Howard Stern, they all helped make the station into a powerhouse.
But modern corporate radio is facing challenges having their impact on all radio today and that leads to changes.
I liked his format, which today might be described as Rhythmic AC or CHR. He was a little ahead of his time with that and we will never know if it would have taken off.
Historically, NCX made a good decision to go Classic Rock, picking up the audience as MMS faded. And gathering a great local staff with Bill Lewis, Michael Stanley, Mr. Classic and so many more under Doug Podell and others, taking a chance and picking up Howard Stern, they all helped make the station into a powerhouse.
But modern corporate radio is facing challenges having their impact on all radio today and that leads to changes.
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The Gorman format was more of a pioneering "Active Rock" format with some rhythmic elements, emphasizing new releases with some classics thrown in. It was a refreshing approach as the national Malrite PD was starting to order WMMS to de-emphazise new music with more emphasis on classics. When WNCX switched to Classic Rock, it created a void for new music on Cleveland commercial radio as both stations seemed to get into a battle as to who would play more Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd. It wasn't until Gorman returned to WMMS for a brief time some years later that newer bands like Pearl Jam, REM and Nirvana were programmed with any regularity in the market.