What the heck is the deal with WSYR 570 lately? For the past few months, I've noticed more and more on-air errors. Multiple liners playing at the same time, re-joining network feeds late, sometimes news beds firing, but no talent talking... even one occasion where a bottom-of-hour update was obviously pre-recorded because the anchor mentioned the PREVIOUS hour in the time checks.
Is it really that hard to follow a log and press the right buttons? Obviously, the PD who took over a few months ago has been trying to push the envelope -- cramming in extra news promos, traffic updates and the like every single chance they get. But you can't expect to run a big-market format clock that requires flawless to-the-second precision when you have a staff of rookie board ops who can't even tell which pots to fire on the board!
Friday, for example, I heard a brief traffic update. Near the end, the weather update open started playing on top of it, and then on top of that, the actual weather started. For a split second all 3 elements overlapped each other, then the first two ended and the weather continued on. After it ended, the open played again for a second, followed by a few seconds of silence, and then I don't even remember what was next -- that was already more than enough to motivate me to write this post.
Do these board ops realize they can easily be replaced by 100% automation? NexGen is obviously capable of handling it. I believe it's pretty much automated most of the time at WGY in Albany, and they run a nearly identical clock. If WSYR can't get their board ops to do the job right, maybe it's time to let NexGen do the work, and reallocate that payroll to the newsroom. They sound like they could use the cash to hire more bodies, or perhaps to replace some of the shaky rookies with more solid, experienced talent.
Is it really that hard to follow a log and press the right buttons? Obviously, the PD who took over a few months ago has been trying to push the envelope -- cramming in extra news promos, traffic updates and the like every single chance they get. But you can't expect to run a big-market format clock that requires flawless to-the-second precision when you have a staff of rookie board ops who can't even tell which pots to fire on the board!
Friday, for example, I heard a brief traffic update. Near the end, the weather update open started playing on top of it, and then on top of that, the actual weather started. For a split second all 3 elements overlapped each other, then the first two ended and the weather continued on. After it ended, the open played again for a second, followed by a few seconds of silence, and then I don't even remember what was next -- that was already more than enough to motivate me to write this post.
Do these board ops realize they can easily be replaced by 100% automation? NexGen is obviously capable of handling it. I believe it's pretty much automated most of the time at WGY in Albany, and they run a nearly identical clock. If WSYR can't get their board ops to do the job right, maybe it's time to let NexGen do the work, and reallocate that payroll to the newsroom. They sound like they could use the cash to hire more bodies, or perhaps to replace some of the shaky rookies with more solid, experienced talent.
