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WWSE Jamestown Question Regarding Automation

Jody-Thornton

Jody-Thornton

I have asked this sometime before, but I can't beleive how hard it's been to get a concrete answer on this...lol. I do appreciate any responses that will help me find out more information though.

I used to pull in WWSE Jamestown (I hope this is the correct regional forum for Jamestown), back when they positioned themselves as SE-93. They were utilizing an automation system that seemed VERY similar to Stereo Rock, used by WBEN Bufffalo. This was starting from as early as 1986 and I last heard it used as recently as 1992 (which would lead me to believe it wasn't Stereo Rock's package).

The automation "clock" worked slightly differently though than Stereo Rock in the early 80s though. It played a jingle coming out of the stopset; aired a "current", and backsold only the one current (usually over the fade). You would simply hear "Talking Back to the Night ... Steve Winwood". Then you would hear a recurrent and a gold selection. After the gold selection, the "announcer" would quickly state a positioning liner like, "We are SE-93; WWSE Jamestown". Then the spots would play only to repeat the above format.

So VERY similar to Rock 102, but slightly different. Only one "hit" was backsold at a time And the music was all AC flavoured.

My most recent hearing of it was in January 1992. The end of "No Son of Mine" by Genesis was aired the exact smae way as I described above, except it went straight into another "hit" which was Roxette's "Taking My Time". If this were Stereo Rock, I would have been amazed since we were well into the compact disc/satellite era, and a tape based system would seem archaic in 1992.

So does anybody have any knowledge of what this system was? I contacted WWSE several times by email with no response. I thought maybe there would be some former employees or engineers form WWSE during that time that might shed some light on my question.

Thanks everybody.

Cheers,
Jody Thornton
(Hamilton, Ontario)
 
The format you describe sounds a lot like the 'adult rock' format that was distributed on reel-to-reel tape by a Texas outfit called "TM" back in the 70's and 80's.

I worked with this format in the mid-70's. The 'current' reels were the only ones that had a backsell announcement, recorded right along with the music. Then there were two or three types of unvoiced 'oldies' reels: recent hits or 'recurrent'; 'classic hits' and optional 'album tracks'. A typical quarter hour was just as you describe: Liner - Stopset - Current - Recurrent - Classic. The album reel could be added in some dayparts.

All it took was a simple mechanically-stepped IGM or Schaefer automation system with a few carousels for commercials and three or four reel to reel tape decks with 10 1/2 inch reels. The total library of tapes included five or six current reels, a dozen or so recurrents and classics and maybe another half-dozen album track reels. The 'current' tapes were exchanged every few weeks and the other tape series were updated on a more occasional basis. It was a very uncomplicated format and quite trouble-free as long as the tapes were changed on schedule. Daily programming mostly involved shuffling the commercial carts into the proper slots in the carousels.

Digitally-controlled analog automation appeared about 1975, followed by full digital audio around 1990. I don't know how long TM supported this particular format, but by 1992 I would suspect that WWSE was recording homemade updates or editing the tape library in order to wring as many years as they possibly could out of their old mechanical automation system.
 
Lee Rust said:
All it took was a simple mechanically-stepped IGM or Schaefer automation system with a few carousels for commercials and three or four reel to reel tape decks with 10 1/2 inch reels. The total library of tapes included five or six current reels, a dozen or so recurrents and classics and maybe another half-dozen album track reels. The 'current' tapes were exchanged every few weeks and the other tape series were updated on a more occasional basis. It was a very uncomplicated format and quite trouble-free as long as the tapes were changed on schedule. Daily programming mostly involved shuffling the commercial carts into the proper slots in the carousels.
Click to expand...

I knew of a station in PA that was doing this well into the mid 90's in overnights and on weekends as a form of automation. They simply created their own reels.
 
Sorry to dig this up. I wonder if it might've been BPI (Broadcast Programming Inc) supplying the system at WWSE.
 
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