You won't believe this....

[Radio55]

If you want to make your head crack, get on the Northern New England board (on Other Markets) and read the post about Voicetracking Weather. It is absolutely unbelievable what some people in radio are thinking.

 

[GeneSavage]

http://www.radio-info.com/smf/index.php/topic,115057.0.html

ROTFL... the only thing that amazed me was the guy who said, "you should check the weather before you go." He tried! On your station! Epic fail.

I've seen policy at one station (that voicetracks weather) that if severe weather moves in, you are responsible and required to come in and re-record it... so you may be on Memorex, but you're on-call, too. At another station, I've (from home) re-recorded the weather for every time it played through the night while severe weather was in the area, giving just as much information as if I were physically in the studio.

Voicetracking the weather doesn't have to be the scourge I once through it was IF your voicetracking staff is paying attention... and yes, that's easier if your voicetracking staff is local.

 

[Bob Oshea]

Voicetracking has it's place and it's certainly not going to go away. I don't believe there is a hate inspired conspiracy to do away with the DJ. It is simply a more economical way to broadcast. Radio is entertainment but it is primarily a sales platform. Guys like the late Bill Drake cleaned up radio and while he was at it made DJ's even bigger stars! Tracking must be considered a talent gig like any other v/o job. There are a lot of stations that are beginning to make it worhtwhile. I would love a tracking job. I would just throw the money in the v/o account each month. At the end of the year it all adds up. As far as the weather thing, I think they need to get live updates from the local meteorologists and have a board op take care of it during stormy weather. That "on call" weather policy is going to get someone sued for a helluva lot of money one of these days for either an injury accident to or from the station or for uncompensated work time. One giant lawsuit will change this crap!

O'Shea

 

[kudzooter]

Two years ago, when I was doing the Branson studio midday show for KHOZ, I also was the designated severe-weather guy for Saturdays. That turned out to be a big part of my decision to return to (almost 100%) retirement. I live 24 hilly, twisty miles from the HarrisonAR studio. Twice in one month, my home weather-alert radio was indicating strong possibility of bad stuff for both Harrison and Branson (our primary areas of concern). My problem was: if I waited until an actual alert sounded, it would take me a half-hour to get to the studio and get anything on the air. So, both times, I hauled my sleep-craving butt into town ... and waited all night for absolutely NOTHING to happen. Adding insult to injury, one of those times I also did the 6AM-noon show, with no bad weather happening. Then, just as I was pulling into my home driveway, the ship finally hit the sand and I had to turn around and go cover it til midnight.

But having admitted I'm a wuss who put his own comfort ahead of being a public servant, I totally agree with--and commend--Charlie and Scottie Earls and GM Marilyn Wallis and the whole staff, for the way they DO observe the concept of listener service. It's not just a one-man thing, either--when conditions get really down and dirty, other staffers (including sales and office types) come in, to help answer phones, call emergency authorities, check other sources, etc. And BTW, KHOZ has the policy someone else mentioned: if you v/t'd on Friday for your Sunday "shift" that the afternoon was going to be sunny and dry, but the Weatha Motha served up windy and wet, it was on you to scoot your boot back in and make the sensible changes.

Gotta think that, even with eyes so much on cutting every expense possible, paying to have this listener-essential service always there, would be a good way to keep the FCC from mandating a lot more things, at an infinitely greater detriment to the bottom line.

 

[Kent]

Two years ago, when I was doing the Branson studio midday show for KHOZ, I also was the designated severe-weather guy for Saturdays. That turned out to be a big part of my decision to return to (almost 100%) retirement. I live 24 hilly, twisty miles from the HarrisonAR studio. Twice in one month, my home weather-alert radio was indicating strong possibility of bad stuff for both Harrison and Branson (our primary areas of concern). My problem was: if I waited until an actual alert sounded, it would take me a half-hour to get to the studio and get anything on the air.

You know, when I worked for Premier Radio a few years ago, they had a weather call system where people rotated over three day periods. Despite almost everyone complaining about it from time-to-time, it worked reasonably well. Most people didn't have a problem with coming in, and it usually resulted in a pretty slick sounding product. However, there was one guy who lived in Columbia and got transferred to Jefferson City. He didn't have a problem with being on weather call in Columbia but refused to do it in the Jeffro for the same reasons it didn't work well for you to go into Harrison. He was told that he knew where the door was, and he was free to leave if he didn't like it. He walked. There was also the guy who was on call in May 2003, and he just happened to be on call for all three days that the tornadoes hit. Needless to say, he wasn't very happy with the system after that, and no one could really blame him!

And BTW, KHOZ has the policy someone else mentioned: if you v/t'd on Friday for your Sunday "shift" that the afternoon was going to be sunny and dry, but the Weatha Motha served up windy and wet, it was on you to scoot your boot back in and make the sensible changes.

Premier had that policy, too. I remember voicetracking a Sunday afternoon shift for KPLA a couple of hours in advance only to have to high tail it right back to the station in the middle of a pop up storm that was causing floods in and around Columbia. KPLA jocks were required to be live when the weather was bad while the other stations were usually fine with just making changes. There was also at least one person in the building at all times. So, you were guaranteed to be called if something happened on your shift!

Gotta think that, even with eyes so much on cutting every expense possible, paying to have this listener-essential service always there, would be a good way to keep the FCC from mandating a lot more things, at an infinitely greater detriment to the bottom line.

There's another service run by Dave Scott of Scott Studios fame called Unattended Weather (http://www.unattendedweather.com). It sounds okay, but I can definitely tell who uses it when I hear it!

 

[GeneSavage]

kudzooter, I'm with you: I think the "right" thing for a station to do is to make sure the weather, taped an hour ago, a day ago, or a week ago, matches reasonably close with what's going on.

I also believe the station I mentioned that requires voicetrackers to keep the weather on-track either figures the coming back into voicetracking hours already, or would certainly compensate if you had to come back... it's just a plus for you if the weather DOESN'T change... no labor laws broken or anything.

(You would think the voicetracked jock would be so embarrassed by being on the air saying, "sunshine, blue skies!" when tornadoes are in the area that you wouldn't have to tell people to do this, but I've found you can ALWAYS overestimate a person's capacity...)

I've seen the PD come in to re-voicetrack an ENTIRE shift because the person voicetracked on the air was going to have to come in from 10-buck-2... I think that's pretty admirable!

As a kind-of aside, a live jock doesn't always solve this problem. I know a certain morning man that occasionally misses severe weather because the EAS system doesn't alert him to things like significant weather alerts or watches.

It used to be KRMG had Don Bishop in the studio live overnight (it may still be that way) but it would be like molasses waiting for him to activate the StormCenter... we could have storms all around us and he'd stick to his dutiful hourly newscasts that might mention a chance of storms in the forecast... and I knew DARN well he was live in the studio.

Even worse was listening to 107.5 out of Vinita (back when it was a commercial station) and hearing a live jock say, "yeah, something's going on in Oklahoma City, something blew up, who knows what they're talking about, we'll get an update on the national news at the top of the hour," laughing all the way, and going into another record.

It was the Oklahoma City bombing.

I scanned up and down the dial and pretty much everybody else had broken in and of course the news stations were doing continuous coverage.

What I got from that live... kid... was almost WORSE than voicetracking... joking around about what would be the worst terrorist attack on our soil until 9/11.

So, while I'm a fan of live jocks, voicetracking with somebody keeping an eye on the store can be very, very effective and doesn't have to be an embarrassment to the station or the community it serves.

 

[Kent]

(You would think the voicetracked jock would be so embarrassed by being on the air saying, "sunshine, blue skies!" when tornadoes are in the area that you wouldn't have to tell people to do this, but I've found you can ALWAYS overestimate a person's capacity...)

I have to admit I had a lot of adventures working for Premier Radio. Another one was when one of the full-time jocks at sister station Q-106.1 had cut his voicetracks the afternoon before and didn't want to come in and redo his show when it started raining. He called me and said, "If you get any calls about me talking about a beautiful sunny day, just remind them the station's in the basement!"

As a kind-of aside, a live jock doesn't always solve this problem. I know a certain morning man that occasionally misses severe weather because the EAS system doesn't alert him to things like significant weather alerts or watches.

That brings me to my next Q-106.1 adventure. The studio really was in the basement. We knew when bad weather hit because of the EAS and the newswire, but we didn't always know when a small storm happened or when conditions changed. I can remember coming in several times when it was sunny when I got there and started raining when I was on-the-air, and I had no clue until a listener called me and said, "You sound like a complete and total ass talking about the beautiful weather when it's raining!" Of course, there was also the time I was voicetracking a shift for KPLA the evening before, and my girlfriend was with me in the production studio next to the Q-106.1 studio in the basement. She heard me say, "It's absolutely beautiful, and I'm really envious as I look out the window. I just wish I could be out enjoying it with you!" As soon as I turned off the mic, she burst out laughing. I just told her it would sound fine tomorrow, and it did.

So, while I'm a fan of live jocks, voicetracking with somebody keeping an eye on the store can be very, very effective and doesn't have to be an embarrassment to the station or the community it serves.

Absolutely! KPLA did some of the best weather coverage I've heard in music radio, and they did it with only two live shifts. AM and PM drive were live, middays were voicetracked, and nights were syndicated. On the weekends, they still did a great job, and they had no live shifts (unless, of course, the weather got bad).

 

[Sgeirk]

Voicetracking is like anything, it can be done well...or not.

 

[kudzooter]

Kent, you jogged up a couple of memories...

Late spring 2006 my Mom was in a Harrison hospital, on her last legs with post-surgery pneumonia. I'd been v/t'ing my Sunday afternoon shows before leaving on Friday. Weather had cooperated with that program all along. Didn't do it this particular weekend, knowing I'd be going to visit Mom for lunch and could do my v/t only about an hour before it aired. Forecast was for a nice afternoon. Leaving the hospital I was predictably sad and not paying much attention to anything. But by the time I got to the turnoff for the highway to my village, we'd gone from sunny with light breezes, to 30-40MPH gusts and torrential rains. Pulling over into a parking lot, I turned the radio back up just in time to hear myself proclaiming what a beautiful afternoon it was and would continue to be. Just hope none of the other drivers pulled into that same sanctuary, had any idea who that was, crying and looking embarrassed.

Working at WHBQ in the late 1960s, I always thought how nice it was that they had that very tiny vertical window from the jock studio, making it possible for us to partake of the beauty of the Memphis State coeds across the street. It wasn't until just a few months ago when Jack Parnell and I were e-conversing about the slipshod way stations now ?cover? their markets' weather emergencies, that he told me the real reason for that viewing slot. Seems a GM had heard one of his live jocks pull the same stunt that I'd heard me do v/t'd. And that's when a carpenter showed up and made it possible to look out the window to find out what was really happening.

BTW, by the time I'd driven halfway back to KHOZ that Sunday, the beautiful weather had returned.

 

[Bob Oshea]

Scoot-
Talk about jogged (or is that jagged) memories. I remember now how we did it at Journal. Our v/tracking involved updated weather from the Weather Channel radio people. They would call in about every three or four hours with forcast updates that would automatically change in the Maestro system. Also News Director, now Ops Dr. Brian Gann would break in with live weather coverage on all JBG Tulsa stations with immediate updates until the weather passed. On occasion I remember bad wx moving in near the end of my show and I would stay in to board op for the news dept. until the bad stuff passed. On Saturdays I would go in sometimes to redo part of my show if I had mentioned a sunny morning/afternoon only to wake up to clouds of impending doom. Typical O'Shea luck. I learned to never mention the environs. The wx speaks for itself.

That My Story & I'm Stickin' To It,
Bob O

 

[Bryan Pennington]

Up-to-date weather is definitely a limitation of voicetracking.

How important do you guys think weather even is on a music station? I'd think that these days most people have access to something superior to voice-tracked radio stations for their weather. (Internet, text alerts, or as a last resort "the" station in town known for severe weather.) As long as the station has some contingency for real emergencies are weather reports that say, "it's beautiful outside" even necessary?

Bryan

 

[kudzooter]

Bryan, I think it depends on your market size, and your station's perceived position in that market. For a Tulsa, OkCity, KC, St Louis, Dallas, Wichita... unless you've sold a guaranteed sponsorship package, or have always been THE station for weather service, I'd say blow it off during v/t hours, and accept the fact that your listeners will go to a KRMG, KCMO, or whomever when the skies get scary. But to use my current parttime affiliation as an example... KHOZ makes a lot of money by selling weather sponsorships, so they can't just go "oops, here's nine hours we can't run what we told you we'd rotate equally...and you won't hear anything you bought, from 8AM Saturday til 6AM Monday." Also, through years of being THE station for weather, it's totally expected that they WILL provide that service. KCWD, Harrison's album rocker, also does a lot of severe-weather coverage, so it's probably a toss-up as to which would be hurt worse by dropping it. Guess it all gets back to Professor Harold Hill's immortal admonition in "The Music Man," You've gotta know the territory.

 

[John Durkee]

Back in the early to mid-90s, we had TORNADO WARNING StormCenter Cart at KRMG. It was to only be used in case of a tornado warning for Tulsa County when the newsroom was unstaffed--- which in those days was anytime after 10pm on weeknights… and 5pm on the weekends. The idea was to give me time to drive from Bixby to the station.
It was the most ridiculous thing I ever heard. It had the StormCenter Open---followed by me saying a tornado warning has been issued for Tulsa County---I then tossed to Gary Shore who told people to get to the lowest floor under heavy furniture. At no time did we ever say where the storm was---when the warning expired--- or any thing other take cover. We filled a ten-minute cart ---which was easy with Gary---it ended with me saying--- “the next storm center report is in less than five minutes… earlier if conditions warrant.” The board op was then to play the sponsor rotator. (couldn’t miss those spots)
I have no idea what was to have happened if I was not at the station within five minutes. I guess they would have played it again. Thank God we never had to use it. It finally went away when the station put a vector unit at my house and Dandy Don Bishop became the overnight editor.

 

[Bryan Pennington]

I see what you're saying. My only knowledge of radio is Tulsa, so I didn't think about smaller and rural markets.

As far as selling sponsorships, I guess it's another case of stations trying to have it both ways: reduced labor expense by utilizing voicetracks while selling something based on being live and local. More power to them, I guess, if they can make it work!

Bryan

 

[GeneSavage]

Bryan, I think another determining factor in a music station doing weather is who your target is.

It seems the older the audience, the more interested they are in the weather (and for that matter, the less likely to know how to get it from more tech-savy sources).

That's an over-generalization of course, but generally I wouldn't expect K-Hits or The Beat to do weather, while the various ACs, countries, and classic rockers in town would do well to throw in a short forecast every hour... and, amusingly, that's exactly what you see.

Forecasts are the one way I can tell if Mix 96 and 94.1 The Sound are voicetracked: if there's a current temp given, they're live, if they don't give a current, they're Memorex.

John, you're right, especially for "the station you can depend on," that was insane! More than once you (and so many others on the staff) made KRMG sound larger than life and everywhere at once... you, Filbeck storm chasing, Kennedy & Woodall in the field (from their homes, usually!), Crockett in the newsroom and Denver hosting was a pretty unbeatable team.

KRMG's new news director hasn't been tested here yet, although coming from 'BAP I'm sure he can do a great job... I just hope the station gives him the resources and authority he needs to try to measure up to the station's history!

 

[Bob Oshea]

Radio Gang-
Everyone has proffered sensibility to the inherent v/t problem; what to do with wx during storm activity. As a life long Tulsan, to this day I will go to KRMG in a car or watch one of the television stations at home. I hate to go to a bastard medium but it just makes more sense when I'm in my recliner with a remote switch. Now when I'm in the closet with my wife, two cats and dog then is when I've got the radio tuned to KRMG. A happy ho is a well paid ho, sooooooo....

Happy Ho Ho Ho,
O'Shea

 

[GeneSavage]

Bob,

You're absolutely right: if in the car, it's KRMG, & then check 1170 if I'm not getting satisfaction on 740. If those fail, I'm stuck because my stupid car radio won't tune down to Channel 6's audio (which goes away in a few months anyway, I suppose).

As a life-long radio booster, I'm ashamed to say that when I'm at home, it's mostly Channel 6 (I occasionally punch around but tend to come back to them), and the internet. I have the national weather service website bookmarked and The Weather Channel's interactive radar and those two keep me in pretty good shape... in fact, often I'm listening to the AUDIO of the TV and looking at the radar online.

If you guys haven't discovered this radar yet, for a weather junkie like me this is the coolest thing EVER. You can zoom all the way out to continent-level or zoom down to house level, put it into motion, the works!

http://www.weather.com/outlook/travel/businesstraveler/map/interactive/USOK0537

...Obviously, once the power goes out, it's back to KRMG and / or KFAQ...

I'll tell you another one I have started checking from time to time, and that's 1270. If it's morning or afternoon drive and somebody local is in the chair, I've noticed they may be updating the weather conditions while 740 & 1170 may still be in syndicated talk. Obviously that's in cases where the weather isn't THAT severe, or the storms aren't in-town yet... still, it's one more tool in your arsenal.

 

[Kent]

That's an over-generalization of course, but generally I wouldn't expect K-Hits or The Beat to do weather, while the various ACs, countries, and classic rockers in town would do well to throw in a short forecast every hour... and, amusingly, that's exactly what you see.

Ironically, I seem to remember someone saying K-Hits was the LP-2 in Tulsa, which pretty well meant they had to cover weather. I had always remembered it as being KRMG and KVOO for the local primaries. By the way, a few years ago, I was visiting Louisville when a nasty storm hit on a Sunday evening. 99.7 DJX, a CHR, covered the weather much better than anyone else, including news/talk WHAS!

Forecasts are the one way I can tell if Mix 96 and 94.1 The Sound are voicetracked: if there's a current temp given, they're live, if they don't give a current, they're Memorex.

I'm guessing that means Cox Tulsa is still running ENCO? I had heard Cox was going to standardize all of its stations on dMARC systems (Scott Studios and Maestro, which would mean they could insert a current temperature even when voicetracked. Voice Tracker, with the correct interface, will insert the current temperature previously recorded by the jock or will just air the forecast without temperatures if it's way off from the range the jock has put into the system.

KRMG's new news director hasn't been tested here yet, although coming from 'BAP I'm sure he can do a great job... I just hope the station gives him the resources and authority he needs to try to measure up to the station's history!

I lived in Ft. Worth about 12 years ago. WBAP and sister KSCS covered the weather very well. KSCS was usually where I turned when the weather got bad.

 

[ionosphere]

If you guys haven't discovered this radar yet, for a weather junkie like me this is the coolest thing EVER. You can zoom all the way out to continent-level or zoom down to house level, put it into motion, the works!

http://www.weather.com/outlook/travel/businesstraveler/map/interactive/USOK0537

I prefer this one:

http://www.weather.com/outlook/travel/businesstraveler/map/interactive/USOK0537

Not only can you do a click-drag zoom on the regular radar display, but you can also view velocities, VIL, echo tops, etc. And, if you click the "Wunder Map" link on the left, it will give the same kind of display you are talking about along with warnings, live weather conditions, and webcams. Good stuff.

 

[Bryan Pennington]

That's an over-generalization of course, but generally I wouldn't expect K-Hits or The Beat to do weather,

Does anyone remember when Khits used to do weather and call it'self "THE weather authority?" I don't remember when it was exactly, but I know that I remember Carly Rush saying that in a non-morning daypart.

Bryan