What Does The Future Hold For AM Radio??

Anyone over the age of 45 remembers the days of when AM Radio was king of the airwaves; now 45 years later, with few exceptions the majority of AM stations are in shambles with no hope of rejuvenation on the horizon. Due to intense lobbying by the National Association of Broadcasters, all of us witnessed the deregulation of radio in the 1980's, which cut back on rules and regulations pertaining to technical standards and programming. FM Radio with its superior sound rapidly overtook AM music stations and left them in the dust when it came to ratings and income. Many smaller AM mom & pop stations either sold out to major corporations who took over vast amounts of media outlets or simply signed off for good and turned in their licenses. In the mid-80's an attempt was made to institute AM Stereo, but unfortunately 4 separate systems were designed and the industry could not agree on which system to adopt as the standard and in due time most station allowed AM stereo to go by the wayside. By the mid 90's most of the profitable stations were the giant 50kw blowtorches and a few medium market regional stations, many of which were programming mostly news/talk. However the current market today is not as robust, even for the major market AM's which are in a slow but steady decline. With the advent of the internet and wifi, (which is supposed to be available completely across the nation within 7 years) it looks like both AM and FM radio will be relegated to secondary media services since anyone in their car will be able to listen to high quality audio completely across the nation without have to tune into a different station every 50 miles or so. For many people, this will mean that they will be able to enter the broadcasting field without the huge cost associated with getting an over-the-air station up and running (because currently the internet is unregulated by the FCC), which generally is an exorbitant cost. Perhaps it's time to bid farewell to one medium and welcome a new one.

Support the Broadcast Employment Free Market Act

Union representatives from the American Federation of Radio and Television Artists are trying to pursuade congress to pass legislation which would prohibit broadcasting companies from imposing the so-called non-compete clauses when they are terminated from their jobs in broadcasting. The bill is entitled S.B. 1141 - The Broadcast Employment Free Market Act.

I think its long over due.

From the WFRNlive.com website: "S.B. 1141 is needed because these non-compete provisions are fundamentally unfair to broadcast employees and do not serve any legitimate employer interest. These clauses require broadcasters to refrain from working in their profession for anywhere from three months to 24 months, whether the broadcaster is being paid or not, and even when they've been fired or laid-off at the employer's decision. Non-compete provisions artificially compress wages and impede the free negotiation of employment contracts. Employees have to choose between taking a lower-than-market offer or uprooting their families to move to another city."

When you think of it, it really makes perfect sense. Why prohibit anyone from earning a living once their employment has come to an end? In most industries, whether service, professional, workers always have had the right to seek new employment in the industry of their choice from the day they've ended their business relationship with their former employer. Really, its common sense.

I suggest that those of you who are in the broadcast industry in Pennsylvania to call up Senator John Gordner of the 27th district and let him know that you expect his support on the bill without any additional modifications.

RCA 70-D Turntables Survive To This Day

Back in the day when there were no cart machines, Reel-to-reel players, CD players or computers to put audio onto the air, Turntables were the mainstay in the business.

Of course in radio's infant days, all programing was done live; all music was done live by studio orchestra's hired for that purpose. Then in the early 1930's turntables popped up in radio stations and by the early 1950's most local radio stations programing emanated from turntables whether it was music, pre-recorded commercials or promo's; hence came the rise of the Disc Jockey.

In the 1950's most radio stations, except those in very rural areas utilized the services of engineers to operate the technical equipment and they and the disc jockey's worked as a team. This included the use of turntables to spin the records; some stations had arrangements where the disc jockey spun his own records; others had union contracts that required either the engineer or turntable operator to operate all technical equipment including turntables (Chicago was notably different in that the musicians from the AFM had to operate any turntable playing back music)so the engineers became old friends of spinning records on the air.

By the end of the 1970's, most radio stations, except those in major markets had eliminated the use of engineers for operating on-air technical equipment and the job fell into the hands of the disc jockeys.

One of the most well-known turntables made for broadcasting was the RCA-70D Turntable; Of course other companies such as Fairchild and Gates made 16 inch turntables but the RCA-70D was the beast of the radio industry; utilizing a 16 inch felt covered platter; 2 pickup arms and 4 speeds (that's right; 33 rpm; 45 rpm; 78 rpm and 13/16ths rpm)plus pickup selector and an in-line equalizer. It was a gear driven affair that took a full turn to get up to speed.

A good on-air engineer or disc jockey worth his salt would cue up the record and "slip cue" it as opposed to backing it up one complete turn before turning on the juice to it. Slip cuing gave you a tighter sound and less chance of having the record "wow" in before it achieved speed.

One of the redeeming qualities of the 70-D was its RCA Victor Pickup head for the use of 78 rpm and 16 inch vertical transcriptions so often played back to air. They had that nifty equalizer built into the turntable and all you had to do was select the proper filter mode and you could really make almost any poor sounding record good enough to meet broadcast standards. The other pickup arm was used for

For many years these faithful workhorses served broadcasting well; then the advent of idler wheel turntables made the scene; they got up to speed quicker then the old RCA's and in time they were replaced with direct drive turntables. The old RCA's, much like an old abandoned car, were wheeled into storage rooms and left to collect dust.

When I went to work for NBC Radio back in 1979, they were still using a few of the 70-D's but were being rapidly replaced with direct drive turntables. By the end of 1980 there were no more 70-D's left in service at work. I recall one of my assignments during the summer of 1979 was to, with the help of another engineer, wheel about 20 of those 70-D's down to the sub basement and push them off the loading dock into a waiting dumpster. What a waste of technology and engineering; they no longer make turntables that I'm aware of to play back vertical transcriptions or 78's so those turntables are worth a small mint to collectors; I saw in EBay about 5 years ago one of the 70-D's for sale to the tune of $13,000!

Very few radio stations or recording studios have them anymore which is a shame since its very tough to find one to play a transcription on if you want to listen to one. The exception to this rule is WBXO Radio in Beekman New York; they have not one but two working 70-D's. Still in their RCA "Battleship Gray" cabinets, these work horses continue to plug along as needed and they are well maintained; you'd think they were just unpacked from the crate from RCA. Nice to see these historical beasts still in service in radio.

Radio and Unions

Uh oh! It's the "U" word.

Recently I was reading an article on line which detailed salaries and benefits for people working in the broadcast industry. Guess what folks? Its pretty dismal for those of you working in the radio portion of the craft. All too often I hear of people complaining about the lack of benefits or low pay; that the industry is going to hell in a handbag and its not what it used to be.

One of the main reasons it used to pay and offer better benefits is because many shops back in the 40's, 50's & 60's were heavily unionized and as such bargained for their terms and conditions of employment which were much more favorable then their non-union counterparts.

In the radio heydays, you had Musicians in the AFM, Directors in the DGA, Engineers in NABET or IBEW, announcers in AFTRA, Teamsters in support groups. It seemed like just about everyone in medium or major market station belonged to a union or guild. Then the 1960's arrived and with it a resistance to unions by corporations looking to reduce their overhead.

Company's started phasing out their unionized house orchestras/bands to save money and once the drama and entertainment shows went away, directors were no longer needed. Finally stations started eliminating on-air operating engineers in medium markets, instead turning over the controls to the Disc Jockey's. Most major market stations held out until the early 1980's and finally turned to combo operations at almost all music stations. Today many stations that maintain engineering staffs are the news/talk formatted stations. In many cases they are non-union, the unions having been bought out years ago.

So why have a union in the first place? If you sit down and think about it; when you purchase a new car, whats the first thing you do? You sit down with the salesman and bargain over price and when you agree you draw up a contract stipulating the terms of the purchase (paint color, seat material, A/C package, etc); you do this to protect yourself; its a simple business deal. Just like having a contract to spell out the terms and conditions of your employment relationship with your employer.

I wonder how many of you realized that most executives from corporations all have personal service agreements (PSA's) which are labor contracts; just like the ones the unions have. It spells out the terms and conditions of their employment; how much severance pay they get; their medical benefits; pension, stock options, vacation, spending accounts, etc. So my question to you the reader is: If Executives need a labor contract; how come you don't???

Say what you will about unions, but they definitely have their place in society. I've always been a supporter of the labor movement in this country; indeed I've seen so many good people get screwed over thru no fault of their own and being that the United States has among the worst labor laws in the industrialized world, excepting South Africa, its no wonder that unions are needed.

Unions now comprise a very small part of the radio workforce; that's the way management likes it; they have almost total control over their employees and want to keep it that way. Only until employees realize the benefits of being union will they continue to be exploited and used.

Combo Vs. Dual Operation

Ever wonder what its like to work with an engineer on-the-air? In today's typical music radio station, at least those who haven't gone automated or full satellite, the typical set-up is the so-called "combo" operation; that is where the talent also performs most if not all of the technical operations that occur at local radio stations.

The rule of thumb is that you might find Engineers (or Board Ops/producers)at mostly talk formatted stations in mostly major markets or a few scattered medium market stations. Most stations, citing the cost of maintaining an engineering staff that large have no interest in any other operation besides combo.

Studio engineers are a holdover from the early days of radio with disc jockey's; when stations where entertainment facilities where you had network programming; live bands and unstable transmitters to be tended to. Nowadays with most operations being computer assisted or even operations that are fully manual, most jocks find themselves sequestered in a room talking to themselves with no interaction with other human beings.

As a small child, being that my father worked in radio, I had to opportunity to visit with him when he went to other radio stations in NY City. Stations like WNBC, WOR, WABC, WNEW, WHN, WCBS, etc all had full staffs of engineers for all on air operations.

As technology improved, the need for engineers decreased and most companies could justify terminating their engineering staffs (or in the case of union shops, through buy-outs or third party letters)without affecting their air product. Disc Jockey's gladly accepted the combination of jobs since they weren't negatively affected by it; tho' it came back to haunt them 20 years later when voice tracking/automation/satellite technology came in to being.

One time during my days at WNBC Radio, we used to use a lot of part time talent on the weekends from various east coast cities. This one woman from the Philadelphia Market was making her first appearance at the station on an overnight shift. To make a long story short, she walks in to the control room while I was pulling music and commercials for the first hour. She sat down in front of the console and started looking at all the buttons,faders and other do-dads that were on the board. I curiously asked her what she was doing. She said she was familiarizing herself with the board because she was due to go on the air in an hour or so. I explained to her that she'd be in the next room (studio). She went into the room and was looking around; she came back inside as asked me if this was some sort of joke; there was no console in there. I patiently explained to her that at this station, we were a union shop and only engineers could operate the equipment; the jocks did not touch anything technical. The panic stricken look on her face was priceless; she'd never worked with an engineer and wasn't too keen on learning now. she asked me if it was ok to stretch a mic and cable into the control room and let her run the board anyhow and she wouldn't say a word if I slept in the engineers lounge while she did her shift. Needless to say she found out that I meant business and I ran the board as scheduled. She did fine and at the end of her shift, told me she never wanted to do combo again.

In today's radio world, most small market stations have no engineering staffs at all, rather hiring a contract engineer to handle the transmitter and major technical situations; some medium market stations might employ a Chief Engineer and most major market stations have at least one full time engineer and some may have 2. I only know of one FM Station that still utilizes on-air Engineers in a music type format and its even a classic rock formatted station to boot!

When I first broke into radio, the station that I went to work for, WNBC Radio, was a union shop (NABET), had a complete staff of engineers, around 17 I think at the time and our FM station, WYNY-FM, which was across the hall likewise had a full staff of engineers as well. We did all the technical work, whether it was on air, in the newsroom, transmitter or field remotes.

Of course the radio division was sold in 1988 and by then the radio stations were reduced to 4 engineers at the AM and 4 at the FM station upon sale. The jocks were running the boards most of the time, except for AM drive and production. It's gotten even worse since then. Just a handful of stations how have on-air engineers, like WABC, WOR and WNYC. Someday, they'll go the way of the rest of the on-air radio engineers and jocks who've been replaced by technology and the internet.

Oh how I miss the old days....

Welcome to The Radio Operations Desk

Welcome to the Radio Operations Desk blog. When I was in the process of creating this blog, I had to come up with a name for it and after much thinking, I decided on this name; why? Because I think it has meaning of being all encompassing; that is, where everything takes place.

Whether you want to hear of radio stories or technical talk such as studio design of days gone by or current designs; you'll hear it here. You might even hear me discuss the use's of microphone placement or when its best to use isolation transformers, but either way I'm sure for those true radiophiles, you'll be in your zone.