Woolery/Two & Two

[Don Howard]

[quote name=\'Adam Nedeff\' date=\'Nov 24 2005, 12:14 AM\']I'm 22 years old and I'm old enough to remember signing off, because a TV station here still does it! WTAP TV-15 signs off every Saturday & Sunday at 1:30 am with a montage of scenes from the Mid-Ohio Valley, followed by 4 1/2 hours of test pattern and tone.

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WTAP=Worst Television Any Place
Are they doing their local news in color yet?

[BrandonFG]

[quote name=\'Adam Nedeff\' date=\'Nov 24 2005, 12:14 AM\']I'm 22 years old and I'm old enough to remember signing off, because a TV station here still does it! WTAP TV-15 signs off every Saturday & Sunday at 1:30 am with a montage of scenes from the Mid-Ohio Valley, followed by 4 1/2 hours of test pattern and tone. Frankly, I think they could stand to take a lesson from WSAZ Channel 3 in Huntington and use the weather radar as their test pattern. If you're going to disappear for four hours, at least have something practical on that screen, ya know?

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WTKR (YOUR NewsChannel 3!!) does the same thing as well on weekends, complete with an a capella singing of the "Star Spangled Banner", and video of an air force plane. They also have nothing but bars and tone for several hours.

[tvrandywest]

[quote name=\'Steve McClellan\' date=\'Nov 23 2005, 07:31 PM\']Just a thought: how much does the FCC's increasing laxity with multiple-outlet-owning entities have to do with the fact that TV, radio, and newspapers are no longer the only practical ways of getting one's information about recent events?

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The government starting licensing broadcast operations in earnest with the Communications Act of 1934 under which it was made clear that the airwaves belonged to the people. Licensees were entrusted for very limited periods (usually 3 years at a time) to operate in order to serve the public's interest, neccessity and convenience. The licensee was required to do ongoing ascertainments of the local community's needs, and had to promise very specific percentages of news and public service programming to serve the city of license. To keep any one entity from controlling the dissemination of news and having undue influence in forming public opinion, ownership was later limited to to a maximum of 1 AM and 1 FM station per market, with no more than 7 stations nationally, with no newspaper ownership in any of those markets. As far as the government was concerned it was all about community service, and there were tight controls to keep any one "voice" from having too much influence. Clearly, the licensee's ability to make a profit or not was merely incidental.

Your comment about other sources of news in the 21st century is part of the argument used to successfully lobby for lifting ownership caps. But when these other news sources such as cable TV news channels and newspapers' internet sites are owned by the same entities, opponents wonder whether we really have other news sources, especially on a local level. And the question must be asked whether or not blog sites are truly sources of news.

Anyway, the whole argument went down the drain when there was a train wreck in Minot, North Dakota in which harmful gas that was being transported leaked and posed an immediate and serious threat to the community. The only local radio stations were all owned by Clear Channel, and when the sherriff and other authorities tried to enlist their cooperation in disseminating important information to the public, there was nobody at the radio station to answer the phone! The programming and engineering was controlled by computer, and any news and weather forecasts had been recorded hours in advance. A giant WHOOPS!

The incident certainly flies in the face of the argument of other news sources, and demonstrates just how far the original philosophy of serving the community's neccessity and convenience had been mutated.

If I have any of the minor details wrong, please correct me. But more importantly, please further the discussion by contributing another point of view. It all seems very black and white to me. Thanks.

Randy
tvrandywest.com

[dzinkin]

[quote name=\'tvrandywest\' date=\'Nov 24 2005, 11:14 AM\']If I have any of the minor details wrong, please correct me. But more importantly, please further the discussion by contributing another point of view. It all seems very black and white to me. Thanks.

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Speaking as someone who saw firsthand the effects of Sinclair's "centralcasting" -- in our case, a severe ice storm that the local Sinclair station (a Fox affiliate, in this case) didn't see fit to mention until, oh, two days in as its weather reports (done from Maryland) kept saying that the weather was "mild" -- I certainly don't disagree that consolidation can be overdone.

I only disagree that it somehow reduces the spectrum of opinion out there.  Yes, there are more conservative outlets than there were pre-Limbaugh, but talk radio became overwhelmingly conservative because nearly all of the rest of the media were overwhelmingly liberal.  People love to rant about Fox News being conservative, but they don't have a problem with the liberal news coming from ABC, CBS, NBC (I leave out MSNBC because it doesn't seem to know what the hell it wants to be), CNN, PBS, NPR, the AP, and Reuters.  (Yeah, Fox News calls itself "fair and balanced," but you don't see the others admitting to being liberal, do you?)  They rant about the right-wing New York Post and Washington Times but don't have a problem with the left-wing New York Times and Washington Post.  (Gotta love the Wall Street Journal, whose editorial page has a conservative bias but whose news articles have a liberal bias... something for everyone. :-)  And most of the same people who complain about Fox owning a zillion TV stations somehow never say a word about CBS owning a zillion TV stations -- and hundreds of radio stations to boot.  (Credit goes to the Media Access Project and the few other activist groups who actually have complained about Viacom/CBS as well as News Corp/Fox; at least they're consistent.)

Yeah, I think consolidation's gone overboard.  I think stunts like Sinclair's plan to run "Stolen Honor" to slam Kerry before the election show what can happen when there's too much power in one corporation's hands... but it's no different from what another corporation, CBS, did when it tried to sway the election toward Kerry with its disgusting, factless story about Bush and the National Guard.  Abuses go both ways, folks.

In short, as much as one legitimately can lament the decrease in the number of voices, I don't see how it's possible to claim that it's somehow reduced the range of opinions; no matter where you fall on the political spectrum, you can find something that will appeal to you.

[Jimmy Owen]

Time used to be offered for "the opposing point of view." That is not the case now, so if you only watch or listen to one news source, you might only get one point of view.  There should be differing points of view within the same station or network, so the casual viewer is introduced to all sides of a story.

[SplitSecond]

[quote name=\'dzinkin\' date=\'Nov 24 2005, 10:09 AM\']no matter where you fall on the political spectrum, you can find something that will appeal to you.

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And, increasingly, isolate yourself from any viewpoints that differ from yours enough to make you, you know, think.

[dzinkin]

[quote name=\'SplitSecond\' date=\'Nov 24 2005, 02:30 PM\'][quote name=\'dzinkin\' date=\'Nov 24 2005, 10:09 AM\']no matter where you fall on the political spectrum, you can find something that will appeal to you.

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And, increasingly, isolate yourself from any viewpoints that differ from yours enough to make you, you know, think.

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That's definitely a problem, but I don't know that force-feeding other viewpoints -- via a revival of the "equal time" rules, the Fairness Doctrine or what have you -- is the answer.  And no matter who's in power, the government will always have its own agenda, and that agenda shouldn't dictate when the rules apply and when they don't.

In any event, someone who's so locked into a particular viewpoint that he'll listen to only, say, Air America Radio isn't going to change his mind if his AA affiliate has to run, say, Rush Limbaugh for an hour... he'll just turn it off.  Just as a certain intellectually vacant member of our forum continues to declare that Fox has an anti-Canadian agenda in its baseball coverage even after he's been presented with solid evidence to the contrary... he just ignores the evidence.

You can't force someone to be open-minded, much as I'd like to.  Of course, in this forum I wish some would keep their minds closed just long enough to keep their brains from falling out. :-)

[SplitSecond]

[quote name=\'dzinkin\' date=\'Nov 24 2005, 01:00 PM\']I don't know that force-feeding other viewpoints -- via a revival of the "equal time" rules, the Fairness Doctrine or what have you -- is the answer.

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I totally agree.  Thirty seconds of one conservative viewpoint followed by thirty seconds of one liberal viewpoint does not make a news consumer well-informed on any issue.  It's up to that consumer to seek out a variety of stances on any given issue and use them to help synthesize an informed opinion on that issue.  Unfortunately, the vast majority of people are too intellectually lazy and find it too easy to watch only Fox News because it's "fair and balanced" (i.e., not challenging their belief system too often) and dismiss CNN as a bunch of partisan bull.  Or vice versa.

Technology has evolved to a point where it allows us to travel in intellectual circles where our beliefs and opinions rarely get challenged.  Is it any wonder we have Red and Blue states?

[ChuckNet]

In case anyone wondered whatever happened to the NAB Television Code, which was also labeled the "Seal of Good Practice" by that organization, some TV producers convinced a Federal court to throw it out more than 20 years ago, arguing "restraint of trade", and that, more than not, has allowed public service to be replaced by infomericals.

Wow...if not for that ruling, PAX/i would've been off the air for awhile now! LOL

Chuck Donegan (The Illustrious "Chuckie Baby")

[ChuckNet]

You and I are probably old enough to remember that stations actually signed off daily! And came back on about 5:30 or 6:00 a.m. with the farm report or somesuch.

Indeed...TVArk actually has a coupla old-school signoffs from NY's WNEW (now WNYW, Ch. 5), towards the middle of the page:

Ch. 5 Signoffs

As well as a sign-on from WOR (Ch. 9):

Ch. 9 Sign-On

Chuck Donegan (The Illustrious "Chuckie Baby")

[Adam Nedeff]

[quote name=\'tvrandywest\' date=\'Nov 24 2005, 11:14 AM\']Anyway, the whole argument went down the drain when there was a train wreck in Minot, North Dakota in which harmful gas that was being transported leaked and posed an immediate and serious threat to the community. The only local radio stations were all owned by Clear Channel, and when the sherriff and other authorities tried to enlist their cooperation in disseminating important information to the public, there was nobody at the radio station to answer the phone! The programming and engineering was controlled by computer, and any news and weather forecasts had been recorded hours in advance. A giant WHOOPS!

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This story has always confounded me because I'm wondering if my brain just "invented a fact" or something...My impression has always been that as long as a station is on the air, somebody has to be in the building. ("Has to" in the regulatory sense). This is going back to me working at the Marshall campus station and having to sign off the station for a few hours specifically because everyone on the staff had one exam or the other and couldn't sub for the ill DJ scheduled next. The radio station I interned for in Huntington saw an employee get in HUGE trouble with the bosses for ducking out for a few hours during his shift. (His reason being "Everything seemed to be running fine so I didn't see a reason to stay.") Finally, when I first started working overnight shifts three years ago, my boss offered the shift to me by saying "We have to have somebody in the building."

I can't remember it coming up in a class to save my life, and I can't remember ever asking anybody. I realize this is an embarassing question coming from somebody with a Radio/TV degree, but seriously, don't you HAVE to have someone in the building while you're on the air?

[clemon79]

[quote name=\'Adam Nedeff\' date=\'Nov 25 2005, 02:10 AM\']but seriously, don't you HAVE to have someone in the building while you're on the air?

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Probably. Do they have to be somewhere in the building where they can answer a certain phone if it rings? No.

[sshuffield70]

Having asked a question like this before to my bosses at the ol' college station, it's because someone had to keep an eye on the antenna controls every three hours.  I had to do that at sign on (6AM) and when I signed off (9AM).  Now, that was back in the day when there wasn't any computers running radio stations.  Now, we have a few noncommercial stations like that (KEOM - Mesquite and 89.7 PowerFM - Sanger/DFW [available on the Internet]).  I last spoke to my ol' boss about 18 months ago, and he said they were working on that possibility of going 24/7 (the computer would take over from 12AM - 6 AM).

[tvrandywest]

Here's the official word:

A radio station may broadcast without personnel on site if it can comply with these three simple requirements:

1) All EAS tests and alerts are to be automatically rebroadcast from the originating station, preempting regular programming, or in the case of the originating station, tests and all required alert messages from the appropriate local and national authorities must to be capable of being aired without human intervention;

2) The station's public inspection file must be available for public inspection, during regular business hours. (The file may be maintained at an office location separate and away from the studio facility);

3) The station must automatically comply with transmitter output power limits (-10%/+5%), directional antenna parameters and other basic transmission limits. If automatic adjustment devices fail to maintain tolerance and/or automatically summoned manual intervention does not correct the out-of-tolerance situation within three hours, transmission must cease until the situation is corrected.


From a Clear Channel employee who will remain nameless:

Minot could easily happen again any night now, as these requirements clearly don't address the obligation of the local civil authorities who have responsibility for the EAS alert message content, and compliance inspection by the FCC is not done on a scheduled basis.  Responsible broadcasters participate in the voluntary annual inspections conducted by local chapters of the SBE and consulting engineering firms hired by state broadcasters associations.  The FCC will promise not to inspect a radio station for a period of three years if the station furnishes a certificate of compliance following successful voluntary inspection by a certified organization.  These voluntary inspections, by the way, are prescheduled at a mutually convenient time, so station personnel roll out the red carpet for the inspector.

As an aside... as early as 1974, at WALL, Middletown New York, we were taking the required transmitter readings using a device that graphed the plate current, plate voltage, etc. electronically using a logger with a moving pen that wrote on graph paper. We were only required to have a licensed operator sign directly on the graph at the beginning and at the end of their shift that he had inspected the logger's operation. That's 30 years ago. It's no trick today to monitor and correct discrepancies, log pertinent information and make coffee by computer.


Randy
tvrandywest.com

[uncamark]

It seems to be forgotten in the twists and turns of this thread, but the "Changing Times" radio and TV programs could get around the bans on program-length commercials by reason that most of the program was still informational in nature, even if Doug Fletcher did get around to plugging the magazine and selling subscriptions eventually.  It still had about 10 out of 14 minutes of actual information.

Paid religion got away with murder--I can easily recall the Bible-thumpers on 50,000-watt red state stations who spent *at least* half of their broadcast fund-raising.  There were also the record shop shows on the legendary WLAC in Nashville, where the R&B records Gene Nobles and John R were playing just happened to be part of their special packages available postpaid, no C.O.D's please.  At least they played the records all the way through and a good number of them were good songs--not all of them, though.