[BC] Fallout from Unattended Operation

[Rich Wood]

------ At 08:44 PM 5/5/2008, Alan Peterson wrote: -------

>According to reports on the site's newspage, Citadel's WJZW and CC's 
>WBIG had a troublesome weekend with dead air, blown legal IDs, 
>multiple songs and multiple spots playing over each other. Many of 
>the posters to DCRTV had plenty to say about unmanned operation at 
>these stations during the dayparts when the disasters began; how a 
>real live person onsite could have brought the problems under 
>control, or at least phoned someone who could.

That doesn't always work. There have been a couple of instances in my 
market where fully staffed stations were running IBUZ secondaries 
that had similar problems. No one was monitoring. No one seemed to 
care. They got irritated with me when I called to tell them they had a problem.

>Maybe the idea of attended automated operation is not a bad one; but 
>a better unattended system is still needed, no matter what.

It really depends on what's important to the company. Does anyone 
know if the Washington stations were, in fact, unattended? The 
stations in my market are owned by two of the largest consolidated 
companies in the industry. Of course, the problem wasn't with the 
analog and I was probably the only person listening (I don't listen 
for pleasure but was curious about how the locals were treating their 
IBUZ signals). The attitude, even within the HD Dominion's supporter 
ranks, is that it brings in no money, so it's not important.

If this lack of attention in Washington happens often, the stations 
won't be important to their market for long.

Rich