[BC] Newsline January 18, 2002 -- Radio on Remote Control as Citizens Die

[Bailey, Scott]

Let me come back to both of you on this issue. Staffing Small AM
stations is tuff, especially AM's in the suburban areas where a small AM
has to compete with 50-70 signals in a market. Small Town (not Small
Market) AM's do somewhat better is that are 60-70 miles away from the
metro or big a big city. There is a MAJOR difference between Small Town
and Small Market stations, but some people just don't get it! 

Another problem we have in this market is the Suburban AM's, being
swallowed up by the Hispanics or group owners like Peter Davidson's
"Davidson Media" grabbing these stations and putting ethnic programming
on them, and the COL is not ethnic at all!  My guess is Davidson's
stations ignore EAS warnings all together, due to the nature of their
programming, especially here, all ethnic, and one would think those
listen that understand the language would want to hear the warnings as
well!

It has been a blessing that technology has come along to reduce staff.
If you want to blame the understaffing of small AM's, blame the ad
agencies! They are at fault for all of this. They will only buy the top
FM's in the market, (the ones that avoid the EAS warnings) and to hell
with everyone else, especially AM in suburban areas! I had one girl in
her 20's (I assume) at an ad agency to me that she predicts that all the
AMs will be gone in 10-15 years anyway, and if we (the ad agencies)
don't buy them, they will go away!

Automated EAS has helped us bring weather warnings, amber alerts, etc.,
on the air quickly, without operator intervention. Computer Automation
has helped keep costly programming on at a near "0" expense. Where 25
years ago or so, it took a staff of 10 to staff a small AM, (excluding
sales people), we've come up with ways to do this and keep expenses
down.

I'm sorry, I'm on a rant today, and P***** O** with the ad agencies (ran
by 20 year old girls) killing AM!

Scott


-----Original Message-----
From: broadcast-bounces at radiolists.net
[mailto:broadcast-bounces at radiolists.net] On Behalf Of N0JAA at aol.com
Sent: Thursday, February 01, 2007 12:34 PM
To: broadcast at radiolists.net
Subject: Re: [BC] Newsline January 18,2002 -- Radio on Remote Control as
Citizens Die

 
In a message dated 2/1/2007 1:00:48 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
broadcast-request at radiolists.net writes:
 
Barry Mishkind said...
 

While I  am certainly among the more vocal critics of marginally 
staffed stations  and the bureaucratic, ego-driven EAS mess, the 
reference to Clear Channel  is almost completely urban legend.

Now, I may have some details  slightly off here, but the general 
thrust is that the situation was  mis-understood and mis-reported.




----------------------------
 
I don't pretend to know the condition of radio stations at the time of
the  
incident, but being a Railfan, I do recall the incident itself.  It
might  be 
an urban legend, but there is sometimes a ring of truth to it, perhaps
not in  
this incident, but in others.
 
In Florida, you would think the local radio stations would broadcast an

emergency message the instant it was received from local, state or
federal  
authorities.  Yet many times I have heard warning messages go out on the
local 
weather radio (tornado warnings, flash flood warnings, etc.), but
nothing  goes 
out on the local radio stations (the AM stations are usually pretty good
at  
relaying the warnings using the EAS, but many of the FM stations remain
silent  
on the issue), or the alert goes out several minutes AFTER the original
warning 
 was issued due to a network program or some other broadcast which the
local  
station doesn't wish to interrupt.  
 
So while the Clear Channel fiasco may or may not be true, many legends  
usually are based on some tiny tidbit of truth, albeit severely skewed.
I  can't 
deny the possible misreporting, however, as there seems to be a lot of
that 
going around these days.
 
In Houston, I've seen just the opposite.  With all of the oil and
chemical 
refineries scattered around the area, most of the stations would put
out an 
EAS message the instant an emergency alert was received, usually
resulting in 
shelter-in-place orders and etc.  So I suppose it depends a  lot on
where the 
radio station is located, who owns it, and what programming  they
normally 
carry.
 
 
Paul Gray
 
 
 
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