[BC] processor insanity

[Grady Moates]

> We have a station in town that has a positioning statement that
> they immediately play through something that gives it telephone
> frequency response, they follow that with three Morse code dots.

    Actually, from my background in the '60's and '70's as a
programmer in Top-40, this makes perfect sense.  I remember
that we wanted to make the listener a bit automatic in their
listening habits, so we'd have a time tone, a temperature/weather
sound, and a headline news sound.  The key to this was to actually
play the sound a few seconds BEFORE the time, temp or headlines,
to give the listener a few seconds to disengage their minds from
whatever they were daydreaming about, or pause a conversatin they
might be having, so that they could momentarily shift their primary
focus to the radio and get the "critical info".  By playing a very
short station indentifier right between the sounder and the critical
info, we could then establish a "comfort level" in some listeners,
because they would not miss their critical info when listening to
our station, but when listening to other stations they would always
realize that the weather forecast was half-done before they'd
surfaced enough to hear it, thereby missing the info they desired.

   If the telephone effect and the Morse dots irritate you, they
are probably a bit overdone.  Subtlety is the key with this
technique.

    I really miss those days. . . most programmers today have
never learned all that stuff.  Ask me sometime about how the
order of the spots in a spot break can double your TSL.

Grady