Stuff Happens |
| Here are some "typical" small market radio station things. If you've worked at one, you can relate. If you haven't had a job in radio, the following anecdotes will give you an idea of the usual, everyday stuff that happens. When I worked at WKBO in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania... Our offices and studios were on the third floor above a Roy Rogers fast-food restaurant. The smell of chicken and fries cooking while on-the-air made us hungry. Announcers would go down and pick-up lunch while a record was playing. (Younger readers: A "record" was like a "CD".)
We had a big, noisy air conditioner in the broadcast studio that never worked when the weather got hot. (Otherwise, it worked fine.) So, we would open the window to get some relief from the heat. Our listeners would hear traffic sounds, firehouse horns and police sirens in the background. We would also open the studio's sound-proof door to get additional ventilation. Only a few feet down the hallway was the station's lone rest room. If the timing was wrong, listeners would hear the door close (or other sounds). The "door shutting" was more realistic than anything you'd find on a sound effects record.
At a small station, you work with other announcers who
weren't quite ready for prime time. One fellow, who was not a sports fan, reported the
results of... "the Kentucky Derby horse race in Louis-ville, Kentucky."
He was told the correct pronunciation is "Louie-ville." On his next sports
report, he gave the baseball score... "Pittsburgh beat Saint Louie, 4-3."
Some of his other on-air blunders..."the man was shot in the dinner" (diner)
We were the Harrisburg affiliate for Philadelphia Phillies baseball. During the games, the announcers would insert local commercials and our station identification. One day, the Phils were going to play a twi-night doubleheader, starting the first game at 6 PM. That afternoon I had played golf with some out-of-town friends. After a hot day on the Hershey Parkview course, we stopped at Lucy's Cafe for their famous spaghetti and meatballs. We also had a few cold ones. I was scheduled to be at the station at 7, but it was getting late. So, I called the man I was to relieve, told him the situation and estimated I'd be about an hour late. He said, he understood, no problem, he would hang-in until I arrived. About 7:30, I'm driving to the station and listening to the game. They pause for station identification, I hear nothing. A few minutes later, they pause for commercials, I hear nothing. I arrive at the station, the door's open, I see no one. The guy didn't "hang-in." Later that same evening. After two long rain delays and extra innings, the Phillies are ready to begin game two of their twi-night doubleheader. It's 12:35 AM. Play ball! Yeah right. The marathon first game, the heat, the golf and the high-life has made it a long, long day for me. I think I lasted to the seventh inning before I dozed-off. I woke up to hear music, instead of baseball, on our studio speakers. The game had ended at 3 AM and the flagship station in Philadelphia had resumed their regular programming. It was the first time their signal ever got to Harrisburg. (Think of it as cable radio.)
Speaking of sleeping... the morning drive radio announcer's nightmare happened to me, once. It only happens once because the shock is so bad you never allow it to happen to you again. I was the DJ and person responsible for signing-on the station at daybreak. One summer morning, the routine would have been to turn on the transmitter and begin broadcasting at 5:30 AM. However, I didn't wake up until 6:40. When I first opened my eyes and saw the light of day, my first thought was "This must be a dream." Second thought, "This must be my day off." Third thought, "No time for thinking, I gotta' get outta' here fast." The next terrible feeling came while waiting at a red light and looking over at the guy in the car next to me. I'm thinking, "I should be on the radio talking to this person right now." It took only 10 minutes to get up, dressed and drive to the station. (That record will never be broken.) At ten of seven, I switched-on the transmitter. But, how could I play the official "welcome to another broadcast day" message at this hour? Instead, I put a record on the turntable, placed the tone arm in the middle of the record and faded-in the song. When it ended, I said..."Good morning, it's 8 minutes before 7... 6:52 already. As I was saying earlier, the weather forecast is calling for one, beautiful summer day today..."
One day, while in our production studio putting together some commercials using sound effects... I got an idea. The guy working in our on-air studio, where the Phillies/Mets game was being broadcast, really liked the idea. The game was being played at Shea stadium in New York. If you've ever listened to a radio broadcast from there, you'll know that the announcer's play-by-play is often interrupted by the sound of a huge airplane taking-off from nearby LaGuardia Airport. I think the flight patterns have changed, it doesn't seem to be quite as loud today. But at that time, the jet's frequent departures made it a very noisy broadcast. Wellll... my idea was to have the control room operator, uumm, take my sound effects records, and mix into the live broadcast, ooh, one or two... extra planes. At first, it was all very subtle. You couldn't tell the difference between the "real" and the "sound effects" planes. You could tell that the planes heard on the broadcast today sounded louder and that there were more of them than usual. We went-over-the-top a couple times. A simple passenger plane taking-off sound effect would track into the next one and we'd start to hear a "plane going into a crash dive." After the records got accidentally cued-up to some totally irrelevant sounds, "a baby crying" and "car engine starting", we thought it would be wise to cool it. So, for the rest of the game, we just played the sound of a "cricket" in the background.
One of the great things about working in a small market
was that you got a chance to "do it all." Radio stations like to broadcast
sporting events because it's a way to generate extra revenue. High school basketball is an
easy sell to local sponsors and cheap to produce. Broadcasting road games was a little tough sometimes. One game in Lancaster comes to mind. The whole scene was kind of surreal. First, the basketball court was on a giant stage in a theater. The fans watched the game from "the audience." Only the players and referees were on the stage. Oh, and me. I sat at a small card table at the corner of the court, stage left. Before we could broadcast a game, we needed to hook-up to a specially-designated telephone line. It would carry the audio back to the station and then it would be transmitted to the radio listeners. It's only a one-way communication. The announcer in the station's studio could hear me. But, I couldn't hear him. So, before the game started, I'd "open the mike" and give him a count-down to the start of the broadcast. This insured that technically everything was all right and he'd know when to switch programming to begin my play-by-play. The game starts and everything is normal until the middle of the second quarter. I'm busy describing the action when I feel someone tap me on the shoulder. I ignore it. The tapper taps harder. I brush them away. Finally, there's a break in the game and before I could say..."Can't you see I'm in the middle of a broadcast here?"... the young fellow trying to get my attention said..."Your station just called. They said, they haven't heard anything yet." (After that, we splurged for a pre-game toll call to make sure we had a connection.) Doing play-by-play by yourself can be a real challenge, especially when the game becomes a blowout. You get to know the home team players pretty well, but you're lucky if you receive any more than a number and name of the other team's starting five. If the score gets out-of-hand and the visiting team puts in their subs, it's unlikely I had a player's name to attach to the on-court number. There's still 5 minutes to go and you've got to do a little description of the action, so you make up some names. Because you're broadcasting the game primarily to the home team's audience, who's gonna' know or care. "Barry Smith with a good bounce pass to Manny Jones, he's got the layup and another basket. Manny's been hot off the bench..."
In addition to sports "remote broadcasts", station sales managers looked for other remotes they could sell. A "remote" is where the station brings their equipment, personalities and publicity to a business location or event. Sales-types loved them. It was a way to "add value" to their sales proposal. It was also a way to add a premium to the rate card. Talent-types usually didn't love remotes because they lacked "artistic integrity." In other words... the station's only doing this because Joe, the sales person, couldn't sell commercial time at the posted rate-card figures... he had to give-away extra spots, promise a number of recorded promos, lots of on-air announcer mentions, and throw-in a "live broadcast." Our sales department, in order to get a potential sponsor to advertise with the station, threw-in a remote. The client was a woman who had a beauty salon in her home. We set-up our portable turntables and other electronic equipment and did a live broadcast from her basement. Here I was playing records and doing radio DJ stuff in this dark, little room. The performance was witnessed by just two people... the owner-beautician and the lady getting her hair done. If you could feel "dorky" in the sixties, we all did.
The main reason I decided to get into radio was to have fun. I had a great time at WKBO in Harrisburg, laughing everyday along with Charlie Adams and Dick Day. To all the people who worked there with me, thank you very much. A special thank you to Jim Hanlon for hiring me. Sometimes, it wasn't all fun and
games.
|
