Trapped in a Box

Oh, The Weather Outside Is Frightful

noreply@blogger.com (stevef) — Sun, 20 Dec 2009 22:14:00 +0000

Working in television is usually considered a sexy job. By that I mean it looks like it would be fun, and there's a certain fascination with what we do. Proctologists are far more important, I think, but nobody considers their line of work to be glamorous or fun, therefore proctology is not sexy. Radio was once considered sexy, but the music industry and talk radio hosts have pretty much sucked out all the glamor the medium struggled to hang on to. Let's face it, Wolfman Jack's appearance on the original Battlestar Gallactica was the harbinger for a dying medium.

Yes, TV has it's wowie moments. These usually involve conversations at social events where a stranger says something like, "I hear you work at channel __. Tell, me. Is (female anchor) really as hot as she looks on TV?" This is typically followed by even more crude commentary revolving around the male viewer being in possession of a "jet stream" for the female weather specialist. It's for reasons like this I generally avoid social events that involve an open bar. But, the cold hard fact is behind the scenes TV can be a lot of hard, dirty, and decidedly unsexy work.

This weekend, along the east coast of America, working in broadcasting was most definitely unsexy.

A major snowstorm lumbered through Washington, D.C. and New York City, causing all the problems we associate with major snowstorms: traffic backups, power outages, convicts on the football field in Baltimore. No wait. That last one happens every game. For broadcasters, a storm like this creates some major headaches.

First, consider that television is a 24/7 business. You can't cancel the workday due to weather. The show must go on, especially when the show is the local news that is covering the very snowstorm causing all the trouble. In other words, the entire News Channel team, reporters, anchors, producers, directors, graphics operator, audio operator, master control operator, live truck engineers, and the guy with a pickup truck with a blade to clear the parking lot, all have to schlep their way into the station in order to tell you to stay home. You can't work in television and be (vulgarity for poultry feces) about driving in the snow.

Next, just like in aviation, ice is enemy number one in broadcasting. Ice coatings on the tower add substantial weight and stress on the guy wires. Ice on the antenna changes the electrical properties of the system by adding resistance, thus forcing us to run the transmitter at lower power unless the antenna has a built-in heater or weather-proof covering. Ice chunks falling off the tower when the wind kicks up makes working under the tower a hard hat area and conjures up images of an inglorious demise via the priest in The Omen. Many transmitter towers are located on hilltop locations that are barely accessible by Hummer even in the best of conditions. After about four hours of getting panic calls from management, the chief engineer's cell phone usually takes an "accidental" dive into a snow bank.

But the effects of The Big Snow reached far beyond the east. New York and Washington are the homes of the major networks and their satellite uplinks. Saturday Night Live is a high wire act on its own without a snowstorm keeping the studio audience home, not to mention the cast and crew. And even if all is going well in the cozy confines of 30 Rock, the show still has to blast its way through the icy moisture in the air to make the 22,000 mile trip to the satellite... and back through it again if you're taking the feed in another snowbound city. That's assuming the transmitting dish hasn't been iced over like a giant frosted wedding cake.
The ESPN site in Bristol, Conn. during sunnier times. Losing this uplink in a snowstorm means nobody can watch the 'Bama game, and that's just not going to happen.

Again, these uplink dishes aren't installed in most accessible places. Any uplink dish has an automatic de-icing system that, under most conditions, stop the snow from collecting inside the dish and blocking the signal, but a major snowfall can hit too fast for a heater to keep up. And that's assuming the power stays on. Emergency generators can keep the network on the air, but generators need fuel and maintenance. Replacing a fuel filter in a Volvo diesel engine is a long way from sexy. If I had known I'd be doing this I would've found a job in a truck stop.

So, a hearty salute goes out to all the engineers and maintenance technicians who kept the networks, TV, and radio stations on the air this weekend. What you do may not be sexy, but thanks to your four-wheel-driven muscle and fortitude, people got the information they needed in an emergency situation, TV stations across the continent could keep their schedules, and commercials. And we could watch the Cleveland Browns actually win a game. Who says the Holidays aren't a time for miracles?

Merry _________!

noreply@blogger.com (stevef) — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 21:09:00 +0000

"Charlie Brown, you're the only person I know who can take a perfectly happy holiday season and turn it into a problem."

Linus was wrong. A lot of people are turning Christmas into a problem. And most of them are Christians.

According to Bill O'Reilly and several Christian groups wishing someone "Happy Holidays" is tantamount to socking Jesus right in the kisser. O'Reilly says there's a war on Christmas. This war has been declared by those who "loathe the baby Jesus," and want to see the word "Christmas" stricken from the massive retail push that occurs every December. With that in mind, it's time for Christians to make some noise about being persecuted right out of the biggest world-wide religious based holiday in Western Civilization. In other words, the far right has found a way even on the biggest holiday of the year to make themselves a major league pain in the ass.

Apparently I didn't get the memo stating I'm supposed to be offended when someone wishes me a Happy Holiday. It must've got lost along with my list of Sarah Palin's major political accomplishments that is supposed to make her a role model and an inspiration. Nor, as someone who doesn't observe Christmas as a religious holiday, do I take offense when someone wishes me a Merry Christmas. Nor do I make such an event a time to embarrass the merrymaker by correcting them. I accept their greeting in the spirit in which it is generally intended: enjoy the holiday, be well, and please don't get me another chia pet this year.

I wouldn't want to be a retailer these days. I would imagine there's quite a bit of confusion and frustration after years of being told to be sensitive to persons of all faiths, only now to face the wrath of the Focus On The Family group and others for taking Christ out of Christmas. Nevermind the fact that many people never had Christ in Christmas in the first place. If one were to truly observe the birth of Jesus strictly as a religious event, would one be in a position to see the offending "Happy Holidays" sign while pushing through the crowds at Wal-Mart searching for an X-Box?

According to the far right, it's Us vs. Them, although I'm not really clear on who "Them" is. I've never met a Jew who loathes the baby Jesus. He might not go for all that virgin birth stuff, but he'll tell you that the birth of any child is a miracle. Most rabbis I've talked to will tell you that any celebration of birth, family, and peace is a good thing. I've never talked in depth on the subject of Christmas with a follower of Islam, but based solely on the number to women wearing chadors in the mall this December, it doesn't appear to me like American Muslims have declared war on Christmas. They're doing the same thing I'm doing... looking for a bargain. Nope. "Them" could only be the major retailers who, based on Fox News logic, see big profits in offending Christians with their coarse and brazen declaration of calling Christmas a holiday.

It wasn't always like this. Years ago the song Happy Holidays was sung merrily by the likes of Andy Williams, and nobody ever accused Mr. Williams of murdering Baby Jesus. It was a song that, like many decorations and signage throughout the years, recognized the proximity of Christmas and New Years Day. We recognize Christmas Eve and New Years Eve as a holidays as well. Add to that the British and Canadian observance of Boxing Day on the 26th, and you've got... well... Holidays. And let's face it, singing "Happy Holidays" is much easier than:

Have a merry
Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, News Years Eve, New Years Day.

And then there's Rudolph, a song written by Gene Autry, a Christian devout enough to name his baseball team the Angels. Here is the story of a person - reindeer - who is declared an outcast by reindeer society and forbidden to attend their schools, drink from the same water fountain, and join in any "reindeer games," whatever that may be. Santa, the social progressive of the story, asks Rudolph to save Christmas from a foggy fate, using what others considered a disability as an advantage. Pretty heady stuff for 1949. Is that what they mean by "going rouge?"

Of course, O'Reilly has his own motivations for raising much ado about nothing, so we'll just let him rant. This is one commercial dog who is not going to ruin my Christmas. Maybe he should try to observe the season by not looking for something to make everybody mad. I think that was the basic idea behind the whole Christian religion in the first place. Then again, what do I know? I still haven't picked out something to give my wife. I wonder if they still have those chia Scooby Doo's?

Merry Christmas.
Happy Hanukkah.
Let's try not to kill each other.

Weather or Not

noreply@blogger.com (stevef) — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 01:18:00 +0000

It rained the other day. Not just rain, but a steady, miserable kind of rain driven by a bitter breeze that stung as it sliced through any open door or half-zipped jacket - especially if that half-zipped jacket happened to be a light spring weight jacket, the kind you wear when you don't really need a jacket.

I mention this not to complain about the weather; that is beyond my control and indifferent to my opinion. I mention this to point out my lack of preparation for the sudden winter intrusion - something well within my control, had I made a stronger effort to do so. The root of the problem being, and I know it's a matter of perception, the fact that it takes so much more effort to hear or read a weather forecast.

On that rainy windy day I had presumed that the weather would be the same it had been the day before: sunny, warm, high in the 50's. Throughout my crazy schedule last week, I never made a conscious effort to track down an accurate forecast. I figured the weather would come to me. It never did. And that's how I ended up running through a horizontal wind-driven ice bath wearing a paper-thin jacket and no hat.

The fault is entirely mine. The information is out there. I just failed to "pull" the data into my brain. I assumed the modern media structure would "push" the content into my brain, either by way of the local radio DJ, or via the friendly "weather specialist" on my local TV news channel. Somewhere along the way, we suffered a data disconnect.

This corner of Ohio has suffered three summers in a row of drought, while some guy with Super Doppler Radar showed me a big mass of rain headed right for us. "It's going to be a wet one today, folks," he chirped as the five-day forecast spun into view. By mid-afternoon the sun was blazing without so much as a mild case of overcast while all that pretty crayon tinted radar rain dissolved into dust just miles before reaching our area. Had Mr. Doppler Radar been around back in Old Testament times it's very likely Noah's Five Day forecast would've called for plenty of sunshine and an ozone alert. After farmers watched their crops wither in the fields, and I watched hundreds of dollars in landscaping turn to desert (I mowed three times all season.) you can understand if local "weather specialists" are about as popular around here as someone at a tea party who says, "But his birth certificate is on file in Honolulu." These guys would get pummeled with assorted fruits and vegetables as they leave the station... if we could grow any.

We have The Weather Channel on cable for constant updates. Or should I say, we used to. Suddenly TWC is running movies. They're weather related movies, of course, and at this point I will avoid the obvious joke about airing Gone With The Wind during Tornado Safety Week. The Weather Channel is following the typical cable network arc of declaring and finding a dedicated audience with single purpose driven programming, firing the people who created their initial success, and sliding into programming choices in the league of Cartoon Network running live action movies and Nike At Night running 26 hours of Roseanne every night. Whatever is the cheapest option. You see, while March of the Penguins is running, TWC doesn't have to pay a human to stand in front of the green screen and point at the tornado heading for Amarillo. And they blow off the local forecast, meaning that the likelihood of actually finding the weather on The Weather Channel is about as reliable as drafting the entire Cleveland Browns on my fantasy team.

Local radio DJ's are as rare as steroid-free baseball players these days, and even when I do hear a weather forecast it can't just be read by the DJ. When I worked in radio, the ability to give the forecast concisely and in plain English was considered a fundamental job requirement. "Don't say it's 72 degrees," I was taught by more than one program director. "Just say it's 72." On a typical morning show the forecast could be summed up simply enough to be mentioned several times an hour. "Sunshine today, with a chance of showers late this afternoon and a high of 85. It's 76 at The Big Buck." Not anymore. Radio stations are automated now, and every element must fit into a predetermined time slot. Therefore, the forecast must be 30 seconds, whether it needs to be or not. Moreover, there are no local DJ's capable of doing this basic task. We must now rely on News Channel 10 Weather Specialist Willie B. Wright (I'm not kidding. I've heard that name used.) to meander through the allotted time with all the precision of a wrecking ball on a billiards table.

They're not much better on TV. The other day I heard a weather guy tell me the barometer was at 29.82 "inches of mercury." What the hell does that mean? Oh yeah, barometers used to measure air pressure by means of a long vertical open ended tube of mercury - back when the news came on right after the Dean Martin Celebrity Roast. I can think of at least two former program directors who would've had my hide for saying that. Besides, nobody keeps tubes of mercury in their homes for barometers anymore. These days we keep our mercury in compact fluorescent lights.

Why do they rattle on about this stuff? The average weather segment on a local newscast is three minutes, give or take. I don't envy these guys having to drag out to three minutes what I could do on the radio in five seconds, but can't they at least juggle flaming chainsaws or something, ANYTHING to make it entertaining? Write it in iambic pentameter. Choreograph it to the music of Metallica. Get one of the puppets from Avenue Q to show us the Futurecast. Release lions into the studio. I don't care. Just do something to keep my attention so I'll know what to wear the next day.

I've got it. How about Jessica Alba doing the weather in a string bikini. At least I wouldn't be the only guy who couldn't remember the forecast.

SOUND OFF!

noreply@blogger.com (stevef) — Thu, 12 Nov 2009 21:23:00 +0000

Since members of the House of Representatives are now reluctant to discuss health care reform due to the fact that many of them have discovered a severe allergic reaction to tar and feathers at town hall meetings, they have moved on to more life-changing legislation. According to the Broadcast Rules Service, Report #138, a House subcommittee has approved a bill (H.R. 1084) to "prohibit television commercials from being louder than the programming surrounding them." The bill is sponsored by Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) who wants you to forget I even mentioned health care reform.

At this point I'm sure you are thinking the same thing I'm thinking... Thanks, Anna, for taking precious time away from dealing with California's fiscal disaster, wildfires, stuff like that, and staying on top of this loud TV commercial thing. The bill is called - I swear to God I'm not making this up - the "Commercial Advertisement Loudness Mitigation Act." That's right. It's the CALM Act.

Apparently, Ms. Eshoo has been blasted out her slumber one too many times while watching Grey's Anatomy and wants broadcasters to set the volume so that everything is at the same level. OK. Good luck with that.

Sudden changes is audio levels, aka volume spikes, blasting, or "WTF?'s" have been a concern since the early days of television. Back the 1950's viewers complained of commercials being louder than the shows... a tough point to prove since in those days most TV shows embedded the advertiser's message within the show itself and featured prominent product placement. (Zoinks. What a primitive approach to marketing. I'm glad we've progressed since then.) There have been conspiracy theories on and off throughout the years, until today when the problem seems to have reached epidemic proportions.

The real culprit is the conversion to digital TV and something called dynamic range - the amount of audio volume the TV transmission can carry from silence to the loudest sound. Analog TV couldn't reproduce a wide range of volume levels as digital can, thus your new digital TV is capable of being more annoying. Isn't technology fun? Many TV's today come with volume leveling options built in. Search the menu and you'll find an option that takes the blast out of commercials and changing the channel.

When asked about volume spikes your local broadcaster or cable company gives you vague or evasive answers because they honestly can't explain it. Viewers get blasted for a number of reasons varying from human error to collateral annoyance due to intentional spiking for entertainment purposes. The most common causes are:

*Producers of commercials employ a good deal of what's called compression/limiting to the sound. Compression (not to be confused with file compression) squeezes audio levels to a mean level, as opposed to a wide range of levels. As a result, operators ingesting the commercial into automated playback systems tend to set the input level higher, which is just the very thing the spot's producer wanted to happen. BLAST!

*Audio levels can vary when local stations cut away from the network to local spots. Network levels can go all over the place on the local board operator, while the local spots were ingested into the automation - you guessed it - at a higher than average level. Cable company local cut-in's can be even worse because there's no human intervention. ESPN is at one level; the local playback is louder. BLAST!

*Running movies on TV is the most extreme example of audio level du joir. Movies are produced to give the theater goer or home theater enthusiast a three-dimensional thrill ride. That's fine, except for when the commercials kick in. Let's say the movie just showed a scene between two people talking maybe two words at a time in a quiet room. The movie's sound engineer kept the levels down at maybe 30%. The next scene in the movie cuts to a sunny afternoon in Central Park. The audio level shift is sudden, but reasonable given the setting, mood, tempo, and style of the film. The director never in a million years intended for this transition to be interrupted by that weird Progressive Insurance lady. BLAST!

*Most TV shows tickle your ears with pleasing sounds, music, and voices. Many commercials are produced intentionally to be annoying, with screechy music, shouting voices, and what we call "hot mixes," meaning all of this is produced compressed to a level where every sound is fighting to be on top. You'd dive for the MUTE button no matter where the volume is set.

Many TV stations install audio leveling equipment that can minimize the abuse by reacting to changes in levels far quicker than any human. Plus, the autolevel available in newer TV's keep things steady. The need for legislation seems to be rather breathless at best; it may be another case of a politician trying to gain favor with voters by solving a pet peeve, rather than address an ugly but serious issue. Telling broadcasters to watch the meters is not necessary. Perhaps it's the politicians with nothing but pork to contribute who need a MUTE button.

Why Won't Leno Work?

noreply@blogger.com (stevef) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 17:03:00 +0000

The biggest disappointment for me this fall TV season has been, I'm sorry to say, The Jay Leno Show. But it appears I'm not alone in feeling that way. NBC affiliates are griping about the poor lead-in to their local news. Viewers are tuning out. And even Jay made a glancing comment about his show's slippage in his Jay Leno's Garage website. If the current show was a car in Jay's collection, it would be the Stanley Steamer: it's taking an awful long time to get started.

Critics are taking their swipes, and Simon Domenco offers his reasons why the show is failing in Advertising Age. I agree with most of Domenco's points, although I argue that NBC didn't have much of a brand identity before now anyway, except maybe as the Law and Order channel. But from the point of view of someone who must sit through it along side the offerings of other networks five nights a week in master control, I can't help but notice certain things that maybe others don't. I offer these points.

NBC is not targeting the core audience. Who is Jay's audience? Widely defined, it's men and woman ages 35-64. These are people who grew up with Carson, SNL's early days, Monty Python, and remember Bob Hope Christmas specials and Dean Martin sliding down the pole every week. They turn up the volume when Don Rickles walks out, and they wish Robin Williams would just do a stand up routine. They like newer stuff, like The Office and 30 Rock, and maybe even take in the guilty pleasure of Family Guy, but they can't name a current stand up comic, (who can?) and they really have had enough of rap and hiphoppers.

But the core Leno audience is much easier to define: the guys who log in to Jay Leno's Garage. They're a fiftyish bunch who are generally middle class with hair gaining a touch of gray and collars stained slightly blue. Politically moderate to conservative, but still holding some liberal idealism in their hearts, they like political humor when it's funny, they can read and can interpret the news for themselves, and resent having everything on the air being some form of product placement. With that in mind, Leno is failing because...

*It's competing with The Daily Show and The Cobert Report. NBC was so worried about the other three broadcast nets they forgot there's a whole other world of media out there already filling the need for comedy at that time. (Or anytime) These shows are overtly political, pointedly satirical, and sharp as a knife. The hosts aim for the jugular, while Jay has to play softball. Take that interview Jay did with Rush Limbaugh. Total fluff. He spent the fist two minutes talking about Rush's weight loss. What is this, Valerie Bertinelli on Regis and Kelly? Come on, Jay, stick a fork in him! But no, Jay has to worry about offending somebody. Cobert does not. In fact, Rush would never set foot on Cobert's stage for fear of being barbecued. Now that's comedy in prime time.

*The production schedule is too tight. The show is taped in California at 5:00PM. (I could be wrong, as these things are subject to change, and there are occasional double-taping days where two shows are taped in one day in order to accommodate holidays, Jay's stand up schedule, etc...) That's 8:00 in the East. The show airs at 10. That means that there's an hour to "rewind the tape" as it were (Everything is on hard drive nowadays, but I'm sure they roll a backup tape as well.) and clean up any goofs and time the segments and get those timings to the affiliates so that your local station knows when the local breaks hit. That's assuming everything goes off without a hitch. No blown lights, no dead mics, all the guests are on time and don't drop the F-bomb on stage. The moment anything goes wrong and the director has to "stop tape" the segment timings are off, and the director has less than an hour to ram the show through post production to cut the F-bombs and edit the show segments into a viewable product. It's a meat grinder production line similar to Entertainment Tonight and The Insider, and I can't imagine a crew wanting to put up with this for any great length of time, and based on the number of times I haven't had timings for the local breaks, I'd say it's happening too often. Viewers are complaining the show feels "cheap." It's not cheap; it's just being thrown together with a deadline pressure almost as bad as your local news. It's the price you pay for trying to do a late show in a prime time slot.

*Knock off the name dropping. The guests are all big names for the sake of having big names on the show. The ultimate example is Michelle Obama on the Ten @ Ten segment. OK, that one is forgivable, but for the most part, these people have had nothing to say. Oh, and opening with the Kayne West apology... please. Everybody knew that was a set-up. And again, remember Jay's core audience. Did true Leno fans even know who this guy was? Book guests who can tell stories and be interesting. Please.

*Drop the plugs. Hell, there's even a segment called "Earn Your Plug." We know the guest is there to sell a movie or TV show or "latest project," but could we at least try to take the cynicism out of it? When it was time for a live spot on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson, Ed handled the commercials because he was damn good at it, and it signaled to the audience "this is a commercial," and the audience responded with, "Oh, that's OK. I accept your commercial as a break from the show." Having guests race a Ford hybrid around a track should be more fun, but it somehow comes off as mere product placement to me. Maybe if they didn't do it every night...

*Put the show in a more intimate venue suited for Leno's style. Jay works nightclubs, comedy clubs, the courthouse square in Wilmington, Ohio. It's hard to be funny in that barn they've got him in now. The only time a comedian should be working a crowd bigger than 200 is when he's on the deck of an aircraft carrier.

Oh yeah, and let's not forget the baseball playoffs are shredding viewing habits right now, and against Monday Night Football NBC should just roll a rerun and be done with it. It would certainly be cheaper. That was whole point of this Jay at Ten thing, right?

A Letter to Falcon

noreply@blogger.com (stevef) — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 19:56:00 +0000

I have never told anyone about this. Not even my wife.

When I was in first grade, for whatever reason, we had some down time in the classroom. For reasons that escape all logic, our desks had been removed from the room, so the teacher told the students to arrange their chairs in a big circle. (It was 1969. Adults did weird things all the time.) And then we just sat there, talking and acting up while the teacher seemed to be doing nothing.

Now as it happened, my chair ended up separated from the kids I usually hung out with, so I was just kind of sitting there watching all this babble. And I got bored. And you know what happens when people get bored.

I don't know why I did it. It all seems so stupid, now. But for some reason, pushed on by boredom that had been brought on by adults creating a new way to waste time, I stood up, held out my arms, and not too loudly but loud enough went, "Tah-Dah!" You know. Like, "And now, on with the show." Well, it did look like we were in a big circus ring. And then I sat back down. And that was it.

What happened next probably really shouldn't have happened. I wonder if I had told my parents about it if there would have been one less teacher employed at my school after that. These days this sort of thing gets caught on video, makes the news, fuels an outrage, and causes people to hire lawyers. I'm sure you can relate.

The teacher silenced the room and told me to stand up. "OK, put on a show," she said.

Now remember, just seconds before the room was buzzing with the chatter, laughter, and messing around of about 30 kids. I knew, right then and there, I had been singled out. Up to this point, I had trusted her, felt like I could confide in her, and even drew pictures for her. I even felt like she had helped me overcome my playground fear of climbing the ladder to the slide. And now this. What was the deal? Why was she doing this?

But, right then and there, I decided to go with it. Make this work. I reached in my pocket, and took out the only prop I had. A tissue. It escaped my hand and fluttered to the floor. The kids laughed.

Gotcha.

I picked it up and dropped it again. Laughs.

I picked it up, manged to hold on to it, held it for just the right amount of time, and then dropped it again, watching it fall every inch of the way. Big Laughs.

The teacher told me to sit down.

I learned to few things from that, apart from improvisational acting and comedy. I learned that it takes little or even no talent to draw attention to yourself. It's easy. Anyone can do it. But once you get the spotlight, you might not like the results. If you want attention, be prepared.

I also learned what it feels like to follow instructions, do what you're told, and trust in an authority figure only to be betrayed and embarrassed. I never trusted another teacher for the rest of my school life. "Steve, if you don't understand something, why don't you raise your hand and ask?" said many other teachers in the years that followed. You just read why. I learned to look it up for myself and figure it out. And to this day, with the exception of my wife and a few others who have long since died, I find it hard to trust an adult. Any adult.

You don't have to be like me. It's hard to understand the chain of command sometimes, but if a teacher makes you feel bad, tell the principal, or the councilor, or a teacher you like. If an adult... any adult... tells you to do something that just doesn't seem right, tell an adult who isn't a narcissistic dillhole. Sorry. Tell an adult who shows better judgment.

And finally, avoid the media. These people aren't journalists wanting to tell your story as only you understand it. They want to make money off of you. There's a word for this. Learn it. Exploitation.

It's not going to be easy for you. You'll have to live with that "Balloon Boy" thing for the rest of your life. But eventually, you'll get past it. You can even make it work for you. You'll grow up, even if the news media doesn't, and you can make something of your life. I know you can. You've already blown the lid off a scam, and that takes courage. Be strong. Listen beyond the words. Think with your mind as well as your heart. Trust those who earn your trust. And love those who make you a better person. And may you become all that you dream.

And I hope you get to really fly in a balloon. It's actually pretty cool.

Under New Management

noreply@blogger.com (stevef) — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 18:25:00 +0000

Search back through the archives and you'll find a blog where I bemoaned the state of Hamilton, Ontario's CHCH, a TV station that lost its way, and millions of dollars.

Now, read this. CHCH is under new ownership, and these guys get it. Most encouraging, they're adding to the news department, and encouraging local programming.

Could this be a harbinger of television's future? Stay tuned. And good luck, CHCH.

Answers

noreply@blogger.com (stevef) — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 19:53:00 +0000

And now it's time to answer some of your

Frequently Asked Questions.

No. I don't mean the questions I get from this blog. I mean the questions TV station staff gets on the phone at all hours from people like- OK, not people like you. Let's just say people who own a phone.

* Why can't you run the game I want to see?

We get this at least once a weekend when the Ohio State Buckeyes are relegated to something called The Big Ten Network, which apparently is comprised of a handful of camcorders, a switcher in the back of an Econoline van, and two commentators who flunked the audition at Sports Time Ohio. After scanning the cable system up and down, you usually find this temporary channel sometime after the first touchdown. The audio is distorted, and the video looks like you're in Havana pulling in a Miami TV station with a coat hanger. So, naturally, the solution to this dilemma is to call a local TV station and ask them to fix it.

Believe me. We're just as baffled and disgruntled as you. Our NBC affiliate is stuck with a rodeo while the rest of the civilized world is watching college football. We are all victims of a system involving the NCAA, major networks, colleges, and advertisers that conspire to create a contraption even Rube Goldberg couldn't decipher. We're helpless. We just bring you the game our network sends us and take the phone off the hook. It would be easier to broadcast the Manchester United vs. Liverpool match - and the announcers would be easier to understand.

The NFL is no better. Their agreement with the networks stipulates that the affiliates broadcast the game that is closest to them - provided it's a sell-out. Thanks to this agreement, no matter how much you hate the Browns, if you live in the northern half of Ohio, you'll get the Browns. If you live in Toledo, you get the Lions, or the Browns, or the Lions AND the Browns. Remember, suicide is the last option.

* Why do all your news stories have to be so negative? Can't you put on some happy news stories?

This is a baffling question, considering our newscasts on Sundays typically lead with, and I'm not making this up, church picnics, festivals, or a magician performing at a nursing home. Getting hard news on a Sunday requires the news department to work on Sundays, and that's something the journalism programs at colleges instruct their students to avoid.

Graduates of these colleges are also instructed to avoid asking hard questions, so that when a state representative says, "Ohioans don't want a casino in their state," the reporter doesn't ask, "So all those Ohio license plates at the Argosy is some kind of optical illusion?" Or when a local Republican says, "I believe in the freedom of religion," the reporter shouldn't ask, "By 'religion' does that include Muslim and Wicca, or just the Christian Evangelicals who are funding your re-election campaign?" See? That's just not nice. That leads to people calling you a radical, a liberal, oh, fanatical, a criminal. And then you start quoting Supertramp, and that's just wrong!

So, there's no need to fear. As long as news directors and consultants keep casting news departments like Dollhouse, and the journalism schools keep sending the fluff kitties our way, what's left of the negative news will soon be extinct. Just hang in there.

*How cum you done gon di-ju-tall? Ah caint git chew.

You got us. We can't hide it anymore. The digital conversion was all part of a vast Liberal conspiracy engaged by the Obama administration (in less than six months) to make sure only the intellectual elite could receive and watch broadcast television. For years, you've been led to believe that the eggheads only watch HBO and Bravo. Balderdash. We want Jerry Springer and Kathie Lee on the Today Show all to ourselves. Because we're like that. Bwah, ha, ha! And there's nothing you can do about it. The truth has been revealed! You can't stop me! You can't silence me! You can't---

We are experiencing technical difficulties with this blog. We apologize for any inconvenience. We now join the Lions vs. the Raiders game already in progress.

Happy Birthday, Scooby Doo

noreply@blogger.com (stevef) — Mon, 14 Sep 2009 19:20:00 +0000

It was 40 years ago, believe it or not, that a certain Great Dane ran scaredy cat straight into the hearts of millions. Scooby Doo, Where Are You? (the full official title of the original show) debuted in its Saturday morning time slot on CBS on September 13th, 1969. Because local stations tended to tape the Saturday morning cartoons pre-feed in the wee hours of Saturday and shuffle the running order, I can't cite a specific time slot. You may remember it as a 9:00 show, while others recall it being on at a different time. Doesn't matter. Whenever it aired, it was the big hit of the '69 cartoon schedule.

And a good thing it was. Hannah Barbera Productions, then recently acquired by Taft Broadcasting of Cincinnati, needed a hit. The parents groups, most notably the national PTA, were out to demonize animation right out of existance. While the campy prime time Batman series may have spawned a superhero glut in Saturday morning, HB and others soon found themselves under fire for bringing too much violence to the screen. Arguably, it was mostly cartoon violence - ray guns blasting space ships or Space Ghost freezing a swarm of space locust, although the animated Lone Ranger was known to carry a pistol - but the perception took over all reality. And, watching some of those shows today on Boomerang, I can see they kind of had a point. The moral of many of these shows is basically he who has the biggest ray gun wins. On the other hand, I just caught an episode of The Space Cadets, a show I adored at the age of 3, where the villains showed great restraint after kidnapping the youngest cadet, saying, "Aw. He's just a little kid." The space pirate then takes out his frustration by bopping his pint-size assistant.

Justified or not, Saturday morning needed to clean up its act. And the producers of these shows such as Joe Barbera and Bill Hannah, veterans of theatrical animated shorts who had never been held accountable by any social group let alone the PTA, whose nearly 20 year run of Tom and Jerry featured painful sight gags and outright malicious behavior, not to mention at least one racial joke per cartoon, found themselves caught in a tangle only network television could create. Make them funny, but not too funny. Come up with a mega-hit, but keep it low-key.

And so, the networks called for more live action shows. The formula was simple: animated cartoon=bad, live action=good. If the hundreds of craftspeople dedicated to the art of animation wanted to keep their happy homes, somebody needed to disprove the theory.

(There's a great example of how the networks started calling the shots within the pages of "Tex Avery: King of Cartoons" by Joe Adamson, De Capo Press. During the interview with Michael Maltese we get some incidental insight into the painful pre-production process of the 1967 Moby Dick cartoon series.)

During the 1960's, Hannah and Barbera hammered out a new series where a group of teens solved mysteries. Sort of like Hardy Boys and Nancy Drew, but with Maynard G. Krebs from Dobie Gillis. No ray guns. No super science. And villains wanted in six states, but with enough restraint to only cook up a haunted house ruse to scare people away, as opposed to shooting them. The Krebs character would have a beatnik sister with the up-to-date glasses and sweater look, and a far-out necklace. The other teens would be "normal" with good manners and a wardrobe right off of a Beach Boys album cover. They pitched the show to the networks. CBS showed interest, but it needed work. Some meddling kid executive at CBS suggested the show needed a dog. That executive's name was Fred Silverman.

Bill and Joe went back to the drawing board, put some white out over the glasses girl's necklace and made her the dateless brainy one and christened her with a name sure to get the point across: Velma. The ink and paint department was told to never color in Shaggy's soul patch. (By the time the show hit the air, Shaggy would've fit right in at most high schools' honor society.) And some dogs were auditioned.

The first was a sheepdog named Wayout, but he soon grew tiresome. Eventually, they found magic: a Great Dane big enough to do human things like fly a plane or sit at a table, but dog enough to be the gang's pet. But most important, he was the link to the audience, showing fear when entering a haunted house, and needing a pep talk or a Scooby Snack to boost his courage when the going got tough. This was no superdog. He was one of us. Scared when he ought to be, but courageous in spite of it. In other words, he was an antihero with a heart of gold.

Scooby Doo became the breakaway hit of the 1969 Saturday morning season. Today, Scooby is still one of the most recognizable and profitable properties in television, spinning off several new series and movies, along with DVD collections and endless reruns.

It ain't art. The animation was often hack work. The ink and paint quality declined unbearably as the series trudged on through the '70's, even the voice tracks sometimes seemed to be a recording of the first run-through. And we kids did notice at times. But the central idea overshadowed the show's shortcomings. And that oft quoted line that appeared at the end of a few of the original episodes brought it home. "Those meddling kids."

Let me tell you. In 1969, that "kids" line hit like a kick to the stomach. It was a different time, when the adults were "old" and stuck in their old ways, bringing war and pollution, and sweeping aside anything good just for another dollar or because they hated change. They made rules, and we were supposed to obey them just because they were adults and we were just "kids." Their job was to keep us in our place and protect us from new ideas and thinking for ourselves. Just follow along, kids, and do what you're told. These "kids" today are nothing but a bunch of trouble making hippies. Send the boy to Viet Nam. That'll learn him a thing or two.

Each week when Shaggy, Scooby, and Velma politely explained the villain's plot to the police, I got an electric thrill out of watching the wrong-minded adult brought down by those meddling "kids." Yeah, go ahead, mister. Get in your cheap shot at us "kids" before you go to jail. But we "kids" are the future. And you're just an old man.

Maybe I'm making too much of this, but I was six when the original Scooby Doo premiered. Maybe Scooby lives on because of that sense of rebellion. Young people watch it today, and for a time Shaggy and Velma were fashion statements - a just reward for the Velma's everywhere. Maybe those hokey pop tunes inserted in the chase sequences of the second season sound pretty good compared with the pop of today. I don't know.

But every once in a while, when somebody at work is pulling politics, or some mook tries to get under my skin, I still get a kick out of being that meddling kid.

Shouted Out With "Glee!"

noreply@blogger.com (stevef) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 20:53:00 +0000

I'm not sure what to make of this, but here's the latest word on the new season.

Fox's Glee clobbered the competition. According to Fox, the one-two punch of So You Think You Can Dance and Glee won the night with teens, and younger adults - the audience more likely to go out and buy things.

The competition? President Obama speaking to congress about health care reform on the Big 3 and the cable news outlets. Make of that what you will.

The big premier for Glee is great news not only for Fox, but for Lima, Ohio where the show supposedly takes place. Only scant evidence has turned up on the air to confirm the Lima link, like a porta potty sign in the pilot episode listing Bluffton (spelled wrong) Ada, and Uniopolis. Trust me on this; the only way Uniopolis gets mentioned on network TV is if one of the writers grew up there. We're wondering if Lima will get more of a starring role as the show progresses. Keep watching.

And Now For Something Completely Different

noreply@blogger.com (stevef) — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 17:33:00 +0000

News from the Cincinnati Zoo.

“Sarah,” the Cincinnati Zoo’s eight-year-old female cheetah, is now the world’s fastest of all land mammals. Today, Sarah earned her spot in the record book when she crossed the finish line in the 100-meter sprint with a time of 6.16 seconds in her very first attempt, breaking the previous mark of 6.19.

This is great news, but what you may not know is that this record was set in Clermont County, Ohio. Now I grew up in those parts, so I just can't resist throwing in some jokes about this. And so, ladies and germs, here are a few you won't like.

Hey, folks, did ya hear? An eight-year-old cheetah set a new speed record in Clermont County. Yeah. Of course, if your eight-years-old in Clermont County and still a virgin, you learn to run fast.

They must've timed her while she was running away from her daddy.

But seriously, folks, in case you were wondering how they got her to run that fast, they used a lure tied to a string... a welfare check.

She got a citation from Guiness... and the Milford Police.

Sadly, five minutes later Sarah was arrested for doing donuts in a front yard in Amelia.

The last time anybody moved that fast in Clermont County, she was being chased by the klan.

Last week.

Thank you! Tip your waitress.

Not Necessarily The News

noreply@blogger.com (stevef) — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 15:17:00 +0000

Ever channel surfed or glanced up from your beer at the sports bar to see something you thought was a news bulletin? Only it wasn't. After a few seconds, you figured out it's a commercial. Ever wonder how many other viewers are watching and not able to make the distinction? I do.

There's a flight of spots for something called the Tax Relief Hotline that I've seen lately, mostly on the CW - every frickin' break - that just kill me. They use a double layer of crawls on the lower third of the screen just like certain news channels, and chroma key an actress playing a reporter in front of the White House or the IRS. And then they cut to pool footage of President Obama saying tax relief is on the way, blah, blah, blah. I love the small print, unreadable on a small TV, stating that this is not a newscast and that the government is not endorsing this service. Legally, their butts are covered. Ethically, they are going straight to Hell.

I've got a real bug up my ass about advertisers making spots that look like newscasts. It's dishonest, deceptive, and just plain annoying. And what's worse, the people who should be raising the biggest stink about them because it can do the most damage to their profession - the journalists - don't seem to care. Why doesn't the News Department, the entire department, walk into the the sales office and demand, "Knock it off. How would you like it if I went around telling people I sell for this station and I can get them a better rate?" Yeah, I know... Money talks. But that doesn't excuse using images and words of the President to sell your crap.

And I know the President has more important things to worry about, but you'd think somebody connected with The White House could put a stop to the misuse of the President's image. Hell, if they can put the hammer down on dolls of the First Daughters, they can surely tell these hucksters, "If we catch you using the president to sell your crap again, say hello to a Secret Service detail."

Don't we have enough people making flying fools of themselves and stunning congressional representatives at town hall meetings shouting outrageous lies and repeating Internet fables and junk political truthiness created by pseudo-journalistic talk show hosts to boost their ratings and ego? Do we really need another source of misinformation disguised as "news" in the form of shoddy advertising practice? Will ad agencies and the clients they represent figure this out on their own, or will it take an FTC or FCC crackdown to wake them up?

Or is it really worth the trouble? Are most viewers doing what I do? Laughing at it and tuning it out.

Ohio's First Radio Station?

noreply@blogger.com (stevef) — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 21:12:00 +0000

You may already know that Bullova was the first watch company, or any company, to advertise on the radio. (“This is WEAR, New York. Bullova Watch Time: Eleven O’clock.”) But what I didn’t know until now was that Bullova was not the first watchmaker to use radio. In fact, it’s possible that a watch company was the first radio broadcaster in Ohio.

The life and death of the original Gruen Watch Company – not the current brand name you find today – is documented in Paul Schliesser’s excellent series of web pages. In those pages you’ll find the rise and fall of an American manufacturer not all that different from the foibles of the economic travesty that is American manufacturing in 2009. The key difference is that, in due time, Gruen may have faced doom regardless of managerial malfeasance, as sales of mechanical watches would eventually be pummeled by the onslaught of cheaper, more accurate quartz watches in the 1970’s. Still, one can’t help but wonder… What if?

In 1913, outgrowing their downtown Cincinnati facility, Gruen purchased a plot of land northeast of town that overlooked downtown and much of the surrounding area. They built a chalet-style plant, and renamed the hill Time Hill. (It had been dubbed Nanny Goat Hill. The less said about that, the better.) Gruen opened the plant in 1917.

Now, when you build a watch, you want to be able to set it correctly and test it for accuracy before it leaves the plant. Swiss made watches today go through a third party certification process to be granted “chronometer” status, but in those days no such service existed. Gruen horologists wanted only the most accurate source for their testing. The most accurate source is, of course, astronomical observation – where are we in the universe. The official timekeeper for the United States was the Naval Observatory in Arlington, Virginia. (This was in an era when naval observatories were actually near the ocean.) The observatory broadcast radio time signals to the eastern half of the country. And that is where Time Hill’s geographic position was put to use.

A state-of-the-art device known as a wireless receiver was installed at Time Hill, capable of picking up radio signals sent from the Naval Observatory. This relatively long-range reception was made possible by the fact that in 1917 there were few radio transmitters in operation, most of them operated by the Navy along with a scattering of experimenters struggling to make a breakthrough in wireless telephony. Radio was strictly Morse code in those days: bursts of pops fired through the ether by means of what is known as the Spark Gap transmitter. (Remember back in school those Van de Graff generators the teacher hooked up in science class that could throw a lightning bolt several feet? Or think of a giant spark plug. That’s basically a radio transmitter in 1917.) One pop represented the number 1, two pops meant 2, and so on. If all this sounds rather less exciting than Rush Limbaugh let me remind you that in the day telephones were noisy and unreliable, and the ability to hear a ship at sea giving the location of a German U-boat during World War I was nothing short of miraculous.

But if you look close in the photo on Schliesser’s web site that won't publish here due to some crazy html hoopla, you’ll see there are two antennae on the roof of Time Hill. Gruen was not content with just receiving time signals. In a precursor to the motivations that would lead to department stores, car dealers, and eventually a certain radio maker named Crosley to build radio stations, Gruen installed one of the most powerful radio transmitters in Middle America. (That’s one really big spark plug.) Schliesser’s web site claims a signal range of up to 3,000 miles, a signal that would dwarf the current WLW nighttime contour and allow a gentleman of the day to set his Gruen – or any other brand of watch – to “Cincinnati Standard Time” in Tijuana, for whatever practical purpose that could serve.

Thus, as early as 1917, Cincinnati was a leading broadcasting city. And the question must be asked: Is this Ohio’s first radio broadcaster? Certainly, there must be a ship-to-shore station along Lake Erie that can dispute this claim. But for sheer audacity and commercial enterprise, Time Hill must lead the way in radio history.

Today, Time Hill sits obscured behind the MacMillan Street overpass. A few blocks away WKRC would locate their studios and transmitter through radio’s golden era. That studio and transmitter site is now the home of WAIF-FM. Just a block and a half east of the Gruen site stands the WCPO-TV tower.

Farewell, Silverman

noreply@blogger.com (stevef) — Wed, 29 Jul 2009 18:12:00 +0000

For those of us whose chosen profession includes sitting through NBC's prime time schedule, the question of "Who's gonna get fired for this mess?" was answered this week... sort of.

Ben Silverman is leaving NBC, apparently before the trap door could be sprung, to join IAC, a multi-media production company headed by Barry Diller. Silverman will stay on at the Peacock into September to launch the fall season and take credit for keeping Jay Leno, but not long enough to get his ass handed to him by Fox for a third year. Jeff Gaspin gets the fun job of mopping up after Community and The Philanthropist.

NBC gave the moon and the stars to the Olympics and the NFL, leaving prime time entertainment acquisition in a rough position: find some hits, but don't spend money on them. The Office is pretty much the only show to come through on that objective, a show that required very little in development (take a British comedy and change the accent) and needed only to write big IOU's to Steve Carrel, who now owns the network the way Cosby did in the '80's. The Gaspin interim period may be filled with back-to-back Office blocks, Steve Carrel hosting Saturday Night Live, Steve Carrel guesting on Leno, Steve Carrel guesting on The Tonight Show, a Steve Carrel bio on Dateline, and there's a rumor that they'll replace the naked guy statue in Rockefeller Plaza with a naked Steve Carrel. I'm really hoping that's just a rumor.

Given the budget constraints, it's amazing to look back over the Ben Silverman era and count the number of big budget single-camera film-based shows that were thrown against the wall only to slide off and splatter on the floor.

Take Crusoe, for example. Great ambition with this project: historical drama on prime time. Revisit Robert Lewis Stevenson with a more enlightened look at our man Friday, and lots of cool 19th century gadgetry. Oh, and pirates. Lots of pirates. Even a pirate chick. It was amazing how many pirates kept finding this out-of-the-way deserted island, and Crusoe just couldn't manage to get out of there. Gilligan! Throw in Sam Neil as a scheming baddie, and you have a show for the entire family that should've worked. Just one problem... Robinson Crusoe is a British novel. This isn't England. Americans want to see Americans in their TV shows. Besides, the "marooned on an island" thing promises chicks in bikinis getting buckets of spiders poured on them. That's what you should've done. It's more fun, and a lot cheaper to produce. Next!

OK, how about Merlin. A look at the teen years of a budding wizard in the Pendragon castle. Ooooo, nice. The Original Harry Potter. Lovin' it. And then add a wise old man mentor as the Dumbledoor character. Oh, and a dragon. An intelligent dragon hidden away in a cave straight out of The Hobbit. And the special effects. Lots of possibilities there. Gold. Pure gold. Should've worked, except for one problem... this isn't England. Raise your hand if caught you the foreshadowing significance of a boy named Mordred in last Sunday's episode. I thought so. Next!

Knight Rider. I get it. Revive a childhood fave that died in the 1980's. OK. Just one problem... this isn't England. Doctor Who succeeded as it did because in part of a loyal fan base that had been attending WhoFests and Sci-Fi cons for decades. Knight Rider? Not so much. Even Pontiac is going out of business. Besides, in the 2008 version we still had characters uttering the line, "The car talks!" Next!

Kings. Everybody say it with me... This isn't England!

The Philanthropist. Kinda hard to connect with one of the wealthiest men on the planet during The Great Recession. And he has a British accent. Why? Next!

Friday Night Lights. Finally, an American show with a uniquely American setting. Football in a rural Texas town too isolated from reality to get past its football fetish, but it has an Applebees - that was featured in each and every episode. Unfortunately, nobody in the top ten TV markets - including Houston and Dallas - cared to watch these characters bumble through their Bushland existence. The culture gap was far too wide to cross. Why would anybody want to live like that? Do none of you kids ever watch MTV? Don't you people have the internet? To big city viewers Lights characters all appeared to be suffering from a learning disability. Urban Americans prefer to watch characters who show a little intelligence.

You know. Like those chicks in bikinis getting buckets of spiders poured on them. Hey, offer me a million dollars. I'll do it.

Don't Read This!

noreply@blogger.com (stevef) — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 21:05:00 +0000

For a brief time back in college, I was a student teacher at an elementary school. I was working with a group of third graders on their creative writing assignments. One day, I asked them to write a story. I then told them to exchange papers with a classmate. I don't remember the logic behind this, all I know is I stumbled upon a wonderful experience. The kids would read a little of the other person's story, then start reading their own paper over the classmate's shoulder, and then grabbing their paper back saying, "Wait. Let me change that." Yes, my lesson plan was derailed, but the trade off was watching young writers willingly revise and edit their own work. The only problem I had to talk to them about was the fact that once you turn something in, you can't grab it back to fix something.

That was the 1980's. Today, young people text, email, and blog on a daily basis, and some have learned the hard way that once you put something out there in cyberworld, it's pretty hard to put that toothpaste back in the tube. But the adults haven't learned this lesson.

Some time ago, LeBron James got into a pickup game with an unknown college freshman. At some point, the unknown dunked on the great LeBron. The LeBron James Image Machine immediately leaped into action, confiscating video recordings and still images of the "incident."

Now, I've never been a "vid" at a news or sports event, so I don't know the proper procedure in these cases, but I can't imagine anybody, anybody, taking my tape away from me. I may be only 5'8" but that sonavabitch is going to have to get through me before he gets that tape. It's my property. (Well, the TV station's property, to be exact. But I'm responsible for it.) If you didn't want people shooting video in here, you shouldn't have invited a bunch of reporters in here in the first place. And unless we've somehow been transported into Cuba and Castro is in charge, there isn't a force in this world that can tell me what to do with my camera, or the images I shot with it. Taking things by force is defined as robbery in this country. Aggravated robbery if you get tough. OK, LeBron, you might get the tape, but you won't have much of an image to protect after I have you arrested and charged for aggravated robbery and assault.

Remember John Stewart making fun of President Obama's first pitch at the All Star Game. I hope you do, because you'll never see it again. Major League Baseball told Viacom, parent company of Comedy Central, to take it off the web. Viacom caved, opting instead to chose their battles, but at what price? Apparently now MLB can arbitrarily dictate what news footage can and cannot be used by a media organization. I had no idea that Major League was run by the Chinese Government.

If you own a Kindle, the e-reader device, you can download and store hundreds of books in the device. But, did you know they can be deleted - without your consent? Amazon.com's Big Brother pushed a button and extracted the works of George Orwell from Kindles all over the world. Apparently, the publisher hadn't cleared the rights properly. Had you brought the book in it's more conventional book form, and it was learned after the fact that the publisher had botched the legalities, it would've made for some interesting news viewing to watch Amazon try to break into people's homes to take back 1984. No sir, we're not here to take away your guns. We just want your books.

I could sound alarm bells about our freedom of the press being endangered. I could point out it's not that far of a leap between a pampered athlete's image people confiscating a basketball shot to a pharmaceutical company censoring newscasts for any negative mention of a drug with a serious side effect, perhaps weighing in some influence with lots of ad dollars spent during those newscasts. I could make a simile between Major League Baseball controlling their image by denying video of our elected Commander in Chief and the president of Iran denying the Holocaust, but that would be bordering on bad taste. And I could point out how that Holocaust started out with among other things the destruction of books, but that might make readers squirm.

Instead, I'll just be content with the knowledge that these things got out anyway. I saw blurry footage of the dunk on LeBron on TMZ. ESPN has made plenty if fun of it, too. John Stewart is The Most Trusted Man in America, a title I'm sure he finds as ironic as anyone. And your local bookstore is still selling Orwell in paperback. The toothpaste is out of the tube. And those who wish to grab it back and fix it need to go back to the third grade.

And Now, A Public Service Message

noreply@blogger.com (stevef) — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 21:17:00 +0000

Stay with me here.

The Columbus, Ohio ABC affiliate is WSYX - the call letters remind you to tune to channel 6.

Or they used to. After the analog shutdown, WSYX's digital signal is now on channel 13.

But the VHF signal isn't cutting through very well. So now, WSYX has applied to the FCC to move their digital signal to channel 48.

So, remember Columbus: be sure to rescan your digital TV in the coming months so you can receive Double-U Six on 48, not 13.

Television: making your life easier.

On Michael Jackson

noreply@blogger.com (stevef) — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 18:59:00 +0000

I've been waiting until the time is right to post anything on Michael Jackson. I wanted to take it all in and gain some perspective. That's the luxury of blogs. I don't have a deadline. I also don't have an editor or news director yelling, "Get me a local angle on Jackson! And don't mention the child molestation thing! I want schmaltz. Besides, Sony Music won't pay if we don't play along. Did I say that out loud? God, I need a beer."

Back in the 1980's, the City of Cincinnati, caught up in Hit King Fever, decided to honor Pete Rose by naming a street after him. Second Street became Pete Rose Way. And there was much rejoicing. And then came the gambling scandal. It's Second Street now.

Whatever your opinion of Pete Rose may be - and having only talked to him over the phone for about 20 seconds, I can say he seemed like a nice guy and magnanimous with his time when it comes to baseball - we can all agree that he will, indeed, someday be admitted into the Baseball Hall of Fame.

Posthumously.

Michael Jackson has passed not only beyond our earthly confines, but beyond our media scrutiny. In other words, it's OK to like him again. In the name of sensitivity and good manners, we must now judge him only by his accomplishments in his chosen field, and not dwell on the sordid details of his private life. Radio stations that, in response to listener backlash and advertiser hand wringing about airing the music of a child molester, had quietly "de-emphasized" Michael Jackson on their playlists, substituting MJ hits with superficially urban but ultimately inferior Prince songs, are now free not only to reinstate The King of Pop back into their All '80's weekends, but actually run dedicated blocks of his music or even All Michael Jackson Weekends. We're off the hook. Let the Thriller begin.

But should it have ever ended?

Gary Glitter has been charged and jailed for child sex offenses more than once. Is this taken into account every time your local baseball stadium plays Rock and Roll, Part II to rally the crowd? I heard Gary Glitter on the radio on the way home yesterday - on a station that won't touch Michael Jackson with a ten-foot pole.

John Lennon was murdered. His signature song, Imagine, was produced by Phil Spector, a man who has just been convicted of murder. Will this tarnish the beauty and the meaning of the song? Will the recording live on? Or will your local Mix station quietly de-emphasize it?

This December, will oldies stations somehow manage to misplace their copies of the "A Phil Spector Christmas?"

Did we ever stop listening to Jerry Lee Lewis? (Married a 13 year-old cousin) Chuck Berry? (Jailed in 1959 for basically being a pimp) The Platters? (Busted in, where else, Cincinnati on "morals" charges) And The Rolling Stones? (The Altamont Concert fiasco that resulted in 4 deaths, one a homicide)

What made Jackson different? Was it the weird plastic surgery face? Was it the protracted news coverage of his trial - the likes of which no other celebrity had ever faced? Was it due to MTV programing shifting away from music videos? Or was it perhaps due to The King of Pop's lack of output during and following his legal troubles?

Whatever the cause, it's a moot point now. Michael Jackson is legend now. And if you think the overload coverage of MJ is going away anytime soon, think again. We have to compensate for at least a decade when he was relegated to Second Street.

Additional Note

noreply@blogger.com (stevef) — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 15:09:00 +0000

If you are thinking about buying a microphone that costs more than a thousand dollars, and it will be used in your home studio, consider the fact that you will want to insure it.

A Neumann purchased by a recording studio or broadcasting facility would be covered under that operation's business insurance. It becomes a line item on a balance sheet that can be recouped in the event of a fire, break-in, flood, or other catastrophe. A boutique mic you bought as an individual for home use can also be stolen or damaged, but the cost of replacement out-of-pocket is probably beyond your means. And even if you can afford to replace it, you won't be very happy about it. All the more reason a quality mic that's "Damn close" to the Neumann sound might be a better buy. Besides, if your CAD M9 takes a walk, you can probably buy a new one the next day at Bob's Music. Good luck getting a Tiffany mic replaced any time this week. (Scroll back to why I suggested keeping a Shure SM58 on hand.)

This also applies to the preamp, which can run you well over a thousand just for an Avalon M5. (It sounds great, but it's light on features.) Ah, that $65 ART preamp doesn't look so bad now, does it?

If you still want only the best in your home studio, call your insurance agent and check on getting your gear covered in your homeowners policy. Put on your Big Boy pants and pay the insurance. It's worth it.

Tiffany Microphones

noreply@blogger.com (stevef) — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 18:13:00 +0000

If you followed my posts regarding home voice over studios and microphones, you noticed I haven't had much to say beyond getting started and settling in. I haven't reviewed Neumann mics or Avalon preamps and the like. This is because, as your experience grows, you need to listen to your ears more, and listen to people like me less. I can give you some advice if you ask, but overall you are the only person who can judge what works best for you.

A few months ago, I bought an AKG Perception 220 because of a low-low bargain deal I spotted. I paid about $160 all told, and I've been surprisingly pleased with the mic. My voice benefits from the mid to upper range sweetness of the AKG family. I started getting compliments right away, so the 220 has stayed on my mic stand and has become the workhorse. Not bad for under $200.

So, do I need a Neumann? Well, at the moment, my balance sheet says "No," and that may be all she wrote. But do you need a mic with a price tag over $1,000?

You should know that there are two mics that appear again and again in LA studios. One is the Sennheiser MHK 416, a hypercardioid "short shotgun" that rules the sound stages and Foley rooms throughout So Cal and beyond. It's a sleek beauty with a quality that makes your voice cut through the mix, not necessarily with balls, but with that "sweetness" I mentioned in the AKG. It's a different breed of mic than the typical studio condenser, and at an MSRP of $2,000, it's worth every penny. A nice choice if you don't like talking into a pop filter; the pattern on this baby lets you back off. But it will expose every bad habit you bring to it, and it can't make up for poor room acoustics. Yes, it will pick up your neighbor's dog barking... a block away.

The other is the stalwart of the recording booth, the one you're most likely to see in the behind the scenes voice recording footage of animated cartoons, the Neumann U87. At this moment, I should point out that Neumann is a religion all its own. They are that good. Neumann offers a wide selection of studio condensers with differences that range from the subtle - a U49 has a bit of high end loss when addressed off axis, which can be used to great effect to reduce mouth noises and sibilance - to the Holy Overengineered, Batman!" end of the spectrum. (Their most expensive mics, like the one that was on Jay Leno's desk, has infinitely variable pick-up patterns selected by remote control. Oh, and it comes in black.) The TLM series is transformerless design. The U's are old school Neumann. The M line is modernized classics like the 47. The BCM's are aimed at the broadcast market and contain the sole dynamic in Neumann's studio collection.

The U87 is a gentle, unforgiving, sensitive beast. If you're wearing headphones and have never used one before, the U87 will make you stop and go, "Whoa. I sound good." Unless you don't... then you'll stop and say, "Yeee cats! I sould like Gilbert Gottfried!" Your studio must be perfect. It too can pick up your neighbor's dog, but it'll be the best damn dog bark you'll ever record. At an MSRP of $3,800, that dog better sound like Harry Connick Freakin' Junior.

My advice is, if you can, test drive different mics at studios that have them, or a retailer, or make some professional connections and see if you can borrow one. (The friend that lets you borrow his Neumann is a friend indeed.)

Just like choosing a watch, you should pick the mic that you like. And you are the only person you need to impress. If you like what you hear when you test drive a Neumann, then by all means, get it. If you like Audio Technica, stay with it. And so on. Just don't be afraid to try something new once in a while. And grab a bargain when you can. You might be surprised.

Digital Rapture

noreply@blogger.com (stevef) — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 20:28:00 +0000

It's here. The post analog era of television. The Digital Rapture. Were you left behind?

At the this writing, the panic calls to our station have been sparse. I suspect they'll trickle in as the days pass. As I put it in an inner-office memo, there's bound to be somebody out there who won't notice the analog is gone until they try to tune in Saturday Night Live. After all, we are NBC.

I'd say the majority of the issues with digital have something to do with the antenna, with the rest of calls falling into the "Can't get this f____ converter box to work" category. Most people used to aim an antenna in the general direction of the TV station and watch to their heart's content. Digital requires that the antenna be aimed with the precision of a surveyor's laser sight, and focused to a degree just slightly less demanding than that used for the Hubble telescope.

A year or so ago, some jackalopes got on TV with those "Make the Switch" spots and told people that rabbit ears would do the trick. Anybody with any working knowledge of radio and television signals knew that this was baloney. Guess what? We've turned off the analog, and the rabbit ears aren't working. That's because these guys never told you how to use them. With a few easy steps from me, you'll be watching I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here in crystal clear High Def. No need to thank me.

Rabbit ears - dipole rod antennae, to be technically and linguistically correct (One antenna, two antennae) - never really worked well even back when Jackie Gleason was on Saturday nights. They are a compromise that served only those in urban locales with strong signals that bounced off of every solid surface known to man. What's really happening here is that a reflected signal is reaching one rod of the antenna at a slightly different time than the other. When this happens the wrong way, you see ghosts in the picture. But, if you angled the ears just right, you managed to cancel out the effect of the bouncing signal, kinda like the way the IRS cancels out your yearly income. Oh, and did I mention they only work on VHF channels? UHF gets the hoop, that equally useless piece of metal little TV sets used to come with.

Like women in a singles' bar, digital receivers only want a strong signal, and have a low tolerance for weak reflected signals, so the phase cancellation method the rabbits ears use doesn't work all that well. You have to go for the direct pickup. We're still talking about TV reception, right?

First, as I said, rabbit ears only work on VHF, channels 2-13. Moving the rods around might seem to do something on UHF channels, but what's really happening is your body is changing the reception. Step away and the signal reverts to where it was. If you don't have any VHF signals in your area, you can still use your new rabbit ears as modern art, a cap holder, or for Halloween when you want to dress up as Uncle Martin from My Favorite Martian.

Second, digital television broadcast signals use what's called horizontal polarization. Easy, folks; that's not the name of a porn movie. It simply means the signal travels from the transmitter in wavy lines parallel to the ground. You know, like Lindsey Lohan returning home on on a Saturday night. That means the best antennae use horizontal rods to catch or reflect the signal, which is why an outdoor antenna looks a bit like something you could use to hang your laundry on. That means the rods of your rabbit ears have to be down in a horizontal position.

Third, this arrangement must now be rotated to present the largest aspect to the transmitting antenna. In other words, turn it until one of the rods pokes you in the eye every time you walk near it, and you'll get perfect reception - assuming you're on the second floor or higher and have a picture window looking straight out in the direction of the TV station.

And it's just that simple. So, the next time some technogeek who works in television tries to tell you rabbit ears won't work on digital, you can say, "Mine do... if you could just step a few inches to the left, and hold up your right arm."

Shout! Shout! Let It All Out!

noreply@blogger.com (stevef) — Tue, 26 May 2009 21:40:00 +0000

These are the things I can do without:

"Jon & Kate." Who cares? Apparently, 9.5 million TV viewers, according to the Nielson numbers. What I want to know is who are these 9.5 million people and how can I avoid them? Okay, so here's the premise: this couple has twins, and then she pops out a litter of six. Once upon a time, to become a celebrity you needed talent at a legitimate art or craft, such as acting, dancing, music, or comedy. These days in America, you get over 9 million viewers just for doing the same thing a sow can do. Stop it.

This just in: some kids graduated from high school! There are roughly 50 school districts in my area of media influence. Every year around this time, they hold commencement ceremonies. They did it last year. They're doing it this year. They'll do it next year. It is a predictable event, and, unless the valedictorian accepts her diploma in the nude, not unique from any other commencement ceremony. Therefore - say it with me, news directors - This is not news. Stop wasting my time putting graduation stories in the newscast.

Sportscasts that forget to bring us the actual game. "And now let's go up in the bleachers and check in with Joe Schlock who's found some fans to talk to. Joe?" Joe then proceeds to yak with a fan, a group of fans who drove all the way in from Gemethefugoutta, West Virginia, or some old timer who remembers the big game on this day in 1957. "That was quite a day, wasn't it?" asks Joe. "Yeah. Yeah. It was quite a day," says the old timer. Meanwhile, the game itself is reduced to a postage stamp image on the screen, where we strain to see the grounder that got through the gap and the runner sliding at second. The only people who actually benefit from this is the local Radio Shack, who sees a run in replacement remote control sales the next day after hundreds of baseball fans threw theirs at the screen yelling, "Shut the **** up!"

Shows that have no ending. The Season Finale has become a tired excuse for not bothering to write a proper climax and wrapping the story. In other words, if they didn't slather it "A gripping finale that will leave you breathless" promotional blather, you'd swear it was just a show without an ending. Southland left me absolutely dumbstruck. Someone want to tell me how the policewoman and the gangbangers traded multiple rounds of serious firepower outside her house without anybody hitting anything? Come on. That getaway car should've looked like Swiss cheese. A blown tire, at least. How did the banger completely miss the policewoman, the house, the trees, Planet Earth with an automatic going like blazes? Then, on Sunday night, NBC reran part one of The Last Templar without bothering to tell anyone watching it was a two-part movie to be continued Monday. Oh, no, let's leave that to the affiliates to explain to the viewers who called to basically ask WTF? The difference between "Who shot JR?" and "Who cares?" is in the construction of solid storytelling from beginning to end... within this episode. That's called a "Cliffhanger." To do otherwise is called, "Cheating the audience."

Dramas that ask me to endure a badly sung, maudlin song during the final five minutes. This ain't Titanic, folks. ER was the worst. It's gone. Let's just let it go. If I want a reason to kill myself, I'll just look at last quarter's 401k statement.

Radio stations that stop the music at 4:20AM only to run six minutes of PSA's and a spot for a "get it up" pill. Hey. If you didn't sell the time, shut up and play the music! Corner the 23 year-old program director (an honorary title, at best) about this malady, and he'll eventually blurt out that the automation makes him do it. No, asswipe, you are supposed to run the radio station, not the computers. And if somebody in San Antonio tells you to subject your listeners to this crap, you say, "Okay." And then you go ahead and do the right thing anyway. Because a company that's a kabillion dollars in the red obviously doesn't pay attention to the details in the individual markets. And maybe one of the reasons you're so deep in debt is because you've pissed away your listeners playing six minutes of clutter for no reason. Grow a pair, Sparky.

Publications with web sites that take decades of credibility and prestige and flush it down the toilet faster than you can say, "Mortgage rates are lower than ever." Hey, US News and World Report... do you have any idea how difficult it is to focus on an article on North Korea's nuclear ambitions and whether or not China's condemnation is nothing more than lip service, when the there's an animated horse's ass wiggling along the right column? Either ask me to subscribe, or switch to reporting on Jon & Kate. At least I can read about horses asses while I'm looking at one.

Complaints

noreply@blogger.com (stevef) — Wed, 20 May 2009 14:44:00 +0000

Wow. You guys are angry. I mean mad as hell, and you're not going to take it anymore. Or has someone already said that?

Both Family Guy and Saturday Night Live last week ragged on pop-up promos, those annoying little graphics for upcoming shows that wedge themselves over your favorite programs. There's an article in the Chicago Tribune today joining in the rage. And I understand.

The industry slang for these things is "snipe." It's a simple technique; all you do is key in a source with the snipe material in the lower edge of the picture at the master control level. It's the same as when you see "This just in: a tornado warning has been issued..." or sports scores crawling, only this is promotional, not instructive. The recent innovations that have led to these things sprouting up like video weeds is: computers dedicated to doing nothing else but inserting snipes, and master control boards capable of keying in four or more sources over the main program source. That's right. I can, and occasionally do, lay in FOUR MORE THINGS over your favorite show. Some of them with sound.

Example: It's a Wednesday night, and Law and Order is on. As the show enters it's second segment after the first network commercial break, it is 10:09PM. I already have our local station's "crystal bug" keyed in on keyer #1. A "crystal" graphic is transparent, thus you can see it, but see through it and still see what's going on behind it, even though it's pretty small to begin with. The "crystal bug" is put there in part at the insistence of NBC to remind you that you are watching NBC on your local channel, but also to, and this is important, to discourage piracy. This is really important during sporting events that can end up on YouTube in five minutes. A local bug appearing on YouTube can help NBC/Universal track the pirates to their lair. Argh!

So, one source is already keyed over at the local level, when somebody at 30 Rock hits a button and starts keying in their own snipe. The peacock turns from crystal to solid color, and if the local station is doing their keying just right, it appears that the crystal bug changed right before your eyes. A banner opens up across the bottom of the screen, and we're told that we're watching Law and Order now - no shit, Sherlock - and coming soon it's America's Got Talent! As these things go, NBC seems to have the least offensive promotional snipes in the biz, with a general lack of images, moving or otherwise, and no sound. Of course, NBC is still waiting for Cheers to come back, and they've never really recovered from CBS stealing Jack Benny, so give them time.

As this is happening, the Wilmington, Ohio office of the National Weather Service has just issued a Breeze Warning for Wherethefugarewe County. Following our policy of keeping you informed with the News You Can Use, from the Station Where News is First, Live, and Local, with Late Breaking Developments, On-the-Spot Reporting, from reporters who Know the Miami Valley, we are honor bound in master control to activate the second keyer and insert a Weather Alert graphic in the upper left corner of the screen.

So, you now have 2 local key-overs, plus the network snipe... and for the first ten minutes of Law and Order the actual film of the show itself will continue to drop in their own title graphics telling us who wrote, directed, produced, executive produced, catered, and groomed Ice T's goatee. Somewhere underneath all this is a dead body - at least that's the inference I get from the dialogue.

Then, after the local break at 10:30ish, and I'm not making this up, I am required to use the keyer #3 to insert a local snipe about the transition to Digital Television. This not my idea. The FCC demands that we do this. Yes, that's right. The government is adding to the clutter. But is that really much of a surprise? I have to wait for my cue on the NBC timing sheet to insert this snipe, in order to prevent my local snipe from interfering with the network's snipes. I swear, I'm not making this up!

Put this same senario into an episode of Dateline, and we add keyer #4, the keyer that inserts the columns of fill graphics along the sides of the screen during standard definition 4:3 ratio programming. Viola! I've just maxed out our master control board. There are four things going on the air, and somewhere underneath it all is your favorite show.

We get complaints about other things, like commercials. One common question: "Why do you have to run that annoying song for cable TV over and over?"

Simple answer: Because the cable company pays us to do it. Same thing goes for all the other commercials. But I think the real question you're asking is, "Why do advertisers use the most annoying music ever foisted on a group of humans since the Waco Compound?"

Ever notice how a train whistle sounds? Or car horns? Or any other warning device? Those things are pitched out of tune on purpose in order to get your attention. (For you musicians reading this, they use augmented 4ths, diminished 5ths, minor 7ths, and chromatic steps. In other words, dissonance. Hey, it worked for Mozart. FYI: The old EBS tone still used in EAS emergencies is really two tones at half-step intervals.) Pretty harmonies won't wake you up and stick in your brain. Think of the first line of The Beatles' Michelle. What the heck is that chord when Paul sings "Ma belle?" You remember that, don't you? The difference is that McCartney is using the technique of tension and release to create one of the the most popular songs of all time. Advertisers use lots of tension with little, if any, release to jangle your nerves. A woman singing above her range in a whining voice while the musicians seem to be playing in another key grabs your ear and won't let go. The current state of pop music feeds this machine quite well. The ad agency geniuses who dream this stuff up hope it leaves a memorable impression. Based on the number of bitch calls we get, it apparently works.

Finally, we reach into the mail bag for this real letter from a concerned citizen. Here is an unretouched excerpt:

dear w*** at what point does it stop the filthy things you allow over the air I was watching my name is earl the other night for a few minutes and the flithy things so we have to start a boycott of your advertizers

I swear to God, that's real.

OK. Sir or madam, in respectful response to your letter... You only watched a few minutes of My Name is Earl? You didn't give us a fair chance. You needed to watch the whole show, and then The Office, and then Southland. Next, you needed to watch our late night lineup, starting with the monologue on The Tonight Show. Then you needed to catch Saturday Night Live. Had you watched a fair representation of our programming, you would've realized that we hadn't begun to offend you. Besides, how could you see anything objectionable through all our snipes and inserts?

Damn! There's only one solution to this problem... We'll add more snipes.

Take It With You

noreply@blogger.com (stevef) — Wed, 13 May 2009 00:21:00 +0000

So, what media do young people prefer these days? Here's a clue.

Last week, my wife and I took a trip to the Columbus Museum of Art. There, we saw the Ancient Egyptian collection "To Live Forever," including a few actual mummies and sarcophagi. The exhibit was geared to all ages, and there were number of kid-friendly details. At one point, there was a bulletin board posting the answers to the question: "What would you like to take with you in the afterlife?"

Zoinks. That's a big question for anyone at any age. As you might imagine, the answers ranged from the simple, ("My Qu' ran," "My Budda,") to the touching. ("My memories.") But a lot of young people want to take their i-pods wherever they go. I would say based on what I saw in this sample, portable music players rank number one as the media of choice. Something to remember if you want to connect with kids.

As for the museum bulletin board, my favorite answer read something like this:

"My savior Jesus Christ will provide me everything I need in Heaven.

But I'd still like to take my i-pod, my laptop, and my cell phone."

Let's hope Heaven has broadband. You know, if you go into your cell phone's contact list, and replace a person's name with "Heaven," then whenever that person calls you, your phone will display, "Heaven calling." I dare you to let that call go to voice mail.

Speaking of not having the nerve, during the past few months, I've programmed my TiVo to capture all the episodes of NBC's detective show Life. I really like the show, and I didn't want to miss any of it, but now the season is over, and I'd like to clear some space on my hard drive by deleting the show. So, I go into the options menu to do so, only to be faced with a display message that asks me,

"ARE YOU SURE YOU WANT TO DELETE ALL LIFE?"

I just can't do it.

Let's Put on a Radio Station!

noreply@blogger.com (stevef) — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 20:23:00 +0000

Every now and then, a friend, former co-worker, or professional colleague will send me an email, or approach me in person with a Great Idea for a Radio Station. This happens every now and then. You see, for the benefit of those of you reading this beyond my home town, radio is dead in Lima, Ohio.

Like a red shirted random extra on the old Star Trek, it went off on its own behind a Styrofoam rock formation, let out a scream, only to have Dr. McCoy pronounce, "He's dead, Jim." Only this is the episode where Kirk and Spock have found a time portal that might take them back to a point in time before the red shirt died. OR it might take them back to the 1970's where Kirk sleeps with Joan Collins and she ends up bitch slapping some blond alien in a fountain. OR it could take them back to the 1980's where Kirk disguises himself as a policeman in order to sleep with Heather Locklear. In the end, Spock says, "Captain, may I remind you of Starfleet's Prime Directive. Don't do anything that might interfere with the development of a species or otherwise exceed the special effects budget for this episode. Besides, Heather Locklear is out of your league, Dawg."

What was I talking about? Oh yeah. Radio.

Every now and then, somebody comes to me with an idea for starting a new radio station in Lima. "We've got the building," he'll say, "and the equipment, and this town is crawling with ex-radio jocks and news hounds. All we got to do is get advertisers, and believe me, pal, they'll be lining up to get on the air. We can do this!" Then they ask, "Are you in?" which really means, "Got any money for this?"

And, of course, I say, "No."

It's not that these people don't have business experience, or good moral character, or the common sense to know that Spock would never say "Dawg." The problem is this person is playing Mickey Rooney in one of those movies where he says, "We've got a barn, lights, musicians... Let's put on a show!" (If you're too young to have seen one of these movies, let's just say they're kinda like the original Scooby Doo in terms of story crafting and realism.) The idealism overcomes the reality.

I hate to break your heart, guys. I really do. I'm on your side when it comes to reviving radio. But the truth is, and this is going to hurt, but the truth is... nobody wants you to.

People used to rely on horses for transportation. Now I like horses. There's a lot of romanticism about horses, especially in an old western. A horse could be your best friend, a true companion, and even save the day. But the fact is horses must be fed, groomed, given medical attention - with a vet bill that exceeds the gross domestic product of Uruguay - and then you have to shovel out the stall. Believe me, no matter what romantic ideals some people have associated with travel by horse, the fact is as soon as the first cheap reliable motorcar was available, people bought a Model T, sold the damn horse, and never looked back.

Think of radio as a horse. I work in television now, and I make some pretty good extra money doing voice overs for ad agencies. You can wax nostalgic for radio all you want, but I'm not going back to cleaning out that stall ever again.

But the real problem is the need to see the medium in the scale of the larger world view. Let's take a look at another medium that was once a part of everybody's life, only to fall to a new technology. Movies.

Back in the early half of the 20th century people went to a movie house. Some may have gone two or three times a week. And the nightly lineup was like a night of prime time TV: a cartoon, a newsreel, a B-serial (with characters saying things like, "Let's put on a show!"), coming attractions, and then a feature film. And people liked it, but put up with some inconveniences to see a show: getting dressed for the show, getting to the theater, and enduring the clown behind you who talks through the movie. And most of the movies were rather mediocre.

Along comes a new technology, television. Suddenly, movie ticket sales fall. Why go to all the trouble to see a lame movie when you can stay home, put on your PJ's, and watch Milton Berle wear a dress? And it's free - once you've bought a TV. But you can watch now, pay later. People now have credit.

The movie industry could no longer operate under the assumption that there will always be an audience no matter what crapola they threw up on the screen. The entire business model of the industry had to change. It went from a production line type of system, where product rolled out regularly with lower quality, to what we now call the Blockbuster Mentality. You have to aim high. Go for broke. Everything has to be the next "Godfather" or "Star Wars" or "Titanic." Movie producers have little time for someone to waste on little movies. These days, a film that makes only $10 million is a disappointment. We want at least $100 million in the first weekend.

Radio needs to change its business model. And anyone thinking of diving into the business needs to be willing to approach it the way Steven Spielberg would. Go big, or stay home.

Radio cannot and will not survive with the current practice of having groups of stations up and down the dial playing ten-in-a-row of the same lame ass product that the record companies keep churning out. (There's another industry searching for a new business model, but I'm not about to punch that tar baby in this article.)

Nor will signing up for Rush and his imitators save your bacon. While P.T. Barnum's axiom about a certain audience demographic being born every minute certainly holds true in terms of sophomoric right-wing talk radio, and the advertisers willing to support that particular midway attraction, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that its influence is on the wane. El Rushbo himself is rarely a participant in conservative cable news outlets, but rather the subject of discussion. And Rush himself freely admits he is not a member of the "mainstream media," be that by whatever definition he chooses. No. Right wing talk radio is exists within the domain of the AM band, an abandoned and archaic means of transmitting our message to those who huddle around their wireless sets like so many refugees of a dictatorial regime. If only they actually had a dictatorial regime to huddle against... ah, but that's hardly the point.

If you seriously, and I mean seriously, want to start a new radio station, or revive an old one, follow these ten commandments to the Blockbuster Mentality.

1. Thou shalt not aim for mediocrity. "Bob and Tom" in the morning won't cut it. You need to pay major dollar for major talent. IN THE HOUSE! I don't mean Big Johnny Sunshine reading "This Day in History." A good way to judge major talent: if he showed up at the mall, would he draw a crowd to the point that the police would need to be called? Seriously, I mean drop a call to Harpo Productions and see if Oprah is looking for a little extra touch. I'm not kidding.

2. Thou shalt not do stunts. Stunts are passe. Leave the schoolboy practical joke crap to Howie Mandel.

3. Thou shall pay for professionals. That goes for all dayparts, all positions, in all departments.

4. Thou shalt have a bigass signal. In this age of WIFI and wireless phone coverage everywhere, nobody will have the patience to listen to a piddly class A FM with a signal that chatters at the city limits. On the AM band, anything less than 50,000 watts is a waste of time. Daytimers will be going the way of analog TV in the next decade. Don't sink money into one. Period.

5. Thou shalt spend major Bennies on promotion. Suck it up, Buttercup. You're in the big leagues now. If you're not comfortable writing a big check for a major multi-media promotional campaign, then open a sports card store instead.

6. The production department shalt not be thine sales staff's bitch. See commandment #3. Without the air talent, the sales staff will be back to telemaketing within the year. Remember that, Chukles, before you just assume a talent will do your lousy remote without being consulted.

7. News is King. Thou shalt worship no other god other before the News Director. If you can't figure out how to get a tornado warning on the air NOW, you might as well turn off the transmitter.

8. Thou shalt tolerate no hurtful messages. With the exception of the reasonable "hell" or "damn," no foul language. I'm not a prude, but there are kids in the car, and you should take that seriously. NO gay bashing. NO ethnic slurs, of any group. That includes Arabs and Persians. And if you don't know the difference between a Persian and an Arab, may I suggest a career in sanitation management.

9. Thou shalt avoid "fire sales." If you find the sales staff ringing bells, it's time to put the station on the block.

10. Thou shalt take pride in thine work. You have chosen a difficult task, trying to ride a horse-drawn carriage down a modern city street. But a horse-drawn can be beautiful for the sake of nothing more than itself. So enjoy it. Have fun.

And get a red shirt to clean out the stall.

My Childhood. Welcome To It.

noreply@blogger.com (stevef) — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 20:11:00 +0000

Holy crap! Look at what I just found.

Green Tambourine by the Lemon Pipers on Upbeat. Circa 1968.

This was produced for the syndicated music show Upbeat produced by WEWS-TV in Cleveland. The band recorded this at WCPO-TV in Cincinnati (both stations being owned by Scrips Howard.) Although on the web it looks like film, it's not. There's breakup about halfway through the recording. The segment had to have been shot with WCPO studio gear recorded on 2-inch Quad videotape. The tape would've been driven up Route 3 (no I-71 yet) to Cleveland where WEWS edited it into the master recording. It was the dawning of the age of electronic editing with SEMPTE time code, so they didn't have to actually splice/cement the tape into the master. The fact that this recording is "wild" tells me it's the orginal tape.

While it was easy to make multiple prints of film in the '60's, the common practice among a group of stations was to ship the one-and-only 2-inch master tape to the various stations airing the show. No satellite distribution, folks.

It's obviously lip synced to a 45 on the production room turntable.

Can anybody tell who the host is? I recognize the voice.

But here's the really groovy thing about this clip. The props used in the video are from WCPO's Uncle Al Show. The tin man, the elephant, and the carousel were regular features on the daily children's show. The fact that they are active in the video tells me the technical crew for Uncle Al was working this production. I'm guessing a few hours after this was shot, the studio had been rebuilt for a newscast and was on the air. Set crews worked every day at TV stations back then.

I was 5 years old, and a regular viewer of Uncle Al when this was made, so you can imagine the far out trip this took me back on when I found it. I had never seen it before now. I'm not sure Upbeat aired in Cincinnati.

One of these guys in the band is Bob Naive, who in later years became a jazz DJ on WVXU in Cincinnati, and got a "real" job as a - gasp - investment banker. No kidding. He handled my savings account. Money feeds his music machine.

This just might explain a lot about our current financial situation.

Just kidding, Bob. Please, don't sue.