Oops… I Didn’t Mean To Push That Button:

I graduated from college from a Broadcasting and Communications program. Why? At the time I thought it would be an interesting field to work in, and it was at the time.

We had a working radio and TV station at the school that the students operated. However, I continued long after graduation and worked at a few stations here and there, and I still have a group of “broadcasting friends" to this day.

Although many of my broadcasting friends now despite the industry for various reasons. I think a lot of it may have to do with many of them not being able to secure full-time employment for a long period. The same happened to me but I made the best of it. A lot also has to do with there being so many negative changes.

Broadcasting used to be real work but it was fun and challenging. I still remember those days.

There is quite a bit of difference between TV productions and radio productions as far as how people work. With a television production, every person has a specific job and you only do that job even if you know how to do other things. For example, a camera operator is not allowed to touch anything audio related. If a camera person needs audio cables to be moved, it must be done by a designated audio operator. Radio, on the other hand, is the exact opposite. One person does everything. You might have the program producer also host and operate. I like radio production better for that reason.

I still produce and host radio programs although very differently now.

Working on TV production was a challenge at times. I remember pre-digital times. The tape room with many videotape players, but these didn’t use cassettes, oh no, they were giant heavy reels of tape. You had to manually thread the tape through the capstan and around the head drum.

Speed was important. The faster you could load and cue a tape the more valuable you were. I remember that I had one of the fastest times. I could load and cue usually in under 15 seconds. Now there is no more tape so that means nothing now.

At one point I was familiar with many aspects of the TV program production world. Whether it be tape, camera, audio, writing, directing, floor manager, producing, or talent coordinator, I did it all. My least favourite job in TV was audience coordinator. Believe me, I so badly wanted to boot some of those people right in the ass. Call screening during live call-ins was part of that. The number of people I “accidentally” hung up on was off the scale.

There are a few interesting stories that go along.

IT RAINED ON OUR PARADE

I remember doing a mobile production one late spring. It was a parade and it was an absolutely gorgeous day for one. At least it started out that way.

It was a small crew, only four. The pre-production and the beginning of the parade went great. Gleeful parade participants with big smiles going by. Then at about halfway through we began to hear thunder so we had to shut down. Station policy was that outdoor productions of any kind had to shut down if there was lightning. We brought in the cameras and were about to take cover when we noticed a funnel cloud beginning to form. With nowhere else to go we waited it out inside a local business. The day became night and the intense rain turned into marble-sized hail.

An EF1 tornado was casually passing through the area. For a good 10 minutes, the area was pelted by hail and high winds.

When it was over the poor parade participants could be seen returning, but this time not so gleeful.

SANTA CLAUS WON’T BE COMING TO MY HOUSE

It was mid-December and we had brought Santa into the TV studio and kids could call in. I was on audio for that production and was therefore also responsible for putting the calls into the studio and on air. It was hectic. At one point the switchboard froze and Santa had to ask everyone to hang up. That gives an idea of how busy it was, but also keep in mind that I also had to watch the audio levels. That is difficult on a call in because you have no idea how loud a caller is going to talk. Surprisingly, it went smoothly as long as there were only one or two kids at a time. Then there was the call from hell. There were something like nine kids who wanted to talk to Santa. At one point I had lost track of how many kids there were, so after the last one, I disconnect the call. Then Santa said, “Is there one more?” The next thing everyone heard from the audio both, “ Oh shit!” I heard laughter from master control. Santa in all his great wisdom calmly said, “I think we lost that caller". To this day I still feel bad about denying some kid the chance to talk to Santa Claus. Please limit your calls to Santa to two kids per call.

CRASH!

Odd and interesting things didn’t happen with just TV.

Radio also had its share of fun and games.

At one-time radio stations used an audio recording format known as 'carts’. They were continuous-loop tape cartridges that were mostly used for ads, promos, and station IDs. When the carts were recorded there is a 'stop' signal placed at the beginning so the cart stops playing and is ready to go again right away.

We had something called a log. On that log was a list of ads, PSAs, promos, and station IDs that we had to play. With the exception of ads we could play them anytime we wanted as long as they were played during the specified hour. The only regulation (law) was that a station ID had to be played at least once every 15 minutes. I would like to add that many stations play IDs too much. I don’t need to be reminded of what station I am listening to after every freaking song! Okay, moving on…

When I came in generally 30 minutes before the start of my show I would pull all the carts that I needed for the show, which were a lot because I had a three-hour show, and I would stack them. Once I had them all I would break the stack down in 30-minute stacks so they would be ready.

One day I was running a bit late and on that same day, the news studio was down, so the news had to be done from my studio. In the rush of things, I had forgotten to break down my stack of carts. There we were with a two-foot-high stack of carts right there in the studio during a newscast. While the news presenter was in the middle of reading a serious news item about a plane crash, my stack of carts decided that would be the perfect time to fall over. The microphone picked it up quite nicely. The whole station broke out in laughter all the while the poor news person had to work very hard to keep from laughter himself. Kudos to him for his professionalism.

THE REAL THING

I was not responsible for this but I certainly had a good time with it. Unfortunately, not everyone at the station shared my sense of humour.

There is a reason why certain things are not allowed in the control room. Smoking, eating, drinking, are a few examples, but sometimes people forget and it comes at a costly price.

One day I went into the radio station and for some reason, they were doing our broadcasting from the production studio instead of master control. I asked the station manager what happened to the control room and he said that someone had spilled a Coke into the board. (Internal cringe).

The following day there was a “new" board in master control. It was huge and made out of steel. It looked like it was from the 60s. It was bulky and difficult to use but we all made the best of it because we really didn’t have a choice.

It thought it would be amusing to put a sign up that read, “THIS AUDIO BOARD IS ON LOAN FROM THE SMITHSONIAN”. We all found it humorous except the station manager. Some people have no sense of humour.

Anyway, the board was replaced with a new one a few weeks later. I wonder what happened to that old board? It is probably in storage someplace just in case someone once again needs an emergency late-night cola fix.

The above were all real experiences from my time working in Broadcasting. Will I ever go back? Not likely. It is not fun anymore. Everything is done by computer now. I liked manually preparing my shows. For now, I will stick with my internet stations. I have full control and I don’t have to answer to anybody.