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New Year's Rockin' Eve simulcasting on iHeart stations this year

C

crainbebo

In a first for the long-running Times Square celebration, the ABC network audio will be simulcast on 150+ iHeart stations, Sun. Dec 31st. WHTZ is the flagship station.

(I wonder if they are all live to Eastern time, with the ball drop at 8:59 PT ala CNN, or like the TV feed, a good ole' tape-delay?)

radioinsight.com

iHeartMedia Stations To Simulcast New Year’s Rockin’ Eve - RadioInsight

“Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve with Ryan Seacrest" will get a first time radio simulcast on New Year's Eve as 150 iHeartMedia stations will air ABC's annual event on Sunday, December 31 at 8:00pm. The program will air on stations including WHTZ New York, KIIS-FM Los Angeles, WKSC Chicago...
radioinsight.com radioinsight.com
 
crainbebo said:
I wonder if they are all live to Eastern time, with the ball drop at 8:59 PT ala CNN, or like the TV feed, a good ole' tape-delay?
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You ask a good question. Reading the press release, it says it will begin at 8PM EST. If it was going to follow TV for the west coast, the release would have said 8PM EST/PST, to account for the replay. They use the word "simulcast," and if they are true to that word, then audio should follow video for the western and mountain time zone.

There haven't been a lot of simulcasts lately because audio for TV has become so much better than it used to be. I have a Bose soundbar for my TV, and I love it. I'm probably not the only one. If I wasn't so lazy I could also integrate my TV with my audio receiver, for Dolby surround sound as well.

Simulcasts can be touchy things in the world of digital delivery. There's that pesky think called sync that drives engineers crazy. I've seen a lot of simulcasts done, and typically what you do is have a sync track run simultaneously so that both audio and video sources are in sync. But then you have separate delivery systems where they sync can get screwed up. So we'll see how they handle all this. In my opinion, it's great radio. All of the various New Year's Eve shows should be simulcast on the radio. But nobody (including ME) wants to work on New Year's Eve. The one time I did, I was in the union, and got paid double time & a half, or what we call Golden Time. What I learned when I got into management it's often hard to get a sponsor for anything that happens in that week after Christmas. So I get it. Hats off the iHeart for bringing back simulcasts, and doing so with this show.
 
They may be able to get it close in sync. But with Station STL, Encoding delay for HDTV and HD radio it will be tough, you would need a delay for each station that syncs.
 
xmtrland said:
They may be able to get it close in sync. But with Station STL, Encoding delay for HDTV and HD radio it will be tough, you would need a delay for each station that syncs.
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I don't think the assumption that people will use radio audio along with TV video is correct. I think the idea is to have the audio available for people who can't be by a TV at that time. Lots of folks are working... from the kitchen and wait staff at bars and restaurants to firemen to employees of power companies and so on.
 
DavidEduardo said:
I don't think the assumption that people will use radio audio along with TV video is correct.
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That's probably right for the reason I stated earlier: That TV audio has greatly improved from the days of "FM stereo simulcasts" in the 70s and 80s. However, using the word "simulcast" implies it will be simultaneous. So then the question is will it be simultaneous only in the east and central time zones, or will they do a west coast feed that will be simultaneous with TV? The press release implies it will just be the one feed at 8PM EST.
 
TheBigA said:
That's probably right for the reason I stated earlier: That TV audio has greatly improved from the days of "FM stereo simulcasts" in the 70s and 80s. However, using the word "simulcast" implies it will be simultaneous. So then the question is will it be simultaneous only in the east and central time zones, or will they do a west coast feed that will be simultaneous with TV? The press release implies it will just be the one feed at 8PM EST.
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Just the encoding of an average DTV signal in your local market takes between 8 and 13 seconds from real-time. Then add in network delays, and :00 in real time will be viewed at your TV around 15-20 seconds later.
 
Kinda curious what happens during the 10pm-10:30pm window that ABC affiliates will do local news on. I take it this is strictly iHeart doing this and not their Premiere arm?
 
Nathan Obral said:
Kinda curious what happens during the 10pm-10:30pm window that ABC affiliates will do local news on. I take it this is strictly iHeart doing this and not their Premiere arm?
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They don't appear to be offering this outside of iHeart, so it's not a Premiere show.

As for filling the local news time, I suspect that's going to be Ryan and his team on site filling the time until they rejoin ABC at the bottom of the hour. Whoever it is, it won't be local news.
 
TheBigA said:
They don't appear to be offering this outside of iHeart, so it's not a Premiere show.

As for filling the local news time, I suspect that's going to be Ryan and his team on site filling the time until they rejoin ABC at the bottom of the hour. Whoever it is, it won't be local news.
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That's what I figured. :)
 
IHeart stations will just go back to 30 minutes of non-stop music (and maybe one ad break) until 10:30 when they rejoin the feed for Ryan Seacrest. I'm pretty sure that's what will happen.

Nashville's Big Bash on CBS should also be simulcast on the radio, but dream on, at least for this year. That's what I will be watching most of the night. But around 11:50, I say adios, as I go to KING-5's online feed and watch the Space Needle fireworks celebration live.

When did the 7-sec. delay begin for Rockin' Eve? Sounds like a silly question, but I'm curious. If I were to jump back to the Dick Clark days and watch an '80s ball drop, did the 'ABC Time' ET clock match with NIST/WWV exactly?
 
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