• Get involved.
    We want your input!
    Apply for Membership and join the conversations about everything related to broadcasting.

    After we receive your registration, a moderator will review it. After your registration is approved, you will be permitted to post.
    If you use a disposable or false email address, your registration will be rejected.

    After your membership is approved, please take a minute to tell us a little bit about yourself.
    https://www.radiodiscussions.com/forums/introduce-yourself.1088/

    Thanks in advance and have fun!
    RadioDiscussions Administrators

Ksan (107.7 the bone) programming errors

E

EricSF

New Participating Member
So why is it that KSAN (The Bone) can never seem to figure out how to program their LEGAL IDs at the top of the hour? I know no one actually really cares, but I mean, the rule is the rule! Also, they broadcast in HD right? Well thats not mentioned on their TOTHs. KOIT seems to play their IDs whenever they want as well. This is just a pet peeve of mine. Whatever.

The real reason for the thread is this:

At least two times a week, right before the clock strikes midnight, The Bone will play a block of say 2 or 3 songs, and that same block (exact same song order and promos in between) will air right after the completion of the first block. I alerted them to this last year, and they said they would fix it. A year later and it still happens... Poor programming or a music scheduling software glitch I'm not sure, but it makes Cumulus and The Bone look very unprofessional in my opinion. Here is an example from their playlist:

January 27, 2018/January 28, 2018

11:49 Joe Walsh - Life's Been Good
11:57 Led Zeppelin - Going to California
12:01 Billy Idol - Rebel Yell
12:06 Led Zeppelin - Going to California
12:09 Billy Idol - Rebel Yell
12:14 Fleetwood Mac - Dreams

Any thoughts on why they don't seem to care. This literally happens every week, and I'm sure they are aware of it!
 
EricSF said:
So why is it that KSAN (The Bone) can never seem to figure out how to program their LEGAL IDs at the top of the hour? I know no one actually really cares, but I mean, the rule is the rule! Also, they broadcast in HD right? Well thats not mentioned on their TOTHs. KOIT seems to play their IDs whenever they want as well.
Click to expand...

The rule is that the ID must be as near as possible to the top of the hour without interrupting the flow of programming. Many stations feel that the now-irrelevant ID interrupts a music set, so they put the ID at the end of the last stopset of the hour. That might mean that the ID normally happens at :48 or :50 or somewhere around there.

Stations have been doing that for years and years, and no FCC action that I have seen has taken place. They obviously think that stations are in compliance as long as they consistently ID at some point in the hour.

"§73.1201 Station identification.

(a) When regularly required. Broadcast station identification announcements shall be made:

(1) At the beginning and ending of each time of operation, and

(2) Hourly, as close to the hour as feasible, at a natural break in program offerings. Television and Class A television broadcast stations may make these announcements visually or aurally."
 
EricSF said:
So why is it that KSAN (The Bone) can never seem to figure out how to program their LEGAL IDs at the top of the hour? I know no one actually really cares, but I mean, the rule is the rule! Also, they broadcast in HD right? Well thats not mentioned on their TOTHs. KOIT seems to play their IDs whenever they want as well. This is just a pet peeve of mine. Whatever.

The real reason for the thread is this:

At least two times a week, right before the clock strikes midnight, The Bone will play a block of say 2 or 3 songs, and that same block (exact same song order and promos in between) will air right after the completion of the first block. I alerted them to this last year, and they said they would fix it. A year later and it still happens... Poor programming or a music scheduling software glitch I'm not sure, but it makes Cumulus and The Bone look very unprofessional in my opinion. Here is an example from their playlist:

January 27, 2018/January 28, 2018

11:49 Joe Walsh - Life's Been Good
11:57 Led Zeppelin - Going to California
12:01 Billy Idol - Rebel Yell
12:06 Led Zeppelin - Going to California
12:09 Billy Idol - Rebel Yell
12:14 Fleetwood Mac - Dreams

Any thoughts on why they don't seem to care. This literally happens every week, and I'm sure they are aware of it!
Click to expand...

Calm down. Not worth getting in a tizzy.

Legals can be played roughly within 10 minutes on either side of the top and it's perfectly fine with the feds.

And at least the presumable software glitch is happening during the off-peak.
 
At one time, Cumulus was going to put all of its stations on OpX. Not sure if that's ever happened or not. From what I understand, the Cumulus stations I worked for 14 years ago are still running AudioVault. Anyway, it's possible that, at the beginning of the year, there aren't a ton of spots on the station, and its last hour is running short. If that's the case, someone in the building may just be replaying the first two songs of the midnight hour again to get the clock back on track rather than wake the PD up. Of course, it would depend on the system used. I think it was Maestro that used to pause until the top of the hour if the previous hour ran short. AudioVault used to just keep running, though you could pad hours, or even segments of hours, you thought would be short with "Simples," which would drop everything between the current song and selected cart numbers. One of the stations I worked at would schedule 60 minutes of music each hour and add three simples 20 minutes apart to make sure the hour didn't run short on weekends.

When it comes to the TOH, my understand was that the HD signal didn't have be ID'ed verbally. I had been told it could run on the display at or near the top of the hour and still be legal. Don't know if that happens at KSAN or not, but it seems possible.
 
As a long-time student of TOH IDs (yes, I'm a lamo radio-nerd), stations have been messing with the "legal" requirements since at least the mid 1960s. Probably before. I don't think the FCC cares in the slightest.

I've often wondered if the FCC ever said that it was OK that the legal ID could be sung, as with the famous "Boss Radio" IDs of the Drake era? Or when it became OK to tack on cities that were not the city of license, as in "<call letters>, San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose"

These burning questions keep me up at night. :rolleyes:
 
Is it true that the TOH ID was created to help pilots navigate? It was said that a wayward pilot might use his radio direction finder to track toward a strong radio signal. The TOH ID would let the pilot know what radio station he was tracking to or from. That's what my father told me.
 
LKellerIII said:
As a long-time student of TOH IDs (yes, I'm a lamo radio-nerd), stations have been messing with the "legal" requirements since at least the mid 1960s. Probably before. I don't think the FCC cares in the slightest.

I've often wondered if the FCC ever said that it was OK that the legal ID could be sung, as with the famous "Boss Radio" IDs of the Drake era? Or when it became OK to tack on cities that were not the city of license, as in "<call letters>, San Francisco, Oakland, San Jose"
Click to expand...

In 1971, I got a notice of violation from the FCC because the station I managed was noted giving it's ID outside the plus or minus 2 minute window. We were off by about 30 seconds, because in the Summer at that station's location WWV was often not receivable. To satisfy the Commission, we promised to buy an ESE "atomic clock" time standard to insure that such a violation did not occur again

So, yes, the rule was enforced.

But at the same time, the rules have been relaxed. They allow the inclusion of additional cities or areas after the community of license which simply comes first. They allow the ID to be run more flexibly, as the +/- 2 minute rule was eliminated.

There is no prohibition of singing jingle IDs. The rule is totally being followed, as what is important is the broadcast of the information, not the tone, inflection or style. And the Commission was certainly aware of jingles; I later got another notice from them suggesting that our singing EBS test was not in compliance with the spirit how serious the EBS system was intended to be.

I think, over the years, the FCC has realized that the frequent ID is an anachronism. They killed the second ID at :30 about 50 years ago. They must know that the importance of station IDs is not as important (identification of interference) as it once was and really does not serve much of a useful purpose.
 
TeaPartyDude said:
Is it true that the TOH ID was created to help pilots navigate? It was said that a wayward pilot might use his radio direction finder to track toward a strong radio signal. The TOH ID would let the pilot know what radio station he was tracking to or from. That's what my father told me.
Click to expand...

Don't know if that's true or not, but it's certainly possible. A friend of mine 25 years or so ago worked for the Tulsa Life Flight in the dispatch center at one of the local hospitals. There was a gigantic map of Oklahoma and every state that bordered it with the location of every AM transmitter in those states by calls on one of the walls.
 
My biggest concern with 107.7 is the fact the station seems to have not changed in its dang playlist in the last five years. Same crap...played day...after day...after day.

107.7 the Bone - the rock station for Grampa.

I liked the station so much better when Susquehanna owned it.
 
I think you can say that for a great many of the former Susquehana stations. But, times have changed too and perhaps Susquehana wouldn't be the premier operator they were 10 years ago.
 
I agree

MarkW said:
My biggest concern with 107.7 is the fact the station seems to have not changed in its dang playlist in the last five years. Same crap...played day...after day...after day.

107.7 the Bone - the rock station for Grampa.

I liked the station so much better when Susquehanna owned it.
Click to expand...

I agree, I'd like to see an active rock station like 98 ROCK (KRXQ Sacramento) in the SF market. The Bone's playlist sucks. KFOG's playlist isn't great, and "Alt 105-3" is certainly not my cup of tea. Rock radio in the Bay Area is dead, which is sad considering the market was at the forefront of both progressive and freeform radio formats, not to mention modern-rock. SAD.
 
EricSF said:
I agree, I'd like to see an active rock station like 98 ROCK (KRXQ Sacramento) in the SF market. The Bone's playlist sucks. KFOG's playlist isn't great, and "Alt 105-3" is certainly not my cup of tea. Rock radio in the Bay Area is dead, which is sad considering the market was at the forefront of both progressive and freeform radio formats, not to mention modern-rock. SAD.
Click to expand...

I have to ask - isn't FM music radio becoming increasingly irrelevant? Between MP3s, internet sites like Spotify and Pandora, and all the free music videos on You Tube - why would I want to be subjected to anybody else's playlist? I can build my own in just a few minutes on Spotify.

I may be in the minority, but the thing that made radio special were the personalities (DJs), but now they're so limited in how often they can open the mic - and generally just voice-track a few trivial comments or show-bizzy gossip tidbits that are barely connected to the music. That may be what listeners want in general, but not me.

Personally, I'll occasionally listen to KFOG for rock, or KBLX for soul - just to see if there are any old songs in their genre that I managed to miss. I'll more rarely do the same with KMEL, Now, or Wild, because - old fogey that I am - I do like some new music. But more than a few minutes, and I get bored - not to mention the torture of those 5 minute stop sets.

Around the holidays, the blue-tooth in my car was inoperative for a few days, so I was listening to morning radio on my commute. Generally awful. For example, Martha Quinn on iHeart [email protected] ...truly painful. She may have been "the cute VJ" on MTV 30 years ago, but...just...ugh.
 
LKellerIII said:
I have to ask - isn't FM music radio becoming increasingly irrelevant?
Click to expand...

Well, in San Francisco, 90% of the 18+ population listens to an average of 9 1/2 to 10 hours of radio a week. That is a huge market for advertisers (who pay based on delivery) and they spend $300 million a year to reach those consumers.
 
9 1/2 to 10 hours of radio a week? Radio stills seems pretty relevant to me. The days of being infatuated with DJs and the like are obviously long gone. But, the ease of hitting buttons on your car radio (for free) to get instant entertainment is still compelling (even if we don't all like the product...someone does). For me, I still want to hear new music...KFOG and Alt (Live) 105 provide that in the rock format. My Spotify lists will include some of the new stuff I hear on those stations.

Regarding rock radio, if you think it's weak in the Bay Area, you should check out Houston. They have a grand total of two stations playing rock (one doing Alt and another doing classic). That's it.
 
The audio chain sounds rather dull. I remember hearing more bottom end on AM music stations in the 70’s! Cold As Ice by Foreigner just played and normally that would practically shake my truck. This time with the equivalency of an outdoor blue tooth speaker.
 
Regarding rock radio, if you think it's weak in the Bay Area, you should check out Houston. They have a grand total of two stations playing rock (one doing Alt and another doing classic). That's it.
Click to expand...

I'll take 94.5 The Buzz in Houston any day of the week over the Bay Area stations!!
 
I'll take Q102 from Philadelphia over most Bay Area radio stations! :)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Status
This thread has been closed due to inactivity. You can create a new thread to discuss this topic.
Back
Top Bottom