Why Radio Stations Are Gross Petri Dishes

http://wpdh.com/why-radio-stations-are-gross-petri-dishes/

Seriously, don't stations keep a canister of sanitary wipes and a bottle of hand sanitizer in the control room? They can get these from Dollar Tree if money is a big issue. But in 2018 with who knows what out there (and being standard in nearly every office.) I thought with a lot of people touching the same board/keyboards/screens/ etc that it was already just a status quo thing.

Thoughts?

This applies to any job where workers share facilities. Imagine being a checkout person at a grocery store. Your fingers touch the same cash register as the person before you. If that person has a cold, you will have a cold. Every customer who walks through your line is a potential cold carrier. Even the money you touch could have germs. In our place, we keep disinfectant in every studio. People are encouraged to wash their hands frequently, and the engineers clean the consoles, monitors, and even the counters between every show.

But the story I thought about when I saw this was the first radio station I worked at. I did overnights. That was when the cleaning service came in. One night, they sprayed Lysol disinfectant on the microphone. Lysol has a distinctive smell, and the mic is right under the talent's nose. The morning man spent his entire show blaming me for stinking up the mic.

Everyone who's ever been in radio has a story like that. Unless you have your own personal studio. Some of the top morning shows have that. But it's rare.

Radio studious are incredibly germy, no doubt about it. Even with Lysol, hand sanitizer and wipes, there’s only so much you can do. There are only so many places on a board that you can get.

In 8 years of working in radio in various full and part-time capacities, I can only think of one time one of my stations got decimated. Ironically, I was one of two people who never got the viral infection that wiped us out. That meant lots of long days over a 10 day span.

Ah yes. Working at a Top 40 with an AM country, both live 24/7, the flu hit. We were to wipe everything down with Lysol, give the room a good spray and gather our headphones and microphone foam at the end of the shift. It didn't help much. After a few days my sick boss was doing mornings and midday. I was doing afternoon drive and then down the hall to do 7 to Midnight on the Country station. I remember symptoms hitting me about 5 that afternoon. I followed through with the shifts but the midnight shift guy at the AM called in sick. The AM PD slated to work at 6 finally relieved me about 1 or 1:30 am. He wasn't well either. As usual, it's the PD and MD that get stuck, sick or not, covering shifts because somebody has to do it. I did double duty a few days without the luxury of staying in bed.

time and time again, the Russ Martin Show on KEGL 97.1 The Eagle in Dallas has reference that he needs Lysol spray in the studio to help sanitize it. plus in recent years, Russ has had health issues relate to a blood clot and heart issues he suffered from in 2016.

One of my local news heads remarked the other day that a dollar bill has more germs on it than the average toilet seat.

I did not test out that theory but it makes sense that I only use my credit card instead of cash and I am the only one handling it.

I know someone who used to spray the studio with his own blend of palmarosa essential oil, rubbing alcohol, and distilled water. It was more effective and it smelled better than a commercial disinfectant.

Same with aircraft. If anyone is concerned, they can easily bring a small package on wipes.