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Why does WBZ have a really annoying ticker?

K

kramie13

Yesterday during Jeopardy, WBZ ran a ticker to alert viewers that the Friday episodes of Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy will be airing on WSBK because WBZ will be airing Patriots All-Access. While running said ticker is good in theory to alert faithful viewers of the game know where to find them...
  1. Why does the station always have to play a very annoying "dun-dun-dun dun, dun, dun-dun" sound along with the ticker?
  2. Why does the ticker have to play AGAIN (with the same annoying sound) at the start of the Double Jeopardy round? The "dun-dun-dun dun, dun, dun-dun" sound really interferes with Ken Jennings announcing the categories. It really clashed with Alex Trebek's voice when he was hosting the show.
  3. Can't they just run the ticker during one of the commercial breaks? That way it doesn't interfere with the game show? Running it just after coming back from commercial is a giant middle finger to the viewers!
 
kramie13 said:
Yesterday during Jeopardy, WBZ ran a ticker to alert viewers that the Friday episodes of Wheel of Fortune and Jeopardy will be airing on WSBK because WBZ will be airing Patriots All-Access. While running said ticker is good in theory to alert faithful viewers of the game know where to find them...
  1. Why does the station always have to play a very annoying "dun-dun-dun dun, dun, dun-dun" sound along with the ticker?
  2. Why does the ticker have to play AGAIN (with the same annoying sound) at the start of the Double Jeopardy round? The "dun-dun-dun dun, dun, dun-dun" sound really interferes with Ken Jennings announcing the categories. It really clashed with Alex Trebek's voice when he was hosting the show.
  3. Can't they just run the ticker during one of the commercial breaks? That way it doesn't interfere with the game show? Running it just after coming back from commercial is a giant middle finger to the viewers!
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Yours sound like valuable comments. Have you tried communicating with the station?

Often what is heard in the studio is not the way it will sound on home equipment, ranging from cheap built-in microspeakers in TVs to $1,000 and more sound bars in high-end installs. The station needs to know what kind of set you have (model, size, year) and if you have a sound bar or speaker system.

"Back in the day" of AM radio music stations and cheap record players, most recording studios had a set of small (4" was typical) speakers that they played back different mixes so they could hear how the home user would hear their songs. It's the old "concert hall to garage" comparison of equipment and environment.

Hopefully your comments will guide the station to enhanced performance.
 
kramie13 said:
Can't they just run the ticker during one of the commercial breaks? That way it doesn't interfere with the game show? Running it just after coming back from commercial is a giant middle finger to the viewers!
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I'll take a shot at this one. It's simple: the advertisers are paying for the time to air their messages. They don't want anything extra to intrude on the *carefully crafted* audio or video of their spots. Message tickers are programming, not advertising, so the station provides schedule updates during programming. (The same goes for news, weather, traffic alerts too, unless it's to alert viewers to news of immediate and urgent importance.)
 
There's a reason for the tones: WBZ is using the same system to generate the programming crawls that it uses to put emergency weather information on the screen - and it's required by law to provide an audible tone with emergency information so that vision-impaired users can know there's an alert.
 
fybush said:
There's a reason for the tones: WBZ is using the same system to generate the programming crawls that it uses to put emergency weather information on the screen - and it's required by law to provide an audible tone with emergency information so that vision-impaired users can know there's an alert.
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Thank you, I never thought of these alerts catering to the visually impaired. But it still doesn't explain why they run the ticker TWICE during Jeopardy - once at the start of the show and again at the start of the Double Jeopardy round, right when the categories are being introduced.
 
fybush said:
There's a reason for the tones: WBZ is using the same system to generate the programming crawls that it uses to put emergency weather information on the screen - and it's required by law to provide an audible tone with emergency information so that vision-impaired users can know there's an alert.
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Is there a specified level for the tones? It sound like poster kramie felt they were "overpowering" or "drowning" the regular content that it was "overlaid" on.
 
Bumping this thread. WBZ ran its annoying ticker 2 Jeopardy episodes in a row, when it was completely unnecessary!

On Wednesday 1/10, the ticker read "Friday's episode of Jeopardy will air on WBZ at 7:30" - that's normal.
On Thursday 1/11, the ticker read "Friday's episode of Wheel of Fortune will air on WSBK at 7:00" - okay, that's a programming change, but it doesn't need to be run during Jeopardy!

And this ticker ran twice in EACH episode (first during the contestant interview segment, then again at the start of Double Jeopardy), AND with that extremely annoying "da-da-da, dun, dun dun-dun" sound! Where can I file a formal complaint?
 
DavidEduardo said:
Is there a specified level for the tones? It sound like poster kramie felt they were "overpowering" or "drowning" the regular content that it was "overlaid" on.
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It depends. The tones are supposed to get your attention of impending weather, or whatever. The graphics system or device in the program line will generally duck the primary audio for that purpose. Also, if they're watching with 'descriptive audio' or SAP (Second Audio Program) turned on their TV (which it's surprising how many people do and don't know), then the main program audio can be completely dropped and a synthetic voice reads what's on the ticker.
Over the years I've had to speak with many an irate TV watcher who has SAP turned on and either hears their favorite program or game in Spanish, or Mr. Syntho-voice reading a weather ticker.
 
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