John Mc

This is a collection of my thoughts. Some of the thoughts that I once had, I no longer do. Some thoughts I have now I have never had. Yet none shal be discounted. This blog is soley for the enjoyment of the author and the readers. On occasion the views expressed are overly exagerated in order to prove a point. Also there may be a dirty word or thought in some of the posts. Grow up and take this for what it's worth - a blog that barely anyone will ever see.

3/22/2006

What's Up

I have been out of the loop lately. Many of you may have noticed that I haven't posted here in a while and that it's become rather difficult to get a hold of me on my phone and it takes me forever to respond to an e-mail or voice message. Sorry about that. I have been SWAMPED at work for some time.
It came down from the corporate offices that we would be going to satellight programming. We were ok with that because it would be nice to have SOME voice on the air when there wasn't someone on. As it stands right now, from midnight to 6am weekdays there is just music and commercials. This might be odd for you folks that are used to Chicago radio, but in smaller markets the finantial ability to have someone on 24/7 is very rare. Even a pre-recorded show like the stations in Joliet do.
We then found out that the format of our station would change as well. We would still be country, but we would be dropping the legends from our rotation. We would just play the current songs, but neglect the classics like Willie and Cash. Our audience would have had a fit. We fought that and got a format that is very similar to ours that mixes them up just as much as we do.
THEN we found out that they were going to drop the syndicated shows in inbetween our shifts. They would cut each of our shifts down by as much as half and bring in some jack-ass from Detroit or something. Then go to someone locally, then back to another random jack-ass. Why would they do this? The first obvious reason would be cost saving. But, when majority of your staff is salary, there isn't any money saving. So, it would be pure stupidity.
What does this all mean for me? Well, in one word: Hell. I have to program the computer to go to satellight programming and then go back to live shows and then back. This has to happen 11 times a day M-F and several times on the weekend. These programs have to be put in place the day before they go in, if they are installed completely before the change happens, then it messes up the entire process. We would half way go to the new schedule and it would sound almost as bad as it is projected to sound.
Also, I need to contact everyone and their brother to make sure that we change up our liners and sweepers. Those are the things inbetween songs that say "WBBM Chicago - B96" or "The Killer B - B96" on B96, for example. So, I need to write these, send them out. Have some nutjob record himself saying what I wrote in to him and then have it sent back to me. Then I put the music and the woshes, sweeps and explosions under each of them. I then have to catalogs them and store them in the computer under the right numbers so they are pulled up at the right time based on how long they are 3 seconds, 7 seconds or 10 seconds.
I have had to orchestrate this between several different sources and several different people. I've talked with their general manager, production guys, engineering staff and their cleaning crew - I think. I have been on the phone with New York, Dallas, Washington DC, LA and everywhere inbetween. Everyone has to be on the same page and with all the changes, the damn page gets turned nearly every few seconds! So, what I accomplished over here has to be destroyed and re-created under this heading so everything gels when it gets into place. If it ever does.
We also have an electronic sign for our station that has just crapped out on us, so I've been on the phone with their tech support to see if we can get that up and running. And all of this on top of what I have been doing usually. This include the updating and imaging of our AM station and staying in contact with all the contacts for that station. I just found that they are going to be dropping one of the shows that we carry and we have to re-submit a contract that has to go through my hands, my boss's hands and needs to be signed by the head of the company. He usually makes adjustments, sends it to them and then they send it back to him for a final signature to send it back to them. This process takes about 6 freakin' months. We need to have this ironed out by April. We either need to accept their new show or find our own. And he isn't going to find anything. And there is no way in hell that I'm going to start researching AM talk shows again to find one that would fit perfectly in the timeslot that has been left vacant by this pain in the ass that went AWOL while we were carrying his dumb show.
I then have been orchestrating all the production work for the station and maintaining the elements of that. There has been a great deal of crap that I have had to put off on the part timers because my time has been spent on the phone with or e-mailing headcases that I have never met before and who have no idea what I'm talking about. Their terminology and mine are different so to explain what I want and to find out what they need is such a chore. Everyone has a different name for certain elements and you need to keep up to date on who uses what word.
And of course there is the main computer system itself that STILL has some bugs that need to be worked out and it has been proved that if these things are left alone, they will get bigger and waste more of my time while they are fixed, so I either need to get on these soon or I'm gonna be screwed somewhere down the line.
So, that is what I've been up to. As you can see it wasn't something you said or did that prevented me from answering my phone when you called or why I started an IM conversation with you and then got up to put out several fires and forgot to get back with you. It is not intentional... well in some cases... no. Not intentional.
Well, I'll fill you in on everything else when I have another free 5 minutes... which from current projections will be September 2007.

3 Comments:

  • At 11:13 AM, Anonymous Anonymous said…

    even tho its a lot of work and your prolly frustrated....be glad your doing what you love.

     
  • At 1:01 PM, Blogger Looney73 said…

    John - Did you breath even ONCE while typing that entire blog?
    Keep up the good work. Like Anonymous said, at least you are doing what you are doing, even if you have do deal with some stupid stuff along the way. It's like that with any job...

     
  • At 1:02 PM, Blogger Looney73 said…

    Sorry about that. In mine response above I meant to say "...at least you are doing what you want to be doing..."

     

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