Has this ever happened on your station?

[Battle601]

TRAIN WRECK RADIO!

Two songs are playing at the same time on my radio right now - one song tries to overtake the other in terms of sound. These are songs scheduled from the actual playlist but split into two segments, so what would normally take 30 minutes to get through a block of 9 songs ended up taking about 15 to 20 minutes. Even a commercial or two was thrown in there, before everything returned to normal. And now, one of the segments is repeating itself to fill up airtime, so a few songs are being played twice.

Pretty messed up but this is not the first time that this has happened.

Luckily this is during the overnight shift, where not that many people are listening. This week, no one is behind the mic so it's all automated, but seriously, is there no one at the station who looks to make sure that these things don't happen?

I mean sometimes even when the DJs are there, they'll make a mistake pushing the wrong buttons. They end up either stopping a song abruptly before it ends, have two segments running at the same time (station bumper vs. a song), or cut to commercial too soon.

The other time this happened was early in the morning (about 5am) one weekend. My station played its songs in sequence as scheduled, but I had no idea where the other songs were coming from (perhaps it could have been from another station on the dial, a sister station that shares the same building). The interference did not last long, and was resolved very shortly. Again, it was automated with no DJs.

[tico]

Not as much, but sometimes I could be listening to Y101 and they'll have two songs playing at the same time. Be prepared for that to happen on any station that goes automated, especially at night.

[KelownaGuy20]

May 26, 2009 2:31:33 GMT -5 Battle601 said:

Luckily this is during the overnight shift, where not that many people are listening. This week, no one is behind the mic so it's all automated, but seriously, is there no one at the station who looks to make sure that these things don't happen?

If the station is playing in automation, there's more or less no reason for anyone to be around. Computers are great like that.

At the same time, it's one of the issues that comes with computers. One mistake, and it sets you up for disaster. When you're using a computer to run your station, anything that runs is set up with an "End Of Message" mark. It's the point in the mp3 that tells the computer to start playing the next message, whether it's a song, an ID, or a commercial.

However, if your EOM is incorrectly set, or, in some cases, not set at all, the computer doesn't know, and randomly fires the next item when it believes it should. It's one of the nasty downsides to using computers, but it happens.

[Battle601]

Wow, strange but very true. Definitely an error with the computer being used to run my station.

[tico]

One reason why I think stations should be live. Sure, mistakes can happen with a human being there, but they can be at least minimized.

[Flashing Lights]

It happened only once in my life. Around December 2008, I was listening to my local Rhythmic station, and the 7@7 countdown was happening. The #2 song was Mad by Ne-Yo and the #1 song was One More Drink by Ludacris and T-Pain. He played the #2 song without a hitch.... then he played the #1 song. After the first thirty seconds "Mad" was getting mixed with "One More Drink", and it was really annoying. Since "One More Drink" is longer than "Mad", the track ended, and "One More Drink" was still playing. The DJ didn't even apologize. I hate those kind of people who don't admit their mistakes.

[Battle601]

Wow, that's just bad. Thankfully that has not happened on my station, and if DJs are around, it's been only for less than 5 seconds and they are quick to react.

You would think they are supposed to be properly trained in that matter prior to doing their first shift on radio or when they are applying to fill a vacant position at a radio station. But I guess either they just don't care as long as they get their paycheck or they're just doing their job (perhaps they are told beforehand not to admit to their mistakes on the air).

[beejus]

Jun 6, 2009 18:27:28 GMT -5 Battle601 said:

(perhaps they are told beforehand not to admit to their mistakes on the air).

That is ALWAYS what I was taught on the air. Major mistake, small slip-up... just keep going and don't refer to it at all. Now if it's something like the transmitter dying and the station going off the air.. meh... still most times they'll tell you to just keep going on-air like nothing happened.

[Battle601]

Jun 6, 2009 19:03:26 GMT -5 beejus said:

That is ALWAYS what I was taught on the air. Major mistake, small slip-up... just keep going and don't refer to it at all. Now if it's something like the transmitter dying and the station going off the air.. meh... still most times they'll tell you to just keep going on-air like nothing happened.

In the latter case, that actually happened around this time last year on my station. In fact, it was a female DJ who was new to the station and was doing swing shifts, filling in for the regular personalities who were on vacation.

There was this one Sunday afternoon when she was on the air. After returning from commercials, the first song played and then about a minute in, dead air. That lasted anywhere for about 5-10 minutes before some jungle techno track (which is normally heard during the live-to-air dance club shows at night) was played, and then about 5 minutes later, it was the same song from the commercial break, followed by another three songs with no interruption. Finally when the DJ went on the air, she made no apology nor acknowledged the technical problems and just carried on like nothing happened.

Other examples I've encountered over time listening to the radio:

A song starts playing, and within seconds, the DJ will realize it's the wrong one, so it is stopped abruptly, leaving the air silent for a few seconds, before playing the right song. There was one instance where halfway through the song, it goes right into commercial and this was right at the end of a jock's shift. Another mistake was when a song started playing, the DJ took a call from a listener on the air, stopped the song and then after the call, skipped it and moved on to the next one. In these cases, very few actually admitted to their mistake on the air.

There are those who have gone ahead and played the wrong song instead of interrupting it. Some acknowledge the mistake after it's done or continue like nothing happened. If a listener finds out, they would call the station to let them know. The mistake is then either acknowledged by either the DJ at the end of the music block or that particular call that gets played on the air between songs.

Sometimes, and it may be due to time constraints, the DJ will make a mistake (not always necessarily intentional) of mentioning the title and artist of a song that was never played, following the last song that was recently played in a certain music block. I assume this is based on the song scheduling information that they read from during their shift.

Of course, with so many buttons to push, not knowing their proper functions can lead whoever is behind the mic to make all sorts of errors. Only when they become a common occurrence, then it becomes a problem because it not only makes the station look bad but render the people running them as being incompetent.

[KelownaGuy20]

Jun 6, 2009 19:03:26 GMT -5 beejus said:

Jun 6, 2009 18:27:28 GMT -5 Battle601 said:

(perhaps they are told beforehand not to admit to their mistakes on the air).

That is ALWAYS what I was taught on the air. Major mistake, small slip-up... just keep going and don't refer to it at all. Now if it's something like the transmitter dying and the station going off the air.. meh... still most times they'll tell you to just keep going on-air like nothing happened.

That's the same thing I was taught, beejus.

It's the way the business is run. Technical errors are bound to happen, and you simply deal with them. By apologizing on air for your mistakes, you draw attention to them. But many listeners either don't notice, or honestly don't care.

I've always found that if a lister calls to ask what happened when it comes a mistake, I'll let them know what kind of issues I'm dealing with (usually transmitter), but otherwise, there's no reason to explain yourself to a thousand people when only three care.