[BC] "I Don't Know Anything About Programming, but ..."

[Rich Wood]

------ At 10:28 AM 1/20/2008, Cowboy wrote: -------

>  Personally, I think real sirens in drive time spots are a bad idea.

Agreed. It used to be forbidden by the old NAB code. This isn't a 
programming issue. It's sales. Today, programmers have very little 
say in what's programmed, especially in large consolidated companies. 
If you attempt to refuse to run a spot with a siren and jeopardize 
the sale you'll be overruled by sales backed by management. You'll 
also be looking for work.

>  Personally, I think scrolling displays are irresponsible

Agreed. Again, usually not a programming issue. It's a combination of 
engineering and management. The way I've seen RDS used it's useless 
for programming. My Grundig Satellit 700 has RDS and the scrolling in 
my market is sloppy. There are missing characters and overwritten 
song titles. It would be more productive from a ratings standpoint to 
simply display the call letters and frequency or whatever positioning 
statement is in your Arbitron facilities form. Using it for titles 
and artists is painfully slow.

>  If that scares you, I'm sorry.

These suggestions don't scare me because they don't affect 
non-advertising content. The days of an Easy Listening programmer 
having a say in the spots are long gone. Same with AOR. Those were 
the days when we considered advertising part of programming. A bad 
spot that didn't fit the format destroyed any effort to create a 
mood. Of course, Easy Listening is long gone, too.

Rich