Might as well keep an audio loop going, this happens with almost-daily frequency --and it happened today, (this Wednesday morning) on the alleged all-news radio chuckle (740 AM/106.9 FM).
No energy anchors, Eric Thomas and Margie Shafer, were attempting to interview a foreign correspondent from the scene of that terrible earthquake in Turkey --I say "attempting", more like, "urgent pleaing", as it sounded on the air.
A frantic Shafer took over, "Folks, you're listening to 'live radio." (Thanks for the update, Margie, no shit.) But Shafer tried, (again and again) her own plea: "Can you hear us?" At this point, things went totally comical.
Can you just imagine listening to this for a good 5 minutes?
Instead of just calling it a bad connection and moving on to another story, both anchors decided to go to a spot and "we'll be right back."
Shafer then told her listeners, "we've made contact" and proceeded to ask the guest, for the 7th time, "can you hear us now?" --Uh, more static and DEAD AIR!
Cue DISASTER and LAUGHTER --but you had to hear it live and you'd have shook your head repeatedly. Then belly laugh.
The interview attempt became an afterthought, futile, really--the mess on air and shrieking became thee story, the true theatre of absurd.
I'm sure Jenny Seelig, the alleged ND in charge, will hear all this but as for taking care of the matter? Yeah, good luck with that.
And Thomas? Just another laugh factory event. Shafer? Not her best ad-libbing performance by a mile.
What a complete mess.
Again.
It's live radio. Sh*t happens. It probably happens a lot more nowadays. But that's life in a dying medium. Adapt to it as a listener...or move on. In the grand scheme of things, no one was harmed by this.
ReplyDeleteNo accountability= No corrective measures.I wouldn't waste my time reporting about the daily shit show that is KCBS. It's daily cannon fodder and should be avoided like the smelly, incoherent street urchins downtown.
ReplyDeleteNow when we call it the "shit-show"
ReplyDeleteYou know why......
All shit...all the time.
After KGO changed to a new format and got rid of John Rothmann, I no longer care about or listen local radio. But I still come here to get the daily scoop.
ReplyDeleteJohn Rothmann did an on-air political analysis for KCBS Tues evening about the State of the Union speeches. Sounded so much like the old KGO the host even mistakenly, very briefly, referred to the station as "KGO".
DeleteI heard this malfucktion this morning too. OMG
ReplyDeleteSounds like kcbs has hired some of ktvu’s incompetent hangers on.
ReplyDeleteKTVU seems to have microphone issues about three times per week. What did they do, buy Radio Shack's inventory when they went belly-up?
DeleteI notice the same thing with their microphones and always just assume the control room guys smoked one too many funny cigarettes in the parking lot next-door, riffing about which reporters they’d like to bang.
Delete(Oooops, was I not supposed to say that?)
It’s always apparent when the “bong buddies” (as they’re affectionately known) are at the helm. You never what you’re going to get. Expecting them to operate shitty RadioShack microphones is a recipe for disaster, and quite frankly it’s a small miracle more of the newscast isn’t dead air or no low-to-no volume.
Those Radio Shack mics need Radio Shack batteries....
DeleteKTVU's Stoned sound guys lost those "Battery of the Month" club cards. Fox wants the sound people to conserve every volt, sothey can to save money.
It's really Ambers special savings project called "Volts for Dolts".
FYI..
The "Bong Buddies" no longer rip on that bong...they VAPE!
That way Amber can't smell it.
Are the Bong Buddies still there? I thought one of them left during Covid.
DeleteRegardless, two of the funniest co-workers I’ve ever had.
Some of the most legendary bong rips in the history of Oakland took place right there next to KTVU. Rich, it'd be great to see a post about this duo.
Delete10:34, they don’t need to worry about Amber smelling that sticky green stuff since she’s only in the office 2% of the time.
DeleteThe other 98% she’s at the Walnut Creek Nordstrom, the cafe near the station where she gossips and ‘vents’ with her underlings, or parked at the end of a random dead-end street in the industrial part of Jack London Square, sitting in her car alone taking her ‘mental health’ breaks.
https://media.tenor.com/GX8by9JDwiUAAAAC/can-you-hear-me-now-verizon-guy.gif
ReplyDeleteAn excellent opportunity for management/staff to do a post-mortem on the incident, the objective being to determine add'l needed procedures to mitigate re-occurrence. For example, the host should not even refer to a call-in consultant/expert or their topic until the program's producer has verified the call-in is on the line and ready to go, and has demonstrated at least 5 minutes of steady, excellent audio quality. At that point the producer says to the host "call-in verified, good audio, ready, channel 1" and only at that point the host can introduce the topic.
ReplyDeletejoin the real world 2:38...Everybody at every level in broadcasting has connect issues all the time. KCBS is no different.
Delete4:24, you’ve clearly never worked in broadcast media, let alone radio. If you had you’d know that what 2:38 described is standard procedure when introducing a guest joining via phone (or zoom), especially someone calling from an international locale with limited telecommunication infrastructure. What happened at kcbs wasn’t a ‘connect issue.’ This was a ‘communication issue’ between the producers and hosts. If and when the producers/audio engineers were able to establish a solid connection, then as 2:38 said, they would signal to the hosts who would then introduce the guest on air. The reason the hosts kept going on and on is because they were led to believe a suitable connection had been established.
DeleteIn the case of what happened today, the producers didn’t do their job properly. Not because of a shitty connection from Turkey, but because they let this happen in the first place and then continue to let it happen.
For it to happen as Rich described is as embarrassing as it is comical.
I'd have to think the problem was with Turkey's cell phone service, which was very understandable given the circumstances. Not much KCBS can do about it.
ReplyDeleteYup!
DeleteThat Turkish cell service is for the birds.
Speaking of KCBS, Matt Pittman, another sports dude always sounds confused. THIS morning (Thursday), he did a good break down of the big trades at 5:45 and blithely mentioned that the Warriors lost... OK... but he didn't mention the score. At 6:15 he started off and focused on the Warriors and made it sound like they were blown out. I was eagerly wanting to hear the score. HE DID'NT. I guess someone said something because at 6:45 and 7:15 he finally did (d'oh)
ReplyDeleteIs the news director responsible for technical issues?
ReplyDelete