IF YOU WEREN'T LISTENING YOU MISSED AN AUDIO BONANZA
IF YOU DID?
Oh Shit!
IT WAS Belly -Laugh Central on
KCBS this Saturday morning (today) from 6-7 AM and one that will no doubt make News Director,
Jennifer Seelig, steaming!, come Monday morning, I'm sure.
Electronic missteps galore on all-news
740 AM with an assist from ill-prepared, fill-in and substitute anchor,
Jeffrey Schaub, who failed miserably to handle mucho audio hell and embarrassing stretches of DEAD air and mistaken off-mike incidents including an un-intentioned
CBS audio feed that made KCBS's air.
It could have been the most embarrassing hour in KCBS history.
 |
| Jeffrey Schaub |
The mayhem began in earnest little after 6 when there was complete dead air for a good twenty seconds; OK, no big deal, things happen, but that was the start of audio hell. A sports report from Bruce MacGowan was interrupted by a commercial which muted out MacGowan's report. It was sort of bizarre, but funny. Turns out, we (audience) were just getting started. After the sports report, more dead air. Only five seconds, OK...then Schaub went to an on-air interview with a guy talking about the economy; during the interview, the guest said improved China-US trade talks was one of many reasons why US economy was still thriving; ten seconds later, Schaub, who appeared to be out of sync, asked the guy, inexplicably, "Do you think China trade talks has helped?" --guest sounds perplexed but answers...we now move to 6: 30 for the soon-aired update from CBS News, only listeners heard a "all stations, there's a 30 secs-after report coming." OUCH! --at this point, Schaub is fuming, I would guess because he can't handle it and could be heard shuffling papers in background. More dead air, this time, at least ten seconds and the electronic hell is getting worse...close to end of hour, there's more, this time, even more embarrassing...as traffic sounder rings out at 6: 58, there's no Schaub on-air to introduce traffic anchor, Peter Schofield, it's a good five seconds of MIA Schaub tossing to Pete, who did the traffic report amidst the obvious chaos...
Had to be one of the most historic hours in KCBS audio history, for all the wrong reasons. I wish KCBS were to archive all its hours because this one was memorable --an all-time belly-laugh for the ages and one, I'm sure, will be the talk of the newsroom at 740 AM (and 106.9 FM) and Entercom (which owns KCBS)
All I can say is, someone royally screwed up--maybe a rookie engineer or maybe Schaub himself not being able to handle the gaffes (even if it wasn't his fault) Schaub is someone who doesn't like to hear so I can only imagine what was going on in his head. He was solo and you could tell he was flustered because it all sounded uber-awkward ...but obscenely funny.
Probably not for KCBS.
