From: GQ.JNK@forsythe.stanford.edu (John Klemm 3-4420)
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical
Subject: Re: KDFC - a question.
Date: 8 Nov 1992 22:38:02 -0800
Organization: Stanford University
Distribution: usa
NNTP-Posting-Host: morrow.stanford.edu

In article <1992Nov7.015327.1699@netcom.com>,
tomrice@netcom.com (Tom R. Rice) writes:
>        Although I was not aware that KDFC was using one, there
>        are program services that provide continuous material in
>        whatever format the station is selling.  These signals
>        are beamed down to the subscribing station via satellite.
>        The local station simply adds commercials, also automated,
>        for the local market.  Again, somebody needs the cue words
>        so he'll know when, for example, a Beethoven symphony
>        _really_ has ended!
>
>        With technology being what it is, it is certainly
>        feasible for a computer to be programmed to recognize
>        a number (1706, for example) and do the switching
>        without having anybody around at all.  This may very
>        well be the practice now.
>
>        Don't you just love technology?

Gosh, we wouldn't be here without it!

This particular form of technology has been around for many years,
and is (or was) much simpler than you suggested here.  When I worked
for a 21-hrs-a-day "byootiful music" radio station that wanted to
pretend it was sophisticated by using the leftover 3 hours for
classics, it bought a tape service from Parkway Productions: a
couple programs, one of which was called "A Starlight Concert".
Each hour of each program had 3 or 4 breaks (don't remember
exactly but it was always the same), with a subsonic signal (12hz?)
that allowed it to be used with the same machinery as the muzak
tapes, which could run 3 hours of programming without human
intervention (or consciousness).  When the machine heard the signal,
it would stop the tape, and start through its cycle of commercials,
station ids, public-service annoucements etc.  Normally, we didn't
run it that way, because the rare times we did, the tapes sometimes
had extraneous signals that would start the commercial cycle,
stopping the music mid-andante.  And so they paid me 3 dollars an
hour to babysit and to fill in the hour with a 1 minute newscast,
surrounded by 3 minutes of commercials.  Ugh.

When I arrived in the Bay Area in 1978, I recognized the same type
of setup on KDFC, including occasional glitches where, sure enough,
the machine sensed its commercial cue in the middle of a concerto,
and off went the music.  They may have changed or perfected the
system in the meantime; it doesn't happen so much anymore.  But
that's how I think it worked.

I'm noticing that the nighttime announcers on the "personality"
classical station, KKHI, are occasionally pre-recorded and not live.
Their vocal-track tapes occasionally screw up, and they are
blissfully oblivious to the music that actually got played, as
opposed to what they may have announced.  The all-night announcer,
Scott Beach, has been doing this since he started; it's sort of
galling to hear him talk about "us nightowls" now and then, since
he's never there!  But some of the others, including the witless,
hapless and worthless Lou Sinclair, are beginning to do it too.

But I do like the morning announcer, Bill Lueth, who really does
have an interesting personality and knows quite a bit about the
music he is talking about.  I wish they had more like him!

John Klemm, Stanford University
Newsgroups: rec.music.classical