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Bauer rebranding 53 stations to The Hits/Greatest Hits

The majority of its acquisitions last year (May 2020)

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SP
Spencer
It’s always the problem if you keep going on and off air - every time you go silent, the same song keeps coming back when the emergency audio kicks in.

I remember working for a station where we had a ‘no repeat’ promise, and if the same song was played more than once, we’d pay £100 to the first person to phone in and spot it. Once, on a very stormy day, lightning kept knocking us off air, and the emergency CD was triggered several times, meaning the same song kept being played.

There was a line in the competition T&Cs online that stated we wouldn’t pay out if it was due to events out of our control. But try explaining that to the listeners - they weren’t happy when there was no money on offer.
MA
Markymark

If for example you have a station encoding a stream with a 44.1kHz sample rate, their streaming computer will have a clock which is fired 44,100 times a second, which triggers the sound card to grab a sample of the incoming audio and pass it to the encoder. On the receiving end there's another clock running at the same rate, which is used to time when a sample should be received and output.

Unfortuantely as they're two separate devices they won't be in sync, and computers aren't perfect so neither will be precisely on time. This results in the output running slightly very slightly fast or slow (usually the latter), which results in the drifting on long running streams.

.


Hence the importance of a PTP reference for IP broadcast systems

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Precision_Time_Protocol
SP
Steve in Pudsey
BBI45 posted:
Show Must Go On is a common choice for emergency tapes

Sorry if this has been said before, but is there not a bit of irony in that?

Oh yes, more than a bit.

Radio 2's was "Red Light Spells Danger" for a long time, a reference to the flashing red fire alarm light that is the usual cause of it playing.
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RA
radiolistener
Lincs FM must join either Greatest Hits or Hits Radio properly soon surely?
OV
Orry Verducci
It’s always the problem if you keep going on and off air - every time you go silent, the same song keeps coming back when the emergency audio kicks in.

This has particularly become a problem now with the widespread networking used by the radio groups, as it's not uncommon for the network audio to go silent but the data link triggering the split links/jingles/etc to continue working.

I heard an incident earlier this year where the Heart network fell off air for around 30 mins coming out of the Big Top 40, resulting in the emergency CD kicking in on the Cambridge/Peterborough feed (and the rest). Only trouble is the "This is Heart" sweepers between every song were played locally, and they were working, so every 4 minutes or so a sweeper would interrupt the CD. We ended up hearing the same Ariana Grande song on loop the whole time it was off.
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CR
Critique
BBI45 posted:
Show Must Go On is a common choice for emergency tapes

Sorry if this has been said before, but is there not a bit of irony in that?

Oh yes, more than a bit.

Radio 2's was "Red Light Spells Danger" for a long time, a reference to the flashing red fire alarm light that is the usual cause of it playing.


Bit of a tangent but I used to like how Radio 2 did their emergency tape, which was effectively presented by Alan Dedicoat. As one of the newsreaders it wasn't strange to hear him pop up randomly across the schedule (as opposed to if they'd got one of the show DJs to do it). He'd start by almost reacting to the preceding silence and explaining something was wrong before they actually played any music, and then he'd pop up intermittently throughout to remind listeners of the problem.

The copy of it that was on YouTube sadly appears to have been taken down, and looking at a more recent example of breakdown they've now gone for the more boring approach of just starting with music immediately, with one of the main Radio 2 VO artists doing the 'we're experiencing a fault' links between songs.
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SP
Spencer
Lincs FM must join either Greatest Hits or Hits Radio properly soon surely?


I’m not sure they will do. If they were going to become GHR, there’s no reason for them not to have done so already. My understanding is that Lincs and Pirate will continue as standalone stations with their own output and identities for the foreseeable future - a bit like long-standing Bauer station, Wave 105, which is only part of the Hits Radio Network in terms of sales, and not programming.
SP
Spencer
BBI45 posted:
Sorry if this has been said before, but is there not a bit of irony in that?

Oh yes, more than a bit.

Radio 2's was "Red Light Spells Danger" for a long time, a reference to the flashing red fire alarm light that is the usual cause of it playing.


Bit of a tangent but I used to like how Radio 2 did their emergency tape, which was effectively presented by Alan Dedicoat. As one of the newsreaders it wasn't strange to hear him pop up randomly across the schedule (as opposed to if they'd got one of the show DJs to do it). He'd start by almost reacting to the preceding silence and explaining something was wrong before they actually played any music, and then he'd pop up intermittently throughout to remind listeners of the problem.


I had the honour of producing and voicing the emergency DAT at one station where I worked (I even got to go to the transmitter to replace the tape!). I don’t think they changed it for a good two or three years after I left, as I often used to get a text from a former colleague telling me I was unexpectedly back on air there. Very Happy
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:-(
A former member
BBI45 posted:
Sorry if this has been said before, but is there not a bit of irony in that?

Oh yes, more than a bit.

Radio 2's was "Red Light Spells Danger" for a long time, a reference to the flashing red fire alarm light that is the usual cause of it playing.


Bit of a tangent but I used to like how Radio 2 did their emergency tape, which was effectively presented by Alan Dedicoat. As one of the newsreaders it wasn't strange to hear him pop up randomly across the schedule (as opposed to if they'd got one of the show DJs to do it). He'd start by almost reacting to the preceding silence and explaining something was wrong before they actually played any music, and then he'd pop up intermittently throughout to remind listeners of the problem.

The copy of it that was on YouTube sadly appears to have been taken down, and looking at a more recent example of breakdown they've now gone for the more boring approach of just starting with music immediately, with one of the main Radio 2 VO artists doing the 'we're experiencing a fault' links between songs.

I’m sure I remember a Radio 1 DJ (possibly Nick Grimshaw) once explaining how they each have to record one of these in case things go pear-shaped on their show.
HC
Hatton Cross
Very much so.

In fact, Chris Moyles (late of that parish) took great delight in playing some of them out when he was at Radio One...
MA
madmusician
Very much so.

In fact, Chris Moyles (late of that parish) took great delight in playing some of them out when he was at Radio One...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ro3Rlh1_c5Y

In the preceding video (also on YouTube) it is said that these are emergency links for if a show OB goes down, rather than for a studio show. I’d have thought that the emergency tape at Radio 1 would be the same for all kinds of day, rather than use those links that Moyles is playing out there?
SP
Steve in Pudsey
The emergency "tape" can be played in from the studio playout system (eg for evacuation situations) or via the silence detector (when things are hitting the fan). These needn't contain the same audio.

In the evacuation situation, it's much easier to deal with when they are back in the building if the studio is still on air. If the silence detector version gets triggered it's a pain to get the studio switched back on air, they have to get a feed of the emergency tape to fade up as an outside source before the studio gets put back on air.

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