Drinking Game

[Big Voice]

I started a new drinking game today. A drink everytime News 1130 traffic guy Alex Lyons said 'Uh.'
I was totally impared before his signoff

[isthisthingon]

Try watching any CFL game on TSN and have a drink everytime an announcer mentions (raves about) Anthony Calvillo. Same results.

[Big Voice]

I'm going to have to attend an AA meeting, or stop playing this Uh, Ah, game.
I tuned into 1130 today, (Saturday) and the weekend traffic guy must have gone to the same uh, ah, school as the weekday guy. Is there something in the water at WX ? He even managed to put a couple of uh's and ah's in the weather forecast, which I'm assuming is written for him?
Of course, most of the blame should be placed on the weak shoulders of the News 1130 management. If they continue to hire unqualified on-air people, they should at least have a Program Director, or News Director take these people into a room and teach them how to talk on the radio. It's a disgrace, and an industry embarrassment. Shame on you News 1130.

[J Kendrick]

Experience costs money. If you go cheap... you get what you pay for...

[Mike Cleaver]

No one does air checks any more.
Back in the day, if you were a pro, you had one every two weeks.
If you were a newbie, they could be daily after every shift.
And when the consultant came to town, he'd have one with you and your boss.
The problem is, the PD or News Director these days often is no better than the newbies on staff and wouldn't know a mistake if he or she heard one.
Listening to News 1130 is amusing and embarrassing except for the veterans.
Listening to people "Um and Ah" is about as unprofessional as it gets.
Listen to some old air checks from back in the last century.
You don't hear that crap.
No one learns how to ad-lib these days either.
It's a gift, some can do it, others never will be able to but you can get better at it with practice.

[J Kendrick]

... and they have the one and only Andy Walsh working with them on weekend mornings...

You'd think at least some of his polish and experience would rub off on them...

[Big Voice]

No one learns how to ad-lib these days either.
It's a gift, some can do it, others never will be able to but you can get better at it with practice.

Agreed, Mike. I didn't want to pile on, but around the same time as the um-ah fest was taking place, the sports guy was trying to ad-lib about something, and it went nowhere fast, and dribbled off to a mumble.
Will this start to be the norm? Or will someone come riding in on a white charger and save the day, and industry?
Or is that a rhetorical question at best?

[J Kendrick]

They can only ad-lib with their thumbs...

Beyond that... forget it...

[Muzik]

Mike,you hit the nail on the head.So correct you are about listening to old air-checks.Whether its News or Jocks you don't hear that stumbling crap or all the uh's etc. on the tapes from the past. When I got into bad habits,my PD's were quick to correct me even if it meant calling the hotline. I listen to the allnighter on News 1130 alot and switch to KNX 1070 from LA and what a difference.Vancouver radio should be as top notch as it once was.It's not all bad,but really between the voice-tracking now and the some of the rookies with no personality,I just wonder what the future brings.I usually only listen in my car to work,but if last week was any indication on the dial,well I might as well have checked into the Betty Ford Center.

[dial twister]

Along with the ummms and the aaahs, who's the braindead idiot there that keeps telling us the Nexus lane is backed up past the white arch? The White Arch? Hey stupid, that's known as the Peace Arch.
In case it hadn't occured to you, that is the reason that border is called The Peach Arch crossing. Learn the names of the landmarks you use as reference ponts and get your streets and avenues sorted
out. If you're not capable of a few simple things like thart, maybe you'd be better off as a Wal-Mart greeter.

My next research project is to find out what exactly a Big Bertha tow truck is. I keep hearing it mentioned, but can't find any reference to it.

[Neumann Sennheiser]

My next research project is to find out what exactly a Big Bertha tow truck is. I keep hearing it mentioned, but can't find any reference to it.

It's right there in the lexicon of arcane vernacular right before Black Mariah.
Seriously though, any of the old airchecks still that are kept were so because they were the best examples of one's work. The real representation of how I actually sounded on an average day would be on one of those tapes the PD had rolling when I didn't know of it; no one saved any of those. Note also that a lot of surviving airchecks came in as job applications and without a doubt were pruned, edited and tweaked juuuusst a little bit.
None of that changes the message of the thread of course. Sloppiness, ignorance and a complete lack of mentor-ship continues to degrade the product.

[Mike Cleaver]

At CHUM in the '70s and 80's - Everything was "air checked."
Besides the mandatory logger tapes run by CRTC edict, a studio quality ten inch reel ran on EVERY show and was kept, usually for a week and then some parts were archived for eternity.
Dick Smyth ran air checks on every newscast on a separate machine in his office.
You never knew when you'd be called in for a critique but it was once a week for newsies.
As for audition tapes, it was pretty easy to tell the ones that had been doctored, edited, eq-ed, etc., and the newsroom could get up to a hundred tapes a week back in those days.
We did get fooled by one, once.
We hired a guy based on his tape and when he showed up, he sounded nothing like what had been submitted.
He lasted three days before being sent packing.
He's still on the air, unbelievably, so I won't mention his name.

[czarcasm]

As News 1130 dumbs down it's traffic department, NW seems to be taking the opposite approach and bringing seasoned prtofessionals onbaord for NW and AM 730 traffic reporting.

A few weeks ago, they brought Jennifer Thomson back to anchor AM 730 Morning traffic and NW traffic updates throughout the mid day.

This afternoon on NW, I hear former longtime WX traffic guy Kim Larson doing traffic on Jon McComb's program.

Nice to hear a familiar voice back on Vancouver's airwaves. I've heard two reports and haven't had to crack the bottle of Bacardi yet!

[Russ_Byth]

This afternoon on NW, I hear former longtime WX traffic guy Kim Larson doing traffic on Jon McComb's program.

Nice to hear a familiar voice back on Vancouver's airwaves. I've heard two reports and haven't had to crack the bottle of Bacardi yet!

Noticed on Kim's FB page he's working for Canadian Traffic Network. Good for them and GREAT for a fellow 'May 12th, 2010 er' !!