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Kiss 108 seems to have found some news that bears repeating - over and over and over again

Repeating Kiss 108 logo

Listeners to IHeartMedia's Kiss 108 this morning learned one of the dangers of stations automating their operations: The station's news reports (shut up, yes, Kiss 108 has news reports) kept repeating "breaking" news of the Las Vegas massacre, which, of course, happened back in October. Chris taped one of the "news" broadcasts, says it was repeated at least five times today and says the station may have been running the same report since Friday.

Tristan Walsh, who listens to the newly IHeartMediaized (trend here?) WBZ NewsRadio, reports:

Last night’s WBZ midnight news was a re run of First Night and cold warnings from last weekend... got to love automation.

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Comments

If I got this right, Kiss108, IHeart, and Clear Channel are part of the same conglomerate that pollute the airwaves and landscape with tasteless and often harmful advertising. They have a couple of gigantic hideous billboards up the street from my house.

I am not surprised that there is no-one around to return a call for days at an organisation whose main aspiration seems to be turning kids in my neighborhood into lifetime junk-food and soda addicts.

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Not entirely right. iHeart is just a "hip" rebranding of Clear Channel, and Clear Channel owns Kiss108. Technically you're correct, but the difference being iHeart isn't some organically built company that ended up under the CC umbrella via purchase or merger, it's just a hated company spinning via a new name, and hoping no one noticed (and they didn't for the most part).

It's kind of like Brooklyn Without Limits.

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IMAGE(https://memegenerator.net/img/instances/250x250/71740380/youll-have-plenty-of-time-for-smokin-doobies-when-youre-living-in-a-van-down-by-the-tracks.jpg)

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Do they have any word whether or not he is still dead?

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They were off the air for several minutes, and it happened right after a song ran out during the pre-produced Billy Costa countdown.

As for today's fiasco, I didn't hear news reports, but this might explain why AT40 ended like 10 minutes early.

I will work in Boston radio for minimum wage. Hire me, guys. You can't spare 11 bucks an hour just to keep things like dead air and dated news from airing?

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Boston has some of the best radio in the US. Try the following ad free stations:

WMBR 88.1 (MIT)
WZBC 90.3 (BC)
WHRB 95.3 (Harvard)
WUMB 88.9 (UMass Boston)
WMFO 91.5 (Tufts)
WBUR 90.9, WGHB 89.7 (NPRs, news but no music)

If you like Kiss you'll like 88.9 (Emerson) but I listen to radio to avoid that commercial sounding crap so they're only a last resort.

There's some other great college stations just outside Boston too but you normally can't get them in the city.

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not public, but independent--great music.

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You are comparing Emerson to KISS? I think that's a stretch.

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Agreed on all counts but NPR. I don't like NPR in general, but our local NPR stations are just awful. The only thing keeping WGBH from being the worst in the country is WBUR just down the road.

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Funny that you say that, given that WGBH and WBUR are major feeders of programming to the national PBS and NPR networks.

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They want Kiss 108 etc.

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Everyone please remind your friends about which stations are just conglomerate robots. (I lose track myself).

They try to sound like they're live/local. We need to keep reminding people there is no Santa. Or who is the Wizard behind the curtain. Or some other bad metaphor.

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to an automated station with no DJs than one with crappy DJs whose idiotic and not funny banter I have to endure between songs, poorly written product placements, and actual advertisements.

I appreciate a good DJ, but honestly they're far and few between these days.

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Well, we both probably agree that a good DJ can make your day go by quicker, I love listening to the babble of a live person between songs when I'm listening to the radio station I listen to online. They have little games the listeners play where they call in and answer questions. All good fun. I'll take that in exchange for the 3 or 4 songs an hour I miss because of listening to live people.

In the end, the big radio stations tried to convince us that the DJs were just "blah, blah, blah", but my gut is that they don't want to pay the talent. In the end, we have radio shows from 3 months ago being broadcast.

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Real DJs are only worthwhile if they're allowed to play and say what they want. When they are limited to a pre-selected playlist and read from scripts, why bother?

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Even WFNX back in the 80s chose from a playlist. A DJ does need to have freedom to talk. People should remember that Stern played music when he was gaining fame.

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Howard Stern played music on the old WNTN here, based out of Newton, when he was an undegrad at BU in the 70s. It was my favorite station along with the original hippy-ish WBCN. The djs indeed picked their own music on this type of station in those days, which is why they were called "free form" stations. A bit later in the 70s BCN started becoming far more and formatted. Stern wasn't on WNTN all that long, but his humor-based style stuck out like a sore thumb among the more laid back, almost comatose "we're all high on pot" style of FM djs in those days.

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Hybridized Digital-analog HD Radio! https://hdradio.com/stations

with the Artist Experience(R) Display https://gracedigital.com/shop/sparc-shd-t750

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You're getting old if you remember when the Kiss Concert at the old Garden was the hottest ticket of the year.

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Maybe someday a smart person may invent a sort of customizable internet radio station that, I don't know, could be played on some sort of small personal device you would carry with you. This would save a lot of running to warm up the old Zenith every time you want to check on pork rind futures.

Nah. People are too accustomed to complaining about the obvious limits of 122 year old technology. Didn't the Buggles write a song about this kind of thing 40 years ago?

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It's the quality control of the humans running it that appears to be not excellent.

I did four years of commercial radio. It was my first ever job, and remains my favorite. Measure twice, cut once. Check elements before they end up on the air. Again, 11 bucks an hour. If that's too much work for the existing staff you have, I could use another job this time of year.

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   IMAGE(http://www.easylisteninghq.com/images/schafer903.gif)
          ( Schafer 903 Radio Automation System (circa 1974) )
It was not uncommon to hear endlessly repeating news and other announcements on automated radio stations of the 1970's, which typically used systems developed by Paul Schafer.

The first video below shows an overview of the equipment, while the second video has a sleazy company representative spinning the automation aspect — oh no, it won't replace DJs, it frees them from the tedium of playing records so they can spend more time creating better programming.
  

          ( warning — you'll want to take a shower after listening to "George" )

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I found the last bit in the Schafer wiki page funny, as it appears some old coot decided to log-on and add his typo-laden 2 cents.

Starting with, "In 1962, I worked as the radio station engineer..."

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