What would you do.  You're a brand new Jock at a big Edmonton station...you pull the Saturday night "party" shift of a long weekend, mid way through, you're Measto locks and all you can do is live talk and calls.  No back up CD---nothing.  Happened! and was handled remarkably well.  Could have been even better but was still very compelling radio until they decided to go to dead air instead of ...."anything"!  I felt for that young announcer but amazed by her honesty.

Any more details on where we could hear it?

Dead air instead of ANYTHING?  Bad choice IMHO although I'm not sure I'd really have liked to go live, cold, when most of your immediate resources have been drinking... man, sounds like a Dead Air Dream to me!

There is currently no back up that I know of in my control room and in my previous room, the cd was always getting tucked away so that someone could borrow the tray it was in or it would get lost behind the players...

This is a good reminder to us all.  No fun getting caught out like that but with time it will make a great story for her memoirs. I can finally laugh at the time I took a station down for 20 minutes with a glass of water, she'll get there too I hope.

How could this happen? Isn't there any redundancy built in for situations like this?

It certainly is a 'tale to tell' in terms of the history of whoever was behind the mic, but how can a radio station be stuck with no music to play in the event the main PC goes down?

I heard turntables and vinyl are making a comeback.....what a great learning tool for the DJ's of today. I can see dead air if the power goes out, but the computer? Give me a break....

Goes to show I guess....radio station owners today really are somewhat removed from exactly what business they are in...

just my 2 cents.

I'd love to be able to find a way to share that audio.  Opens all kinds of idea's from college course (Nait, BCIT) on line forums, pro's and guys like Tommy Krammer .  Saturday Night 9-10pm  100.3 The Bear.  If anybody can get that audio it's compelling in a way I haven't heard for ages...holy crap that young jock got put through the "Trial by fire "  like I haven't heard in a long while. Knowing the Bear, at first I honestly thought it was gonna be a bit.  AND if P,YJ & GF need a bit for tuesday...you're welcome.

Most stations have (or should have) an automatic system in their racks that sense no audio on air and either fire the next event (in the case of someone leaving system in manual mode) or in a case like this where playback computer failed outright, have back up audio from an iPod or similar device, play something on air until the failed system is rebooted, a backup put to air, etc.  Listeners have a sort attention span, after 1 minute, you've lost half, after 2 minutes, most have left, after 5, those gone, won't check back that shift.  We'll spend $25,000 to have a backup audio path to a transmitter site, yet spending $250 on an iPod and silence sensor sometimes gets overlooked. One would bet this station will have a backup audio system in place now!

Why would ANYONE in their right mind, go to dead air? I would hate to be the PR respondent or the jock involved in that.

Read up the jock didn't go to dead air until told to. Actually did some very compelling talk to try to fill.

There's no excuse to not have a backup in this day and age in a major market. I've worked in some JUNKY stations (and some awesome ones) and they've all had a backup in case the main computer went down--even if its just a mix CD.

I remember when doing the morning shift once the whole studio went down and I charged in the production studio which was technically the back up but had never been properly tested. The only thing I could find was a britney spears CD which I played for 2 hours until the engineer fixed the main studio. But even that was better than nothing IMHO.

So --come on ..."What woud YOU do"?   Prime shift---dead air.....???

It would make sense for every DJ to have made a 1 hour (or2) archive backup cd of a show.

Quoted from Camera1

It would make sense for every DJ to have made a 1 hour (or2) archive backup cd of a show.

My thoughts exactly.

Quoted from tdog69

My thoughts exactly.

Really?  And would you be able to keep it generic enough that it could air any time?  No dates, no time calls, no reference to anything happening?

Quoted from Justin Cider

Really?  And would you be able to keep it generic enough that it could air any time?  No dates, no time calls, no reference to anything happening?

YEP!  It should be a requirement for every "talent" to compile a generic archive backup for their shift.  It can be voiced and assembled in a spare booth.  Like you all should've done back in college - RIGHT?

Quote "It should be a requirement for every "talent" to compile a generic archive backup for their shift.  It can be voiced and assembled in a spare booth".


Oh go on. Admit it. You've secretly always wanted to be John Tesh.  ;)

That could potentially be a dream for me, as I can be a reactionist (yes I just made up a word) taking drunk callers would make me either the funniest jock or the most hated depending on the person calling. Plus I would have at least something I could air temporarily until the system got fixed.

In a perfect world, a jock should have an hour or 2 "in the can", but we all know this isn't a perfect world. (This is the real world of radio, you;re not in college anymore)
It does surprise me that a big market station dosen't have any backup at all.  Weird