Radio WBAI, see links, is mostly empty in the evenings these days. Most hosts email their programs in. They produce them remotely either at home or a rented facility, and just mail'em in now. We're mostly automated these daze.
This is a change in local broadcast culture. At least for smaller networks.
There used to be a whole culture of interesting personalities, and assorted weirdos roaming the halls, and studios.
Just by bumping into each other all the time they created an amazing creative stew.
We have, or had walls crammed with awards that were the product of those creative collisions. Those were the days. Still I'm told all these empty chairs is progress. Perhaps, but for whom?
2 comments:
This culture sacrifices far too much for the sake of convenience.
This is precisely the sort of thing that Hakim Bey slams the internet for: destroying real communities with virtual ones. He should take comfort though, for progress can and will be reversed. Radio will be around a lot longer than the internet.
Sidney, much of this would have happened back "in the day" if the tech had existed.
You remember what an EQ'ed telco lines for a remote cost. What it was to lug around a Uher 4000 or later a crappy TC110. The Uher was my favorite.
Now all you need are a few relatively inexpensive tools and software (often free) and you can send it off via MP3 or AAC.
Yeah, the studio environment probably was a sort of crucible (Fass called 'BAI "A station with real sweat and body odor) But if these modern tools had existed, a lot would have been done outside.
Look at it this way, maybe they can sublet some of that excess (studio) space in the next lease. Has Bai considered renting out some of it's production facilities?
Lino
Post a Comment