Here in Boston, we have three stations that carry NPR. I have noticed that when all three carry a NPR new or interest show, they are all on at slightly different times- WBUR will carry “All Things Considered” about 3 seconds before the other stations.
Why is this?
Isn’t WBUR the home station for All Things Considered? Would that have anything to do with is?
I notice the same thing sometimes here in Michigan, but I think NPR gets redistributed from WUOM in Ann Arbor to WVGR in Grand Rapids and WFUM in Flint; it may take a couple of seconds for the signals to get processed by the repeater stations. It’s been a decade since I took any classes in telecom engineering, and those were very, very basic, but I think this is how RF broadcasts are repeated.
Kind of like if you watch an NFL game at home, and have it via you antenna on one TV and via DirecTV or cable on another; the antenna one will be ahead of the others due to the fact that you’re getting it from the source station.
Right? Any telecom engineers want to correct me?
The stations don’t just take a feed. This has to be so because ATC repeats itself and fills up more than 90 minutes on some stations, but not 3 hrs. It’s the stations programmer that decided how they would repeat. I once called and asked how that got done, but the person didn’t know. So I reckon that small delays have to do with the stations technical side.
No, ATC is a national broadcast from NPR itself.
I don’t know if these programs are broadcast via RF or digital streaming, but lag is expected in a digital environment. Between 2 different clients, data can take very different paths through equipment and networks. Additionally, a client can add more delay to fine-tune their own programming schedule. Really, it would be more surprising if there were no time difference at all between affiliates.