Radio DJ Basic Do's and Don'ts?

Cafe Society
1

Is there DJ school where some basic rules were once taught?
I don’t know…today’s DJs break all the rules, if there ever were rules about how to DJ! Local DJs in the Balt-Philly corridor don’t bother to tell time accurately, allow the hourly news to slip, and cut classic riffs at the start and/or end of songs. I mean, why even bother?

The heck with doing a job and providing a public service…I think they just love to hear themselves talk!

But, what do fellow DJs say? Are there any members of the Columbia School of Broadcasting out there in SDopeLand to comment?

  • Jinx

If you wanna have a hit, you gotta make it fit… - Mr. William Joel

2

Don’t rush into a synagogue and play the national anthem.
Don’t broadcast a fake murder confession that has the cops investigating for ten months.
etc…etc…

3

Don’t incite people to have sex in the vestibule of a major metropolitan cathedral.

4

Yeah, there were a number of DJ schools way back when. For one thing, you were required to have a license to be on the air. A third class license was the equivalent of a learner’s permit - you studied a booklet and passed a multiple choice test. If you had a third, you couldn’t work at a station larger than 10,000 watts (IIRC, it’s been a loooong time) or at a station with a directional array while it was in directional mode.

For those, you required a first class license, with a test that actually required you to know some electronic theory and do some calculations. Cram schools would jam enough info into you long enough to pass the test, and the job wanted listings were filled with jocks who would add “no maintenance” meaning they had the license but not the knowledge and you wouldn’t want them doing any work on your transmitter or other equipment. They were just there to be on the air.

(By the way, the second class license didn’t involve AM or FM broadcasting. It may have had something to do with ham radio or ship-to-shore, or other sorts of operation)

Oh, and if you left one station for another, you’d have to get you license signed on the back by a representative of the station, detailing your period of employment, and whether or not it was satisfactory.

Somewhere along the line, all those requirements were dropped, and DJs were allowed on the air without any licens requirements.

In the grand tradition of older people bemoaning how the younger folks have let down the standards and have it soft nowadays, I will note that in the 60s, we slip-started vinyl on turntables, backtimed to hit a network feed exactly on the second, and would feel chagrined if we stepped on a vocal doing an intro. We would always back-announce so listeners would know the artist and song, in case they might like to go to the record shop and buy one for themselves. News came from the wire service with five-minute summaries available every hour, and we would “rip and read,” tearing the continuous roll paper from the teletype into story-sized sheets for the hourly newscast.

Today, most stations are voice tracked from some central city, with a professional talent playing the same songs and making the same comments (plus local drop-ins) in 200 cities at once. It certainly ain’t the same. Locally owned stations with a commitment to local service are becoming a thing of the past. But that’s for another rant. Thanks for letting an old jock sound off.

5

Currently working radio announcer here:

We still backtime to hit feeds (like news) right to the second; I backannounce songs (because I listen, too, and I know how goddamned annoying it is to hear a song you like and not be able to find out who sings it or what it’s called); and it’s been god knows how long since I stomped vocals. Or even did much in the way of talking over the intro…

Professionalism, people, professionalism…

6

Way back when I was a college DJ (ah, backtiming. Know it well), we had one important rule:

“Never play Harry Nillsson’s ‘You’re Breaking My Heart.’”

It was fun to request the song from unknowing DJs and watch them turn pale.

7

:confused:

I’ve never heard nor heard of that song. Why was it specifically banned?

8

Rilchiam:

Having done a search on the lyrics after reading RealityChuck’s post, I’d say because “Fuck you” is part of the chorus, repeated at least four times in the song.

9

More on Hometownboy’s report: in the USA circa 1980, as a deregulatory measure, the Third Class and First Class RTO Licenses for broadcast stations gave way to “Restricted” and (i think it was)“General” RTO Licenses. I was a “restricted” (1982), and it was essentially issued on request – if you had the reading skills to fill the postcard-style form, had a Social Security number, and satisfied the management’s requirements for the job (or for entering training), they would endorse the form and send it to the FCC and back would come the same form with a very cheap ink-stamped FCC seal of approval. Restricteds were essentially limited to handling content (i.e. they could be on-air voices and studio operators, and patch feeds) but not do anything with or to the transmitter except switch it on or off if and as instructed by higher-ups. The stations would just get them for everybody who could conceivably go on-air or be asked to ride the board (keep an eye on the pots and meters while a feed or tape played, with the Engineer’s phone number handy in case of trouble).

By the late 80s, further deregulation, systems automation, the death of low-power stations, and the above-mentioned program centralization led to the elimination of even that nominal requirement. A station or network can now use a very tiny number of actual operators to run the technical side, while the on-air talent need only be obnoxious enough to get ratings.

In my former station: absolutely NO talking during the music playing, ALWAYS a full backannounce (all the way to the beginning if playing sets), no over-potting the source so the vU-meters are slammed to the right the entire track…
…and it being the days of vinyl: failure to reset the turntables to 33rpm meant public flogging.

Oh, and dead air? Tolerable if you could prove the station was on fire, flooded by a broken water main, taken over by terrorists, or the DJ just dropped dead face down on the board. Always have a longish station-ID cart in deck 2 ready to let rip at the 9th second of silence, and a couple of "safe’ carts sitting nearby to cover while trying to fix what was wrong.

10

I’ve always wondered this: Do DJ’s have a timer or something on certain songs that countdown the intro until the vocals start? On the local classic rock station they talk all over the intro and manage to get everything in just before the vocals. Is there a device for this or does it just come from practice?

Who did this? Sounds like there’s a story here…

11

My experience was limited to college radio and my local overnight gig on an AM country station in my college days but…

When a station gets a release of a song it’ll have how long the non-vocal intro is marked on it. At least it did in my time. Also, they’ll often have ‘close cold’ which means th song ends abruptly or ‘close fade’ which means it’ll fade to silence.

12

When I was doing college radio, we used carts (think ever-looping 8 tracks) and cd’s. Someone would have to write on the label how many seconds there were between the first note of the song and the first lyrics sung. Then you knew how long you had to throw in the weather, time, station ID, etc.

These days of computer driven music banks, I’m sure it’s a lot easier.

13

I’ve been working in radio for 25 years. It’s been a while since I did it in the US, but the principles are the same everywhere.

Yes, there is a nifty clock on the computer screen, telling how much time you’ve got left. But let’s face it. After playing Macarena or whatever 4000 times, you know how long the intro is.

As for the OP, it sounds like the local station you listen to is getting a feed from some central programming outfit. All these patching, with local inserts and spots, don’t always work. It might be something technical they can’t get around.
And as for the DJ being professional - most radio DJ’s are in fact very good at what they do. This is a business, and if the on air talent starts to annoy the audience, it’ll show up in the ratings. Most program directors actually listen to the station and try to catch these things before the listeners start noticing.

Could you post a link to the station in question? If they stream the audio, I might pick up on something.

14

Another Basic Don’t…

Don’t eat a bag of Fritos* while you’re talking on the air. You can’t possibly know how bad you sound until you have to listen to somebody else doing this.

*[sub]or anything else[/sub]

15

:smiley:
And don’t drink carbonated beverages…

16

Thanks to all above for the fill-ins. For the record, I started in a 250 watt Class IV local AM station in a one-station town at age 17, back in 1966. Worked summers through 1970 while going to college away. Got back into the biz 1974 and was involved at Class III regional AM that expanded from 1000 to 5000 watts days (1000 directional at night). Started as jock, went to news, then sales, then sales manager, then station manager and part owner. Parted ways in 1986 after sticking through majority owner’s affair, divorce, remarriage, redivorce and a Chapter 11 bankruptcy. Should have left much earlier, but there you go.

For last 5 years have been doing ads, promos and some voice tracking for a 100,000 watt FM. Spent the last 10 months doing morning shift on air 6-8, and tracking 8-9 so I could get to full time job at newspaper at 8 am. Last week dropped back to just voice work.

Fascinating to have the modern tools. I would have KILLED for a program like Cool Edit Pro back in the 74-86 gig. Our only real editing tools were a razor blade and splicing tape. Sometimes by prerecording sound effects on carts and mixing with music, you could get a complicated spot produced, but you’d have to keep doing it over and over from scratch each time if some element was slightly out of synch.

Hell, I would have killed for even one of today’s low-end computers. We started with the TRS-80 (commonly called the “Trash-80”) from Radio Shack (remember 7" floppies?) and spent 3 grand for the the machine and 7 grand for custom programming to do our logs. No hard drive, just two floppy drives - one to hold the program, and one to hold the data, IIRC.

The reason I was rumbling about not backtiming, is because the station I work for now doesn’t care. Rather than using skilled jocks to join the net straight up. they record the feed off the air, and play it back whenever its convenient to the end of the song the computer is playing. Can be as early as 10 seconds after the hour to as late as 3 minutes after. Aaargh! Here’s a case of technology not improving results.

Sorry to ramble. Have enjoyed everyone’s memories.

P.S. Happy memories of Inna-gadda-da-vita and its 17:05 timing, commonly known as the “let the jock take a dump” record

17

I used to play Pink Floyd’s “Dogs” whenever I felt nature calling. 20 minutes and change, IIRC.

18

Ah! I just found them myself! I also did a search before posting, but I neglected to include the artist’s name.

[sub]Good thing I’m not a DJ…I’m just a one to play a song without checking it out first…[/sub]

19

Please, somebody, oh please explain the purpose of talking talking talking over the introductory musical portion of the song. Does it involve self-mutilation?

20

I wish the DJ would not talk in the intro/finish to a song, The Songwriter wrote the song with a nice intro/finish and the DJ can’t shut his Pie Hole.

Also please play the same 20 songs over and over, running songs into the ground. And since you play the same 20 songs over and over, you do not need to tell me the Artist and Song Title, trust me I know, you have played them enough.

The only station I can listen to at work is a soft station that play’s “today’s new music”. Were until recently they began to play Don’t Know Why from Norah Jones, this song has been out for a while I saw it on VH1, and are now preceding to run that song into the ground.

Also Please Keep Playing CRAP.

They play I Hope You Dance from Lee Ann Womack, and I’m Like A Bird from Nelly Furtado, both songs Suck and were played non-stop for a year, I thought they might be done playing these songs, but alas NO.

How about play music, shut the F-up, and keep your conversations OFF-AIR.

I also hate commercials.

I usually listen to CD’s simply because of these reasons.

Good music selection, no commercials, and no-one talking.