Thursday, May 31, 2012

May 31, 2011

8:40 a.m. -- Let's keep talking about unrest at The Ticket, it's delicious if rather unsettling to those of us who would prefer a smoothly running Little One with hosts and JV focused on bringing us only the highest-quality sports-guy-talk entertainment.

But I do have an off-topic question:  I keep hearing these Driverselect.com ads by Bob, Dan, and Donovan, and I ask myself -- are those prices for the described vehicles really that good?  Aren't those prices for late-model used vehicles about in the ballpark for car-lot prices?  Those discounts they trumpet are not from the purchase price of the vehicle, but from MSRP.  Not trying to screw BaD's endorsements up, but offhand those prices seem pretty un-head-turning to me.  I recently did some car shopping and checked the used prices on the model I was looking at -- nothing to write home about.  Any car guys out there:  What's the deal on Driverselect?


9:15 a.m. --  OPEN THREAD NOTICE:  Our priceless colleague AP from The (Incomparable) UnTicket has requested that Confessors assist in creating a list of all the screwed-up broadcasts, events, and technical issues that have plagued The Ticket in the last six months for a project he is compiling.  Please respond with dates and details if possible, and if not possible, describe the problem you heard.  I'll start with a couple.


    --  Frequently overdriven microphones (some use the term "overmodulated").

      --  Mics missing spit guards or screens, according to Danny, so that Ps and Ss pop and hiss.  (Gordon's live spot this morning was awful.)

      --  Televisions not timely installed in the studio, and installation is a physical mess (see the photo Cash Sirois sent awhile back)

      --  TeeBox transmission took place in the midst of a swamp of static on May 12, I think it was.

      --  TeeBox remotes are always of poor sound quality, Rick and Craig end up with a gargly, gravelly, need-to-clear-throat sound to their voices.

      --  Last Friday's complete Hardline meltdown.

     --  I'll let others detail issues with the stream and mobile access, but we should at least note that access is being reduced to IHeart.

Let's support AP in this -- even if you think "oh, AP will remember THAT one," list it anyway.  Thanks to all.


*      *     *

12:25 p.m. --  This situation harks back to something I wrote about in my "Apocalypse Sometime" post, from which I now liberally quote:


"Consider the position of the hosts, and maybe even a guy like Rich, who also seems unhappy with what's going on, even though he is Rich the Suit.

"They're placed in a terrible position. They don't like what's going on. They would like to advocate for the P1, but what can they do? If they complain too much, they could get disciplined, or perhaps even squeezed when renewal time comes around -- or nonrenewed. Some of them may have been made well-off by their years of service, but, like Deion, they can't do without their salaries. But if they hold their tongues and broadcast like nothing's happening, the listener begins to think of them as compliant, even complicit with the CTO. Their bond with the P1 is compromised as the growing crappiness is ever more apparent coming out of the speakers."

Isn't this what is happening?   In the past we've enjoyed the fairly harmless and fairly occasional barking by the hosts about management issues, it's what we all do at our own places of work, the difference being that our workplace utterances don't go out on the air, and we don't Tweet them.   But when management has really fouled up and the anger is genuine, widespread, and constant, it's not so fun for management anymore, and the whip comes down.

And our guys seem, well, whipped.  They have to take the crappy chief engineering and crappy management decisions and shut up about them.  They can't be on "our side" any more, which makes all the happy horseshit about how P1-oriented The Ticket is sound completely ridiculous.  Certainly not the hosts' fault -- but you can see the point I've been banging on for some time now:   Eventually, bad management seeps into the product and damages what comes out of your ear buds.  Confessors, you are hearing it even now and it is going to get worse.  

It's easy to say that "oh, The Ticket will never change as long as the hosts are there, and they're not going anywhere, The Ticket has survived crap management in the past, so no worries."

But it is not true.

55 comments:

  1. For the past few weeks the stream goes in and out which we all know but even when it's worked all day long, during the hardline almost daily suring WTDS and later, the stream will "hiccup" and stutter for quite a while and then the commercials will be fine but only during segments and tickers it messes up. I'm also always streaming from TuneIn on my iPhone.

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  2. Looks like CTO has ordered Danny to clean up his Twitter account.

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  3. his last tweet was simply

    #embargo

    I get the feeling that all ticket employees have been given strict orders not to tweet anything even remotely resembling anything involving Cumulus/working conditions

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  4. Just by looking at his Twitter feed this morning. It appears that all tweets pertaining to the little one and it's failures have been deleted. Still one pertaining to the definition of Cumulus, and one about the browsers on Cumulus computers.

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  5. Drops not transferred over ahead of time
    Drops permanently lost in the move

    Stream not working the morning after the Super Bowl

    Stream not working in general

    Stream getting choppy randomly throughout the day

    Stream getting choppy at the same time (6-6:15pm) for at least a week in May

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  6. Actually, for the day after the Super Bowl, the stream was working fine, but they weren't going out over the air.

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  7. The epic Musers rant takes place on Feb 6, starting ~13 minutes in.

    Listening to it reminded me of another snafu, which is that their signal went not encoded for a week or so.

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  8. Sounds like the big boys in Atlanta came down pretty hard on the Ticket collectively to nip all the dissention/insubordination. My bet: any utterance/social media-ing of anything Cumulus related by on-air staff will result in indefinite suspension and support staff will be subject to immediate termination, no exceptions. Enjoy your unhappy, neutered shows P1s, for better or worse.

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  9. Last few posts on Radio-info are pretty interesting.

    Shaggy...Link please..

    tks

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  10. Never mind Shag. Got it..GOLD!

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  11. I think it's dangerous territory to ban any comments on technical difficulties. I think the ban probably did happen, but as the problems continue to happen, listeners will get WAY more fed up if issues are brushed aside or ignored completely.

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  12. Any speculation about what we might be in for tomorrow as The Ticket may or may not be switching over to iHeart? Danny has also deleted any and all tweets pertaining to the stream, iHeart and his tweet regarding June 1st.

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  13. Gentlemen, if gentlemen you be:

    SHARE THE LINKS, PLEASE.

    Thank you for shopping at My Ticket Confession.

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  14. Bob and Dan just had to stop down Norm and informed him that they are not allowed to talk about Jake on the air.

    Interesting

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  15. I guess this means Danny's "Cumulus -- The Power of Saving Cash" drop will no longer be heard across the land.

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  16. Interesting. KSCS and BAP are on iHeart. Don't know if they have always been there. On the BAP website the "listen live" link does NOT redir to iHeart nor is there any mention of iHeart. The KSCS website has all the iHeart signage.

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  17. Sorry Shag. There is no way to directly link to the specific audio. It's a searchable player applet and you need to know the date and preferably the time of what you are looking for.

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  18. The problems aren't just small hiccups. Entire shows (or the majority of shows) have had problems for hours at a time. AP streams, records & archives each day. He can probably spend an hour randomly pulling up shows & scanning through segments and come up with 30 instances of major problems. Not to mention the fact they had no TV for months or hundreds of lost drops.

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  19. totally agree with your 12:25 update Plainsman. That's what I was trying to get at too.

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  20. Dan just mentioned in passing during a WTDS nutkicking of TC that there was some kind of all hands meeting today for full time staffers. I bet that was a real barrel of monkeys.

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  21. The Hardline certainly was not pulling many punches in their first segment.

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  22. This isn't the beginning of the beginning of the end of The Ticket as we know it, folks, it's the actual ending of it. Two weeks ago in these very comboxes I said that the end is nigh and when it comes it'll be swift and irrevocable. Get ready for at least one major player to walk. As far as the JVers go, they'd better make a decision right now to be martyrs or company men. There's no inbetween with the guys (Dickey bros) who run this thing. Hotlanta is in the house and they're letting the mfer burn. Believe it.

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  23. Shags, I missed the first segment. What was the gist, if you please?

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  24. I don't seriously think any of the major Ticket guys would leave over this. They're all making a ton of money to work a few hours a day on the highest rated station in town. Sure, there's some issues, but what are they going to do, go work for The Fan?

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  25. Oh, and I do remember Danny complaining about construction in the next room right after the move.....I don't know exactly when, though. Also, I think it looked bleak when they were all supposed to go to Victory for a run through and either the Head Engineer didn't show or nothing worked.

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  26. With all due respect, Jeff, I think you're underestimating what some of those guys might do. I can see Mike either quitting the business (he's set for life already) or giving Cumulus the finger and going over to a competitor. Just to beat them. I can also see, in this environment, BaD being money whipped, Norm EASILY going over to ESPN, and the Musers going to either ESPN or The FAN. A poisonous work environment will drive the once faithful to other destinations, in posthaste time.

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  27. I know it's a pipe dream but wouldn't that be awesome??? Everyone at once, up and leave for The Fan. We would get the original Hardline back(if the two of them could get along)cage the snake back to the yuck monkey position. A better presentation, no more failed remote equipment to have to work with, and a class C0 100kw signal that we could all hear.

    CBS would have a #1 station and they could call it 105.3 the Fan-ket!!!!

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  28. OMG IT'S OVER! ALL HOSTS WILL LEAVE AND THE TICKET WILL SHUT DOWN IN THE NEXT FEW DAYS.

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  29. During the opening segment, Mike Corby and Danny were making not-so-veiled references to mobile trucks needing to be repaired, having expired inspections and registrations, etc. Ty gave one of his patented "not critical" references.

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  30. Hey last Anon, go **** yourself. If you don't think things are going south at The Ticket- so much so that there's a decent chance that someone either leaves or is fired for insubordination- you're as dense as your all caps comment.

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  31. Thanks for the recap, Shaggy. Is Danny trying to get reprimanded or fired? You'd think by now he'd have gotten the message from the CTO.

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  32. The list I'm compiling (preferably with audio snippets) isn't so much for me as it is for hosts. I believe that there should be a record of all of these massive screw-ups that hosts can point to in the future, for whatever purpose they deem fit.

    I can't wait to hear some of the recent audio. Also, if any of you have experience with RTMP streams (specifically, the 'rtmpdump' and 'rtmpsuck' utilities), please drop me a line on twitter. "iHeartTheUnticket"

    Thanks again, Plainsman!
    -ap

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  33. How about the fact that for the first month or so after the move we rarely if ever had a Top Ten.

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  34. The remarks about it being a beautiful day to repair remote trucks sounded (1) funny, and (2) prearranged, as though these guys had decided to tweak the ban on slagging the CTO as a group, just a little.

    Mike sounded defeated today. He remarked a couple of times about what a bad day it had been, how he wasn't sure he could get through it. I know, he jokes about this stuff at the outset of shows sometimes, but when he repeated that it had been a really bad day, it made me think something had come down (as though the evidence of the cleaned-up Twitter feeds weren't evidence enough). There was also the reference on WTDS to now full-time employee T.C. being invited to an all-hands meeting that day.

    There is alarm and anger among the CTO, and our heroes are being put in their place, and being told to like it.

    Well -- they're pros. I expect the shows will continue to be good. But as I've said in the recent past -- something has changed and ain't just their address.

    AP, I hope you'll share your full results with this site at a time of your choosing.

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  35. Been paying close attention to this all day(as if you didn't notice already)now when you search "KTCK" on iHeart it does not return "No Results" anymore. It now returns links to sports talk sations. WDAE, KFAN, and others. As far as I can tell BAP and KSCS came on iHeart this week, if not today. By these trends I am speculating that out little buddy's stream troubles will be over tomorrow. PLEASE!!!!!!!!!!

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  36. Tomorrow is when the streaming misery starts! No record function means I'll barely get to listen to The Ticket now.

    The stream is officially dead. (can't get it on tunein, FStream, or ootunes now)

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  37. It's dead, Jim. Early efforts to record streams from iHeartRadio are proving unsuccessful (as expected). Therefore, it's safe to assume that the UnTicket's archival system will have a gap in it until someone has a chance to figure this out.

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  38. Wait...now the original stream is back online. Screw it; I'm going to sleep.

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  39. a CTO decision to terminate the entire ktck station is eminent.

    hosts will enjoy their contract $ & no competes, but the station will cease to exist.

    its all over but the crying ...

    so long, ktck

    no funeral

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  40. Fstream still working here

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  41. Has anyone been able to confirm if Jake was suspended? Jer,Ty are y'all out there?

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  42. Don't panic yet. Not all of Bones' patients he's declared dead were actually dead. KSCS and BAP still work on tunein..the website. I don't remember the other non CC radio franchises that are on iHeart, but it will be interesting to know if those stations still on other apps as well. Perhaps only CC O/O's are the only ones exclusive to iHeart. I really don't know. Just know the aforementioned stations still work.

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  43. Something's in the air, man. I think we're about to lose one of our Heroes. I wouldn't be surprised at all if come Monday Mike R announces his departure - retirement.

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  44. Anon above what info do you have that says that will happen?

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  45. Man wouldn't that deal the CTO a major blow. Anyway I'm going to stay up till 12 and see if they show up on iHeart.

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  46. So, is the m.o. to come on and comment everyday that "something bad will happen" do that one day when something actually does you can point to it and say, "I told you so!"? That won't even be a good % by baseball standards.

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    Replies
    1. Do=so. I blame my Evo on that.

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  47. Ok folks did a bit of research. Perhaps this may bring some comfort to AP. In January of this year, Greater Media's stations went on iHeart radio. WRIF, Detroit (101.1)and WMJX, Boston (106.7)work on both Iheart and TuneIn. So it appears that only CC O/O's are exclusive. I don't want a gap in AP's archives either.

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  48. as of this post, nothing's changed. checked the mobile app and the website. Good night.

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  49. Before I forget, thanks in advance to everyone for jogging my memory on all of the many SNAFU's.

    If that's the case, P1bdogETX, then that's good to hear for the majority of P1's that listen to the stream live. The small percentage of us that "DVR" and listen later (due to employer streaming restrictions, when free time arises, or archival/reposting purposes) may be inconvenienced for a little while until we find the right setup, but we'll deal. The reason I'm concerned is because the iheart delivery platform is also used to stream music, and additional steps are usually taken in those cases to prevent yahoo's like me from grabbing the raw digital content directly.

    Still getting the original stream (mms://live.cumulusstream.com/KTCK-AM) fine as of 5:58AM on June 1st, mind you.

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  50. AP... I can set two machines up one streaming, take audio into another and record with audacity to a hdd until things are ironed out. It will probably take me until Monday to get that setup, but I have no problem working it out.

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  51. Going back to a previous posters comment... Lets say Mike does quit. Would his contract allow it and if so, whats the purpose of them having contracts if they are free to quit/retire whenever they feel like it?

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  52. Are you seriously wondering if contracts could force somebody to work at a job against their will?

    The purpose of a contract is to set compensation and prevent them from working elsewhere. Anyone in any industry is free to quit and not get paid anymore.

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