Apocalypse Sometime

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Confessors, I've got a bad feeling.

In a rare burst of efficiency, I'll get to the point.  

While we may not be seeing the end of The Ticket, or the beginning of the end of The Ticket, we may well be seeing the beginning of the beginning of the end of The Ticket.

By "the end of The Ticket," I mean the end of The Ticket we love and support and defend.

I'm not one of those who predicts the end of The Ticket, or one or show or another, "in the next six months."  And of course, we're still listening and the shows are still great.  Other than the occasional outburst at ongoing technical deficiencies, the hosts are doing their usual very entertaining jobs.

But clearly, something has changed and is continuing to do so.  And I think we can put our Confessing fingers on what that is and why it's damaging The Ticket.

Let's consider what we know:

First, the move to Victory was months behind plan.  It seemed not to have been planned at all, at least not by anyone who knew what he was doing.

Second, it was a botch.  I'm not a radio expert or insider, but I've heard enough by now to convince me that this was not par for the course.  It was a disaster, and a continuing disaster.  The Ticket lost gigabytes of one of the main things that binds the place emotionally to the P1 -- its history.  Stuff still doesn't work.

Third, SweetJack.  I've long felt there was more to that cursed cur than met our ears, and now we know at least part of the story -- his fleabitten services were bartered by Cumulus for reduced and inferior Internet availability for the programming.

Fourth,  Grubes ups and leaves.  I believe him that he's anxious to complete his education and improve his career prospects, but I also believe (and he has hinted as much) that the garbage Cumulus gave him to work with had something to do with it.  In fact, I think it had quite a bit to do with it, the timing at least.  

Fifth, remotes, one of the hallmarks of Ticket programming, and a lot of fun, got worse after the move to Victory and, incredibly, are getting worse as time goes by.  I felt sorry for Rick Arnett and Craig Rosengarden Saturday morning, fighting through that static haze.

Sixth, hosts are dumping on management like never before.  Even called out that Brett Blankenship guy by name awhile back.  They've dialed it back a bit in recent weeks, but it still creeps in.

Seventh, you almost never hear Cat mentioned on the air anymore.  There used to be a teasing kind of mixed affection/resentment thing going on like a lot of us have with our bosses, but you don't hear it much any more.  I'm no Mentalist but I'm sensing a growing divide between talent/operations and management.  

Eighth, as noted, the Internet stream is also getting worse, for the reasons we now know.

Ninth, stalwarts at other Cumulus stations are leaving or being shown the door.  KLIF has terminated guys like Jon-David Wells.  WBAP non-renewed (?) Mark Davis.  Jeff Bolton, also at KLIF.  Non-local programming is creeping in.  Grubes.  I've heard that other off-air staff have been leaving and that an audit of Cumulus employee laptops would find a variety of resume-generating software.

Tenth, Cumulus is introducing more and more syndicated programming.  I was very saddened when Joe Morgan's show started running weekends, reversing the trend of increased local weekend Ticket programming -- fewer opportunities for the up-and-comers.   I have heard that Dr. Sanjay Gupta segments will begin appearing on Cumulus Dallas outlets -- including, possibly, if you can conceivably believe it, The Ticket.  (If it hasn't already -- I haven't heard one, but since no one has commented, I'm thinking it may not have started yet.)

Finally (or at least until I think of another one) .  .  .

Finally, there was that really odd moment on The Hardline a few days ago.  I mentioned it in a comment.  Corby was doing a fairly amusing bit on Mike dating the mom suckling an eleven-year-old son, and Danny broke in.  Now it may have been a time-for-a-break thing, but there was a different quality about it, like Corby was treading into territory he'd been warned away from.  Corby kind of snorted and said something about "executives listening" back at the station.  May be reading too much into that, but it was a very odd little exchange.

And I'm thinking -- this isn't just a flubbed migration to Victory.  Something has changed, is changing.  And that last little goofy fifteen seconds of broadcasting is what got me thinking:

It's not that the move to Victory was incompetent, although it surely was.

It's that they moved to Victory at all.

Because the move to Victory wasn't just a Ticket move -- it was a Cumulus, and then a Cumlus/Citadel move.

They brought all the children together in one place.  WBAP, KSCS, KLIF, KTCK, i93, The Wolf.  Yes, including sometimes naughty children like The Ticket.

So what?

So this:

Stations like The Ticket who operated somewhat on the edge, somewhat independently, somewhat as a separate team, are brought more firmly under the thumb of corporate management.  Think physical location doesn't make a difference in things like this?  You'll have to trust me on this one -- it does.

While it is hard to begrudge a conglomerate the cost savings of consolidation -- that's one of the capitalistic benefits of consolidation, after all -- in this case it is being amateurishly managed to the detriment of the overall product.  What used to be distinctive becomes homogenized.  What used to be improvisational and edgy becomes guarded and vanilla.  What used to be dedicated to a particular function for a station is now required to serve that function for multiple stations -- and the same management may not be appropriate for the different stations.  We've already seen that in Anon's report last time that The Ticket is being required to use equipment/software that may work for the other stations, but not for a station that is, for the most part, extended improv. 

"Executives" formerly remote from a rowdy station's operation now find overall supervision and authority -- and discipline -- much easier to exercise.

Cost-cutting also becomes easier.  The Ticket disappears in the gang of lower-rated stations; not only are its individual requirements lost in the clamor for resources at Victory, so is recognition of its singular greatness.  Instead of being nurtured and promoted and expanded, the station is starved and discouraged.

Morale gutters.

And, inevitably, the greatness starts to leak away.

I know I've gone on too long already, but let me make one more point:

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.

As I said -- The Ticket is in no danger of collapsing tomorrow.  I'll be tuning in tomorrow to catch Rich's 5:30 AM Ticker.  But, like the Ghost of Christmas Present says, if these shadows remain unaltered I foresee major changes at The Little-and-Getting-Littler Ticket -- soon, behind the scenes (hell, they've already begun) -- and in the next couple of years, on the air.

And we're not gonna like them.

That's enough for now.  I have a couple of other topics to address on this subject, but I'll save them until after The Nation has its say on this regrettably gloomy STD.

OPEN THREAD: Is Ticket Tech Really as Bad As It Seems?

We need to hear from some radio experts and, ideally, Cumulo-Ticket insiders.

I used to think:  The Ticket does a lot of remotes; I'm sure those present some technical challenges as they move from venue to venue.  So, atrocious signal(s) aside, in my early years of listening I tended to give Ticket tech a pass.

Then:

(1)  I heard the hosts grow increasingly testy about the lousy technology they had to deal with in the studio.

(2) It occurred to me that the number of remotes mean that they should have figured out how to do them fairly seamlessly.

(3) There was the absolute disgrace of the move to Victory, during which, apparently, a large chunk of Ticket history disappeared in addition to the overall amateurism of the transfer.  If no one lost his/her job in that disaster, then  .  .  .  well, I guess you see a lot of this in ossified corporate cultures.

(4) The tech meltdowns in the last two Hardline remotes, one of which won the E-Brake today.  Now, I will say that Hardline meltdowns tend to be extremely entertaining, between Danny's exasperation and sarcastic sing-songy efforts to broadcast over the mortification and Corby's and Mike's disgusted commentary.

It occurs to me that I've been listening to sports radio and other talk radio for a long time, and I've never heard anything as technically error-prone as The Ticket. 

Really -- what's the problem?  Bad equipment?  Bad IT/AV administration up the ladder?   Insufficient investment in personnel? Or are we (am I) just wrong about how lousy Ticket technology is?

Please advise.

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This Started Out as a Comment to the Last Article, but It Kinda Grew Into an Unusually STD

(For new readers:  STD = Scorching Ticket Disquisition.) 

A couple of Confessors have chided the hosts for their continued griping about the ongoing technical problems in the move to Victory Park.   I haven't found the griping all that off-putting, but maybe my listening has been a little spotty.  I do find it amazing, and appalling, that Cumulus wasn't prepared for this move. 

Although they portray regular guys on the radio (and mostly are), the hosts and producers and board guys are top professionals.  Extremely talented and skilled.  Their employer has given them faulty tools and is taking a bloody long time to fix them.  Can't blame them for being upset.

I try to put myself in their place, and when I do this is how it dopes out:

The Ticket is a unique institution.  It's "The LITTLE Ticket," as Mike R says,  because of its undesirable dial location and miserable signal and zero promotion to the public beyond people who already listen.  It portrays itself as an underdog but it's a spunky little thing.  It beats the big guys because of of its intelligence and fleet-footedness and style.

But these ongoing (and, it seems, worsening) problems make The Ticket look like something it has never looked like before: 

Dumb.  Foolish and unprepared.  Technically deficient. 

I know this is Corbyesque hyperbole, but:   The incompetence displayed is tarnishing the brand.  The Ticket looks silly, vulnerable.

And the hosts do not want to look like this, especially since they're helpless to do anything about it.  So they're mad and trying to provoke some urgency by embarrassing the responsible persons into getting things fixed.  I'm OK with that.

I know the Victory Park stuff is new.  I know it's complex.  But the magnitude and frequency of the failures this week should be unacceptable to responsible managers.  Did Cumulus not know that it was going to be new and complex well over a year ago when they announced this move?   Some CTO, frankly, has been asleep at the switch.  This is not primarily a cable-hookup-guy problem -- this is a move that has been ill-managed at a higher level probably through failure to devote sufficient resources, or sufficient expertise, in sufficient concentration to the move, or a strategy that neglects to, you know, TEST THE FRACKIN' STUFF OFF-HOURS BEFORE YOU DUMP IT ON THE PUBLIC. 

Maybe they think the rough-and-tumble 25-54 male won't care, long as he gets his bits and drops and Alexis saying "stick it up your tailpipe."

Yeah, it'll get better.  But in the meantime:  Frankly, Confessors, I'm beginning to feel a little bit disrespected.

Inaugural Victory Park Quick Hits

Got to hear some of The Musers and The Hardline.  Check out AP's knowledgeable comments a couple of posts back for some good inside stuff.  I'm pressed for time today, but here goes:

(1)  We've had some fun with real real audio the past couple of days with all the problems, so maybe the abysmal preparation for this move is worth it in a kind of pathetic way.  But this move was announced in November of 2010.  You can build an entire radio station in that interval.  I'm sure broadcasting and all that goes with it (making new machinery work, transferring information from one system to another) is complex and, since the move has to be instantaneous, there are bound to be disconnects.  And they're moving multiple stations into the suite.  But Cumulus is a big bad broadcasting boy with lots of resources and professionals at its beck and call.  It's inexcusable to have a transition that sounds like it was managed by Jerry Jones.

Having said that, the actual sound problems were probably noticeable only if you were really listening for them.  I'm kind of a radio junque, so I was.  I would guess that a lot of listeners, especially on 1310, didn't hear much different about the physical sound of the station.

Damaged in the move

(2)  Speaking of Jerry Jones:  This move could be a bad one for one Mr. Gordon Keith.  Part of what makes his impressions so effective is that they are delivered over a phone line, where some of the Gordon-ness of his voice is masked.  His Fake Jerry of yesterday (repeated at 6:40 this morning) was delivered over a much cleaner line, and it suffered.

(3)  Agree with AP that some of the mics were very hot.  I noticed it especially with Danny, but Corby's was EQ'd pretty hot as well.  Danny's EQ was so different that it almost sounded like he was on a different show.  The sibilants were very hissy; it sounded like the whole Hardline had developed a lisp.  I'm sure this isn't the case, but it sounded like everyone was too close to the mic.

(4)  This might not be audible to a casual listener, but I was in the Conestoga with the Philco on high gain during The Hardline, so I could concentrate pretty well on the sound.  And I thought:  Man, Mike's new high-gain mic is not kind to his voice; for the first time, he really sounded old to me, with that edge of whisperiness to it that more elderly gentlemen tend to get.  And kind of a wateriness to the vowel sounds.

But then I heard Corby, and his voice had that slight water in it as well.  And I realized that what I was hearing is that kind of bad digital translation sound of the kind that you hear in much worse form on TeeBox remotes.  Just the slightest rattle in the voice, as though the system weren't sampling the voice signal cleanly.  (I'm making up these terms -- I'm sure sound engineers can tell me what's actually going on, and I think we have some Confessors with some expertise in this area.)  It isn't obvious and you kind of have to be listening closely, but it was there.  More obvious with Mike, whose voice sounded noticeably different in the new studio.

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Anyway, as I say, not a big deal.  There are going to be some problems and our heroes are dealing with them in a mostly-amusing way.  (I did not hear Dan McDowell's performance yesterday, although (the incomparable) AP reports that he was in need of a remedy for cramps and bloating.)   On top of that, Gordon's hiccup extravaganza during Muse this morning was the icing on The Ticket's birthday cake.

See you at Guy's Night Out on Thursday.

Your Plainsman Congratulates Sportsradio 1310 The Ticket on Its New Victory Park Studios -- and, As Usual, Has a Few Questions

I expected this, reading between the lines of some of the banter in the programs. No, I didn’t know it was Victory Park, but I figured the lease was up there hard by Turtle Creek.

My Ticket Confession congratulates The Ticket on this move. Although apparently they’re dragging the other raggedy-ass Cumulus properties along with them. One would like to think that this was an acknowledgement of The Ticket’s contribution to Cumulus’s bottom line and an enhancement of the broadcast quality. But no, sounds more like their lease was up and they got a deal.

So although it’s great news – we want our favorite hosts to operate in attractive surroundings – I’m not entirely sure why it should be cause for celebration among the P1 Nation. I guess we’re all expecting that the technical issues that plague The Ticket – signal aside – will abate. Is there any reason to believe this? Has anyone heard that the move will involve improved hardware or software? Isn’t it a lot more likely that they’re just going to move their stuff from the old place to the new place? I didn’t hear the announcment on the station, I’m just reading the publicly released stuff, so maybe something was said about getting some new stuff. But I think it’s more likely that we’ll hear even more technical screwups than we hear every day as they work out the bugs in the new studios. I hope not.

(And by the way – why isn’t there a link to this announcement on http://www.theticket.com/? )

And I’m wondering whether the lessor’s agent maybe needs to get clued in to the new tenants’ actual business. From the release:

“Brokaw said about 85 people will work in the new Cumulus office. ‘It will bring more people to the district,’ he said. ‘It provides Cumulus with a great venue for people to come see their programs.’”

Brokaw needs some gentle instruction on the nature of freakin’ RADIO. And broadcasting from the Old No. 7 Club or the AA Center is going to be just as much a remote as it is now.

At least the hosts can now park in the P1 Garage they’re always flogging.

In any event, I’m a lot more interested in the pending AM power increase, the details of which have been unearthed by the Incomparable AP and reported in a comment to Your Plainsman’s article here (see Comment 10). This power increase is of particular interest given Greg “Greggo” “Hammer” Williams’s move to drive time on 100,000-watt The Fan 105.3 and a fairly direct challenge to The Hardline. I’ll have more to say about that in future articles.

In any event, I hope the move goes well and that I’m wrong about just rearranging the ENCO on the Titanic.