RadioActive wrote:

I have to admit I laughed out loud when I read this article from a British newspaper. It's from the host of a show there who started in radio by being given the task of cutting the "umms" and "ers" out of pre-taped interviews. 

I well recall having to do this more times than I can count during my years at CFTR. We weren't trying to alter what anyone said or make anyone sound more articulate. The truth is you wouldn't believe how much airtime these little pauses take up in total, and you could sometimes save 90 secs. to two minutes if you got rid of all these verbal pauses. 

So with blade in hand, out they went. You could almost use up an entire spool of splicing tape taking them all out. But my producer wanted that and so we did it, painstaking and tedious though it was. It worked. The on-air product sounded much smoother and credible, and it never once changed the meaning of anything. 

Not sure if anyone else here ever had to do this and I suspect it still happens to this day. It's a bummer - or should that be "ummer"? - but I look back at it now with a laugh. And it made you a better tape editor, a skill now lost to history and technology. 

 I thought my umming and erring made for better radio. I was wrong

If you took all the 'Y'know's out of Toronto talk radio, you'd lose about 20 minutes per hour.

Last edited by Walter (May 11, 2023 10:34 am)

Don't forget "Ya'Know's" cousins "Like" "Well" and "I Mean"

I'm sure some will remember Walter Kanitz.  Among a ton of other things he did the travel reports on CKO.
I was a keener and thought I'd 'fix up' his travel report after we recorded it.  So, blade in hand I cut out all his 'ums' and 'ahs'.  The 90 second report came in just over 50 seconds.   He came in to record a spot, and asked me how it went, I told him I cleaned it up a bit.  After listening he said. umm. good job but..  you've removed my trademark, my style.  Can we please put it back?  Luckily I always ran a safe copy on another machine becuase you never knew what you'd get out of the machines there.    It was a good lesson though.  He wasn't mad, just very matter of fact, and it taught me that what I think is 'good' may not be what others hear.

ig.
 

I do indeed remember I'm "ah Walter Kanitz."
he ws supposed to be intelligent but he was no broadcaster and his silly "ah" pauses were sheer amateur hour.
currently thee is a woman on CP 24 who starts off almost every sentence with "ah"
 

Radio Bob wrote:

I was trained with razor blade, grease pencil and splicing tape, back when radio was in black and white.  Still working in radio news all these millennia later, I thank gawd every day for electronic editing.  I do it to make clips for news stories so much shorter.  I feel for TV reporters, for whom it's not as easy, unless you want to cover a good chunk of a clip with B roll.

That's what cutaways of the reporter are for! But you can only do so many of them.

ig wrote:

I'm sure some will remember Walter Kanitz.  Among a ton of other things he did the travel reports on CKO.
I was a keener and thought I'd 'fix up' his travel report after we recorded it.  So, blade in hand I cut out all his 'ums' and 'ahs'.  The 90 second report came in just over 50 seconds.   He came in to record a spot, and asked me how it went, I told him I cleaned it up a bit.  After listening he said. umm. good job but..  you've removed my trademark, my style.  Can we please put it back?  Luckily I always ran a safe copy on another machine becuase you never knew what you'd get out of the machines there.    It was a good lesson though.  He wasn't mad, just very matter of fact, and it taught me that what I think is 'good' may not be what others hear.

ig.
 

Walter Kanitz. Didn't he have a nightly show on CFRB in the early 60's called "Continental Concert"? I seem to recall it running before "Starlight Serenade"