An awkward moment for Alex, but one of those mini-great moments in radio from a listener's standpoint, no doubt.

Still amazes me how AM 640 is still hanging in there and has managed to escape the guillotine. 



PJ

paterson1 wrote:

Cell phones have really hurt talk radio in some ways.  Any show today you will hear a caller either drop out for a few seconds or what they are saying become garbled.  Sometimes the calls are very low level, or dropping in or out when coming into an area with poor coverage if they are travelling in a vehicle.

In the days of land lines, callers or guests were almost always loud and clear.  Even if the guest was on the west coast, normally you could hear them fine, and local calls rarely dropped out.  I have heard whole segments of talk shows destroyed simply because the guest was on a cell phone.  Years ago a host or producer would sometimes ask the guest if he could use a land line phone rather than cell.   

There's almost no reason for guests to not be on Zoom or Facetime. The music stations have figured this out.

paterson1 wrote:

Zoom is better, but sound quality can still be poor.  On call in shows the listeners are using cell phones, and this is where most of the problems come.  

Zoom sound quality is as good as the source and is capable of broadcast quality bitrates.

RadioActive wrote:

We've noted the hazards of remote broadcasting before, but it was never more clearly on display than what happened on Roy Green's national show on Sunday. 

He was interviewing a guest when suddenly, it sounded like he could no longer hear the person. There were several seconds of silence, but it was only on Roy's part. The guest, who was on the phone and had no idea what was happening, kept saying, "Hello? Hello? Roy? Are you there?" only to be greeted by silence. 

For about two seconds, you then heard Green say "I can't hear the guest," before the host disappeared for good. Meanwhile, the poor guest was the only one still on the air. And since he wasn't exactly a radio pro, he was left hung out to dry, asking "Can you hear me? Roy?"

Eventually, after about 30 secs. - an eternity if you're on the air live - a producer out of CKNW where the show is operated, came on and admitted, "We're having some technical issues and we'll be right back." Cut to about four minutes of unscheduled commercials. 

It was an embarrassing mess, which Green later admitted was something on his end. That's what can happen when you're in Hamilton and the show is being produced out of New Westminster, B.C. 

Meanwhile, Alex Pierson had an awkward moment on her show Monday, when a former regular caller phoned in from Guelph. "I haven't heard from you for a while," she told him, attempting to be friendly. 

What came back was something she wasn't expecting. The caller responded by saying, "I can't get you anymore ever since they shut down AM 900! It's impossible to hear 640 where I am!" And on it went. Pierson tried to tell him about listening on the app but the caller wasn't having it, angrily complaining about the demise of CHML. 

She wisely and quickly moved on but it was a pretty uncomfortable moment she obviously wishes had never come up.

Amazing he was able to blurt out his point, before she interrupted and spoke over him.