As the radio industry undergoes yet another round of layoffs, Richard Factor takes us back to a time when things were quite different:

I was in a union long ago. It was NABET, the union for the people who operate the equipment at major market broadcast stations. Part of my job was to sit opposite the "talent," the deejays, newscasters, etc., whose voices went out over the air. I was responsible for turning the microphone on and off on cue, playing music recordings and commercials, editing news tapes, and interacting with all the technical equipment necessary to broadcast a program... WABC was an important "flagship" and "clear channel" station that ran 24/7 and there were quite a number of NABET "brothers" employed— thirty two is a number that just popped into my mind. Likewise, the talent union, AFTRA, represented a large number of employees. Seven full-time deejays, a handful of part-timers, newscasters, etc...

The AFTRA guys had their territory, but they would no sooner press the start button on a tape recorder than they would curse on the air... And when we NABET guys turned the microphone on, we turned our mouths off, not just to prevent cursing, but because only AFTRA was allowed to vocalize.  Of course there were other employees. Managers, secretaries, directors and schedulers of one sort or another. Together, union and non-union, we managed to keep this small but very successful division of a very large and very successful corporation on the air and raking in money for what we now call "the stakeholders."

But there was an issue, and it needed resolution.

Broadcasting is a thirsty business. If you talk for hours a day, you need to take sips of water frequently. So, on the AFTRA side of the broadcast console, there was a water pitcher for this purpose... Needed was a way to keep the water pitcher enabled for its critical task.

Posted by: Old Grouch in Radio at 22:15:41 GMT | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 321 words, total size 2 kb.