This is a waste of time, but heck – I have almost 3 years left to waste, so I better get busy!
Dave Graveline hosts a technology show that airs live from 2-5 PM on Sundays. He’s actually on my Facebook account as a friend!
I have a routine I’ve played around with several times to try to automatically extract schedule information for a show, but there are a number of obstacles, including the data is often quite wrong or out of date, or incomplete to actually verify that an affiliate exists.
I’ve long beefed that these lists are deliberately padded to try to puff up the “size” of a show’s audience. I’m not picking on Dave’s show. Things that can be wrong are
– station no longer exists
– station never existed
– are simulcasts counted as more than one station? (that’s a philosophical issue)
– is the show actually on the air when the syndicator says it is?
Here is the claim:
“The show airs on over 200 AM & FM radio stations around the U.S. and a plethora of other sources! ”
The list of affiliates is here:
http://www.graveline.com/radiostations.html
So what do I find when I parse the list?
I counted 191 things in the list that look like a radio station name. Notice that some lines have both AM & FM listed
34 of the “stations” are not valid stations
[KXIQ] => AM
[KTBM] => AM
[KHEL] => FM
[KTSE] => AM
[Key] => AM [Cape] => AM [West] => AM
(bogus on my part- West is part of the city, not a radio station WEST)
[KBLI] => AM
[WNSH] => AM
[WMSX] => AM
[WPEP] => AM
[WSNV] => FM
[WJZF] => FM
[WYCD] => ??
(HD3 channel!)
[WPIQ] => FM
[KNUU] => AM
[WELV] => AM
[Coos] => FM
[KHJ] => FM
[WRDD] => AM
[WPSE] => FM
[WMNY] => AM
[WTN] => FM
[KNET] => FM
[WZBZ] => AM
[WTDY] => AM
[CKLW] => AM
Okay, it’s a canadian station heard in Detroit
[KJAZ] => FM
Bermuda is not part of the United States
[KOOL] => FM
Neither is New Zealand
[CRN] => ??
Cable radio syndicator
[City] => ??
(Canada?)
[Cell] => ??
(Canada?)
[WWCR] => ??
(Shortwave)
[WWPM] => ??
(Online only)
Of those left, 17 are simulcasts, 1 is a duplicate (WDAY-AM). 49 don’t have a known stream – you can see a number don’t even have a web site.
After that scrubbing we have 95 potential streaming affiliates – But the big problem is the affiliate list does NOT show date and times. How could one possibly confirm the affiliates actually do air the program (a related problem is the station might air the program, but not stream it – or even more likely have sports preemptions!)
So the best I can hope to do as a start is to assume that the 95 stations carry the show live and try to listen then and see what I find. Based on a prior show who had a PR person give me a list with inflated counts, the list Dave published could be a list of “CRN affiliates” that carry -some- CRN show, not necessarily THIS show.
If you’re totally bored and want to start scouring web sites looking for the actual show times for a show:
http://streamingradioguide.com/radio-show.php?showid=240
So what do the 95 stations look like? Does it look credible?
47 are News/Talk stations, 17 are full service stations that carry mostly local shows, 9 are all-sports (probably changed formats and no longer carry show), 3 play Oldies music, and a smattering of other formats
If you look closer at the affiliates claimed in the top 50 markets (that stream), here is the list:
+----------+-------------+----------+----------------+-------+----------+ | CallSign | ServiceType | Power_Kw | CityName | State | CityRank | +----------+-------------+----------+----------------+-------+----------+ | WJOB | AM | 1 | HAMMOND | IN | 3 | | WWRC | AM | 35 | WASHINGTON | DC | 8 | | WSMN | AM | 5 | NASHUA | NH | 11 | | WMGG | AM | 5 | DUNEDIN | FL | 19 | | KAHI | AM | 5 | AUBURN | CA | 26 | | KDWN | AM | 50 | LAS VEGAS | NV | 32 | | KLIV | AM | 5 | SAN JOSE | CA | 34 | | WMEL | AM | 5 | COCOA BEACH | FL | 37 | | WPTF | AM | 50 | RALEIGH | NC | 43 | | WWTN | FM | 100 | HENDERSONVILLE | TN | 44 | +----------+-------------+----------+----------------+-------+----------+
WJOB is a tiny “rimshot” AM station in ChicagoLand
WWRC is the Salem station in DC and doesn’t list the show on their schedule
WSMN has a very incomplete weekend schedule and doesn’t list the show
WMGG is now Spanish Language
KAHI doesn’t list the show on their schedule
KDWN doesn’t list the show
WWTN was a known affiliate – they carry the show 5-7 AM on Sunday (prior week show)
So you’re an advertiser – what goes through your mind about now?
Probably worth noting that no radio station that I have confirmed carries the entire show live. It’s hard to do a callin show with no live affiliates. Phil Hendrie isn’t kidding
If you read carefully, callin line is 24/7 – meaning the show does “call out”, meaning someone listens to a question you left on the answering machine, the show may call you, or maybe just play the recorded call. I’m not sure – I haven’t listened much at 5 AM on Sunday. This is similar to how car repair guys Click and Clack produced an edited show that sounded live.
So after doing that, there are 4 stations carrying and streaming the show live. Maybe half a dozen potential affiliates are instead carrying the “one female and a bunch of guys” racing car events
Listening closer, there is no live interaction. The “callers” are recorded messages, with Dave pretending to talk to the caller – responses are carefully researched and narrated and over “produced”
“This is a waste of time, but heck – I have almost 3 years left to waste, so I better get busy!”
Hope you stay healthy and with us.. as they say, the site won’t post articles itself. Hang in there.
Oh, you inferred the wrong meaning. 😉
I was referring to how long President Obama is expected to remain in office. Who is John Galt?
Well that is happy news than… I keep seeing those food you are eating and getting nervous as are other cyber friends here.
Try some of these, but be sure to soak them in clean fresh water first or the salt will kill you
http://www.walmart.com/ip/10451764
Shut up.
Some of us knew what you meant… and feel the same way. 😉
How important is “live” radio?
Doing the show with this method makes for a much “tighter” show – no “first time caller, long time listener”, “how are you doing, Dave?”… If the question isn’t focused, it can be edited or not used. The host doesn’t have to be an expert on everything and can research answers.
Many shows (Rush Limbaugh comes to mind) mostly use highly screened calls as props just to introduce a topic – often being interrupted halfway into their first sentence (see: Savage)
On the other hand, playing recorded questions or reading emails is very cold and sterile. There is no give and take and no follow up by the listener – in fact, they have to reward the questioner just to confirm that the person even heard their answer.
“I’m going to hang up and listen on the air for your answer.” lol
Westwood one and Premiere have a different approach – to find an affiliate, they show you a map and you click on the state you want and you get a list for that state – which means the only way to compile a complete list is to download and collate 57 different lists. Fortunately, that’s exactly what I used to do in order to get a complete list of the access numbers for dial up Internet providers, so I know how to do that.
But given the inattention the syndicators give to the list, why even bother? Is it really better if I list 245 Rush Limbaugh affiliates instead of 213?