September 1999 Highlights

After careful consideration of about five minutes, I realized that I create alternative realities. Think about that for a second. What does anyone who writes anything actually do? They create an alternative reality. This alternative reality can be based on real events, or it can be fiction. But whenever you create a promo, commercial, or whatever, you are creating an alternative reality. If you are writing a parody or a comedy bit, you are creating an alternative reality. Any time you use your imagination, you are creating an alternative reality.

Interview: Stephanie Snyder
Yahoo! Broadcast Services, Dallas, Texas
(formally broadcast.com)
By Jerry Vigil

Broadcast.com features programming from 420 radio stations and networks and 56 television stations and cable networks. It also delivers a large selection of non-traditional broadcast programming including full-length CDs and audio books and broadcasts games and other programming for more than 450 college and professional sports teams. Basically, broadcast.com is in the business of delivering audio and video programming to computer users. If you have a computer with Internet access, you have access to all of the above. And like traditional broadcast mediums, web-casting also has commercials and requires audio production. Thats where Stephanie Snyder comes in. Stephanie is the person responsible for creating broadcast.coms audio production department from scratch just two years ago. She was hired as the companys Production Director and is now their Technical Director. The company itself has also gone through some recent changes. It has been acquired by Yahoo!, another Internet giant, and now bears the name Yahoo! Broadcast Services. This months interview with Stephanie takes an inside look at production and more at one of the worlds biggest and fastest growing Internet companies.

Technology: Vegas Pro
From Sonic Foundry
By Tom Richards

Not "if," but "when?" That was the question. Just when would Sonic Foundry enter the multi-track market? After all, for years, their Sound Forge has been considered one of the premiere two-track digital editors, with gratifying updates that brought enhanced power and connectivity. Then, with last summers release of their audio looping tool, ACID, Sonic Foundry introduced a whole new breed of editor that flanked the field with its imagination, innovation, and ease of use. "OK," we said, "thats fine. But when are you going to build the multi-track we know youre capable of? One that will raise the bar for all multi-trackseven the Mac-based ones?" "Patience," came the reply from headquarters in Madison, Wisconsin. "Vegas Pro will come and it will answer your prayers. But were not going to release it until were sure itll beat the pants off any multi-track out there." They rolled a seven. Vegas Pro brings fast, accurate multi-track editing to your Windows PC while rivaling editors costing up to ten times more. It even scrubs!

Q It Up: The RAP Network Speaks
By Jerry Vigil

Interns - Part 1

With todays consolidation come expanding work loads and longer days. Interns can be a huge asset today, but they can also give you even more to do. This months Q It Up takes a look at what stations today are doing with interns and provides insight for those thinking about using them and tips for those who already have them. Once again, we had a lot of great responses and will present them all in two parts with the second part in the upcoming October issue.

Q It Up: Do you use interns in your production department, or have you used them in production in the past? If so, how are/were they most valuable to you? What tasks do/did they perform? What tips would you offer others about using interns? Feel free to add any other comments you might have.

Radio HED: Production Parity
By Jeffrey Hedquist

The average production budget for a national television commercial is over two hundred thousand dollars. Some can cost more than a million. The average production cost for a national radio commercial is less than one-tenth the cost of television production. 

The effectiveness of a television spot is very often dependent on the dollars that go into producing it. Television is a more passive medium. Theyre not just telling you the story, theyre showing you the visuals, and those visuals cost a fortune to produce. Its much less expensive (and more effective) to let the listeners create their own visuals on radio.

Way Off The Mark: Calling Perry Mason
By Mark Margulies

Last month, we received a request for creative from a salesperson whose client built a radio commercial around the song, "Rock and Roll" part whatever, by Gary Glitter. Most of you, if you watched any sporting event, know the song. Its copyrighted, used only by permission. Well, the client in question didnt know or even care about that. They wanted to use it. Copyright laws prohibit the use of commercial songs for promotion of any products other than concerts by the artist, or promotion of the artists products (music stores, etc.). Radio station licenses have been interpreted as to NOT cover their use for commercial purposes. That means, if the client had been left unchecked, and the production department didnt understand the rules or just plain "missed" one, a spot using Gary Glitters music could have aired, have been heard by an ASCAP or BMI rep, been reported to Glitters lawyers who would then have taken great joy in slipping a nice fat copyright infringement suit on the station. And your client? Long gone, pleading ignorance.

...And Make It Real Creative
By Andy Capp

Maybe if we all took a little time to look at how we are all related in a common cause, in a common life, we might actually start working together to fight the real enemy, lack of respect. Perhaps in the twilight of this century, when weve grown accustomed to demanding everything, we should try to gain our respect the old fashioned wayby earning it.

The Monday Morning Memo: Second Hand Knowledge
By Roy H. Williams

Which testimony is stronger in a court of law, "I personally witnessed it, your honor," or "someone told me who should know?" So why then, outside a courtroom, do we give the greater credence to second hand knowledge?

Everything we know, or think we know, is the result of someones observation; either a strangers or our own. Why are we willing to trust a strangers observations more than we trust our own? Why do we tend to swallow whole everything that is printed in a textbook? (Find a twenty-year-old science book. Look at it closely and youll see that much of what is printed there has since been proven to be wrong.)

Why do we place so much trust in second hand knowledge? Have we become so adept at learning from others that we have forgotten how to think for ourselves?