I am at a point now where I watch a lot of TV and movies with closed captioning on. I’ve become pretty accustomed to it and most of my crowd, no matter their generation, do not find it overly distracting or annoying. Save of course for one 23-year-old who, fortunately for her, isn’t forced to watch TV with her old man all too often.
If you ever do the same thing, you may have now again, during anything aired live or replayed from a live broadcast, noticed a word pop up on occasion when someone is speaking.
Inaudible.
Now if that happens, it usually means the fine people or robots transcribing the dialogue for closed captioning did not catch or did not understand the audio of what was said. So, it’s either that term or a bunch of question marks on the screen.
Hey, it happens and at least you can follow what’s on the screen to help you keep up with the storyline, right?
Now, my hearing is still in the normal range which is also why I still am so very fond of radio and why I go so far as I do sometimes in trying to protect it, even if in the case of news radio, that protection is ironically, often from its very self.
I debated going after news radio once again and honestly, I thought my gripe might been perceived as too nitpicky. But I think we can all agree that being able to understand what is being broadcast over the air is a pretty crucial element, particularly for news radio, because minus intelligibility, it’s just noise coming through the speakers.
Not Broadcast Quality, Not Air Worthy, or Inaudible, these are terms and words I would occasionally hear around the newsroom when sound came in from various sources that didn’t meet standards for going out over the air. A microphone could drop off during a standup or recorded interview, feedback could cover a phoner or the echo from a hallway could turn an impromptu press avail into something next to useless.
Sadly, with the lack of editors, sound technicians, and frankly, dwindling concern or diligence for what is going out over the air, bad audio continues to be increasingly commonplace on radio stations near and far.
Let’s talk local, and I don’t necessarily mean small local either. I live within listening distance of four major markets and I can catch their programming in the car or thanks to our friend Alexa, in the house. Many of these stations have live interviews with newsmakers, analysts and the occasional expert to enhance the story coverage. These stations have producers, these producers get these guests ready to go on the air yet for some reason, using Zoom and speakerphone for audio going over the radio is acceptable to them.
Here’s the problem; most of the time audio from Zoom or Teams or whatever just, well sucks. The same goes for speakerphones from a cell or landline. The sound is muffled, echoed, tinny, static-filled, take your pick. It’s radio, we need to hear it.
To whoever is arranging the connection, try saying this; “Let’s do this over the phone, and when you’re on the air, please take it off speaker and put the phone up to your ear and talk normally.”
If the Governor or a Senator can do that, the lady raising money for displaced cats can do the same thing, just ask her.
We will all thank you.
I mean, I hear talk show hosts do this with a guest, too. 17 minutes of a guy sounding like he’s been locked in a bank vault. Granted, it’s a talk show so it doesn’t really matter but there’s a principle involved.
Let us not just blame the producers here, there are anchors and hosts and news directors, etc. who apparently don’t listen or don’t care.
I will tell who does care: anyone listening in the car who hears the anchor just fine and the guest sounding like they’re in a tunnel from 1989. Who is hearing this and not wondering why this is the case?
Bad audio is like a disease that gets spread around from the networks on down to the local stations. Sometimes it’s unavoidable but most of the time it’s not. Sure, trying to figure out what Trump is saying in the echo chamber that is the hallway outside the New York City courtroom is one thing, but the truth is probably a little more simplified.
The networks, who send content on to the affiliates, just don’t have enough staff to offer any quality control, the small local stations get one shot at what they’re covering and if they blow it, they can’t afford to toss it away, so I guess they think it’s better than nothing. As for the big market stations, I don’t know what their excuse is.
Could just one anchor say, “Hey, let’s get this guy off speaker phone or whose idea was it to interview this guest over Zoom…for radio?
Seriously people, so many spoken word (There’s that term again) stations have gone over to the FM for the clear, crisp stereo sound and they gum it up with horrible audio. Forget the creative flow of natural sound that once tantalized regular newscasts or even audio stripped from TV where the visual references were surgically removed before air. Hell, I’ve learned to live without that, I’ve adjusted but radio with sound I can’t understand, that’s just too much.
I worked at a couple of TV stations back when the HD format was new and I used to laugh every now and then because we were airing so much low-grade surveillance video of crimes on our bright and shiny new high-definition broadcast. There was nothing to be done but grin and bear it because it was those low-grade surveillance cameras inside bodegas and outside car washes that often were the key to telling the crimes stories of the day.
News radio has less of an excuse here. I know not all of the old ways were better and yes, technology has taken us all pretty far but radio I can’t understand is happening because somebody is not doing their job or again, just doesn’t care.
I don’t know if you all have heard but radio is having a tough time of it lately and things like this aren’t helping.
Bill Zito has devoted most of his work efforts to broadcast news since 1999. He made the career switch after serving a dozen years as a police officer on both coasts. Splitting the time between Radio and TV, he’s worked for ABC News and Fox News, News 12 New York , The Weather Channel and KIRO and KOMO in Seattle. He writes, edits and anchors for Audacy’s WTIC-AM in Hartford and lives in New England. You can find him on Twitter @BillZitoNEWS.
