Question about radio personalities. I'm so confused!

Question

I was listening to Delilah from 106.7 lite fm, and I liked her so I checked her website. It turns out she is on 20 different radio stations as I post this question (and she says "you are on [insert station]"), and I know there aren't a hundred Delilahs with the same voice!

I always thought radios were live. Are radio shows pre-recorded? And what about the callers? The callers are also pre-recorded too? So when they request a song, they are requesting a song to play hours later?

I'm so confused!

Answer 1

This could get a bit wordy, so please bear with me.

The amount of truly "live" content on any particular station depends on the station owners, market presence, and (if any) corporate ownership. Most morning and daypart shows are done live, but some use syndicated programming to:

1) save money

2) use a nationally-known talent to draw ratings

3) keep amount of airstaff to a minimum

When consolidation and cost-cutting were perceived as a way to save radio, many stations switched to partial automation by having a computer run one or more airshifts. Jocks will pre-record breaks into the station computer, then the system inserts the breaks into the music and spots already in the computer. Many local stations use this setup in lieu of a live overnight or weekend air personality. Some stations have begun to reverse this trend and use more live talent - due to the fact that the ratings books show that listeners do notice the difference. If a larger radio corp. has a good talent, they will "syndicate" them onto stations they own in other markets. The person is doing a live shift, but not necessarily in your town. It's cheaper to pay one person $60K a year to do mid-days on 9 different stations than it is to pay 9 more employees a living wage. When you hear someone like Delilah mention your station, it is just a liner that she recorded for each market she's in, and the automation (or board-op) just plugging it in after she's done talking to give it a more local feel. Most syndicated jocks have never been to the other cities they broadcast in. An easy way to tell for sure is just to listen. If you hear no jock at all (just generic liners, commercials, music), or someone just mentioning songs with no time references, then it is most likely being run by a computer. If you hear the jock (or jocks) being chatty with callers, but giving a generic time check like "it's 22 minutes past the hour", then chances are that it's a live show being syndicated in more than one town or city. As far as callers go, very few are put on live, due to if they call during a song, or the fact that people are unpredictable and could say something very bad on the air. Most callers are "taped", then played back over the air a few minutes after they actually called, with them being edited if necessary. I hope this help

Answer 2

No, real easy... her show is being done live in a studio in Seattle. The show is broadcast over Satellite and is picked up by equipment at the local radio station that's paying her money to be on the air and is rebroadcast over the air.

She normally takes breaks at certain times and the computers that take her program and air it also insert prerecorded recordings of her saying you are listening to (insert station here) as well as ads.

That's why the request number ain't the same one as the stations for... that way you call her direct.. all of those songs are on her computers.. all those people calling are from all over the nation calling her....

I could go into more detail about some radio that is prerecorded by for Delihah, unless it's a best of show, she's live

Most morning shows in the US, such as opie and Anthony, Bob and Tom, Kidd Kraddick, Big Boy's playhouse etc do this