Jones Radio

[SamSpade]

Read this on allaccess.com and then checked Jones' site to find this (below). So far "Classic Country 104.9" seems unaffected. Did KEVA, KNYN, or 103.9 oldies see any problems? What do local stations do when JRN goes down?

Just curious! Thanks all.
IMPORTANT NOTICE:
Friday, 21-Mar-2003 11:53:28 PST

The Jones Radio Networks facility in Denver was evacuated this morning due to a snow emergency. Four formats were totally unaffected, and five others had some interruption, but continued to air music via a backup system.

We are currently in the process of reoccupying the facility, and bringing our formats back to normal operation. We expect to have normal operations by 4pm PST today.

We do not expect any interruption for the Jones Radio Networks night time shows (Delilah, Lia, Kabel, Danny, Dave) or talk programming (America Live). We'll update you on this site as things change.

[SamSpade]

UPDATE —

IMPORTANT NOTICE:
Friday, 21-Mar-2003 15:58:49 PST

Normal operations have resumed at the JRN Denver facility,and all 24 hour satellite formats are back on the air.

Thank you for your patience.

[x]

Want my guess?

Sorry, I'll tell you anyway.

The all automated formats wouldn't be affected. Computers don't care much whether anyone is staring at them. The only problem would be formats that have live elements, and then they could just go automated until the humans show up again. At a lot of facilities, there's a backup system at the transmitter that kicks in a tape if the signal from the main studio fails for some reason. That apparently happened with KXOL when Simmons first took over.

[Agent86]

I believe most companies have that format installed, just in case.

[SamSpade]

x said:

Want my guess?

Sorry, I'll tell you anyway.

The all automated formats wouldn't be affected. Computers don't care much whether anyone is staring at them. The only problem would be formats that have live elements...

Ah, thanks. I have a friend that works for JRN's Hot AC format and she's told me before they still use CD players (Not a computer full of music) so her format is live 24/7. I suppose there must be some sort of backup around. Classic country seemed to do that- still airing music and commercials- just no people.

[Michaeljwyo]

Little bit of a late response on this one. Yeah, here in Evanston, we run Jones' Classic Hit country on KEVA and during the day, Jones A/C on KNYN, then Jones Hot A/C at night. The Jones A/C network played the same one-hour long CD of songs with no break contact-closures or anything from about 9am til 5pm. Same CD. Same songs. Same order. space in between each song.....like someone had just stuck a CD in there. Don't know about the Hot AC network-Adult Hit Radio. Your friend (yes I know who you are talking about Sam) could probably tell ya more about what went on with that network. Probably the same thing since they also still use the Denon CD-cart players in there. Meanwhile Classic Hit Country is voice-tracked using the Digital Jukebox computer system. So THAT system just popped right back up (or stayed up on emergency power when Denver Fire Dept cut the power to the building) and kept going just fine. Digital Jukebox is the exact same system that Brent Larson at KXOL used before Simmons took it over. I imagine now that Simmons has it, they're using some other sort of automation now.
It was really interesting, though. We had kind of a panic when this all happened. For a while there we thought we were going to have to go live on both stations all day long until Jones got everything figured out. Turns out all was okay, although on Magic 99 KNYN we did have our "live guy" that normally is on from 3p to 6p go on an hour early at 2p just so we didn't have the same songs over and over and also so we could get our spots in for the day since while Jones was playing that same CD they weren't sending down any break closures.

Michael
KNYN / KEVA Evanston