Did the characters work 12 hour days at the station?
I think I heard them mention it on the show once....
Is that typical of radio staff work hours?
well Bill tells Jon Lovitz in the ep where he gets committed that he can listen to him from 10-6
An nobody in the office really does any work just lots of goofing off
I DON'T UNDERSTAND IMNFINITY
well Bill tells Jon Lovitz in the ep where he gets committed they he can listen to him from 10-6
An nobody in the office really does any work just lots of goofing off
I DON'T UNDERSTAND IMNFINITY
"Is that typical of radio staff work hours?"
Depends on the job, the market, and the station. If the station is a music station
in a medium-sized to large market, then on-air talent--DJs--can work four to five hours, plus the occasional promotional appearance (shopping mall openings, etc.) In small markets, music stations needs may require long hours.
News personnel on any station may work long hours, sometimes putting in time if they are doing a special report, or a series of special reports. News guys and gals, if they're conscientious, are always looking at the wire and national news services to update their stories. If they are simply news readers, they could care less.
Engineers will often work longer hours because they may have to do the control
engineering for three or four shows, depending on the budget of the station.
There are a lot of variables. I once knew of a station manager on a dawn-to-dusk station who would be in at 5 a.m. to do the six o'clock newscast, and would do the last newscast a five o'clock. The station would sign off an hour or so later.
As they say, there's no money, a lot of coffee, and your wife and kids may not remember you. But you'll be a star.
Ha! That's a great saying! Makes print journalism sound like a viable alternative. My only radio experience was a friend who worked the night shift (8hrs) alone and was the only person in the building. Played music, spoke on air and also had to clean the place. Not very glamorous. It's funny when you contrast it with radio stations depicted in movies and TV. Newsradio didn't seem like too much of an exaggeration, since it was just one corner of an office tower floor. But the radio station depicted in the movie Airheads looked like a multi-level shopping mall.
Thanks for the great response! I don't know why it matters to me, but I feel bad for the beloved fictional comedic characters on the show if they have to work that long.
Jimmy and Dave were constantly worrying about the budget- maybe the long hours combined with the constant goofing off and lack of productivity were a large part of the waste? Dave really wasn't that good of a boss...
shareOn the cast commentary on one of the DVD's they talk about how stupid it was to have scenes where they turned off the lights and all went home (or to the Mexican place) a radio station that closes each day is not going to keep listener support, especially a news station.
Ephemeron.
At a certain time they could switch to a national and/or syndicated broadcast. A big classic rock station that I used to listen to a lot still runs Dee Snider's House of Hair Friday and/or Saturday nights. News organization today will of course run the same news stories over and over again for hours but I don't know how many people would listen to it on the radio. Would you want to be reading the news live at 2 am not knowing how many people are actually listening? Years ago I picked up an station, possibly AM, playing classic music late at night which can't be a horrible idea.
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I think that the main cast was supposed to be there at 9:00AM every day, it was early in the morning but not before 9AM and most New York City office jobs are 9-5 anyway, only the restaurants and other places are three work shifts.
So 9:00AM through 6:00PM would be realistic, with them having one hour a day for lunch around say 1:00PM, they probably had Bill and Catherine doing Drive time in the morning and switching off by 12:00 or so and then having local people doing the news before Bill switched back on late afternoon briefly doing more news and traffic and signing off again.
Frequently they had people in the booth even after they turned the lights off doing news and radio so they probably had an evening crew that started around 4 or 5 PM and worked till 11:00 or midnight, then somebody else would do graveyard or overnight news and traffic and talk radio all night and switch to a morning crew at 5 or 6AM until Bill and Catherine signed on a few hours later.
We have this station here called Oldies 108, actually 107.9 WFRZ and the morning crew starts at 5 AM and stays on until 10:00AM every morning except for weekends, then someone else runs the show until 1:00PM and they sign off around 5:00PM and switch teams again until 10 or 11, that crew runs it until the morning, i dont event know their names but the morning crew is Jones and Crane, they usually do about 5 hours or more and sign off, some play music all the time and some do news and comedy and gags.