Recording and playout of programming today is easily left to automation and a file server. Thanks to the cloud, that server doesn’t even have to reside “on premises.”
Delaying programs hasn’t always been that easy, though, as it involved handling and keeping track of physical recording media, as well as a conscious effort of the part of operators to make sure recordings got made and aired according to schedules.
At the start
Although he may not have been first to air radio programming on a delayed basis, the infamous Dr. John R. Brinkley the “goat gland man” and operator of “border blaster” XER — was an early adopter of “electrical transcriptions” or ETs. Recorded at 33-1/3 rpm on 16-inch aluminum-based discs, they were intended for “instantaneous” playback. They provided about 15 minutes of recording time as opposed to the three minutes available on conventional phonograph records.
Brinkley operated his renegade station from studios in Del Rio, Texas, with the transmitter located safely out of reach of U.S. regulators just across the Rio Grande in Villa Acuña, Mexico.
As Brinkley’s XER was the source of a never-ending stream of complaints from both U.S. broadcasters and listeners, legislation was soon concocted to put the station out of business by making it illegal to broadcast from a U.S. location via a transmitter located in a foreign country.
The law did address recordings: “No person shall be permitted to locate, use or maintain a radio broadcast studio or other place or apparatus from which or whereby sound waves are converted into electrical energy, or mechanical or physical reproduction of sound waves produced, and caused to be transmitted or delivered to a radio station in a foreign country…”
But Brinkley was not deterred.
ETs, coupled with an apparent lack of policing of commerce between Del Rio and Villa Acuña, allowed Brinkley to continue his broadcasts with minimal disruption. As soon as “Doctor” finished recording his latest “Medical Question Box,” the disc could be handed off to a waiting courier for a quick trip across the International Bridge and playback at the transmitter site.
(It’s reported that Brinkley “burned through” so many of the aluminum-based 16-inch discs that homes near the Villa Acuña transmitter site were shingled with the cast-off recordings. Gene Fowler and Bill Crawford wrote about this in their book “Border Radio” published in 1987.)
And while it was not in the strictest sense “delaying of programming,” syndicators used ETs to supply programming to some stations.
However, this practice did not extend to network-supplied programming, as affiliates were not allowed to rearrange broadcast times of shows coming down the net. (Beverly R. Gooch, in the 1999 IEEE Press publication “Magnetic Recording — The First 100 Years,” writes that affiliates were actually forbidden to record network content, as this was viewed as piracy of network property.)
Aside from copyright issues, the networks frowned on any airing of pre-recorded material due to quality issues associated with early ET recordings. This prohibition was occasionally relaxed in connection with high-profile news events — most notably the recorded description by WLS’s Herb Morrison of the downing of the Hindenburg airship in 1937.
Postwar hodgepodge
It was not until after World War II that mainstream delaying of programming came into its own, spearheaded by the non-uniform adoption of “Daylight Saving Time” in the U.S., which left it up to individual states (even localities) to “spring forward” or not.
Falling under the “unintended consequences” category, this time zone “seasonal affective disorder” created some big problems for networks and their affiliates.
If a network aired a show at its regular (non-DST) time, it would be heard an hour earlier than expected in DST locales, causing some listeners to miss the show, and also making advertisers unhappy, with their messages bypassing intended audiences.
Conversely, if the nets adopted Daylight Saving Time, then programming would be received an hour later than expected in areas remaining on standard time.
This requirement for providing programming at “accustomed” times was key in forcing the adoption or regularly delaying broadcasts at both network and local levels.
Fortunately, a lot of the quality issues associated with 16-inch ETs had been resolved by the mid-1940s, and when postwar DST arrived, these technical advances enabled networks to make recordings that sounded almost as good as live feeds.
However, the relatively short 15-minute ET recording time didn’t change, requiring much physical intervention by operators, as well as the worry about creating overlaps and placing breaks in such a way as to minimize noticeable breaks in program continuity.
Magnetic recording
Along with the postwar DST implementation forcing networks to “hold up” program delivery, came a relatively new technology that considerably eased operational burdens when Daylight Saving Time was in effect.
The story of U.S. Army Signal Corpsman Jack Mullen’s importation of several “liberated” German “Magnetophon” tape recorders into the United States at war’s end is well known.
However, Mullen’s actions, and his subsequent demonstrations of magnetic recording technology, did set the gears in motion for the emergence of the U.S. tape recording industry.
But as with any new technology, there is always bound to be reluctance in its adoption, and this was borne out when DST delays became mandatory.
According to Broadcasting-Telecasting magazine at the time, when the nation “sprang forward” in 1948, both ABC, the “new kid on the block,” and old-liner NBC opted to use tape delay. (ABC was already convinced of the value of tape, stemming from its 1946 decision to allow Bing Crosby to record his program “Philco Radio Time.”)
ABC President Mark Woods was especially enthusiastic about tape technology, calling it “the greatest development in sound reproduction in the history of radio.”
Competitors CBS and Mutual remained adamant, however, and stuck with tried-and-true 16-inch ETs at least through the 1948 DST period.
From a perspective of some 75 years, such reluctance to move with the times seems foolhardy and expensive. In addition to convenience in handling recording media, the longer runtime provided by tape also removed a large amount of human factor from the process, as it was no longer necessary for an operator to pick a logical cue point for segueing between discs in most programs.
It’s not known exactly when the CBS and Mutual ended their use of electrical transcriptions for DST program delay, but it’s likely that corporate “bean counters” helped to influence its adoption.
Even after widespread adoption of tape, use of ETs didn’t end until the 1960s, with syndicated and public service shows routinely delivered to radio stations via such media.
Era’s end
The advent of the microprocessor chip in the early 1970s and the PC industry that it spawned eventually spelled the death knell for both the electrical transcription and magnetic tape as means for recording radio programming. Even though various digital tape formats were developed and used during the last decades of the past century, the handwriting was certainly visible on the wall, with more and more suppliers of hard-drive recording systems marketing their wares at NAB Shows and in trade journals.
This trend was reflected in 1997, when industry pioneer 3M ceased production of recording tape after a 50-year run, and Quantegy, the last U.S. supplier of audio tape, shuttered its operations some 10 years later. The resulting lack of product forced even the diehard users of magnetic tape for program storage and playback to move to hard drive-based recording and playout.
