Broadcast Delay

[admin]

Stan: I am wondering what you can tell me about the brief broadcasting delay in which the transmission of those calling in to live radio shows is delayed by several seconds with the hope of deleting unsavory comments before they are heard by the listening public.

Did all radio stations have this and is it still in place today? I always thought that there should be a broadcaster delay as well that the sound engineer could use to protect the public.

[Scastles]

Broadcast delay is a norm today for many stations. There was a time, long ago, when radio stations were required to omit a periodic tone on the telephone to let callers know they were either being recorded or were live on the air. There were other primitive ways to delay broadcasts. At one station I worked for we had two Scully 4 tracks placed side by side. One Scully was set in record mode, the next one in playback, by running the tape at 7 1/2 ips through the recording Scully and looping it back through the other one in playback, we were able to create a 10 second delay.

[ozover50]

It appears the standard here is a 7 second delay...... wonder why it's specifically 7?

[Scastles]

Aitch, in reality the 'seven second delay' is more of a term than a reality. The length of the delay could be longer, or possibly shorter. Stations operate with different broadcast delay systems, but the term 'seven second delay' became more of a coined phrase for the systems.

[jps]

Aitch, in reality the 'seven second delay' is more of a term than a reality. The length of the delay could be longer, or possibly shorter. Stations operate with different broadcast delay systems, but the term 'seven second delay' became more of a coined phrase for the systems.

Just like Coke, Kleenex, Xerox............... (now where have I read this sort of thing, recently.)

I know that at one of our local college radio stations, WSCB, their delay accumulates time the longer it is on; is this a normal type of thing with station delays?

[Scastles]

Candidly, Jeff, I'm not real sure. However, the systems works much like a TIVO or other delayed television recording devices, except with an edit. If you pause a live broadcast on TIVO or the like, then start it where you paused, and repeat the process again, it's much the same thing. Over time, the delays are accumulated, until the particular program has fully run and eventually brought back to live mode.
It may be the norm for some stations to run continual, accumulated delays if the format involves a lot of talk.