Can You Hear Me Now?

In the changing face of digital technology comes a new enemy to the quality of your news: the audio condenser. What this evil little box does is open any mic that is routed into it every time it hears a sound. Why does that matter? Oh....yea of little inside news information!

Your news anchors have little side conversations during main weather (and commercial breaks and packages as well...but those won't make it to air). They also cough, sneeze, clear their throats incessantly, and type like mad on the computer responding to the latest Facebook post. All of that will be added to your soundtrack of what you hear during the local news. Why are news stations going this route? Well...about 40% of local stations decided to go with an automation system in the past few years. And computers do EXACTLY what they are told (and we just LOVE that about machines...here's a wonderful example of that LOVE...but I digress)! So...computers...doing exactly what they are told to do..clip mics. Because the mic has to "ramp up" - which means the little slider (like you see in the above pic) has to go from 0 to whatever level you need it at to hear the anchor clearly - and the anchors try to keep a newscast as tight as possible - you have a clip of their mic at the beginning of every story. In comes the audio condenser to save the day!

So while news stations try to fix a computer with another computer (because humans cost too much...although they do the job correctly)...you get to hear all of the background noise that was previously reserved for just the studio crew. Lucky you! *cough*


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