Descriptionary

B-rate the cheapest commercial rates, for airing late at night or on Sunday morning.

breakers the new recordings receiving the heaviest air time.

Broadcast Music, Inc. (BMI) a nonprofit organiza­tion of music publishers and composers who collect royalties of up to 120 each time a performer or mem­ber's recording is played over a radio station.

call letters the identification letters of a radio sta­tion, usually beginning with the letter W if located east of the Mississippi and K if located west of the Mississippi. Canadian call letters begin with C; Mexi­can call letters begin with X.

class I station a 50,000-watt AM station having FCC protection of frequency for up to 750 miles. Also known as a clear channel station.

class III station a 5,000-watt station operating on an unprotected, regional channel.

clear channel station a maximum-power AM sta­tion having frequency-protected range of up to 750 miles. Also known as a class I station.

cool out to lower the volume of background music at the end of a commercial.

cough button a switch used by an announcer or DJ to turn off the microphone during a cough or sneeze.

cue burn damage to the beginning of a record, due to heavy cueing.

cue up to set a record, tape, or CD in cue position for immediate play.

DAB digital audio broadcasting.

dead air silence during a radio broadcast, a taboo.

delay time a seven-second delay between a talk show's broadcast and transmission, within which any obscenities from callers may be deleted.

digital radio a new transmission system, properly called digital audio broadcasting, that is projected to replace AM and FM by 2015. Digital broadcasting delivers clear and crisp audio without hiss, interfer­ence, flutter, distortion, or fading but requires a digi­tal receiver. With digital radio, music and speech are converted to electronic ones and zeros, or bits, and stored, played, and transmitted. Also known as high- definition radio.

disk record.

disk jockey one who plays records, tapes, and CDs over the radio.

DJ disk jockey.

DJ copy a record with only one side recorded on. drive time important broadcast hours in the morn­ing and late afternoon, when people listen in their cars on their way to and from work.

explosive a loud, explosionlike noise produced by speaking too close to the microphone.

feed broadcasts sent from a national network to local stations, or vice versa.

field strength the power of a station's broadcasting signal.

FM frequency modulation; straight-line radio sig­nals that cannot be received beyond the horizon and therefore have a much smaller range than AM signals; however, FM signals provide high-fidelity reception with little or no static.

FM flutter hisses, pops, and phasing effects caused by reflections of radio signals off tall buildings and mountains.

ground wave a radio signal that travels along the Earth's surface, as distinguished from one that goes into space as it meets the curvature of the Earth.

high-definition radio see digital radio.

high frequency a frequency between 3 and 30 megahertz.

indie slang for an independently owned radio station.

low frequency a frequency between 30 and 300 kilocycles per second.

network a group of affiliated radio stations and their headquarters.

outcue the last four or five words in a song, inter­view, or newscast, that serve as a cue to the engineer or disk jockey to begin another record, commercial, or program.

performance royalties fees paid by radio stations for the rights to play the songs of music publishers and composers.

picket fencing the fading in and out of an FM sta­tion at the fringe of its broadcast range.

playlist a schedule of the day's recordings to be played on the air.

PSA public service announcement.

rolloff the faint edges of a radio signal, when a sta­tion hasn't been tuned in properly.

rumble low-frequency vibration.

satellite radio a pay radio service that delivers a wide array of clear-signal music, news, or talk programs.

shock jock a radio program host who is obnoxious, obscene, irreverent, and controversial.

shock radio talk radio featuring loud, rude, or obnoxious hosts who insult their guests and listeners.

simulcast the simultaneous broadcast of a program on television and radio.

sound bite a brief note from a newsworthy person, aired as part of a newscast.

standby guest an emergency stand-in guest used in case a scheduled guest fails to appear.

tape delay a system used on call-in programs, in which a phone call is taped and delayed before airing, to eliminate obscenities.