That was then

The WABC, New York, main air studio 8A shown here was featured on the August 1979 cover of Broadcast Engineering. It was operated with the announcer and the engineer in the same room. The console is a Rupert Neve custom-designed console, built to meet the needs of the station at the time.

The custom consoles throughout the facility were designed with simplicity in mind. All unnecessary input switching was eliminated, with the first 10 faders dedicated to sources. The last two faders were switchable and were used to access other control rooms, the ABC Radio Network or remotes.

The upper right portion of the console features monitoring selectors for each set of headphones or speakers, with corresponding level controls. The centered UV meters are switchable to air, program or cue. The switches on the left control a relay air switcher that determines which control room is on the air. The center eight indicators show such things as bulletin, EBS alarm, carrier off and program outage. The overbridge has a clock, timer and end cue indicator, as well as telephone lamps and mic on lights. The controls on the announcer's side are similar to those on the engineer's side but arranged differently to allow announcer comfort.

Sample and Hold
A look at the technology shaping radio

Revenue rankings by stations owned
Overall revenue is important, but revenue per station shows business efficiency. While BIA reports the data in overall revenue, we divided revenue by the number of stations owned and ranked the groups in the their respective order.