Always assume that the mics are hot

On more than one occasion, I've seen where a TV station that's not used to airing the regional sports team's games will come back from commercial too early or not even go to commercial and you can hear the broadcast crew talking away. They never said anything bad though.

 

Many years ago at a basketball game, my radio pal dashed off to the bathroom after the halftime stuff but before the second half started.

"Put these on," he said, handing me the headphones, "and listen for the intro. Then just ad lib until I get back. Gotta go pee."

OK, no problem. I put them on, listened and the music came on for the intro. Then the music stopped and I mumbled something like "Welcome back to ..." when I heard the recorded "And nowwwww, back to the ..." intro voice.

"Well, shit."

I ALMOST DIED.

Fortunately, the mic either wasn't on, I didn't say it loud enough or one of the probably 14 people listening to the game didn't hear it or call in to complain if they did. I told my buddy about it after he returned, during a break. He laughed.


Every mic is hot. Always.

 

Frank Drebbin agrees.

 

It nearly happened to me at my college radio station. I was a new DJ, maybe my second or third show, and was winding down my show before playing my last song, which would take it to the next DJ.

The next DJ was standing right next to me as I put on the last record. Normally, I could hear the song playing, but this time, for some reason, I couldn’t hear the song.

Perplexed, I look to the next DJ, who mouths something I don’t understand.

“What?”

He points to a button on the board and mouths, “You have the microphone on.”

“Oh sh-“ as I push the button.

And the thing is, the college and our station were super hyper-sensitive about anything that could be seen as obscene, as the FCC had just hit our little college radio station with a ridiculous five-figure fine because during the summer, some kid played an explicit rap song and some townie, who hated the station, filed a complaint with the FCC.

I was nervous for a bit, thinking that I was going to be in huge trouble, but nothing ever happened.

 

I'm coming up on nearly 50 years with a mic in my hand -- I did football PBP into a portable reel-to-reel machine for Saturday morning playback on our little 10 watt high school radio station in 1973 -- and it's still the No. 1 cardinal rule to me, even though my last radio gig was in 1992. If you're even within 100 yards of a radio station, assume the "on air" light is burned out, every mic in the place is hot, and everybody associated with ownership is listening.

Or at a media scrum. Or next to a tape recorder or cellphone. Paranoia is paramount.

DO NOT say anything out loud that could get you fired, be that a curse word, a stupid dirty joke, off the cuff remarks or bad-mouthing the station management.

Otherwise exceptional talent has been shit-canned for one stupid moment when they let their guard down and got burned. Over the course of your career, you'll blurt out enough stupid things accidentally on purpose, so don't give anybody additional reasons to fire you.

I think I said "Shit!" when I dropped a four-slot cartridge machine on my hand one weekend at one of my first $3/hour jobs. And I'm still having nightmares about it.

Print newsrooms, on the other hand, were curse-fests, particularly on prep football Friday nights. Or when baseball games went extra innings.

 

My favorite was always when some local coach would call right at deadline, about three hours (back in the day) after their game ended.

Our sports guys would shout out a string of obscenities and insults toward the coach before picking up the phone and calmly saying, “Podunk Press sports” and talking to the coach.

Thankfully landline phones were not “hot mics” until you picked them up.