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Dead Air
- 137 statements
- 24 feature instances
- 28 referencing feature instances
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Dead air, the terror of radio show producers the world over. Since radio is an auditory medium, extended periods of silence is one of the worst things you can have as part of your programming, as it will often cause impatient listeners to switch over to competing stations. For this reason, many radio stations would even prefer airing commercials over dead air, as an advertisement at least has a chance of keeping the audience's interest. Dead air can be caused by the failure of equipment, either through mechanical breakdowns or loss of power, which will send studio technicians scrambling to find a solution as quickly as possible. In other cases it can come about due to a radio equivalent of stage fright, or a Heroic BSoD on the part of the DJ. If the DJ in question has been under pressure from their higher ups to become Lighter and Softer as part of studio policy, a brief period of dead air can herald the moment where the DJ throws caution to the wind, and decides to tell his bosses (and everyone else listening, of course) exactly how he feels about it. This trope can also be used to show the lengths radio crews will go to avoid dead air. A trusty sidekick may ramble on in place of their suddenly mute comrades, or a dedicated DJ may risk his or her own life to keep broadcasting while disaster strikes the studio. In worst cases it can lead to Nothing Is Scarier. An instance of Truth in Television, much to the chagrin of radio broadcasters everywhere. Some stations will even pre-record interviews and re-edit them just to avoid it, or have songs on standby to use at a moment's notice if needed. Additionally, many stations around the world (particularly public broadcasters) are programmed to switch to an Emergency Broadcast system, often if there is dead air for any more than 30 seconds, making this something of a Justified Trope. There is also a practice where broadcasters pre-record dialogue and play them in lieu of live conversations to fill time, known as relief tapes. Since dead air can occur for almost any reason in Real Life, only notable instances should be listed in the examples section. Compare Performance Anxiety. Contrast Silence is Golden. Not to be confused with Dead Air (2009), the 2009 U.S. horror film directed by Corbin Bernson. Or Dead Air 2007, the 2007 Hong Kong horror film directed by Xavier Lee Pak Tat. Or Dead Air, a novel by Scottish writer Iain Banks. Or the Shadowrun licensed novel Dead Air, or "Dead Air", one of the levels in the original Left 4 Dead video game. |
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| Dead Air / int_2858b08a | type |
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Full House: Used for a brief joke when some of the family is visiting Jesse and Joey at their job at the radio station. At one point, they all realize that nothing is being broadcast, and rather than allow the dead air, they all begin chattering, singing, etc. into the mic at the same time. | |
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In The King's Speech, there are a few instances of Dead Air, most notably in the first speech shown where he stood there for over two minutes trying to talk into the microphone without being able to get anything out and even after that there was a lot of stuttering and long pauses. | |
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| Dead Air / int_53bcfb5f | type |
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In Mad TV (1991), failing to fill the schedule completely will result in your station showing nothing but a test pattern. Your boss will chew you out for this come next day. | |
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In Gremlins, The Unseen DJ Rockin' Rickie gets attacked by gremlins during a broadcast, but is back in the studio and boasting that he's still on the air soon afterward. | |
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In the Quantum Leap episode "Good Morning, Peoria", the air goes dead when an intimate conversation between the radio station owner and Sam (who has leapt into a DJ) extends past the end of the record. He picks it up well, though: | |
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This happens to James Pedeaston, host of The Wild Traveler in Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. His audience stops calling in after a few insulting and disturbing comments. When the silence begins, he starts begging people to call him, and only receives two calls, one of whom was a jumper. | |
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In a November 1976 episode of Panorama, presenter David Dimbleby introduced a filmed segment about Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) which initially rolled without sound... and then stopped rolling altogether. The flustered Dimbleby tried instead to introduce a different segment about the UK's deteriorating standing with the IMF, only to receive a call on the phone on his desk that they didn't have that film ready either, leaving Dimbleby apologising to the viewers while trying (with limited success) to fill several minutes of dead air until the Rhodesia film finally started rolling successfully. | |
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The Boat That Rocked: With the government out to shut them down, Radio Rock promises that there will be no Dead Air if they can help it. The first time the official on their tail thinks he's finally finished them, there's only a few seconds of silence before the Count busts in reassuring their audience that they have no intention of shutting down. Later, as the ship is going down, the Count solemnly decides to broadcast until the very last. The former is certainly awesome, while the latter tugs at the heartstrings. | |
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SCTV once had an episode about an up-and-coming boxer who was slated to fight the champ on their station. The entire episode is spent hyping up the underdog, even making a short film about him. At the end, when the fight begins, the underdog is knocked out by a single punch, leaving SCTV with nothing but dead air for the remainder of the program as they desperately looked for something, anything they could fill it with. | |
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A Prairie Home Companion: When one of the show's performers dies in his dressing room, Garrison insists that The Show Must Go On, while one of the characters suggests a moment of silence on the show for him. | |
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Grosse Pointe Blank has Martin interrupt Debi's show, and she is so distracted by his re-appearance that she sits there staring when she's supposed to be talking. Then she remembers herself and puts on the Specials, playing ... one of their songs ... | |
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The biopic Man on the Moon has a scene depicting the filming of this sketch. The SNL producers face-palm over Kaufman's apparent stage fright and the resulting dead air, because Kaufman never told them that the awkward silence (and the awkward doing-nothing-while-waiting-for-his-cue) was the entire joke of the sketch. | |
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In Almost Famous there's a radio interview scene where the overnight DJ, higher than a very high thing, falls asleep and the band being interviewed realizes the air is dead. Not for long, though. | |
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Connoisseurs of British radio hostess Sarah Kennedy knew something interesting was going on when dead air announced she had been pulled from her morning show on BBC radio as too, err, ill to continue. This happened more than once, and by the third time, her producers knew to withdraw her from service during music, so that the stand-in replacement could seamlessly take over without too much of an upheaval or necessary silence. | |
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| Dead Air / int_b4911c1b | type |
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In Barrow Hill, the radio DJ you've just phoned gets chased from her beat-up winnebago by the stalking menace. If you hang up the phone, go back inside, and check the radio, all you hear is dead air. This can be fixed if you visit the now-abandoned winnebago and reset the equipment to broadcast a station-identification message. | |
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| Dead Air / int_b6f7d19d | type |
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The Brave One: When New York DJ Erica Bane resumes her first radio broadcast after her vicious attack (and subsequent vigilante slaying), she falls silent in the middle of reading her opening monologue. Her savvy producer decides to let the scene play out, and a few seconds later Erica starts over with a raw and emotional impromptu dialogue about how terrifying the once familiar city can become after being victimized for the first time. | |
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| Dead Air / int_c1170ebe | type |
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Random Assault: Averted, as the podcast is edited, so un-needed dead air will be cut. However, it is left in if the hosts acknowledge it. | |
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| Dead Air / int_c8796fcd | type |
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The phrase is frequently invoked by cast and channel alike when there are no puppets on stage on The Funday Pawpet Show. | |
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| Dead Air / int_d97e4fa5 | type |
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Ensemble Stars!: in 1001 Arabian Nights, Undead temporarily take over the school's PA due to the Broadcasting Club being busy, but this turns out to be very difficult for Adonis, who doesn't talk much even among his friends and struggles to believe that any of Undead's fans are interested in him personally. This results in Kaoru and Kouga scrambling to cover for Adonis whenever he gives curt answers to questions, oblivious to prompts that he talk at length about something, or even fails to come up with anything to say at all, all while they admonish him that silence is death for radio. | |
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After John Galt hacks the radio transmissions and delivers his speech in Atlas Shrugged, the other characters do anything to fill up the dead air afterward, but this is treated more as a Follow the Leader response of the radio producers that came before them. | |
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Homestar Runner: In one of Strong Bad's emails, he summed up College Radio in five words: "Dead air, 'um', dead air". | |
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This was a semi-regular feature on Frasier. Throughout his eleven years as a radio personality, Frasier never managed to master timing and pacing his comments to fit into the allotted time, often ending early only for Roz to desperately motion for him to keep talking. There are also times when he becomes so distracted by something going on in the studio that he forgets to start talking when the "on-air" light comes on. When the cast put on a murder mystery show, Frasier's over-directing caused Niles to rush through to the end, leaving nine minutes remaining. Frasier tries to salvage the situation by conducting a discussion about the show, but is left fumbling by himself because the cast angrily refuses to Step Up to the Microphone. Another episode has, due to a long and tangled series of events, Roz call the show pretending to be a genuine caller. The conversation then becomes increasingly difficult as Roz unexpectedly finds herself revealing her insecurity over a recently failed relationship. Frasier ends up pulling her into a hug to console her... but the heartwarming moment is ruined when their station manager runs into the studio frantically gesturing at the 'On Air' sign. "Dr. Nora" ends with Nora running screaming from the booth after Frasier brings her estranged mother into the studio during a show. As mother and daughter chase each other through the halls Roz yells for Frasier to get in and cover the dead air. |
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WKRP in Cincinnati, unsurprisingly as it's about a radio station, had at least a few examples. In a one-off joke, DJ Johnny Fever went out to the receptionist area to chat up Jennifer, who rather than shooting him down just turned on the radio monitor, letting him know the air was dead. He gallops back to the control room. A remote broadcast ran into trouble and went dead. Station manager Andy wanted to run some PSAs since that'd at least be something, but Les decided to go live with one of his irrelevant anti-communist speeches instead. There was a bomb scare at the station so DJs Johnny & Venus were sent to the broadcast tower to do their show. It turned out that the bomb was at the transmitter rather than at the station, so they suddenly went off the air. They had to field calls from confused listeners. And Les was a little confused about how radio works. In one episode Arthur and Bailey step into the booth to make an on-air appeal in support of saving the building they work in. Afterward they discuss it, pleased with their work, and everybody seems to forget they're running a radio station until Venus suddenly bursts into the room and grabs the mic. |
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Happens on the episode of Dharma & Greg when Dharma creates a pirate radio station. She gets into an argument with Greg for several seconds before realizing she's left dead air and panics, bringing out all the instruments she has on the table. | |
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