0391 - Backtiming 2

2022.01.26 – 0391 - Backtiming 2

Of course, the duration of a song or a report is known in advance, but there are variables such as live interviews (especially with non-professional guests who may talk in in half-sentences or whole paragraphs!). At the end of a show, presenters may adlib to fill time, or a buffer item such as a weather report is included, which can often be extended or cut short depending on an over- or under-run. On radio, presenters can often dip a song to get to a news bulletin. In both situations, a ‘backtimed’ bed is very useful to give the impression of slick and professional completeness.

This is where a piece of music which naturally ‘ends’ rather than ‘fades out’, is initially played off-air and only introduced to the audience as a filler to the end of the show. For example, if a programme is due to end at one second before the start of the next hour, and a ‘backtime bed’ is two minutes long, then it can be played (off air at first) from 57 minutes and 59 seconds into the current hour. The producer/presenter is then aware that should they need to, they can bring the music up at any point, safe in the knowledge that they don’t have to verbally fill for time as the music will do it for them. They know that the music will end right on time, in a way that speaking to time (finishing a story or script or a sentence, to the second) is rather more difficult to do.

Of course, YouTube videos and podcasts are pretty much open-ended – although that causes its own issues of a lack of self-editing (or actual post-recording editing) and presenter-indulgent shows which are more chaff than wheat. 

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