When did disc jockeys start moving from vinyl to tapes?

[shortylickens]

I got to thinking about this while watching Almost Famous. There's a few scenes with DJ's. Its set in 1973 and most of them have big stacks of tapes behind them but a few also have turn tables and seem to be using them.
It occurred to be I have no idea when the broadcasting industry started to make the change.
Went looking around the internet, many sites talk about the technical differences, and when musicians and listeners started changing over, but not DJ's.

 

[IronWing]

I toured a pop radio station in 1975. By then, it was all tape, syndicated, and the local "DJs" spent about half an hour a day recording their bits to be inserted into the syndicated playlists and spent the rest of the day selling advertising time.

 

[shortylickens]

No sorry I meant radio station dj's.
not the dickheads that play for parties.

 

[Thump553]

No sorry I meant radio station dj's.
not the dickheads that play for parties.

Hey you are talking about the golden age of disco then, not dicks playing house parties. You remember disco don't you? It's what made country music popular.

I'm guessing, but I think the switch to tape was fairly early. Outside of college stations playing old vinyl, it's been many decades since I heard a record skip on air.

 

[mindless1]

I toured a pop radio station in 1975. By then, it was all tape, syndicated, and the local "DJs" spent about half an hour a day recording their bits to be inserted into the syndicated playlists and spent the rest of the day selling advertising time.

Hmm, I worked at a Radio Station in the '90s, fairly popular one in a major city too, and the DJ's were still hands-on the entire shift, live voice, not prerecorded except for some commercials using their voice.

Of course it was already tape by then and they had these cool tape decks were you could tweak the playback speed to play a little faster or slower if you needed to end at a certain time.

 

[Meghan54]

I was actually trained in operating a radio station by the military (audio specialist) back in 1973. We used a mix of tape and vinyl. Lots of vinyl. Station I worked had 4 turntables, all used all the time.


(This was the "second" job the military trained me for.....the first was as an analyst for the ASA, aka Army Security Agency. Was quite good at it but never got to actually do the job, "in the wild, so to speak", because my brother somehow got convicted for GTA while I was at Ft. Devens, MA, going through some of my education. I found out about it not from my parents but by two FBI agents who came to "visit" me after my bro's conviction. Long story.)

 

[mikeford]

Consumer 8 Track tapes were actually a variation on broadcast devices that held all the commercials and short bits sound effects etc. They would cue up automatically when inserted, then play once when a button was pushed or trigger signal in more automated systems. Later in the 70's high end reel to reels were added for music and sometimes all the dj chatter as well with the dj doing all of a weeks intro and outro bits in a few hours one day. Plenty of stations didn't have the dj touch the records even if they played them live.