In broadcasting, silence is NOT golden. If your signal is not working… for any reason… the listener will just click on to the next station. And it may be a challenge to bring them back to your place once the problem is fixed.
You need a plan to keep your audio running, no matter what.
If the failure is a headphone, microphone or music player, you likely have another one (maybe in your remote interview kit) that you can substitute temporarily. But what do you plan to do when the dreaded “I spilled coffee into the mixing board” call comes in? Or, even worse… “the link to the transmitter is down.”
Any station that intends to offer “live” program material every day really needs a fully-capable spare studio to move into if anything happens to take the “main room” out of service. The spare studio will be used most of the time as a production room, where interviews and spots are constructed and edited. It may have a slightly less-complex mixer, but there should be enough capability to get the basics done… put a live phone call on the air, have enough mics and headphone capability for a live guest or two. In some cases, your remote broadcast kit may be capable enough. (You can do a lot with a JK RemoteMix , a smartphone, and a couple of headset mics.)
For the transmitter site, consider a silence detector that will switch to a continuously-playing loop of one full broadcast day, including sponsors. If the main audio goes down, the replacement audio will have the same messages at the same times for the same sponsors. If the sponsor’s message got through, the pain is less.
Be creative! Keep those listeners tuned to your station… not somewhere else.
The Control Room Blog 