2/25/09 Special UAB Announcement Transcript

[ltldeb]

Hello everyone, this is theEpiphany hoping that you’re having a great Wednesday, February 25th. As always, you’re listening to Utilidor’s Audio Broadcasting, where you can Listen to the Land and Tune in the World. As many of you know these last few months have been somewhat stagnant with UAB. The UAB staff has been inundated with personal life issues ranging from employment projects to hospital visits. Unfortunately, with the constant barrage of obstacles we made the announcement to go ahead and retire Utilidors Audio Broadcasting as our fees were getting a bit overwhelming and time constraints were not allowing us to give UAB the attention that it, and you the community, deserve.

The announcement you’ve probably read by now was one of the hardest decisions we’ve had to make together as a team. As a staff, we’ve made it through various milestones of UAB starting when it was just a small feature of the old Utilidors.com website with a playlist set to random. In the last 5+ years UAB has seen tremendous development in constant evolution beyond what I ever envisioned during those fledgling broadcast years. We’ve expanded the features to include a request interface, dedication and comment systems, requested by features, new shows and programming and a mountain of developments not previously found on any other Disney radio broadcast.

I’m sure most of you have heard the term; often imitated, never duplicated or some derivative thereof. I never really stopped to think about the meaning so much until I started doing comparisons of what we’ve accomplished with UAB. We set out to create a new Disney audio fan experience done in a way like never before. We never saw it as an overall triumph for success or even a completed project. Like Disneyland, UAB would never be complete. It would always grow with new features, music, songs and membership. UAB became an overwhelming undertaking bursting at the seams with ideas; many of which still have yet to be implemented. For the first time, UAB outgrew her staff and it’s time constraints. We made a tough decision and we’re fearful that many of you in the community would be angry for us over our decision. After the announcement was made we had an influx of people who had voiced their opinions in our forums, email and other communication media. The community has been chiming in at a pretty steady rate since the announcement. It was then that we realized the impact we made on people’s day-to-day lives and their daily routines. At that point, David, deb, Ellory and I second-guessed ourselves. Are we making the right decision? We had no idea the impact UAB had on the community. There’s a lot of uncertainty in our decision, but alas, we stuck to our decision to retire the broadcast.

You should know that all of those posts have affected us in more ways than you could possibly imagine. I know deb, David and Ellory all read each and every post over and over again. I should be honest and say I haven’t read even half of them. And that’s not from a lack of trying and most assuredly, not from a lack of interest. It’s just too emotional for me. And so far I haven’t been able to get past the first 5 or 6. After hearing everyone’s thoughts on the disappearance of UAB it was clear that UAB is YOUR broadcast. It’s what YOU’VE made it all these years. We built the structure, Disney provided the audio, and you the community provided your own experiences and together we all created the memories. It really meant a lot to see that people took it upon themselves to make sure UAB’s final broadcast was memorable and befitting for what we have all previously accomplished together. Because of these actions, we started second-guessing ourselves, yet again, but ultimately we think that retiring UAB to be the best thing for all of us at this stage in our lives.

As you may or may not have known, deb and Dave came to visit CA last week. We made it a point to hit the Rainforest Café in Downtown Disney. A tradition which we normally do when they come to visit. As we always do when we’re together, we started talking about the broadcast and how we’re going to handle the sendoff. I could see and hear that there was a lot of uncertainty in the conversation being had and that deep down nobody really wanted to see it go. Like you the community, it had become a part of us like it or not. It wasn’t until this past Saturday that we finalized the decision for UAB. The choice finally became obvious. We would go ahead and made the time for UAB to continue on. Over the next few weeks, we’ll be drawing up plans to knock off a bit of the dust and bring UAB back like never before. It may be a bit slow, but we can promise more great tracks to keep you entertained in the meantime. It was inevitable that UAB would ultimately continue in one form or another, but remember, it was YOU, the community through your letters, comments, and heartfelt emails that ultimately drove us to this decision. We thank you all for your fondness of our community as it is molded into a family over the last few years. It truly means the world to us. So, please pardon our dust while we figure out our future and what will hopefully be a great big beautiful tomorrow.
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*~deb~*

[meyer4]

Thank you so much. UAB helps me out when I am stuck at my desk at work!

[madbrad76]

I'm so glad that UAB is still up an running! I haven't checked back in a while since it was decided to retire UAB. You just don't know how excited I was to hear you're still on the air! The WDW music you broadcast keeps my Disney spirits up even when they're at the bottom. Keep up the great work!