I am very interested to see what you think about this article. Feel free to ask those around you as well...then post a comment!The Memphis Commercial Appeal put together a nice piece about a recent severe weather outbreak and how the local TV stations carefully tip-toed in and out of primetime coverage. Before you read this article, I want to make you aware of this: Nearly every time I do a severe weather cut-in, we get a negative phone call. That's just how it is. Some people are more interested in the case selection on "Deal or No Deal" then they are about a tornado warning. I have a feeling those who complain when we cut-in to programming will be the first ones to call in and complain when their house is hit by a tornado and got no warning.
So, here's the article, read it and post a comment. What do you think we should do the next time severe weather rolls in? Discuss! -ERIC
4 comments:
I think severe weather cut-ins are important.
Broadcast media have a federally granted license to use the public airways. With that license comes a duty to provide emergency information. Severe weather cut-ins are part of that. It is important information for the public.
People who don't want to see severe weather cut-ins can subscribe to cable TV and watch cable channels without severe weather cut-ins.
Severe weather cut-ins are an important public service and I think broadcast media have an obligation to provide them when an emergency situation arises, whether or not their viewers, or at least their more vocal viewers, like it.
Personally, I believe WREX gets it just about right. In years past I saw cut-ins that really didn't seem necessary (such as cut-ins for live coverage of a snowstorm that wasn't really dropping much snow, which cut-ins just showed bare ground and alerted viewers to the fact that it wasn't snowing yet). That is unnecessary and can be annoying. But recently I really do think you all are getting it just about right. Not too little, not too much.
It's an interesting article..
Providing severe weather coverage is one of the key things that television needs to do. I know that it is the case here in Madison that even the only commercial station that does not do local news and the local PBS repeater still air weather crawls and transmit EAS weather alerts.
I can also think of a few examples, both on the positive and negative sides of viewer comments. There was a Saturday night back when I was a director at WREX where the chief meteorologist at the time and I put a severe weather cut-in on top of the end re-run of CSI that runs after SNL. We got some nasty phone calls that night because people didn't see the end of a CSI they'd probably already seen.
The second is at my current station. We had some really bad storms in our area a few weeks ago that prompted most of our western viewing area to be in tornado warnings (I think only 2 tornadoes, both F1s, were produced). We were the only station that went wall-to-wall with the coverage and we had viewers who were thanking us for being on the air. What did we cover? Who cares, we were on the air the entire time that CONFIRMED (by spotters) tornadoes were in the area and viewers in those areas appreciated it.
Of course, there are the times when it seems like we were called in for nothing. Heck, I can remember recently sleeping overnight at the station because we were supposed to run "oh look it's snowing outside" cut-ins all night. Or severe storms that were dropping tornadoes across Iowa that when they got to the Mississippi just fizzled out.
-A
I think it's the best thing acutally to cut in for servere weather, there always going to be times when maybe, just maybe we were not supposet cut in to live coverage, for the weather, most of the time though, it's the right time to cover it. I think saving a life over a American Idol, I think I would take the live cut in about the weather, at some given time in this area, the stations around here don't have backup, so if the weather gets so bad, the stations our going to have run and get some back up at some time to get on and alert the public how bad it got. God willing that that would happen, but when it does, we should coutn on WREX and for the most part every station around here!
Thats just pathetic... people can't miss 2 minutes of a show for a LIFE OR DEATH situation. cutting in can save lives, even if it turns out that nothing happens, its better safe than sorry. Now me personally I would be more interested in seeing what kind of weather is going around the viewing area and see if people are going to be okay... you know maybe warn somebody that lives in a different area that might not be watching TV.
self-centered people...
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