So WVIT our NBC owned Hartford station has been doing weather gimmicks the past few years. Starting with the mobile radar unit that they only used once but hyped all summer, and now a souped up Jeep Wrangler they are dubbing the "Snow Monster" that drives around and tells us the temperature of the road. Are these gimmicks that NBC is forcing on all of it's owned stations and do they really think it helps their broadcast. NBC seems to be outdoing the other networks in the gimmick game.
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Local affiliates with stupid gimmicks
- Thread starter Don CT
- Start date
I've seen a lot of stations send out a reporter in an SUV to report on traffic/road conditions in snow. Not an NBC thing.
Never heard of the mobile radar unit though.
Never heard of the mobile radar unit though.
All of our locals have the reporter in an SUV driving around in the snow telling people not to drive around in the snow.
What our NBC affiliate now has is this.
https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news...-Snow-Closings-Road-Conditions-461066163.html
Looks like NBC Connecticut spent a lot of money on a stupid paint job for their SUV.
I agree it's stupid. Meanwhile when I told my friend who works at the NBC O&O in San Jose about Snow Monster he thought it was a genius idea. *rolls eyes*
@ DON CT: Stupid gimmicks in Hartford/New Haven? You failed to mention WFSB-TV (CBS) channel 3 of Hartford! They and/or the New England Weather Service have been naming winter storms for over 40 years, long before The Weather Channel ever started doing it. Almost 40 years since the Blizzard of '78...and they still call it Larry. 
The names have become popular, but the other stations hate them. The Weather Channel has started their own naming, making things very confusing around here. The Weather Service doesn't sanction naming of winter storms.@ DON CT: Stupid gimmicks in Hartford/New Haven? You failed to mention WFSB-TV (CBS) channel 3 of Hartford! They and/or the New England Weather Service have been naming winter storms for over 40 years, long before The Weather Channel ever started doing it. Almost 40 years since the Blizzard of '78...and they still call it Larry.
The other weather gimmick they all do that I hate is remaining the doper radar. You don't own it, they are use the same National Weather Service doplers. Don't call it first alert radar, or early warning radar.
While WFSB does have their own radar system they still use the NWS system.
By and large, the Bay Area does not have "weather." They could put a "Flood Monster" on the road to warn people about heavy rains and mud-slides, but even then, they would only need it a few days in a typical year.
The Bay Area sure could use a "Traffic Monster" though.
Yes! Funny you should mention that. For decades, I have had this ongoing fantasy that freeways and busy city intersections have these huge Road Warrior type vehicles with bulldozer or snow-plow type attachments on the front end. Whenever anybody is holding up traffic, and especially if they're holding ME up, the vehicles go into action, and push them off the street into a big pile of smoking rubble.
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