Biggest offenders for interrupting programing for severe weather

[nomadcowatbk]

These stations will go to non stop radar coverage even if they storm if only affecting like five people on the fringes of their viewing area who may watch programming from another market. (Like in Sedalia, MO, between the Kansas City and Columbia-Jefferson City markets). Worse, stations are only required to re-run interrupted shows if they interrupt the whole show. You're screwed if they even interrupt five minutes.
Do O&Os do this any less?

Katie Horner- KCTV.

 

[MattParker]

Stations don't have to re-run interrupted or preempted shows. They just have to report they didn't run the spots.

News people like interrupting shows and talking non-stop about something. It's what gets their juices going. Makes them feel important. They also know weather hooks a lot of people so they use any excuse to hype it.

Fortunately, most shows are available online shortly after the scheduled broadcast. Check the network's website.

 

[Mario500]

The TV stations in the Mobile-Pensacola market with news operations or connections to news operations by means of dual ownership are regular big offenders when it comes to interrupting regular programming or interfering with programs by displaying graphics that ruin the viewing experience and force folks who want to record their favorite programs to purchase them or wait for them to become available on video.

I had to wait for a particular episode of "Inspector Gadget" to be broadcast again in order to have a recording on videotape without weather graphics on the screen. Unfortunately I cannot do the same thing for an episode of "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz", since ThisTV no longer presents the program. Both programs are available on Jaroo on the World Wide Web.

 

[ansky212]

The TV stations in CT are the worst for putting scrolling messages across the screen during severe weather (or the forecast for severe weather). I was in CT over the Christmas holiday and on Christmas day WTNH was constantly scrolling a message (and a map) about a potential blizzard coming in the following evening. I could see if they scrolled this once, but no, the message kept scrolling for hours while we watched the NBA game...and the storm was still 24 hours away.

The NYC stations are not too bad. They will usually have a quick news update at the top of the hour, and sometimes have a quick scroll at the bottom of the screen.

 

[Ultimajock]

...back when I had the Dallas-Ft. Worth locals thru Dish, I became incredibly familiar with Troy Dungan -- not because I watched News 8 (which I didn't), but because WFAA would interrupt whatever programming there was for the slightest weather "bulletin". Dungan and Tucker Carlson drained out of me whatever affection for the bow tie that I'd ever had until then...

 

[Kent]

Katie Horner- KCTV.

I agree with you here. I remember Katie doing this, too, and I left Kansas City about 10 years ago. There was even a Facebook page for awhile called "Katie Horner Frightens Me Unnecessarily!" She's incredibly annoying, though it was pretty cool to see a friend tape her when she came in over the weekend and covered severe weather in jeans and a ball cap!

I grew up in Texas and Oklahoma, and my big complaint about the Dallas stations was that they never covered the weather until the storm was practically right on top of the Metroplex. Only WFAA and, after it switched to CBS, KTVT ever showed the severe weather map. KDFW would just put a "SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING" (or whatever the warning was) at the bottom of the screen while KXAS would just put a picture of a tornado or a lightning bolt in the upper right or left corner with "WATCH" or "WARNING" written over it.

 

[intx]

KXAN, Austin's NBC affiliate. Screamin' Jim Spencer will go live for hours every time it so much as drizzles, doing his damnedest to scare the crap out of the people. And ... that's why I watch (#1 rated) KVUE for my news and weather.

 

[nathannah]

WTMJ in Milwaukee is bar-none beyond the worst when it comes to storm coverage in our area. Five inches=a 4am start time and a probable news block all the way to 1pm repeating that it's snowing over and over again. Since they pretty much ditched all syndicated programming outside of a 2pm block of "Better" (which trust me is plenty pre-emptable in itself), they will do everything they can to stay on the air during what they call 'bad weather'.

WISN may be a little worse but usually they won't try to tick off "View" and soap fans and pre-empt those, while WITI usually doesn't pre-empt much since they have a weather department with pretty good editorial control, and WDJT/CBS doesn't at all usually.

 

[OhioMediaWatch]

WEWS/5 (ABC) Cleveland.

Chief met Mark Johnson will take to the air if there's a tornado warning anywhere in the entire Northern Ohio area, even if it's just out of the market.

He's so bad about getting overhyped about severe weather, NBC affiliate WKYC/3 uses "prepare, not scare" as a weather motto!

 

[azumanga]

WEWS/5 (ABC) Cleveland.

Chief met Mark Johnson will take to the air if there's a tornado warning anywhere in the entire Northern Ohio area, even if it's just out of the market.

In other words, if there's a Tornado Warning in Williams County -- on the Indiana border far from Cleveland, he'll break into programming.

 

[whit979]

The TV stations in the Mobile-Pensacola market with news operations or connections to news operations by means of dual ownership are regular big offenders when it comes to interrupting regular programming or interfering with programs by displaying graphics that ruin the viewing experience and force folks who want to record their favorite programs to purchase them or wait for them to become available on video.

I think the stations in just about every market in Alabama do this. I'm in the Birmingham market and we get wall-to-wall severe weather coverage during every tornado warning on the ABC, FOX, NBC and (sometimes) CBS stations.

 

[OhioMediaWatch]

In other words, if there's a Tornado Warning in Williams County -- on the Indiana border far from Cleveland, he'll break into programming.

Not quite that far west, but not far...I know he's gone on the air for Findlay, south of Toledo. And definitely in the Toledo market, not the Cleveland market.

 

[ssetta]

I think here in Boston, WBZ would be the worst, though I think they've improved a bit in recent years. I remember during "The Price is Right," they would interrupt for a rainstorm occasionally, but they would usually do it during a one-bid or a prize description so the viewer didn't miss much.

 

[FreddyE1977]

WEWS/5 (ABC) Cleveland.

Chief met Mark Johnson will take to the air if there's a tornado warning anywhere in the entire Northern Ohio area, even if it's just out of the market.

In other words, if there's a Tornado Warning in Williams County -- on the Indiana border far from Cleveland, he'll break into programming.

When living in Columbus, Ohio about 20 yrs ago, one of the local stations (I think WCMH) broke in with a Tornado Warning which, it turned out, was a report of a funnel cloud that a Marion County Sheriff's Deputy thought he had seen!

 

[DToTheJ]

I think the worst offender is some CBS station down in Texas that dared to interrupt the season finale of "Criminal Minds" with a tornado warning -or at least one woman thought so... :

 

[Sammi Brie]

Phoenix stations are conservative with their interruptions, but they do have to run crawls for a very geographically large broadcast area (two thirds to three fourths of the state of Arizona; 11 of its 15 counties). KSAZ actually does not have HD weather crawl equipment either, so some football games flip back to crawls (though they now have HD crawl equipment to ID their translators).

We have some very odd geographic descriptors often used alongside the counties: "Northwest Deserts", "Kaibab Plateau", "First and Second Mesa" (used because the northern AZ counties are very oddly shaped).

 

[bostonmediaguy]

I'm interested in what people feel station policies on severe weather should be.

My feeling... a crawl and/or radar for severe warnings (blizzard, flood, hurricane, thunderstorm, tornado, tropical storm, winter storm) immediately upon issuance and continuing until expiration. Make it small enough so as not to be intrusive; cut-in for **brief** updates at the top and/or bottom of the hour.

 

[TheRob]

KMBC has definitely taken over the reins from KCTV when it comes to leading severe weather fright night. If there is an excuse to put Johnny Rowlands in the air to chase clouds, they will do it. One funnel cloud on live TV will provide a month of POP promos. I think KCTV learned a huge lesson when they interrupted the last ten minutes of a Survivor season finale for a severe weather warning on the fringe of the DMA.

We're in a bind, because April-June is a heavy severe weather season for us, and most people outside the cities don't have an alternative to TV for severe weather information, other than looking out the window. Most radio stations in Kansas City don't even both with severe weather information.

 

[brian77]

WTMJ in Milwaukee is bar-none beyond the worst when it comes to storm coverage in our area. Five inches=a 4am start time and a probable news block all the way to 1pm repeating that it's snowing over and over again. Since they pretty much ditched all syndicated programming outside of a 2pm block of "Better" (which trust me is plenty pre-emptable in itself), they will do everything they can to stay on the air during what they call 'bad weather'.

I also second WTMJ. If they aren't breaking in, programming is squeezed and stretched with maps and crawls on the side of the screen.

 

[azumanga]

In other words, if there's a Tornado Warning in Williams County -- on the Indiana border far from Cleveland, he'll break into programming.

Not quite that far west, but not far...I know he's gone on the air for Findlay, south of Toledo. And definitely in the Toledo market, not the Cleveland market.

In that case, doesn't the Time Warner system in Findlay carry WEWS?