T
tenchances
Guest
Am I the only one who finds KPHO's severe weather alerts to be incredibly annoying? They were in full force during yet another masterful demonstration from the Cardinals on how to choke away a win.
Why is it necessary to flash an ever-changing map of the state every 5 minutes at the lower left of the screen? Why not just insert a smaller map at one of the upper screen corners (the one that the score is NOT on) and leave it there for as long as needed, changing affected counties as needed?
Also, this may seem like nitpicking, but the message that scrolls across the bottom of the screen during the alert isn't even a proper sentence. It says something like "A severe thunderstorm warning for Maricopa and Pinal counties until 3:15pm". (Does Radioguy2006 work for KPHO?) How hard can it be to word the sentence properly? An example would be "A severe thunderstorm warning IS IN EFFECT for Maricopa and Pinal Counties until 3:15pm." This is embarrassing for DMA #13, especially for a station that's putting so much effort into its news product.
Later, I switched over to KSAZ to watch the end of the Terrell Owens taunt-fest (Dallas @ Philadelphia) -- I'm guessing that they started coverage the instant CBS was done with the Cardinals game. Their severe weather alert is not quite as bad as KPHO's. They insert a red bar across the bottom of the screen and scroll a gramatically correct message across it...and there is no map. I think I saw it only once in the 30 minutes or so that I was watching, but I don't know if that's because the warnings had expired, or if that's just how KSAZ does it.
To be fair, FOX's NFL graphics are more severe weather alert friendly. Everything is at the top of the screen, and the teams' city names are abbreviated. With CBS, you have the score at one of the upper corners (can't recall which) and an unnecessarily long sports ticker (with the full spelling of the teams' city names) across the bottom of the screen that never seems to go away.
Severe weather is so much more common in the Midwest, and the broadcasters there know what they're doing when it comes to these alerts. It's painfully obvious that the ones here do not.
Why is it necessary to flash an ever-changing map of the state every 5 minutes at the lower left of the screen? Why not just insert a smaller map at one of the upper screen corners (the one that the score is NOT on) and leave it there for as long as needed, changing affected counties as needed?
Also, this may seem like nitpicking, but the message that scrolls across the bottom of the screen during the alert isn't even a proper sentence. It says something like "A severe thunderstorm warning for Maricopa and Pinal counties until 3:15pm". (Does Radioguy2006 work for KPHO?) How hard can it be to word the sentence properly? An example would be "A severe thunderstorm warning IS IN EFFECT for Maricopa and Pinal Counties until 3:15pm." This is embarrassing for DMA #13, especially for a station that's putting so much effort into its news product.
Later, I switched over to KSAZ to watch the end of the Terrell Owens taunt-fest (Dallas @ Philadelphia) -- I'm guessing that they started coverage the instant CBS was done with the Cardinals game. Their severe weather alert is not quite as bad as KPHO's. They insert a red bar across the bottom of the screen and scroll a gramatically correct message across it...and there is no map. I think I saw it only once in the 30 minutes or so that I was watching, but I don't know if that's because the warnings had expired, or if that's just how KSAZ does it.
To be fair, FOX's NFL graphics are more severe weather alert friendly. Everything is at the top of the screen, and the teams' city names are abbreviated. With CBS, you have the score at one of the upper corners (can't recall which) and an unnecessarily long sports ticker (with the full spelling of the teams' city names) across the bottom of the screen that never seems to go away.
Severe weather is so much more common in the Midwest, and the broadcasters there know what they're doing when it comes to these alerts. It's painfully obvious that the ones here do not.