KYW Misses The Storm This Morning

[Julius Leonard Marx]

I debated which board this belongs on but I think this is the place.

I live "between markets." This morning I woke up without electricity (due to the winter storm). I put batteries in my CC Radio Plus and started listing to three news stations in my region: 1010 WINS, WCBS Newsradio 880 and KYW 1060. Both WINS and WCBS were in standard storm coverage mode with expanded weather, expanded road reports, live shots from mobile units, reports on airports and electrical utilities (which I was most interested in) and even a few closings.

Meanwhile, KYW seemed asleep at the switch. A lot of network wraps and non-timely features. A couple of local stories from yesterday. But no "storm center" coverage. The only reference to weather was in the out-sourced traffic and weather reports. (Interestingly enough Accu-Weather founder Dr. Joel Sobel, who usually feeds WINS, was doing reports for KYW, but not for WINS this morning.) No live shots from an SUV. Nothing about outages. Just news reports that sounded well-canned. It sounded like pre-recorded news and Accu-Weather feeds with live traffic inserted by the automation system. At the very least, it seemed like nobody looked out the window and bothered to call in extra people. After I got the power back on, I went online. KYW's website had the same old, same old stories I'd heard earlier sitting in the dark. I then checked the AP PA and NJ state wires and they had detailed stories about power outages in the region. But when all I wanted to was some assurance that electric company knew I was in the dark and was doing something, I got nothing from KYW.

I guess, like everybody else in radio, they are saving money. What puzzles me is WINS and WCBS are owned by the same company and they got themselves in gear.

 

[marcus250]

http://www.wbcb1490.com/listen.htm don't know where you live but I usually listen to WBCB 1490 levitown for local stuff!

 

[pabsungenis]

Most of the Philadelphia area wasn't that affected by the storm. For example, here in South Jersey we just had a lot of wind and rain, no sleet and no snow.

WINS and WCBS's listening areas were a lot more hard hit, so it makes more sense that they had coverage.

Also, there is the fact that KYW had been going pre-recorded overnights on a number of occasions recently. How early were you listening?

 

[Jul]

Also, there is the fact that KYW had been going pre-recorded overnights on a number of occasions recently.

Which they need to stop, RIGHT NOW.

 

[Bob Farrow]

... also, let's not confuse Joe Sobel with Joel Myers. Both great accuweather forecasters.

 

[jcolletta275]

Also, there is the fact that KYW had been going pre-recorded overnights on a number of occasions recently.

Which they need to stop, RIGHT NOW.

We should all write letters and call them about it.

 

[Julius Leonard Marx]

... also, let's not confuse Joe Sobel with Joel Myers. Both great accuweather forecasters.

Yes, but this morning it was "Doctor Joe Sobel" on KYW.

 

[WTUX]

It was a Sunday morning. No schools to close. No big corportions to close. The only effect the storm had were on roads with trees and power lines tdown. This was covered in traffic reports. Basically, this storm was a non-event in the Delaware Valley.

 

[Julius Leonard Marx]

It was a Sunday morning. No schools to close. No big corportions to close. The only effect the storm had were on roads with trees and power lines tdown. This was covered in traffic reports. Basically, this storm was a non-event in the Delaware Valley.

You weren't stuck in the dark. Shadow traffic did mention roads with trees down. Nothing - nothing - was said about power outages.

Besides, they spent most of the time doing stories that didn't even reach the level of "non-event." Education report. Community affairs report. Book reviews.

I'm surprised anybody would make excuses for KYW. I've read posts where people complain they are not the station they once were (few are). They didn't even come close to the performance of their sister stations covering the same storm on the same day.

Stations lose listeners one at time. Yesterday, they lost anybody in their coverage area without power. Tomorrow it may be somebody stuck in traffic because KYW didn't get the jam until too late. Or somebody who knows something about a story and KYW gets it wrong. Or somebody sick of them reading numbers some morning. Or somebody who looks at the paper or TV or public radio and realizes they missed something.

People tune to a news station because something happens that affects them or to make sure nothing has happened that affects them. If a station doesn't come through in a crunch, there is little reason for people to check in routinely.

They kept talking about static-free digital AM or FM HD-2 or the Internet. What's the point? They are not worth listening to.

 

[BRNout]

The thing of it is that 90+% of the market got little more than some nuisance ice late Saturday night and woke up to a rainy Sunday morning. Only the Lehigh Valley, Berks County and points north and west of there had a real winter storm. The rest of us had a yawner of a rain storm. And, folks in south Jersey (some 1/3 of the market) only had rain.

Actually, I listened to KYW and found their coverage to be appropriate to the scope of the local situation with some mention of storm damage in north Bucks and the Lehigh Valley - and about the winds that the rest of us were experiencing. For example, I live atop a hill 25 miles to the northwest of the city and we still had little ice and absolutely no snow. So, I can safely assume that everyone south and east of me got the same or less.

As it is, I find it interesting how much time is spent by 3, 6, 10 and 29 plus KYW, WPHT, etc. focusing on the Lehigh Valley and the Poconos whenever there is a storm. Heck, the area is virtually ignored the rest of the time. I have noticed a vast overrepresentation of that region, every time there is a storm. For example, they keep saying "the Delaware Valley was lashed by snow, ice and rain!" Really? Which part? Certainly not Philly or Trenton. Neither got much more than rain. And, the ABE area is in the Lehigh Valley - not the Delaware Valley.

I guess it is an effort by then to give creedance to the illusion that the Philadelphia area actually has "winter" and to justify all of the inaccurate pre-storm hype! ;D

Can you imagine New York stations spending so much time on Poughkeepsie and Newburgh when they get a little snow? I can't either and it is a pretty good analogy.

 

[Bill_W]

no storm, no KYW storm center.

 

[Julius Leonard Marx]

As it is, I find it interesting how much time is spent by 3, 6, 10 and 29 plus KYW, WPHT, etc. focusing on the Lehigh Valley and the Poconos whenever there is a storm. Heck, the area is virtually ignored the rest of the time. I have noticed a vast overrepresentation of that region, every time there is a storm. For example, they keep saying "the Delaware Valley was lashed by snow, ice and rain!" Really? Which part? Certainly not Philly or Trenton. Neither got much more than rain. And, the ABE area is in the Lehigh Valley - not the Delaware Valley.

Lehigh Valley = Storms.
Wilmington = Murder.
South Jersey = Angry parents at school board meetings.
Pennsylvania suburbs = Photogenic school projects and events.
Philadelphia = Politics and murder.

The Lehigh River is a tributary of the Delaware River, therefore part of the Delaware drainage area.

 

[Julius Leonard Marx]

The thing of it is that 90+% of the market got little more than some nuisance ice late Saturday night and woke up to a rainy Sunday morning. Only the Lehigh Valley, Berks County and points north and west of there had a real winter storm. The rest of us had a yawner of a rain storm. And, folks in south Jersey (some 1/3 of the market) only had rain.

The main problem wasn't rain or so-called "wintry mix." It was high wind gusts and resulting power outages early Sunday, and not just in the Lehigh Valley or far North Jersey. I just did some checking. The AP Pennsylvania wire reported that as of early Sunday evening, 3800 PECO customers were still without power. WDEL's websites reports power outages extending down to Southern Delaware and that as of mid-afternoon Monday 300 homes in the Wilmington area were still without power. Doctor Joe Sobel mentioned the wind gusts in his weather reports but apparently nobody at KYW bothered to follow up.

 

[chuckydoll]

They didn't exactly miss it

As it is, I find it interesting how much time is spent by 3, 6, 10 and 29 plus KYW, WPHT, etc. focusing on the Lehigh Valley and the Poconos whenever there is a storm.

Lehigh and Northampton counties are in the Philadelphia DMA. It's only appropriate that Philly TV include the Lehigh Valley in weather reports.

Philly TV has long been carried in the Poconos. In fact, CBS3 is the only CBS station on cable up in Stroudsburg tonight. WYOU-22 from Scranton went dark Sunday morning; its main power supply was cut off when the WNEP-16 tower went down in the ice storm.

 

[BRNout]

They spend an inordinate amount of time talking about the Lehigh Valley whenever there is a winter storm. The time spent is far greater proportionally than the importance of that small segment of the market. My comparison of that area to New York's Hudson Valley still stands. It's not in the metro core of the market. DMA, yes - but not in the main metro sales region.

And, just because parts of the Poconos get certain Philly channels on cable does not mean that we need to have live reports on a rainy night that excitedly show snow in this area 90+ minutes north of the city. Boston stations are carried on cable in the Upper Valley region of NH and VT, where it snows much more than it does in Boston. Yet Boston stations never, ever, report from there. Why? Because it represents 0.05% of their viewership. As "the Poconos" do for Philly. They are in the S/WB market anyhow.

Watching it unfold during every so-called storm may seem normal if you're from here, but take it from me, it's downright strange.

Ironically, REAL news in the Lehigh Valley is generally ignored by Philly stations - but they get all excited about the area when snowstorms come ever-so-close to Philly....but rarely manage to get past Quakertown. Which seems to happen almost all the time.

Only channel 69 covers that area consistently and well. If they're doing it, why must all 4 Philly news stations spend so much time on ABE under (only) these circumstances? If it's raining at my house and it's raining from here to Atlantic City, 100 miles to the southeast, do I care to see 6 of the first 8 minutes of each newscast focusing on 2" of snow in one little valley? No. It's not unusual so leave it for the weathercast, where it is appropriate. Let WFMZ give the blow by blow description of road conditions on Highway 22, the 78, or local streets in East Dumbleberry township or whatever is up there. Frankly, I don't give a crap.

Now, if the Blue Route or PA Turnpike or Schuylkill is icing up....that's news. At least in Philly.

By the way, although the Lehigh Valley is part of the Delaware River drainage basin, it is not part of the Delaware Valley. It is a different valley, formed by the Lehigh River, that runs from WSW to ENE between NE Berks County and Easton with the higher terrain of the Pocono foothills to the north and a series of lower hills to the south. So, to talk about a "snow" event hitting 'the Delaware Valley' (which is basically from Trenton to Wilmington), when it only affected parts of Berks County and the LV is completely inaccurate.

 

[imhomerjay]

3,800 customers is a lot when you're one of them, but it wouldn't even be half the miniscule town I grew up in. It doesn't seem like the majority of the core market had a major winter storm, so it's hard to see the need for full-blown (no pun intended) wall-to-wall type storm coverage.

The point about people not tuning back in when they're caught in a traffic jam that KYW didn't report is interesting speculation, but, really, where else will they go? I've been burned on several occassions by understated or flat-out missed reports of jams (and I don't count situations that clearly had just happened)...but what are my options, realistically? I check the traffic Web sites before leaving home, but don't consider them helpful for knowing if there's a serious issue once I'm off 95/76/476/276. Other radio stations? They'll have less information than 1060.

 

[Julius Leonard Marx]

3,800 customers is a lot when you're one of them, but it wouldn't even be half the miniscule town I grew up in. It doesn't seem like the majority of the core market had a major winter storm, so it's hard to see the need for full-blown (no pun intended) wall-to-wall type storm coverage.

The point about people not tuning back in when they're caught in a traffic jam that KYW didn't report is interesting speculation, but, really, where else will they go? I've been burned on several occassions by understated or flat-out missed reports of jams (and I don't count situations that clearly had just happened)...but what are my options, realistically? I check the traffic Web sites before leaving home, but don't consider them helpful for knowing if there's a serious issue once I'm off 95/76/476/276. Other radio stations? They'll have less information than 1060.

3800 was home many were still without power Sunday NIGHT. The wind gusts were downing power lines during the overnight period early Sunday MORNING. After more than 12 hours, they still had 3800 outages. God only knows how many there were initially.

KYW-TV led with the wind damage story and footage of a downed tree that destroyed a whole house Monday evening at 6.

 

[BRNout]

3,800 customers is a lot when you're one of them, but it wouldn't even be half the miniscule town I grew up in. It doesn't seem like the majority of the core market had a major winter storm, so it's hard to see the need for full-blown (no pun intended) wall-to-wall type storm coverage.

The point about people not tuning back in when they're caught in a traffic jam that KYW didn't report is interesting speculation, but, really, where else will they go? I've been burned on several occassions by understated or flat-out missed reports of jams (and I don't count situations that clearly had just happened)...but what are my options, realistically? I check the traffic Web sites before leaving home, but don't consider them helpful for knowing if there's a serious issue once I'm off 95/76/476/276. Other radio stations? They'll have less information than 1060.

3800 was home many were still without power Sunday NIGHT. The wind gusts were downing power lines during the overnight period early Sunday MORNING. After more than 12 hours, they still had 3800 outages. God only knows how many there were initially.

KYW-TV led with the wind damage story and footage of a downed tree that destroyed a whole house Monday evening at 6.

Yes, that was a house in Doylestown where the tree came within 2 feet of crushing a toddler. There's no question that a few people got hit hard by the storm.

About the traffic reports, KYW is basically it when it comes to metro Philly. Anyone else's radio traffic reports are older and less accurate than KYW's offerings. This is an area where CBS Radio's news stations seem to excel. In Boston, people go to WBZ for traffic on the 3's, in New York they head for WINS for their detailed reports on the 1's then to WCBS for traffic on the 8's. Same is true for Los Angelenos with KNX. All are CBS-owned stations. And, in each of those markets, no one else comes close.

They certainly seem to know the formula, that's for sure.

 

[Julius Leonard Marx]

About the traffic reports, KYW is basically it when it comes to metro Philly. Anyone else's radio traffic reports are older and less accurate than KYW's offerings. This is an area where CBS Radio's news stations seem to excel. In Boston, people go to WBZ for traffic on the 3's, in New York they head for WINS for their detailed reports on the 1's then to WCBS for traffic on the 8's. Same is true for Los Angelenos with KNX. All are CBS-owned stations. And, in each of those markets, no one else comes close.

They certainly seem to know the formula, that's for sure.

Wait a minute! KYW traffic reports (like weather) are out-sourced. KYW gets traffic from Shadow Traffic almost like every other station in town. How can other reports be "older and less accurate?" The same people who traffic on KYW do traffic on other stations. The reports are live and produced from the same operations center in Bala Cynwyd. Clear Channel stations get traffic from Clear Channel's Total Traffic. Those reports do sound recorded (and run through the "delete silence" feature on Adobe Audition). WXPN uses John Ogden's "Traffic Pulse" which does appear to miss things sometimes. With those few exceptions, other stations have the same traffic as KYW, despite what station promos may say.

 

[BRNout]

All I can tell you is that they're more current, regular and frequent than you'd hear elsewhere. For example, the reports on the Clear Channel stations (like WMMR or WDAS-FM) are often woefully out of date. They talk about incidents that are hours old. The reports on TV are better, but run a little behind too. They often get stuck in the groove of talking about an accident that happened at 5:30 am for hours after the fact. Certainly well after the accident is gone and traffic has returned to normal. I've seen John Ogden going on and on about some accident that happened 3 hours ago and which was cleared up 90 minutes ago. Then, I get on the road only to find a delay that was not mentioned on TV.

In the meantime, KYW's seem to be pretty close to what I've seen on the road. For the most part, their reports seem to be within 15 minutes of accurate. Which is much better than anyone else.

Even if they're outsourced, they are getting the latest and greatest info. Unlike anyone else in the market.