Well, I don’t disagree that the depth of weather alerts on traditional radio is significantly down. The larger issue is whether it’s a big problem. And, I am not sure it is.
When I first started playing radio in the 1980s, weather information was of paramount importance on the radio – especially during Hurricane Season back home. Now, the necessity has seemingly changed.
With newer technologies, virtually endless amounts of weather data are at one’s fingertips. We have programmable SAME weather radios (which are now cheap and readily available – they can be bought for ~$30), the Internet, cell phone alerts, wall-to-wall TV coverage with in-house radar, as well as more traditional methods. My wife’s Mercedes will even bring NOAA radio up with a push of a button. A decade ago, most of this simply wasn’t available. And, this stuff comes directly from forecasters; it’s not filtered by a $10/hour board op.
And, that’s another issue… I have never been comfortable in trusting my life to – well – guys like me. Even in the best of circumstances, the dude behind the microphone doesn’t have the background to make cogent decisions on how to cover weather events. Just because he can talk about the latest Madonna record, does not mean he knows the difference between a shelf cloud, a wall cloud, or even a funnel cloud. So, one might ask… what is better? Poor and inaccurate information, or none at all?
When the weather gets bad, commercial radio is the last place I would go.
DE
