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Possible tornado north side of Tampa- FLA sticks with Schnitt!

Good for you to post under your real name Dale. Of course, since you toe the management line, you can speak up quite fearlessly. Those who post under assumed names, like me, have every reason to believe that if the big shots knew which peons were taking potshots at them the peons would be terminated. (Right to work, at will employment, you know).

If you're going to call someone out, do it on a level playing field. By the way, I hear your company's going to have everyone doing group excercises in the morning and sing the corporate anthem afterward. Better go learn the words.
 
I don't work for clear channel and never have, so spare this "you are a mercenary doing what your told" and "toe-ing the line" crap.

Have some guts, taking shots at people annonymously is cowardly. Especially when you do it non-stop.

So fivestar, do you work for the evil CC monster? If you do and you feel this way are you not part of the problem your bitching about?
 
You don't work for Clear Channel? Fine! You have nothing to lose. Trust me. No one who can influence anything at Clear Channel posts on this board. Taking shots at people who are not in a position to respond on an equal footing isn't so brave, either.
 
Hi gang. I had a quick read through the posts, so I'll just give my 2-cents worth: Several years ago, when I worked at 570 WHNZ-- this was when the station still did a lot of news from their 4th Street St. Pete studios--there was one afternoon of particularly bad weather.

We had a clear view of the Gulf of Mexico and noticed a wall cloud forming. Then 102.5 PD Chuck Beck (originally from Texas I believe) commented that similar conditions "back home" usually meant tornado activity. Not long after, Gordon Byrd saw a waterspout form. It was in the vicinity of Indian Rocks Beach. We went to air with that info IMMEDIATELY. We did NOT wait for the NWS, EAS activation, etc.

I guess I'm "old school" but I think the "immediacy" of radio gave it an edge over all other media. Looks as though the TV beat radio on this one and that's a pity. But, let's face it: the major TV stations shell out big bucks for local news and weather coverage, while the major radio companies seem to only cut back. So long as this continues, the ability for radio to air breaking news and weather will suffer.
 
OK - bottom-line: WFLA is officially a third rate radio station. There is no point in listening to them unless you have an emergency need to listen to Republican Party politics transmitted on the cheap. Fine, I accept it and I will move on.
 
I was tracking the storms Saturday via weather underground and I called FLA and FLZ to give a heads up. I was told to go my a unknown Jock at FLZ to go pound sand! That their updates said nothing and suggested that i was full of it! I even offered to send them a link and they hung up on me! I tried FLA and got a recording like it was forwarded to the front desk. Funny, I thought part of the FCC License states that station must inform listeners of weather emergencies? If that was case, I know of a cluster of clear channel station dropped the ball on this one. I could understand if their sticks got knocked down or something like that! Too bad the water spout wasn't over the gandy studio's.....Which makes me wonder, if a waterspout was over the Gandy studio's in tampa. Do you think Clear Channel would know or not? Knowing how must of them operate there, if someone did tell them, MJ or others would try to blame it on someone else!!! Cause MJ believes that his is like God and can never fail!!
I'm just glad know one was injured in yesterdays storms!!
 
For those that have a problem with WFLA or its operation, may I suggest you take 10 minutes away from this board and write a note with your concerns. Mail it to:

Federal Communications Commission
Washington, D.C.

I'm sure that'd love to hear from you.
 
Some posts in this topic have been moved to Take It Outside.

[iurl=http://www.radio-info.com/smf/index.php?topic=90709.0]http://www.radio-info.com/smf/index.php?topic=90709.0[/iurl]
 
This is a little OT, but bear with me since everyone is harping on the lack of coverage of this on radio...

I've noticed in scanning some of these posts about how Bay News 9 was on the ball. Duh, all they do in local news, so it's a no-brainer that Bay News 9 would be on top of things. However, what about the other local TV stations? Other than intermediate cut-ins, 10 and that no-name station (in HD, let's not forget) was stuck with college basketball coverage (and in a bit of bad luck, both games were nail-biters, so it wasn't like either station could preempt the remainder of said games to go straight to news coverage). However, there were no cut-ins to my knowledge on either 13 or 8, and neither were showing a live sporting event. IIRC, 13 was running a rerun of "Cops", and 8 was running some rodeo event. So, I'm a little surprised that both those stations didn't cut in and went straight to news coverage. Rather disappointing if you ask me...
 
As far automation and Clear Channel go, back in January 2002 in Minot, North Dakota a train carrying chemicals derailed and the gas from the chemicals began spearding through out the town, causing people to get and even one person died. The town's EAS failed, so 911 dispatchers were referring people to listen for news on the local AM station. Well, as it turns out this local AM station, as well as all the other stations in town were owned by CC, and nobody was there, all the stations were on automation. Clear Channel refused to take any responsibility.
 
And the local mom and pops were all over this right? Why did the dispatchers direct people to a station that had not contacted them. Seems there are a few folks to blame here. Quit getting hung up on the evil monster in the room and start focusing on the little bad guys who let the monster festering unchallanged. Like I said where was everyone else? No one knows because this was a bitching thread and nothing more.
 
Since 970-WFLA discontinues local news at 7pm weekdays, and 1pm
weekends, Clear Channel is lobbying for congressional legislation that mandates
any disaster occur during normal business hours.
 
There's one thing to keep in mind when it comes to radio and news. Whenever a radio station puts the news on, people can't change the station fast enough. Only the older demos are into it. It's not just that people don't want to get their news from radio, they don't want to get it from anywhere (unless it's in a comedic pill from Leno, Letterman, or Stewart). So let's blame the radio owners for a lack of news on radio - but let's also blame the listeners who don't want it. If they wanted it stations would be competing to see who could have the most and best news coverage.

But if radio could at least switch the feed to Bay News 9 or something during a weather emergency that would be nice.
 
Don62 said:
Dale Jackson said:
Why didn't Don call and tell his wife what was going on? I remember "back in the day" a father would call in check on his family during time of severe tragedy and weather. I guess Don relinqueshed that mantle in order to monitor radio stations he hates, yet listen to 24/7. I wonder if Don got mad at his wife for listening to WFLA in the car.

No wonder WFLA does so well in the ratings, Don and his wife obviously get books.

Don, if anyone would have been killed would you be blaming WFLA or Clear Channel as whole?
Click to expand...
Very intelligent, Dale.

So market's leading NT station at Saturday 5 p.m. should just pay lip service or scant attention to any severe weather, and rely on stale syndicated shows.

No no no. Don't touch that show. Let the Limboob wannabee ramble on.
Don't interrupt Fox news at the top of the hour.
Keep the spots running. More important than anything else.
Let Fox News go for a full 4-5 mins. Just include the possible tornado inside a regular weather update.

Don't do anything to interrupt the schedule.

Totally ignore the audience listening in cars and elsewhere. Just assume no one's listening, or if anyone really cares about severe weather, they'll turn on the TV.

Yup. Works real well in a car.

As I said, no one else on Tampa radio that day was providing weather updates. Speaks a lot about radio and its "public service."

So much for being a market leader.
Click to expand...


What's sad about all this is: it only takes a $6.50 an hour board-op with permission to record and air a "Weather Alert" via the computer every 10 minutes. That's what our stations in Ohio do....
 
Jason Roberts said:
Don62 said:
Dale Jackson said:
Why didn't Don call and tell his wife what was going on? I remember "back in the day" a father would call in check on his family during time of severe tragedy and weather. I guess Don relinqueshed that mantle in order to monitor radio stations he hates, yet listen to 24/7. I wonder if Don got mad at his wife for listening to WFLA in the car.

No wonder WFLA does so well in the ratings, Don and his wife obviously get books.

Don, if anyone would have been killed would you be blaming WFLA or Clear Channel as whole?
Click to expand...
Very intelligent, Dale.

So market's leading NT station at Saturday 5 p.m. should just pay lip service or scant attention to any severe weather, and rely on stale syndicated shows.

No no no. Don't touch that show. Let the Limboob wannabee ramble on.
Don't interrupt Fox news at the top of the hour.
Keep the spots running. More important than anything else.
Let Fox News go for a full 4-5 mins. Just include the possible tornado inside a regular weather update.

Don't do anything to interrupt the schedule.

Totally ignore the audience listening in cars and elsewhere. Just assume no one's listening, or if anyone really cares about severe weather, they'll turn on the TV.

Yup. Works real well in a car.

As I said, no one else on Tampa radio that day was providing weather updates. Speaks a lot about radio and its "public service."

So much for being a market leader.
Click to expand...


What's sad about all this is: it only takes a $6.50 an hour board-op with permission to record and air a "Weather Alert" via the computer every 10 minutes. That's what our stations in Ohio do....
Click to expand...

... and it appears that is what WFLA was doing. But they are evil CC so them doing more than everyone else was still wrong.
 
I was going to start a post on just a few things I heard..or didnt hear..on the weekend...so I ll just pile on here.

Now, I havent listened to local weekend programming in several years. I wasn't aware that "Newsradio" 970 had become "NoNewsRadio" on certain weekend dayparts.

First off, the 970 Forecast at 2:05 Pm that saturday...was the same one that ran at 1:05 Pm..and earliler as the meterologist referred to a warmer morning but a chillier afternoon.

When the skies got dark, I punched 970 on the car radio to hear the aforementioned Schnitt "best of"..before hearing the 'EEP OOP ORK" of the EAS..and the staccatto , Stephen Hawking like voice of the weather guy at ruskin. Any moment, I expected him to say "For English, press 1"...then , back to Schnitt. Nobody else.

Sunday morning 6 am on the way to work. The Traffic guy...ok, moonlighting as a news guy, read the previous days forecast...stopped in the middle..chuckled because he had "just printed it out"....stopped...then read the same forecast again, saying "he had an additional 20 seconds"...before launching into an infomercial at 6:02.

6:30 News, Hals top headline, with the previous days storm and Politics maybe making the headline.ummm. no. "Suzanne Pleshette is dead."

Man, I thought it was bad when I worked it in the 90s.....wow...so very sad.
 
I was watching the weather on Saturday and I thought the meteorologists on Bay News 9 did an outstanding job. The NWS was trying to keep up but the storms were moving at 50-60 mph. When the NWS issued a warning saying radar showed a "tornado over Seminole" I immediately switched to 9 and it was already over Pinellas Park and a few moments later it was out in the bay. Imagine if that had been a tornado on the ground, people wouldn't have known what hit them. The only way to track those storms was with live radar, they moved each time the sweep came around!

I've had my issues with Time-Warner over the years, but I stick with Bright-House to get Bay News 9. Amazingly, the station with the most interest in public service in a time like that is a cable station owned by the cable company.

The other "over-the-air" TV stations were stuck in regular programming and offered little information. I'm sure radio had nothing. What would the FCC think about that? Or, do they even care?
 
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