Snow coverage

[stan]

I'm curious about how the weather coverage was handled by the Tulsa and OKC radio. Any updates or observations?

 

[Kent]

KRMG is doing a good job with it. They were covering it wall-to-wall from afternoon drive until about 7:30 yesterday evening. They had updates every 15 minutes after that. They're in continuous coverage this morning.

KTOK just simulcasted KFOR-TV. I guess it was okay coverage, but the KTOK coverage of old seemed far better. It was kinda sad to be listening to KRMG yesterday evening and hearing people in OKC call in asking for road information! Several complained about the coverage provided by KTOK and KOKC. I did not, however, get a chance to listen to KOKC. So, I really can't judge their coverage.

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

Kokc was an almost no-show on this event.

 

[okcdeejay]

On TV, I think KOCO-TV 5 did the best coverage. Too bad their radio partners did not simulcast it. It was all music on every FM station in the evening. Sounded like everyone tracked their shows.

 

[okcdeejay]

On Thursday night I think the best source for helpful storm info was KOCO's website live blog. ODOT was not updating their Twitter enough to be helpful or updating their website or e-mailing updates at all. OHP was swamped with emergency calls

 

[OKCRadioGuy]

My vote would definately be for KOCO. They certainly had the "B-Team" out but at least they were out and doing something. Their talent pool there seems to be pretty low but at least they seem to try. 9 and especially 4 seemed to be very lacking in people actually in the streets doing something. Radar/Nextrad video packages are cool, but nothing beats real video of the event. 5 won that part hands down! It's interesting when the choppers are parked how obvious it is that four and nine are lacking mobile units compared to KOCO. KTOK did the right thing during the storm, and that probably was good enough until four went back to normal programming. It would have been a good thing for someone to then take five coverage from then on. All stations don't need to be playing icy weather calamity radio, but at SOMEONE does in a event like this. It's not about forwarning as much on a snow event as it is about information after the fact IMHO. Radio would have been very useful as a way for people stuck in cars without TV recievers to know what to do next and how long it would take, etc....

Maybe we can all learn from this one. We have the tornado thing down pretty good at this point but winter weather isn't as practiced of a deal.

Belive it or not, we weren't too good with tornado information several years ago but got better. It took some people with gonads to put aside the ratings and turn cluster stations into public service devices. It took a lot to get where we are today with tornado coverage. It HAS saved lives. How many headsets did you see on people coming out of shelters closets of tore-up houses back on May 3rd video? I was at one of the major clusters back when all that business happened. The jocks on-air at the time were conserned about the rights/athority to run the media partner on all of the cluster instead of just the one normally we had an agreement with. Yes they were doing updates frequently but didn't want to take it apon themselves (don't blame them) to put the TV up and go with it. So I wa litterly calling people on my cell phone to get clearance. I knew our TV weather guy thorough a mutual friend was MORE than willing to let us run on all stations, but I still had to call our GM to get the green light because I myself was not in charge, etc. of course. The GM at the time said go with it so then and only then we ran TV audio on all of the signals in the building. We saved lives that evening, but where would we have been if we hadn't pushed the envolope a bit, eh? We have to LEARN from stuff like this and plan with our bosses to come up with better solutions. Let's not let people sit in their cars freezing wondering why their (###* radio stations aren't caring enough to at least give up ONE station in their group for the public, eh? Everyone in the market seems to have a kicking-dog station these days. Why not do the right thing and use it for weather info like this?

 

[milton77]

I wonder how OKC area radio stations will react if there are widespread power outages on Thursday going into Friday...

 

[woodyrr]

If this Winter Storm Warning pans out and we lose power, I no longer have a way to monitor television audio. During the December 2007 ice storm, I was able to listen to the TV using a Walkman with a TV tuner and with my scanner. Since then, of course, the television stations have switched to digital and their audio is no longer available.

Here in Oklahoma City, it would be nice if KTOK would take up the slack. I don't expect KTOK to dump programming and go wall to wall, but it would be nice if they would take 30 or 60 seconds out of every non news break and briefly give a weather nowcast and forecast; hit the important aspects of any breaking news; and report the latest power outage and travel status.

I don't see why KTOK cannot use the time otherwise used for promotions for other shows (montage of host - the "host" show weekdays at "time" on KTOK) and news promotions (coming up at the top of the hour were following these stories "list headlines" on KTOK). They might still need to encroach upon a spot or programming, but it seems to me that if they chose to do it, they could pack a lot of valuable information into the breaks. I think that KRMG has the right idea by playing the "ding dong" sound often during programming to let listeners know that even though they tuned in to hear weather coverage, the station is "on it", they are in "severe weather coverage mode" and that there will be a report soon.