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Storm Coverage: WSB Radio vs. All News 106.7

B

BarryATL

WSB wins hands down. I know that some of it is hype and presentation, but WSB feels like it is on top of the story. AN106.7 is covering the story as an after thought.

WEBPAGE: WSB has storm coverage all over the front of their website. AN106.7 has a giant picture of Tide detergent. There is a click later gets you to the coverage.

IMAGING: AN106.7 is so fond of their imaging voice guy (eight times every 30 minutes) yet there is nothing special for the weather event. WSB's news intro/sounder has their imaging voice announcing "WSB storm coverage"

WEATHER: WSB goes live to Kirk in the headlines and is the lead story. AN106.7 waits until the format weather time to talk to Fox 5 weather person.

HEADLINES: Going into the bottom of the hour at 8:30 AM WSB had their top three lead stories related to the upcoming weather. AN106.7 did not get to the storm until the 3rd or 4th story.

TRAFFIC: WSB's Scott Slade talks to Captain Herb about the traffic issues. It feels like they are a team working on this story together. AN106.7 waits until the normal six minutes after and there is no banter between the anchors and the traffic person. The traffic folks for AN106.7 do a good job, but it seems like they are a separate unit that has nothing to do with the news team. Part of that is the imaging AN106.7 uses does not allow any banter between the news anchors and traffic reporter.

PEOPLE IN THE FIELD: AN106.7 has nobody. They depend on a 40 second report from Fox 5 about GDOT. WSB has someone at the Cheshire Bridge GDOT facility.

We have all said that a storm or weather event would define AN106.7. WSB has the lead on this story. WSB has urgency and it feels like they are all over the story. I realize it is hype and WSB is making the story bigger than it really is, but that is what news radio is sometimes. You take a story and make a HUGE deal out of it. AN106.7 feels like it is covering the story as an afterthought. AN106.7 did not do anything to make the coverage sound special. They stayed inside their cookie cutter format without anything special. WSB went wall-to-wall.
 
Uh... how about there is NO storm and WSB is hyping fumes? There's a difference between balanced, reasonable coverage and hysteria. Before you criticize, consider the context. Your own words:

I realize it is hype and WSB is making the story bigger than it really is, but that is what news radio is sometimes. You take a story and make a HUGE deal out of it.

No, that's what radio news is NOT. News is trying to paint an accurate picture of what's actually going on... not embellishing reality to win the ratings war. Ask the people in Florida how completely sick to death they are of hyper-inflated hurricane scares.
 
AlsoRan, I agree, but every TV station and WSB Radio are hyping the storm. In the public's eyes it seems like they are not on top of the story. I know it is not right, but that is the ratings game.
 
Good points, Barry!
WSB has not hyped this weather situation at all. Kirk Mellish has always been very careful to point out all the variables involved with forecasting the weather. This COULD have been a huge event if the various weather dynamics changed just a tiny bit.
Barry points out that 106.7 was just plain not interested. Huge mistake in my opinion!!
I listened a good bit initially to 106.7 but find myself hitting the WSB button again if I need accurate information about traffic, weather, or news in general.
I will say I'm very disappointed with the WSB talk programming which replaced Boortz and Clark. It's painful to have to listen to this mush to get the information I want.
 
I'd write long post about WSB Radio's superb and outstanding coverage of the storm, but up here in Roswell, we've got so much snow and ice I'm going to have to get there with a shovel just to walk the dog. Thank you, thank you, thank you, Cox Broadcasting, for being so magnificent in providing continuous coverage of the 12 ice crystals that fell on my windshield as I came back from downtown.

I can't wait to listen to their coverage of the next hurricane we have in central Georgia.
_________________________________________________
Congratulations, AN1067, on maintaining a balanced approach without getting everyone in a twitter. In my mind, Barry, I'll take credibility over ratings any day.
 
Ask the people in Florida how completely sick to death they are of hyper-inflated hurricane scares.
[/quote]

We aren't.

G
 
Wait a minute, wait a minute … Kirk will be doing a bulletin in about 7 minutes. The wind has gusted to 12 miles an hour and leaves are being blown on to the roads. Capt. Herb is heading to The Connector to do a live report on whether they are oak or maple leaves and where they are coming from. Scott Slade is going to be anchoring a special at 1:45 PM on the history of wind.

OMG! There's the sun, THE SUN THE SUN! Oh, praise you WSB, your hyper-inflated coverage has frightened away the ice and freezing rain.
 
Mr. Rafone....
What part of the Mellish forecast did you not understand??!! He has consistently said it did not appear to be a big deal and no interpretation was needed to understand the forecast. His forecast was the same at the beginning of the week.
At ALL NEWS 106.7 weather twinkie, Joeanne Feldmen was talking meteorological Armaggedon. So much for accuracy.
At least Kirk Mellish can read and interpret a weather chart......
There are travel issues in the north part of the state. But wait.....it's not happening at YOUR house so it's not newsworthy.
 
Mr. Engineer,
Yes, I heard and understood what Kirk was saying. And, you are correct, he was downplaying it as hard as he could while at the same time doing a good CYA by saying he would "have to watch developments."

AN1067 was indeed carrying the hype coming out of Channel 5, but WSB-TV, WXIA-TV, WGNX-TV were also declaring circumstances to be akin to the blizzard of 2011 and even back to Snow Jam 82 and 83.

My problem is that WSB Radio jumps on something with both feet, promos the hell out of it, and covers the event like a blanket. And they let you know they've covered it. Maybe I'm out of step, but I appreciate measured, considered broadcast news. My philosophy is "Let's cover it, but if it gets bigger, we'll step it up; let's not try to increase expectations."

Back 40 years ago there was a serious oil tank farm fire in Doraville. John Holliman, recently hired by WSB, was sent out there and told to broadcast 24/7 until the things was exstinguished. He did, and it made his career. But I (personally got so sick of hearing about it, I turned it off. BTW, John and I had worked together and against each other in Athens.

I apologize for maybe going over the top, but I simply can't stand any station hyping weather, as they all do. I still think AN1067 was a better presentation of the conditions.
 
Storm? What storm? Bridges on I-985 iced up. There was some ice on bridges and overpasses in the metro area and parts of the NE Georgia but this wasn't a "storm" by any stretch of the imagination, unless of course the Weather Channel named it. That makes it real.
 
WSB: Wolf! Wolf! We haven't actually seen a wolf, but conditions certainly favor the appearance of one and you all know what happened that last time we saw a wolf, so run for your lives.

AN1067: Move along, nothing to see here, and we'll let you know if there is.

Screw the ratings war.. that's what got the news media into the state it's in already. Huge credibility losses due to overhyped events, too many talking heads and a sizable chunk of the population that can't distinguish between news and propaganda.

Yes, I do think AN106.7's coverage was a little frail. At 1:35 they were still running a tired Connie Cummings piece that had already aired several times when they should, in my opinion, have had someone outside or at the desk doing live updates at least every 30 minutes to reassure everyone there was, in fact, nothing going on. I'd say it's the by product of a too small staff spread too thin... but that's another thread. Was it a bigger problem than WSB's nuclear holocaust coverage? How many times do you get a mulligan on crying wolf? It's as if they set up to do a winter weather story last night and by God they were going to do the story no matter what. And it's always the same story... GDOT is ready, forecasters are watching, some icy patches, some collisions, the closer you get to the North Pole the more likely you are to see frozen precip. You could just recycle all the interviews from 10 years ago. Love to hear Terri Pope say, "Well guys, we've seen the forecast, and I think we're just gonna sleep through this one. It's Friday, we'll let you know how things look Monday morning." ;D
 
For AN106.7 to survive, they have to have ratings. I am sorry to say that ratings and hyper-coverage go together. Everybody tunes in today to hear about the "possible storm". WSB Radio is the go to place for weather because they cover something wall-to-wall even if it just smells of bad weather. Right or wrong, that gets ratings. For AN106.7 to be the new go-to place, they must do the special coverage... image that special coverage.. and let us know they had/have the special coverage. It is a formula that works for all of the PROFITABLE news operations in the USA. WSB Radio did not invent this.
 
I have used this anology before concerning other markets and the Atlanta WSB led market.

In other markets, it is reported that someone "sneezed" today. Now the next story.

WSB:
Someone "sneezed" today, Coming up next we will have special coverage of the history of sneezing. We will also talk to witnesses who saw the sneeze. Additionally, we will investigate if the sneeze could have been prevented. The question is was it the person's fault for sneezing? Lastly, we will see if this sneeze will impact how Congress and or the government willl react to preventing sneezing in the future. Oh, and we have potentially heard that (Insert liberal advocate like Jesse Jackson) will travel to the victim's home and make a statement on behalf of the victim.

Just tell me the facts........
 
What many of you are not taking into account is the fact that the weather is totally unpredictable. The same people crying "hype" would be berating WSB for failure to provide coverage had the storm developed differently. It only takes a degree or two of temperature differences to create a huge ice storm versus a non event. Had the precip started a couple of hours earlier....ice storm - possibly a crippling ice storm. Mellish said over and over......the computer guidance is useless in the last 6 hours of this type weather development....you have to put feet on the ground to read temps, observe radar, and monitor road conditions. That is EXACTLY what WSB radio did - nothing more.
106.7 did not intentionally downplay this event in my opinion. They just did not measure up to the occasion. The weather twinkie girl who does their weather reports sure did have the forecast wrong....as usual!!
 
tlyle said:
I have used this anology before concerning other markets and the Atlanta WSB led market.

In other markets, it is reported that someone "sneezed" today. Now the next story.

WSB:
Someone "sneezed" today, Coming up next we will have special coverage of the history of sneezing. We will also talk to witnesses who saw the sneeze. Additionally, we will investigate if the sneeze could have been prevented. The question is was it the person's fault for sneezing? Lastly, we will see if this sneeze will impact how Congress and or the government willl react to preventing sneezing in the future. Oh, and we have potentially heard that (Inert liberal advocate like Jesse Jackson) will travel to the victim's home and make a statement on behalf of the victim.

Just tell me the facts........
Click to expand...

These are all facts!
Exactly what do you expect an all news program to do in a possible extreme weather situation? Spend the next 50 minutes analyzing the Falcon's loss?
Why is it that everyone seems to miss the point that this easily COULD have been a huge weather event. There's not a single human being alive who knew with any certainty what was going to happen today. Mellish was the one who said on air, and on his blog, probably nothing to this system.
If you want to talk weather hype let's talk about Channel 2 WSB TV. Glenn Burn's eyebrow was so bent last night it almost broke!! This guy put the "H" in hype. These(WSB-TV)are the people who deserve your wrath.....
 
Engineer Taylor is right on and reasoned w his explanation. WSB has the breaking news, weather and traffic brand and is the go to station for information. The critics whining about the station's alleged hype of the storm are nothing more than 106 7 mostly news apologists disgruntled that 7 months into their run with a ton of marketing they have little to show for it. What do you expect when the station has no PD and is run by Fox5 which rightly puts TV first.
Art
 
taylorengineer said:
tlyle said:
I have used this anology before concerning other markets and the Atlanta WSB led market.

In other markets, it is reported that someone "sneezed" today. Now the next story.

WSB:
Someone "sneezed" today, Coming up next we will have special coverage of the history of sneezing. We will also talk to witnesses who saw the sneeze. Additionally, we will investigate if the sneeze could have been prevented. The question is was it the person's fault for sneezing? Lastly, we will see if this sneeze will impact how Congress and or the government willl react to preventing sneezing in the future. Oh, and we have potentially heard that (Inert liberal advocate like Jesse Jackson) will travel to the victim's home and make a statement on behalf of the victim.

Just tell me the facts........
Click to expand...

These are all facts!
Exactly what do you expect an all news program to do in a possible extreme weather situation? Spend the next 50 minutes analyzing the Falcon's loss?
Why is it that everyone seems to miss the point that this easily COULD have been a huge weather event. There's not a single human being alive who knew with any certainty what was going to happen today. Mellish was the one who said on air, and on his blog, probably nothing to this system.
If you want to talk weather hype let's talk about Channel 2 WSB TV. Glenn Burn's eyebrow was so bent last night it almost broke!! This guy put the "H" in hype. These(WSB-TV)are the people who deserve your wrath.....
Click to expand...


I am cool with your point that Mellish and WSB did put the caveat that it is unpredictable. And they had been saying for a couple of days that Atlanta proper would not get it. However, it is the extra promotion and lead in's that get me. I am not really banging on this story as the issue, but it is more of a typical way they present that seems to be the problem for me. Too much fluff and extra stuff we don't need.
 
Why is everybody afraid to admit SB preys on people's knee jerk response of tuning to them? They know because they are the senior voice if something happens listeners will come to them first. Then they milk it for all it is worth.

Was SB carrying the pody Jerry Sandusky verdict press conference live? No, because their News Gurus didn't think it was a major story (Besides it reflected negatively on college football, and they sure don't want to upset the UGA addicts!) I'm certain (though I can't cite them now) instances where AN1067 was live on a breaking story and SB was waiting for their 2:45 news cast at the top of the hour to cover it. Can somebody help me on this?

I agree with TLyle; their news managers Thursday night said what the rundown would be this morning, and whether there was anything to report, that was what they were going to execute. Yes, AN1067's weather was wrong, and they don't pull outdated sound bites often enough, but they weren't trying to make something news when it wasn't.

And if one cultivates credibility, responsibility, authority, the reputation will grow and so will the ratings. But if one wants to chase the almighty buck by being "headline crazy" (like the supermarket tabloids -- JOE BIDEN IS REALLY AN ALIEN) though you may bill buckets, people are really going to laugh at you when the chips are down.
 
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