The sky is falling?

[KOHS]

I don't have the details of what it costs to send Yellow Thunder into the wild blue yonder on a daily basis (fuel, maintenance, depreciation, Deputy Dan and pilot), but I would imagine it's more than the revenue brought in by the sponsors.

That said, how long do you think it will be before TMISU ground Yellow Thunder and outsource traffic reports? Weather guesser Ed was already shown the door in a newly minted partnership with Mc12's weather guessers. Could it be long before Deputy Dan is grounded and sacked?

Of course, this is pure speculation after reading the tea leaves from Luby's (they serve great pie, too). Of course, given the current state of radio and the economy, I can't help but wonder if the sky is really falling?!?!?!?

 

[buster2]

As a mere lad of 20-something I had the chance to fill in for Rubbernecker on KFYI / Power 92 back in the day. We used a traffic plane for visual observation of the traffic scene and augmented it with scanner traffic from police and fire.

It worked pretty well.

But even then (almost 20 years ago), it was impossible to get a view of the whole valley at once. We had to do circles over various parts of the valley, careful to avoid Sky Harbor airspace and other air traffic.

The valley was just too big to cover with one aircraft in 1989, and that's truer than ever now. I can't imagine how one guy does it, so I suppose he fakes a certain amount. For example, it's real easy to say at any given time between 4 and 6 PM that US 60 between Mill and the 101 is sluggish. You can get away with it at least some of the time.

Compare that to what the traffic services do. They look at ADOTs camera network and have mutliple staff to cover each other. Granted, at least in Clear Channel's case, they are also doing traffic in other cities, but all those ADOT cameras are looking at so much more freeway than one person in a plane could possibly see at once.

I have no ill will toward Detour Dan, but I also can't see him doing reports airborne much longer.

 

[TW Smith]

I think it would be a mistake to replace Detour Dan with someone watching ADOT's cameras. I found myself switching from KMLE to KTAR because I could count on consistent updates during my relatively short commute from south Chandler to Priest & University in Tempe over the last few months (one thing about $4 gas, congestion was significantly less). I also tune in when I am driving through the city during heavy traffic hours. I found that I like the mix of news (local, business and even sports) as well as the personalities (personally I liked Dave Pratt & Stacey Brooks, especially the segments w/ Mark Curtis better than Ned & Connie) and for a relatively short commute, KTAR's repetition is minimal. Also, I hear Dan occasionally on other stations but I like the consistency of the reports on KTAR instead of the hit or miss approach other stations seem to offer.

-Just another 40 yr old Midwesterner that got lost in the Sonora desert.

 

[DrAkbar]

I have no ill will toward Detour Dan, but I also can't see him doing reports airborne much longer.

Airborne traffic is so eighties. Eventually the economic meltdown that his hit every other broadcaster will come looking for TMISU. And that's when the airplane will go and Detour changes his name to Deskbound Dan!

 

[rockjock420]

I used to listen to 92.3 on my way home, and started to notice a trend with the Metro traffic reports. You could tell they were using the ADOT cameras, because they would say things like "Eastbound 60 is busy from Country Club to Mesa Drive, and from blahblah to blah blah", yet I would be driving through there, and nothing was different. Eventually it became apparent what they see as slowing on the cameras was an optical illusion... when a camera is near the bottom of a hill, looking east (uphill) the tail lights appear to be closer together. The traffic reports that rely on actual sensors give a more accurate idea of what's going on.

 

[brian4]

Nobody wants to see Dan Beach fired. He brings an energy to his traffic reports.

I wrote in an different post that, in my opinion, airborne traffic reporting is a cost that isn't justifiable anymore. Traffic cameras, while they don't cover all parts of the Valley, can give good gauges of the overall system. Cameras reporters can't say "2 left lanes on inbound Grand and Thomas are blocked, squeeze by on the right."

The major competition (KFYI) no longer flies. It's a bragging point to have the "only airborne traffic report" in the Phoenix, but does anyone notice that when Beach is on vacation nobody takes his place in the air? I remember Joe 'Mojo' Corrao doing it a couple times in the morning when he was with KTAR but not since then.

I think KFYI does a good job with two reporters giving both sides of the Valley during drive times using cameras plus having a traffic line where people can call with incidence.

 

[DrAkbar]

...and how moronic: East Side, West Side Traffic originated on KT'R. The Beer Baron wisely picked it out of the Osborn Rd trash bin and started using it on 9~Ten KFWhyEye where it remains today!