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Unbelievable!

Y

yugoidar

Taylor On Radio-Info reports this morning that Westwood One (Metro Traffic) will be providing traffic reports for Charlotte out of their Atlanta studios.  And the Charlotte news reports...oh, they'll originate from  their Phoenix, Arizona facility.

Why don't they really consolidate - buy a skyscraper in some city and do all of the reports for every city in America from a single location?  The radio business gets sicker everyday!
 
A skyscraper office, even at rental levels, would cut into profits.
Besides, they don't need to see any actual traffic, they just need to sell some ads and tell us that there is traffic here and there. I also think that sportscasters don't need to be at the game either, and a blue screen of a Google map should be good enough for when a tv reporter does a "live" remote (they might could even just be taped anyway). Because I'm also stupid, like the radio remnants.

:-[
 
hahahaha! Who thinks up this stuff?

If they did traffic and news in the same facility they might be a bit more inclined to share information, or have a better idea of what's going on. Ya know sometimes traffic is news.

Coming soon traffic reports from.......(dare I say it?) India!
 
I predict that within one year, a Westwood One competitor will buy what's left of the company (at one helluva great price!) and make it disappear.

While Clear Channel and Traffic.com looked at the future and saw data as the way to deliver product, WW1 and CBS brass (Joel Hollander, you listening?) looked the other way, whistling in the dark and hoping everything would be OK.

Thirty-nine f***ing cents a share!!! How DO these guys manage to fail their way to the top?

Is it too late to add this company to the 2008 Dead Pool?
 
The same thing is happening to the Metro Greensboro office. We'll be getting our traffic reports from a studio in Washington, DC at the first of the year.
 
Better send up a list of often mispronounced road names soon so the DC folk don't look completely like traffic arses, radioheel.
No wait, they'll figure it out on their own. They're The Cream of the Traffic Crop. ;)
 
This explains why I kept hearing traffic reports for the accident at Colony and Sharon Parkway. Can anyone tell me where Sharon Parkway is?
 
If the traffic reports are ACCURATE and easily understood, who cares where they
originate from? Hardly anyone outside the Top 10 markets are using aircraft anymore.
 
In the late 70's, we used to do bogus traffic reports from the "traffic watch pine tree"...
"It looks like Spud Kemp's goats are out again, and have traffic at a standstill, three cars in each direction..."
 
surfdude said:
If the traffic reports are ACCURATE and easily understood, who cares where they
originate from? Hardly anyone outside the Top 10 markets are using aircraft anymore.
Click to expand...

That was the point of my last post, they aren't ACCURATE!
 
Well, that's a problem with the reporter and not their location.
They could have just said Colony and Sharon, and left off Parkway, Road, etc.

My problem with most traffic reports is accuracy. But, having been the pilot
for traffic reports, even being in a plane you can only cover so much ground.
To do traffic nearly perfectly, you'd need two aircraft in the air. Nobody wants
to spend that kind of money.
 
I hear a lot of mistakes out on the road traveling in different cities. In the Boston area alone several towns can tell if you're a native. Peabody is pronounced Pee-Bo-D and Leominster is Lim-inster. There are several other examples. XM's Traffic & Weather STILL butcher them sometimes depending on who's on. I'm up there a couple times a week and my wife is from the area so I started out with an unfair advantage but even I had my moments (and still do at times) when people would say "what part of the South you from?"
 
surfdude said:
Well, that's a problem with the reporter and not their location.
They could have just said Colony and Sharon, and left off Parkway, Road, etc.

My problem with most traffic reports is accuracy. But, having been the pilot
for traffic reports, even being in a plane you can only cover so much ground.
To do traffic nearly perfectly, you'd need two aircraft in the air. Nobody wants
to spend that kind of money.
Click to expand...

I did some traffic as the substitute "Jeff Pilot" and I must say that one plane is better than none.

Traffic can back up for no reason, there doesn't have to be an accident. Reports miss those if they are just listening to the scanner for calls.

What I hate is to go by an intersection where they have just reported an accident only to find that it's completely clear, not even cars at the side of the road.

I don't listen to the radio for traffic reports. Most times my alternate route takes just as long as sticking to my regular route.
 
I do got to admit that I kind of felt shafted about 10 years ago when a woman rearended me and a couple other cars on Battleground Ave in Greensboro, stopped traffic for a mile for thirty minutes at 5:10pm, and I saw five people listening to radios right after that, and nooooooobody even heard about it until I told them. :'(
 
quadraphonic said:
I do got to admit that I kind of felt shafted about 10 years ago when a woman rearended me and a couple other cars on Battleground Ave in Greensboro, stopped traffic for a mile for thirty minutes at 5:10pm, and I saw five people listening to radios right after that, and nooooooobody even heard about it until I told them. :'(
Click to expand...

Isn't that the road that WBIG 1470 used to be on?
 
I am just waiting for them to report an accident on 285 instead of 485. Or an accident on 85 in Atlanta is reported as an accident in Charlotte.
 
The traffic people work very hard to file all the reports for the different stations. From what I know they don't make much money either. One of the folks working for Metro also worked across the hall from me at Kiss. They were just barely making a living. It's a real shame because this person is very talented. It could mean that another talent bites the dust.
 
Mike is right. People who work for traffic network are paid little, and have horrible schedules. And, having done it, it is not much fun!
 
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