WFAA Prefers Shaking Breasts To Public Safety (flame)

[AlanB]

While watching primarily KXAS and the excellent coverage by David Finfrock and his crew, I did a quick flip over to WFAA and discovered shaking breasts and "living la vida loca" instead of coverage of the very dangerous storm.

WFAA just lost whatever credibility they had left with their news coverage.

Also: WFAA-DT2 is still in automated radar and DT3 is still lifestyle news.

 

[Theodore]

While watching primarily KXAS and the excellent coverage by David Finfrock and his crew, I did a quick flip over to WFAA and discovered shaking breasts and "living la vida loca" instead of coverage of the very dangerous storm.

WFAA just lost whatever credibility they had left with their news coverage.

Also: WFAA-DT2 is still in automated radar and DT3 is still lifestyle news.

Channel 11 doing a good job also..

 

[mmnassour]

I remember WFAA as a halfway-credible news organization. All it takes is a couple of fiascoes like this and fifty years of hard work by hundreds of people can be flushed right down the toilet.

 

[FilioScotia]

***While watching primarily KXAS and the excellent coverage by David Finfrock and his crew, I did a quick flip over to WFAA and discovered shaking breasts and "living la vida loca" instead of coverage of the very dangerous storm. WFAA just lost whatever credibility they had left with their news coverage.***

You're right. That's terrible. Awful. Unspeakable. Nasty. Cheap. Tawdry. They should be ashamed of themselves.

You wouldn't happen to have a link to a video of that dreadful spectacle, would you? Hmm?

 

[JHBrandt]

Also: WFAA-DT2 is still in automated radar and DT3 is still lifestyle news.

It appears that DT2 sticks with radar & NOAA audio when there is severe weather in WFAA's coverage area.

It wasn't totally automated last night: as the storms moved, someone was manually repositioning/zooming the radar image to highlight the most severe storms, and entering predicted storm tracks to highlight the communities most likely to experience them.

 

[Bob E. Nelson]

I remember WFAA as a halfway-credible news organization. All it takes is a couple of fiascoes like this and fifty years of hard work by hundreds of people can be flushed right down the toilet.

Check the comments in the Dallas-Ft. Worth radio board (which draws higher traffic than here). One point I made is that when power is lost and one is reduced to watching on a portable television, WFAA is much harder to receive than the three other majors because channel 8 is the only one on VHF.

When I lost power for just a few minutes last evening, the little Accurian 7-inch with a simple unipole got KDFW, KXAS and KTVT all fine by virtue of them being on UHF. Not a trace of WFAA.

 

[arnoldevns]

The really telling thing to me: Fox 4 covered up a song performance on American Idol last night. I have never seen them do that before.
Channel 5 dumped the entire last half of the Biggest Loser season finale for weather coverage. Fox 4 pushed their 10pm news to about 10:45 - covering up part of TMZ. All of that cost those stations money. Channel 8 covered up some of the commercials and it cost them money too, but by not ditching the show altogether, they cost themselves a lot more in viewer credibility.

Amazingly enough, I saw this whole issue about channel 8 being discussed on the website of an ABC affiliate in another market and no one thought they made the right call.

 

[JHBrandt]

Whenever the issue of severe weather coverage comes up, I often wonder: why don't TV stations DVR their own broadcasts, so they could break in as much as they need to without dropping any of their regular programming ???

Of course eventually they'd have to drop something in order to get back to live programming, but at least they could choose whatever would cost them the least to drop.

BTW, Bob's point about portable TVs is right on. It's not easy getting VHF with one of those little whip antennas. The only thing WFAA has going for them is circular polarization, so the antenna's orientation is less important.

 

[fredcantu]

The stations' contract with the network probably require the shows to be carried live as fed, if nothing else, to be able to report to the advertiser that their spots ran as scheduled. Pausing and delaying shows would create its own problems. For instance would you like to turn on the TV for the 10:00pm news and not have the news on. This already happens on Sunday nights when football spills over. Do that throughtout the week and people would give up tuning in the late news altogether.

 

[KERCAlum]

By that reasoning, if a station covered up the network spots in favor of severe weather coverage, then told the network the spots ran as scheduled, they'd be guilty of entering a false report on their log (which is an FCC no-no). I noticed at one point, as I was flipping around, WFAA actually put the spots in an inset on the screen, with Delkus up in another corner. To me, if you're going to pre-empt coverage go all the way and cover it all up. Putting the spots in a corner - and muting the audio - is just screaming for a make-good, because without the audio the spot is useless.

Noticed also FOX 4 said they would not rebroadcast the season finale of Glee - probably for the same reason, the network required them to air it in its schedule time slot, and time-shifting would be of no benefit from an ad revenue standpoint. (My daughter went ballistic when they pre-empted it, but oh well...)

 

[azumanga]

By that reasoning, if a station covered up the network spots in favor of severe weather coverage, then told the network the spots ran as scheduled, they'd be guilty of entering a false report on their log (which is an FCC no-no). I noticed at one point, as I was flipping around, WFAA actually put the spots in an inset on the screen, with Delkus up in another corner. To me, if you're going to pre-empt coverage go all the way and cover it all up. Putting the spots in a corner - and muting the audio - is just screaming for a make-good, because without the audio the spot is useless.

Not to mention ridiculous -- I would think no network would mind having its shows pre-empted and rescheduled, due to an event that would mean a matter of life or death. If an F4 struck Dallas or Fort Worth and WFAA was showing network programming as is with little or no interruption, they would have to answer to the FCC. A responsible station should put its interest to the viewers first.

Noticed also FOX 4 said they would not rebroadcast the season finale of Glee - probably for the same reason, the network required them to air it in its schedule time slot, and time-shifting would be of no benefit from an ad revenue standpoint. (My daughter went ballistic when they pre-empted it, but oh well...)

Another ridiculous move -- all that shows is that they care more about their advertisers first, even though they bumped a high-profile show for weather coverage. Most stations would show an encore in late-night (infomercials be damned), to give an opportunity to viewers to tape or DVR the show.

I just hope when the rerun is scheduled, severe weather rolls through again, just for spite.

 

[JHBrandt]

I expected there would be contract and/or regulatory issues with my delayed-programming idea, but I don't see a show-stopper. Contracts can be renegotiated, and regulations can be waived and/or updated (admittedly, this can take a long, long time). I certainly don't suggest stations lie to their network or the FCC about what they're doing. That may mean they can't get away with it today, but in the long run, viewer demand could force the issue.

As for viewers tuning in at 10 PM expecting the news and getting a delayed broadcast instead, severe weather preemptions don't happen that often, and they usually don't last as long as they did the other night.

Running an encore of pre-empted programming is a reasonable alternative, albeit inconvenient for folks who don't have a way to record the encore.

Another thread floated the suggestion that stations could move the main programming to a subchannel and broadcast the severe weather news on the main channel. I don't think that's a good idea. There are plenty of idiots who'll follow the main programming over to the subchannel and end up missing the weather updates. Sooner or later some of them will die. If there's severe weather, we need the info in real time and on every subchannel. At a bare minimum shrink the main programming and put the weather info in a banner above or below. When a large outbreak of severe weather occurs, preemption really is the only choice.

 

[TexasTom]

The stations' contract with the network probably require the shows to be carried live as fed, if nothing else, to be able to report to the advertiser that their spots ran as scheduled. Pausing and delaying shows would create its own problems. For instance would you like to turn on the TV for the 10:00pm news and not have the news on. This already happens on Sunday nights when football spills over. Do that throughtout the week and people would give up tuning in the late news altogether.

It's not like the delayed programming for severe weather would happen often enough that a delayed late newscast should be a frequent problem.

And if the networks no longer allow the feed to be delayed in the event of breaking news, that's really a step backwards. In the seventies, I remember a time or two when our local CBS affiliate (this was up in the northwest) would run election night updates for local elections for five minutes between programs...which meant that the CBS feed was progressively more delayed. Viewers didn't miss their favorite programs, advertisers' spots were carried in Seattle/Tacoma, and the station was still able to offer local election coverage. A win for everyone.

Years later, I do remember times that programs were preempted here in DFW for breaking news or weather...and would be run overnight or a couple days later so that viewers had a chance to see the shows if they wanted to badly enough. Again, a win for all.

 

[Zootopia3000]

All you need is a scrolling alert, with maybe a corner radar shot. Sorry, I don't care to be a part of the Oprahization of America. This expectation of having your local stations always breaking in to cover severe weather is ridiculous. Besides, many people now have cable, internet and handheld devices to get the latest weather updates.

 

[JHBrandt]

All you need is a scrolling alert, with maybe a corner radar shot. Sorry, I don't care to be a part of the Oprahization of America. This expectation of having your local stations always breaking in to cover severe weather is ridiculous. Besides, many people now have cable, internet and handheld devices to get the latest weather updates.

Well, "many people" isn't the same as "everyone;" cable and internet service usually depend on electric power, which often fails during severe weather; and iPads and smart phones are expensive and don't yet offer the immediate, localized alerts required by tornadoes (though I suspect there will soon be "an app for that" )

That leaves NOAA weather radio, which really is a good solution for severe weather. It's a shame. You'd think every portable or car radio would tune in weather radio as well, and some do; nevertheless, I suspect few folks have an NOAA radio, and many who do probably don't even know it, let alone know how to use it!

That said, I really don't mind that we disagree. You have a point that folks should be sensible enough to flip to a weather broadcast when a scrolling alert appears, recording their shows themselves if desired. I'm just trying to be realistic in acknowledging that many aren't, but I understand that someone who gets killed by a tornado because they were too wrapped up in "Glee" to take cover probably deserves a Darwin Award.

But I have to ask: WTF do severe weather updates have to do with Oprah? I'm pretty sure they predate her by decades .

 

[Zootopia3000]

Well, "many people" isn't the same as "everyone;" cable and internet service usually depend on electric power, which often fails during severe weather;

But I have to ask: WTF do severe weather updates have to do with Oprah? I'm pretty sure they predate her by decades .

So if the electric goes out, how does that help in regards to TV coverage?

Oprahization = Wussification, as according to Rush Limbaugh.

 

[arnoldevns]

Well, "many people" isn't the same as "everyone;" cable and internet service usually depend on electric power, which often fails during severe weather;

But I have to ask: WTF do severe weather updates have to do with Oprah? I'm pretty sure they predate her by decades .

So if the electric goes out, how does that help in regards to TV coverage?

Oprahization = Wussification, as according to Rush Limbaugh.

That's ridiculous. What channel 8 did was just wrong. They should have blown off the dance show to show viewers where the storms were. It's the public service their license says they're supposed to provide. They failed. I'm a dittohead and I'll tell you right now, it's not being wussy to go on the air and tell people where dangerous weather is.. it's the right thing to do. Channel 8 didn't do that and they deserve all the criticism they're getting.

 

[mmnassour]

Well, "many people" isn't the same as "everyone;" cable and internet service usually depend on electric power, which often fails during severe weather;

But I have to ask: WTF do severe weather updates have to do with Oprah? I'm pretty sure they predate her by decades .

So if the electric goes out, how does that help in regards to TV coverage?

Oprahization = Wussification, as according to Rush Limbaugh.

Real men protect their families in time of weather crisis.

Wussies watch "living la vida loca" .

And if Limbaugh is the source for what a "man" is, then there are other issues besides television broadcasting.

 

[JHBrandt]

So if the electric goes out, how does that help in regards to TV coverage?

Many small, inexpensive TVs run on batteries (but they usually don't have cable connectors ). One of those, and/or a NOAA weather radio, is a wise investment for anyone living in Tornado Alley.

Oprahization = Wussification, according to Rush Limbaugh.

Thanks for the clarification. FWIW, I'm no fan of either.

 

[easttxtv]

And yet, after all the mushroom cloud fallout from this, Ch.8 is running 2 different commercials. One saying how much better their weather is (than?), the other pats themselves on the back for alerting viewers when severe weather strikes.

(and now, back to the hiding under my desk waiting for thrown eggs and tomatoes show 8) )