WSB 750 was definitely the clear winner with tonight's storm coverage downtown. They were on top of this immediately with their top-notch reporting of the damage downtown and the scene at the Georgia Dome. Even at almost 1AM, they were still doing live coverage with Jeff Hullinger which included on the scene reporting all over downtown from Richard Sangster and many other reporters.
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WSB AM 750 CLEAR WINNER WITH STORM COVERAGE
- Thread starter JR1967
- Start date
whitfm said:
Sometimes if the FMs are sister to a news/talker, they'll simulcast that. Otherwise the tv simulcast is not too uncommon. TV simulcasts are a shame. I know in Miami the 4 FMs and 2 AMs owned by Clear Channel would simulcast 610 WIOD in the event of an emergency.
milton77 said:
You were?
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Windreader
Guest
And who were they competing with exactly? Best in a field of one? They were simulcasting Channel 2 for much of the first two hours after the storm (with reporters saying "as you can see" about every ten seconds) while they were scrambling Hullinger and Sangster into place. I would certainly avoid using the term winner to describe anything about that storm coverage. If anything it was a commentary on the pisspoor state of news coverage in what is supposed to be a major market. Every other station has bailed out, so 750 "wins" by default, but I wouldn't go around bragging about that.
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Art Sutton
Guest
Windreader said:
I grew up idolizing WSB and the community standards it set well into the 1970s but this isn't a post about how radio used to be.. I have to agree with this poster..WSB's anchoring sounded amateur. I hate to be critical of what WSB did last night because I know there were a few people who worked really hard at getting out information but frankly it was the type effort I would expect to hear on a good small town radio station, not a 50,000 watt Clear Channel AM top biller in the market. I listened for several hours and maybe I missed it but I didn't hear any of the week day voices one would normally expect to hear when a historic weather emergency occurs in America's 8th largest radio market. The anchoring was sloppy and the cutaways, etc. were not like I would expect to hear on WSB. Imagine the hundreds of thousands of people in their automobiles who were probably trying to get some weather information.
At our stations, when we have a weather emergency, everyone knows to just head to the radio station and that includes the folks who work M-F. Again, thanks for the ones who did work hard on WSB last night. The rest of the staff ought to have their butts kicked for not being there to help out when they were simulcasting Channel 2. I think simulcasting a TV station when you're in the 8th largest radio market in the nation is a damn shame. All that does is send listeners to TV and communicate the message "they know more about this than we do." This happens across the country now whether the TV is co-owned or not and it's stupid.
As far as the other stations airing nothing, that doesn't surprise me in the least. The few stations which have a live person in the studio at night...those people probably couldn't tell you if the storm were moving east, north, south or west.....and the others...well they haven't figured out yet how to voice track a tornado warning.
Here's a question. Has anyone tuned into XM or Sirius' Atlanta traffic and weather channels for information on the storm? It's sad, but I've listened to them out-do local radio at times.
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al_atl
Guest
WSB the winner? Really?!?! Surprising...I would have guessed either WGST or WATB-1420. LOL!!!!!!!!!!! 
I was downtown last night with friends in town for the SEC Tournament. I listened to WSB on my way home to West Cobb. I wasn't bothered by the WSB and WSB TV combo. I got the information I was intersted in. Sangster and Hulinger were solid once they got him in place with the police and the Mayor. I grew up here WSB is where you go for big stories.
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kyscott
Guest
I am in Louisville Kentucky watching Raycom's basketball coverage waiting for Georgia and Kentucky to start (Go Dawgs!) and I have a question. Does nobody at places like the Georgia Dome monitor things like the weather for just such an emergency? The Weather Channel said there was an 8 minute warning before the storm hit however it seems that everyone in the Dome was taken by surprise when the storm hit. I would think when you have 20,000 people in one location like that, someone would think to monitor the weather just in case something hit. Growing up in south Georgia, we know that during this time of the year anything can happen anytime. I also thought it was ironic that Raycom referred to their Lexington Kentucky affiliate for weather and not the Atlanta affiliate.
Just a thought.
Just a thought.
bclark71, I also wish we had a 24-hour news station. I remember back in the early 80's after moving here and listening to WGST "News Radio 92". It was their heyday in radio and their continuous news was well-done professionally and a city of this size could use a news station again. I wish we had a station similiar to WTOP 103.5 in Washington D.C.-they have been a consistent top 3 station since they moved to 103.5 FM
over from their old 1500 AM frequency.
over from their old 1500 AM frequency.
bclark71. said:
All news on the radio in Atlanta . . . Was that WCNN? There was a time that even though WGST was handicapped with a weaker signal that they had superior news coverage provided by a busy afterhours news room and reporters.
Anyone have any comments about Mark Arum and his "Storm Talk" this evening? I found it rather boring and after a few minutes changed stations. Considering Art's comments as to how emergency situations are handled at his stations, I found it interesting that Mark made the comment that he was not called in to work to assist with coverage.
I would add that it's easy to knock the coverage of something like this on the fly, but there isn't a production team on earth that can go live on that short of notice and do noticeably better. Some people's expectations are way too high. These people are only human.
kyscott said:
It's not that simple.
There may have been an official tornado warning issued for Fulton County, but it's a big damn county and covers a lot of people. 8 minutes is an incredibly short amount of time to react when you think of stopping a huge event in a crowded arena. Even if they HAD immediately stopped the game - it would have taken three times that long to move that large of a crowd. Also consider that never in history has an actual tornado struck downtown Atlanta. Never. So a county-wide warning simply never held much attention for people in the city center. Also - consider that this was NOT a case where weather experts were watching a confirmed tornado track along and were able to predict what was in it's path. In fact, it wasn't until almost 24 hours after the fact that the NWS even confirmed that it WAS a tornado. It obviously "popped up" right in that area, since there was no reported damage in any area preceding the Dome, and it only held together for a minute or two, considering the small footprint of the damage. Factor all of that together and it's pretty easy to see why it didn't appear much action was being taken before the thing hit. I think it also bears mentioning that despite the lack of action, there was relatively minor damage to the dome and no serious injuries (perhaps none at all) that I'm aware of.
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