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WSB-AM Drops Live Local News Overnights

TheBigA said:
They're not in the emergency services business. Technically, neither is radio. When the feds created the Department of Homeland Security, they took on the emergency services responsibility. Radio stations are merely the conduit for that information.
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That is a good point. As long as a station is on the air, the EAS system can "sieze" the signal to transmit local, regional and national alerts ranging from an approaching tornado system to an enemy attack. Even before Homeland Security existed, there was a structure involving local, state and national authorities who could initiate emergency broadcasts or bulletins even if there was nobody at a fully automated station. This has been expanded to include cellular devices. At some point, I expect there to be a system which creates emergency on-screen pop-up messages for other types of computers that use ISPs for connectivity.

An interesting angle to this is that the stations themselves can not initiate an EAS transmission, other than a test. The content has to come from designated authorities who can essentially "seize" the broadcast stations in the affected area and transmit a bulletin.

The police, Civil Defense and other government agencies essentially are on duty 24/7 waiting for bad stuff to happen. It's their job. And when it does, if the "bad stuff" affects broad areas, they can activate the EAS system.
 
DavidEduardo said:
An interesting angle to this is that the stations themselves can not initiate an EAS transmission, other than a test. The content has to come from designated authorities who can essentially "seize" the broadcast stations in the affected area and transmit a bulletin.
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When I worked at an LP-1, we always read the weather alerts ourselves because we didn’t want the automated NWS voice going out over our station. We had a script that said something to the effect of, “At the request of the National Weather Service, KTXY Jefferson City interrupts programming.” Then, we'd play the intro tone, read the alert, and play the closing tones. We also had a direct hotline to the nuclear plant nearby so we could pass along their alerts. I was working one afternoon when somebody at the nuclear plant accidentally knocked the emergency phone off the hook. There was no way anyone in the building wouldn’t have known!

The police, Civil Defense and other government agencies essentially are on duty 24/7 waiting for bad stuff to happen. It's their job. And when it does, if the "bad stuff" affects broad areas, they can activate the EAS system.
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While this is technically true, my experience has been that it doesn’t work nearly as well in practice as having a live person in the station in charge. The Highway Patrol started originating some of the alerts in Missouri in 2005, and they never seemed to go as well as they did when live jocks handled it. Maybe I'm biased because I got pushed out at KTXY when the Highway Patrol started doing the alerts, but I went to another station in its service area and routinely found we didn’t get the right codes on Amber Alerts and other important information. It seemed to be a routine problem. Of course, most operators aren’t willing to lose money for public service, and, especially in these times, it’s hard to blame them.
 
Kent said:
While this is technically true, my experience has been that it doesn’t work nearly as well in practice as having a live person in the station in charge. The Highway Patrol started originating some of the alerts in Missouri in 2005, and they never seemed to go as well as they did when live jocks handled it. Maybe I'm biased because I got pushed out at KTXY when the Highway Patrol started doing the alerts, but I went to another station in its service area and routinely found we didn’t get the right codes on Amber Alerts and other important information. It seemed to be a routine problem. Of course, most operators aren’t willing to lose money for public service, and, especially in these times, it’s hard to blame them.
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In theory, fully automated operation of the alerts is the proper procedure as it overcomes things like a station staff member being out of the studio and is the most immediate.

The problems come when the authorities don't have adequate training to activate. That was the case with the famous North Dakota railroad chemical spill where the local stations were automated but capable of carrying an activation but the authorities were not well trained and did not know how to do it.

If you want confirmation that any simple task can be made world-class confusing by giving it to the proper government agency, read this set of EAS instructions:

https://docs.fcc.gov/public/attachments/DOC-278628A3.pdf *

Read it thoroughly. There will be a pop quiz about it sometime later this week.


* Yes, it's out of date. It's just the best example I could find.
 
My point was that, in general, at 2:00 a.m. if something important happens WSB Radio was the only source of live information (and in the late 70's and through the 80's WGST was there for us too.) Better examples from Atlanta history would be the fighter jet that crashed after takeoff from Dobbins AFB, dangerous roads due to overnight snowfall, a major power outage shutting down the airport, etc. The public's ability to know these stories in real time is now diminished.
 
TheBigA said:
OK. Is there a law being broken? I'm not aware of one.

It's hard to make a case for the public's need to know when in fact most of the public is asleep at that time.
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Exactly.

And as we've said here before, the newsroom is still staffed with "Atlanta's Morning News" people starting around 2:00. If something major breaks, someone is going to hop on the air. Plus, you have the WSB-TV newsroom on the 3rd floor as a fallback to alert people should there be a huge story. TV coverage, if warranted, could also be simulcast on radio.

If there's a major weather event, I'm sure they would schedule overnight staff appropriately.

Do I miss having overnight news/traffic? Yes. I'm sad to see Mark Alewine gone. His voice has been a constant for me for years. But this is not the end of the world.
 
TheBigA said:
OK. Is there a law being broken? I'm not aware of one.

It's hard to make a case for the public's need to know when in fact most of the public is asleep at that time.
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Further, there is not even a requirement that they be on the air at that time.

The minimum operating schedule for an AM fulltime station does not require overnight hour service.

"(a) All commercial broadcast stations are required to operate not less than the following minimum hours:

(1) AM and FM stations. Two-thirds of the total hours they are authorized to operate between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. local time and two-thirds of the total hours they are authorized to operate between 6 p.m. and midnight, local time, each day of the week except Sunday. "

So a station can operate from 8 AM to 10 PM if they wanted to. And Sunday they can operate even less.
 
DavidEduardo said:
Further, there is not even a requirement that they be on the air at that time.

The minimum operating schedule for an AM fulltime station does not require overnight hour service.

"(a) All commercial broadcast stations are required to operate not less than the following minimum hours:

(1) AM and FM stations. Two-thirds of the total hours they are authorized to operate between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. local time and two-thirds of the total hours they are authorized to operate between 6 p.m. and midnight, local time, each day of the week except Sunday. "

So a station can operate from 8 AM to 10 PM if they wanted to. And Sunday they can operate even less.
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WLKQ in Buford (now La Raza 102.3) used to sign off in the wee hours of the morning every night, as I recall around midnight to 5 AM, as recently as the early Aughties.
 
A lot of small market stations signed off at 10pm back in the day


DavidEduardo said:
Further, there is not even a requirement that they be on the air at that time.

The minimum operating schedule for an AM fulltime station does not require overnight hour service.

"(a) All commercial broadcast stations are required to operate not less than the following minimum hours:

(1) AM and FM stations. Two-thirds of the total hours they are authorized to operate between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. local time and two-thirds of the total hours they are authorized to operate between 6 p.m. and midnight, local time, each day of the week except Sunday. "

So a station can operate from 8 AM to 10 PM if they wanted to. And Sunday they can operate even less.
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AMFMTV said:
That's what I'm assuming. Jennifer Griffies' last newscast is 11:30pm, I believe. You have to think the Atlanta's morning news folks are in by 2:00 - 2:30am to prepare the show. A lonely couple of hours for the board operator downstairs, though.
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Jennifer Griffies' last newscast is done at 11:00 PM. When Mark Alewine worked overnights, he worked Sun.-Thurs. nights 11:30 PM-4:30 AM. Where the AMN (Atlanta's Morning News) team is concerned, news director Chris Camp is usually in studio by 1:00 AM weekday mornings. I learned that in a commercial Scott Slade did when he was promoting AMN several years ago.
 
fortt3 said:
You could make money off that psychic ability.
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Interesting...it appears that emergency officials have their own system that bypasses EAS:

“This morning, our home phone line rang at 3:30,” Hendricks said. “It was a reverse 911 call. It gave us instructions there was a derailment, there was a fire, and we should evacuate.”
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Who needs radio if the emergency people will just call area residents? First time I've heard of this.
 
TheBigA said:
Interesting...it appears that emergency officials have their own system that bypasses EAS:

Who needs radio if the emergency people will just call area residents? First time I've heard of this.
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The problem is that no emergency system has total reach.

Radio, on average, 6 AM to Midnight, only reaches 8% of people at any given moment.

TV has similar reach, with a few peak hours at night and much less usage at other times.

Phones are not always attended, and cell phones are not always in the area where the problem is. We saw that in the disastrous Paradise, CA, fire last year where some of the victims and near-victims did not get notification by any means.

Over the last 6 years, I have gotten perhaps a fifty emergency notifications on my cellular phone. The only problem is they have all been for Brawley, California... a good hundred miles away in a totally different climate zone and with no relation with the place I live. I have never gotten one for my own local area, yet my wife's phone... on the same account... gets them regularly!

What authorities are doing is throwing out every net they can, hoping that the sum of them will reach nearly everybody.
 
TheBigA said:
They also try to text people emergency info, but if I received a text between midnight and 7AM, I wouldn't know.
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iOS has a setting for critical alerts that will sound an alarm notification even if your phone is in silent or DND mode. So far, the only alerts I’ve received are test messages but the noise would definitely wake me up.

As a backup, I also have an Esky emergency weather radio with battery standby that will activate whenever a weather alert is issued. It can receive the weather broadcasts from NOAA and Environment Canada. In the year that I’ve had it, the alert feature has never activated. Weather emergencies are not common in my area (for now) but I hope my devices will function properly in an emergency.
 
TheBigA said:
I have shut off the critical alerts function.
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Most of us have, as we have been though occasions (at least here in the CA Nanny State) of being in a meeting and getting an "elder alert" (a missing old person) or an Amber Alert when we are in the movies or a totally irrelevant weather alert when talking on the phone about something important.

This is a classic case of "crying wolf" so that we become immune to real, important messages.
 
louisparker said:
iOS has a setting for critical alerts that will sound an alarm notification even if your phone is in silent or DND mode. So far, the only alerts I’ve received are test messages but the noise would definitely wake me up.

As a backup, I also have an Esky emergency weather radio with battery standby that will activate whenever a weather alert is issued. It can receive the weather broadcasts from NOAA and Environment Canada. In the year that I’ve had it, the alert feature has never activated. Weather emergencies are not common in my area (for now) but I hope my devices will function properly in an emergency.
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NOAA sends out a test alert every Wednesday at 11:30 AM local time, if the weather is calm. Are you receiving those?
 
No I haven’t received those yet although I’m not always at home at 11:30AM. I’ll check the settings and monitor for a test alert tomorrow. Thanks for the tip!
 
louisparker said:
No I haven’t received those yet although I’m not always at home at 11:30AM. I’ll check the settings and monitor for a test alert tomorrow. Thanks for the tip!
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More info https://www.weather.gov/sgf/nwr_rwt . This is for one particular location but the details are similar.

KEC80 in ATL does theirs around 11:30.
 
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