Weather preempting programming

[CoffeeBean]

CBS paid 6 billion . . . with a "B" . . . to televise the NCAA championships.  

While life-threatening weather is always more important than basketball, the stations can, and should, find a way to provide the information necessary without killing the games.  

For example, Channel 6 kept showing video and photos of the storm, which may be interesting for people watching the weather channel, but the people watching channel 6 are trying to watch basketball . . . give your warning and move on.  Leave the fluff for commercial breaks or the evening news (if it's not amazing enough to make the evening news, don't waste my time showing it in the middle of a basketball game).

Why not inset the warning over a corner of the game and let it be?!  

[Breadburner]

People have 3 other channels to watch storm coverage on.....

[Conan71]

Channel 8 stayed in the newsroom for ages last night while 2,6, & 23 all had normal programming with a bug in the lower RH corner of the screen.

A co-worker told me it was all re-runs of "Lost" last night.  I thought they were supposed to have a 16 week season with no re-runs (except for the first hour replay of the prev. week's episode).

[CoffeeBean]

Last nights episode of Lost (at the 8pm time slot) was new.  You can watch it uninterrupted (along with every other episode of Lost going back to season 1) on ABC.com - for free.

[Conan71]

quote:Originally posted by CoffeeBean

Last nights episode of Lost (at the 8pm time slot) was new.  You can watch it uninterrupted (along with every other episode of Lost going back to season 1) on ABC.com - for free.

I kept waiting for them to go to "Lost" got tired of it and watched "Antique Road Show" instead.

[citizen72]

Talking about camera hogs Frank Mitchell is the worst of he lot. My wife and I were amused at him, last night, milking that little storm in the Southeast corner of the state for all it was worth. True it had some hail and possibly a tornado. But, do we need to warn the citizens down there over and over and over again to the point of becoming nauseous? Then too, saying the same thing over and over again. Sad, sad.

Thing is though the weather channels, with all their expensive equipment, are no better at forecasting than they were thirty years ago. Sadly in this market we obviously do not have the top of the heap weathermen as does say Chicago or Kansas City.

For me though I really liked it as a kid on the farm to wake up and find it had snowed. This event having happened overnight without one single "expert" telling me it was going to. That is what snow is all about.Textis

[bugo]

quote:Originally posted by citizen72

Originally posted by Samalicious

One could successfully debate the methods of the weather reporting as being well over the top. Breaking into normal programming to show hail in yards and clouds in the sky exemplifies the point. This is not to ignore their going over and over the same information during a break to the point of extreme tedium.

I grew up in western Arkansas near the border and lived there most of my life, and I also lived a couple of years in Kansas City, both places either in or on the fringes of Tornado Alley.  One of the first things I noticed after moving here is how exaggerated the weather coverage is, even compared to Arkansas and Missouri/Kansas.  The level of coverage last night during the Xavier/WVU game would only be equalled on Little Rock TV if an F4 or stronger were headed for Little Rock.  If a possible tornado were headed for, say, Searcy or Camden, you'd see a scroll at the bottom and possibly one break in.  I guess Okies are scared of the weather (for good reason) and the local television stations' weather departments exploit this fear for ratings.  Shame on them.

[breitee]

The weather morons have been at it ALL DAY LONG!

[CoffeeBean]

BREAKING NEWS:

Channel 6 just received video from a storm chaser.  It showed some rain, a hilly road, a few cars and possibly . . . a fire truck!  

Travis Meyer added his own sound effects as he rolled the fire truck video *boom* said Travis.

BREAKING NEWS:

Maps!  We have more colorful maps!  If you can't read, and you're also deaf, these brightly colored maps will help you know if a tornado is on your house . . . maybe.  

BREAKING NEWS:

Katie is drving on highway 270.  She's near Krebs.  (It has good food - according to Travis).  She sees "scary" clouds.  Travis is pointing out the trees - not trees damaged by a tornado - these trees were damaged by the ice storm.  

BREAKING NEWS:

Darren is near Whitefield on Highway 2 - he's been overtaken by  . . . "precip"  . . . oh the humanity!!!  Travis is now showing us the precip on the pretty map.  Travis says this spring is "absolutely crazy."  More Darren video of gray clouds.

More Katie video;

More pretty maps;


. . . Oprah!

[breitee]

They are all absolute dumbasses!

[patric]

Questions raised after Dallas TV station airs NFL game instead of breaking tornado coverage
The station acknowledged "we made a mistake."

A Dallas television station apologized to viewers after airing a football game — rather than severe weather coverage — as a powerful tornado tore through the city on Sunday night.

The incident has brought renewed attention to the dilemma TV stations face when severe weather strikes during popular programming. If they break in and interrupt shows and sporting events, they can often expect a rush of calls from angry viewers. At the same time, it's not yet clear whether, in the case of a damaging tornado, offering severe weather coverage via online streaming services is an effective alternative to traditional televised weather coverage.

Shortly after 9 p.m. Sunday, a powerful tornado began plowing its way through the northwest suburbs of Dallas. As thousands scrambled to seek more information, they turned to their local television station for the latest.

Folks who turned on Channel 5 — NBC Dallas-Fort Worth — did not see informative weather maps or urgent pleas to seek shelter. Instead, a tense game between the Dallas Cowboys and Philadelphia Eagles flashed across the screen. There were no meteorologists, no radar plots and little indication that a 140 mph EF-3 funnel had been churning through northwest Dallas since 8:58 p.m.

At 9 p.m., the National Weather Service issued a tornado warning, yet the football game played on. By 9:02 p.m., a "debris ball" appeared on radar where the tornado was lofting building supplies from damaged or destroyed structures.

It wasn't until 9:06 p.m. that the station preempted the football broadcast to deliver a "weather alert." This was eight minutes after the twister touched down, six minutes after a warning was issued, and two minutes after the National Weather Service described it as a "particularly dangerous" and "life-threatening" situation, in which "flying debris may be deadly."

"Folks, we have a developing dangerous weather situation," began NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth chief meteorologist Rick Mitchell when the station finally cut in. "We believe that this is an actual tornado that is occurring," he said, emphasizing the twister is north of Love Field. Less than 10 seconds later, he again stated that "the National Weather Service is confirming a tornado is occurring in that area."

Mitchell appeared rushed, however, briefly outlining safety protocol and urging viewers to a place of safe shelter. "We're going to put a quick storm track on this," he said, before reiterating "again, confirmed tornado in this area." But that's where things got cut short.

"We're going to continue our coverage on the website as well as our app," Mitchell concluded. "Stay with NBC 5; we'll keep you ahead of the storm." The entire interruption — about eight minutes after the tornado touched down — lasted 62 seconds. The tornado, which at this point had carried debris to a height of more than 20,000 feet, lasted 32 minutes.
The aftermath

The backlash to the TV station's choice to limit tornado coverage was swift.

"Pushing people to an app or website is inexcusable when they have a broadcast signal," wrote one Twitter user. "A game isn't more important than people's safety and lives," tweeted another.

The TV station may have been in a no-win situation. In recent instances when stations have interrupted programming, such severe weather coverage has elicited a barrage of hate mail directed at stations and their meteorologists.

In February, a Nashville meteorologist made a collage of the comments she received when covering tornadoes and deadly flooding. An Atlanta meteorologist said she received death threats in April. ESPN's Michael Wilbon lambasted a D.C. station for interrupting a previously aired golf tournament on the same day. And one Dayton meteorologist decried viewers live on the air, shouting "I'm done with you people" when fans of "The Bachelorette" wrote in to complain during a violent May tornado outbreak.

If you're a TV station faced with needing to report life-threatening weather during prime time, there's often no easy answer on what to do. As severe weather generally affects only a fragment of a television market, it's impossible to satisfy all viewers, regardless of the solution.

NBC 5 Dallas-Fort Worth released a statement Monday, writing that "we made a mistake by not immediately interrupting."

Mike Smith, a retired AccuWeather executive, urged viewers to support the storm warning system. "If you like receiving tornado warnings regardless of content, call the station. Otherwise, the people who don't want them will be accommodated."

NBC 5 DFW had tried to direct folks in the affected areas online and to their mobile app. But KGNS-TV chief meteorologist Richard "Heatwave" Berler said online platforms should complement live on-air coverage — not replace it.

"Social media coverage ... is not available or uncomfortable to use for a significant number of elderly folks," Berler wrote in an email, stressing that it's imperative that coverage be available without delay.

Matt Serwe, a meteorologist at KETV in Lincoln, Neb., has worked his fair share of tornadoes. He says stations should use every means necessary to get the word out about severe weather.

"Streaming coverage should only enhance a station's tornado coverage. It should never be an alternative" he wrote via email. "It's great to have that tool to disseminate information. However, with a confirmed tornado potentially affecting 1.3 million people, one should use every tool possible to get lifesaving information to the people who need it the most."

Marshall Shepherd, an atmospheric scientist at the University of Georgia, tweeted that "many elderly, low-income, and marginalized [populations] cannot access or consume digital sources/streaming."

James Spann, the Birmingham, Ala., meteorologist widely regarded as a leader in severe weather coverage, discussed the need for stations to have coverage plans in place before an event like this so as to not be scrambling at the last minute.

"Trust me, [these conflicts] will come up," Spann wrote in an email. "They were going to be the target of hate and rage no matter what decision they made last night. My position is to do the right thing and provide tornado coverage. A human life is more valuable than any football game or TV program. Go with wall to wall coverage, full screen, or a double box."

He added: "The decision [Sunday] night was most likely not made in the weather office, but by those in management at some level. Rick Mitchell is an excellent meteorologist and is very good with severe weather coverage."

NBC 5 DFW wrote that "we look forward to regaining the trust of anyone we may have disappointed," an apology that seems to have largely been accepted by the community.

"I think it was very admirable they admitted their mistake, and apologized" Spann wrote. "Most companies won't do that."

    Thanks @NBCDFW for stepping up and owning this. Not everyone uses social media and special apps, and lives, homes, and livelihood are more important than a game, even a cowboys game. We love your weather coverage and your S Band Radar and will continue to watch and follow you.
    — Twila Loudder (@TwilaLoudderRN) October 22, 2019

Miraculously, there were no serious injuries or fatalities, even though the EF-3 tornado carved out a destructive 16-mile path across a heavily populated region.

It's a happy ending but will undoubtedly spur more discussion and offers potential lessons for the future.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2019/10/22/questions-raised-after-dallas-tv-station-airs-nfl-game-instead-breaking-tornado-coverage/