Musings: The Weather
Pittsburgh:I am almost willing to bet that in this week's Post-Gazette Q&A Column where Rob Owen answers the emails of TV viewers, someone is going to ask something like, "Will WTAE ever re-air the 'Dancing with the Stars' that they so RUDELY interrupted on Monday night?" Or better yet, "Why does WTAE feel they have to interrupt our favorite programming to tell us about a storm in Mercer County?" I missed the show and the interruption, but I can probably piece it together from the clues in the 11:00 newscast.
When the 11:00 news came on that night, the lead-in talked about the heavy storms in northern Butler and Mercer Counties and there was also a promo for the highlights from "Dancing with the Stars" - not a common news feature.
When the time came in the newscast came for this feature, anchors Wendy Bell and Mike Clark began the segment off something like this.
Mike: Well by now you know that the severe weather caused us to break in during "Dancing With the Stars"
Wendy: Yes, when the National Weather Service issues a weather warning we are obligated to bring that information to you.
BINGO! "We are OBLIGATED to bring that information to you!" And why is that? Because Radio and TV stations are first and foremost sources of information! Glory Glory Hallelujah! But wait...there's more...
Again, I didn't see the interruption to know what all took place. However, I'm willing to bet that much of "DWTS" was overshadowed by the severe weather report. Look, if the TV stations are "overblowing" these interruptions with field reporting and so forth, be grateful. The storm, in this case a possible tornado, may not come to your neighborhood, but the station is obligated to alert anyone who is watching that there is indeed a storm approaching - especially if it comes with a severe history. Personally, I'd rather be prepared than sorry later.
Tell us what you think! We invite your comments by clicking the comment link at the bottom of this entry.
Readers’ Forum
I saw various crawls on all of the Youngstown stations concerning the storm in Mercer county. It sounded like the tornado was about a half an hour away from me in southern Crawford county. I can see where a program would be interrupted for such a weather emergency in or near the station’s broadcast area. WKBN TV will also interrupt programming for such emergencies. In addition, they will also broadcast on all of the Youngstown area Clear Channel stations until the emergency has passed. There is one advantage to living where I am. If an Erie or Youngstown station breaks into programming with a weather emergency that doesn’t affect my area, I can simply go to another regional affiliate with my antenna. That also works when a station goes off the air as well.
Tom Lavery - April 24, 2007 at 1:27 pm
Once again, new technology is going to be in place to enable several programs on one channel when DTV is on the air. It is ironic that WTAE-DT channel 51.2 already has 24 hour weather and traffic. In the future you can crawl the weather warning to instruct you to go to the .2 channel and leave the main program in place. I hope other stations will be a bit more innovative than what has been offered on DTV so far.
Jeff Bussard - April 24, 2007 at 10:51 pm