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Yes, let's see. I can recall WWL, WDSU, WBRZ and WVUE periodically going live with each new advisory since Friday. Even this morning, WWL even carried a news conference from Jefferson Parish officials regarding preparations. 

 

The coverage will only ramp up across Texas, SW and SE Louisiana and the Mississippi Coast.

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36 minutes ago, GoldenShine9 said:

I believe KBMT (who lost their studio in TS Imelda) is working out of KHOU. Not sure if KFDM or KPLC have moved.

KPLC and Lake Charles could be uniquely affected, since Gray is basically the only game in town.  At least they have some adjacent stations that could pick up the slack should KPLC go down, including KTRE in Lufkin, KALB in Alexandria, and possibly the other stations in Shreveport, Monroe, Baton Rouge and New Orleans.

 

It's an unfortunate side effect of the market gaining its independence, since Lake Charles used to rely on Beaumont and Lafayette for filling out their local affiliations.  KPLC even served Lafayette, and KVHP served Beaumont before KBTV switched from NBC to FOX.

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16 minutes ago, tyrannical bastard said:

KPLC and Lake Charles could be uniquely affected, since Gray is basically the only game in town.  At least they have some adjacent stations that could pick up the slack should KPLC go down, including KTRE in Lufkin, KALB in Alexandria, and possibly the other stations in Shreveport, Monroe, Baton Rouge and New Orleans.

 

It's an unfortunate side effect of the market gaining its independence, since Lake Charles used to rely on Beaumont and Lafayette for filling out their local affiliations.  KPLC even served Lafayette, and KVHP served Beaumont before KBTV switched from NBC to FOX.

 

That's a big challenge but at least they have sister stations in several nearby markets (although not Lafayette or Beaumont).

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From what i've seen so far, KPLC is limiting their coverage to TOH/BOH updates, even leading up to 12 hours before a potential landfall.  It will be interesting to see how coverage will be handled, as many places are in pandemic mode with distancing and working remotely, and how an "all hands on deck" situation will be handled.

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It wouldn't surprise me to see KBMT hand off control to KHOU soon, as well as KBTV/KFDM ceding to their cluster in San Antonio.  They're at least set up for multiple stations should they need a studio to broadcast from.

 

Lake Charles is especially in danger since it's on the eastern end of the landfall, so ceding to WAFB is a smart idea.

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I believe KBMT has already evacuated its core operations to KHOU. 

 

Not sure about KBTV/KFDM, since they have farther to go.

17 minutes ago, tyrannical bastard said:

It wouldn't surprise me to see KBMT hand off control to KHOU soon, as well as KBTV/KFDM ceding to their cluster in San Antonio.  They're at least set up for multiple stations should they need a studio to broadcast from.

 

Lake Charles is especially in danger since it's on the eastern end of the landfall, so ceding to WAFB is a smart idea.

 

Their other options were KSLA (in the path as well), KALB (studio space issue?) and KLTV (a bit farther away). If Gray had a station in Lafayette, that might have been an option.

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I've been impressed with Tegna and Sinclair's coverage so far in the Beaumont DMA. Hopefully stations close to the coast have evacuated or have backup plans. I assume Tegna has already, or is ready at a moments notice, to fall back to KHOU. I don't know off the top of my head where Sinclair's stations could go in order to keep coverage going. This is a guaranteed natural catastrophe with some areas bring uninhabitable for months. Hopefully these stations and there staff are prepared. 

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2 hours ago, TheGuru said:

I've been impressed with Tegna and Sinclair's coverage so far in the Beaumont DMA. Hopefully stations close to the coast have evacuated or have backup plans. I assume Tegna has already, or is ready at a moments notice, to fall back to KHOU. I don't know off the top of my head where Sinclair's stations could go in order to keep coverage going. This is a guaranteed natural catastrophe with some areas bring uninhabitable for months. Hopefully these stations and there staff are prepared. 

 

The nearest station I can think of is San Antonio (WOAI).

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4 hours ago, TheGuru said:

I've been impressed with Tegna and Sinclair's coverage so far in the Beaumont DMA. Hopefully stations close to the coast have evacuated or have backup plans. I assume Tegna has already, or is ready at a moments notice, to fall back to KHOU. I don't know off the top of my head where Sinclair's stations could go in order to keep coverage going. This is a guaranteed natural catastrophe with some areas bring uninhabitable for months. Hopefully these stations and there staff are prepared. 

 

KBMT is being done out of KHOU, and has been at least since this morning. KFDM/KBTV has been staying put as far as I know.

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The staff at KPLC in Lake Charles, LA had to evacuate the station due to the onset of Hurricane Laura. Some of their staff is now at KALB in Alexandria; others are at WAFB in Baton Rouge (all three are Gray-owned stations, of course). One of their meteorologists stated on-air that they were using a computer that was not theirs (he was at WAFB), so they must be using weather software different than what they have at KPLC.....

 

I ask my fellow posters at TVNewsTalk to please keep the people of Lake Charles and Southwest Louisiana in your prayers for the next few days. This area is obviously not going to be the same after tonight.....

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The unfortunate thing is this storm is heading straight for Lake Charles, a market where KPLC is the ONLY local station (providing news for the market), and is the smallest market on the Gulf Coast. 

With the efforts over the past several years to make markets independent without the need of importing other local stations, companies have used this to fill out their affiliations, and the effect is less news since it's all the same company.

Beaumont at least has two providers, and Lafayette has three, since KADN started their own efforts when Nexstar traded up to KLFY.   Even Alexandria, a smaller market than Lake Charles, now gets news from Greenville, MS for their KLAX since they are under common ownership with Cox/Apollo.

 

I'm just glad that KPLC has planned well and moved their staff to Baton Rouge, and that the residents in the path truly take this storm seriously. 

"Unsurvivable Storm Surge" should be the ultimate motivation to EVACUATE.

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8 minutes ago, tyrannical bastard said:

The unfortunate thing is this storm is heading straight for Lake Charles, a market where KPLC is the ONLY local station (providing news for the market), and is the smallest market on the Gulf Coast. 

With the efforts over the past several years to make markets independent without the need of importing other local stations, companies have used this to fill out their affiliations, and the effect is less news since it's all the same company.

Beaumont at least has two providers, and Lafayette has three, since KADN started their own efforts when Nexstar traded up to KLFY.   Even Alexandria, a smaller market than Lake Charles, now gets news from Greenville, MS for their KLAX since they are under common ownership with Cox/Apollo.

 

I'm just glad that KPLC has planned well and moved their staff to Baton Rouge, and that the residents in the path truly take this storm seriously. 

"Unsurvivable Storm Surge" should be the ultimate motivation to EVACUATE.

 

KPLC has never had in-market news competition that I know of. Being surrounded by sister stations is a big plus as they have options as well.

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31 minutes ago, GoldenShine9 said:

 

KPLC has never had in-market news competition that I know of. Being surrounded by sister stations is a big plus as they have options as well.

Not only that, but Gray holds part of an oligopoly on network affiliations. Between its two Lake Charles stations, it maintains affiliations with NBC, The CW (both via KPLC), Fox and ABC (both via KVHP). The CBS and MyNetworkTV affiliations are held by SagamoreHill (via KSWL-LD and KWWE-LD, respectively), which didn't invest in a news operation when they started them up. (A look at their website shows KSWL does carry weather forecast segments, though they seem to be outsourced.)

 

Once KPLC's tower goes dark, Lake Charles residents without cable or satellite who are lucky to keep power for some time after landfall will have no real TV options to track the storm, unless they live close enough to receive stations from Lafayette or Beaumont (at least those that don't also lose transmitter power). This might be less of an issue if SagamoreHill gave KSWL a news department, or Raycom (pre-Gray purchase) didn't take over KVHP and National Communications sold it to a buyer that would invest in building out the small news operation that KVHP had before KPLC began managing the station. But even then, Laura's strong enough that it would likely render either scenario moot anyway in terms of the ability to stay on the air..

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Going back to Hurricane Michael, it knocked both WMBB and WJHG off the air, and by the time it reached Dothan, 80 miles inward, it also knocked WDHN off the air, who was supplying content to WMBB when they lost power at their facility.

When power was finally restored to WMBB's transmitter, they received a feed produced by the digital team at WFLA until they were able to originate their own broadcasts several days later.

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