jdcnow 14 Posted March 4, 2008 Share Posted March 4, 2008 Somewhere, the late great Harold Taft is rolling over in his grave. During the night of Sunday 3.2.2008, our regional Nat'l Wx Service office in Fort Worth, had called a Tornado Warning for a county in our DMA. The other 3 Big Four stations were all over this like white on rice, as they should have been. KXAS? Hardly a peep out of them. Now to be fair, I don't know what NBC stations normally do: do they normally run regular programming on the main channel and do severe weather coverage on the WeatherPLUS+ subchannel? If that's what they did, then I'll give them that. But all I saw Sunday night on KXAS at the time this happend was Extra. When there was a Tornado WARNING out. Like I said, the other 3 main stations did fantastic jobs, each one of them. KDFW had the usual tag team: Dan Henry on-air, while Ron Jackson provided knowledgable analysis, monitored the National Weather Service chat session, and worked the HAM radios. WFAA had Pete Delkus (surprisingly professional, for once) and Steve McCauley. KTVT knocked it out of the park, with Gary Seith and newcomer Larry Mowry doing street-level mapping, etc. KTVT was the last one off, which surprised me, because KDFW usually is. Flipping back and forth between stations, I might have missed something, but I don't recall KXAS doing one single break-in, period. What gives? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WCAUTVNBC10 408 Posted March 6, 2008 Share Posted March 6, 2008 Um why does this matter? I don't see the point of breaking into programing for a tornado warning. This is Texas we're talking about here. I'm quite sure most Texans know what a tornado is and what to do during one. I mean they are only at the foot of what is known as tornado alley. Up here in the northeast, storm warnings merely get a crawl at the bottom of the screen. I'm quite sure viewers don't need to see someone pontificating about weather (usually to stroke their own personal ego). Point is, no one really cares. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Lampstein 6 Posted March 6, 2008 Share Posted March 6, 2008 Tornado warnings dont always equal a break into programming here either... I mean - how many tornado warnings actually produce real tornadoes? Some - not all. They'll break in when they need to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PelicanGuy 117 Posted March 6, 2008 Share Posted March 6, 2008 Down here, stations only break in if a significant severe weather outbreak is forecast or a tornado warning has been issued for New Orleans or Jefferson Parish. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
FirstNews8 13 Posted March 6, 2008 Share Posted March 6, 2008 I can see a problem here. ALL stations are required to break-in if they dont have a real EAS system which gives the weather radio alert voice on tv, if they dont have that there required to break in (WHIO has this system). It dosnt matter if tornado warnings dont always produce tornadoes, the National Weather Service is saying there is a likelyhood of a tornado, there is a reason behind a warning. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WCAUTVNBC10 408 Posted March 6, 2008 Share Posted March 6, 2008 I can see a problem here. ALL stations are required to break-in if they dont have a real EAS system which gives the weather radio alert voice on tv, if they dont have that there required to break in (WHIO has this system). It dosnt matter if tornado warnings dont always produce tornadoes, the National Weather Service is saying there is a likelyhood of a tornado, there is a reason behind a warning. I'm quite sure all of those stations have EAS. Dallas is a pretty large market and all 4 of those station have pretty rich owners. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jdcnow 14 Posted March 7, 2008 Author Share Posted March 7, 2008 Dallas is a pretty large market and all 4 of those station have pretty rich owners. Yeah, it's just that KXAS doesn't act like it. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gulf_Broadcasting 0 Posted March 7, 2008 Share Posted March 7, 2008 Yeah, it's just that KXAS doesn't act like it. when has KXAS ever acted like it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DMA 134 Posted March 8, 2008 Share Posted March 8, 2008 When we had a tornado warning, we just got the NBC Chimes and a ticker on WNBC, it worked well enough. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dave Lampstein 6 Posted March 8, 2008 Share Posted March 8, 2008 Well, do you know for sure - 100% that they never broke in? Did they *really* need to with three other stations covering it? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sam Horn 78 Posted March 9, 2008 Share Posted March 9, 2008 Wait, you also just said "a county". Well, which one? Does it really serve the public interest if they cause a panic when the weather alert is only for the 30 people in Bumblefucksylvania County? Big market stations face this often -- in my mind, the three stations who broke in over regular programming were only being sensationalist. If the tornado warning were for Dallas County, then, yes, break in. Otherwise, I don't think you're being fair to KXAS. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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