Here in Kearney, Nebraska, we had three tornadoes touch down one week ago tonight. This evening, we had another possible tornado skirt just South of town.

Last week, local radio completely blew it. The stations that didn't get knocked off the air, read updates(ie: bulletins from the NWS) and did little else. Imagine hiding in your basement, turning on the radio and hearing the disc jockey on duty launch into another 30 minute rock block.

Tonight, I went to local radio once, when the power flashed on/off and shut off our tv(My wife and I, our one-week old baby and two dogs were in the basement, listening to the tv audio from upstairs via our baby monitor.) I heard a Weather Eye update, controlled by computer, then right back into the greatest hits of all time. I think, in a case like this, if a station had a warm body in it, they could at least start running tv audio. The two local over-the-air tv stations we can pick up at our house, were wall-to-wall with their coverage. It was appreciated. This is just another indication how deregulation keeps local radio from serving their communities.

....NOT A CORPORATE POSITIONER......


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Hey Rog - are you still looking for work in the NW? Looks like Live 95 in Centralia's hiring a FT midday jock (http://www.live95.com/helpwanted.asp)

A sincere thanks for thinking of me.......

Roger

So what are you going to do when all of your resources are a Jock or two, Traffic person, a Sales Rep, if your lucky a news reader, a PC and a NEXGEN automation and the EAS reciever. No budget and probalby nobody has a clue as to what to do for over the air content in these cases. Lucky if you even have a news dept/director these days especially in smaller markets.

Best thing they could do is put the EAS message on a repeat for the duration of the alert, if there is a valid and readible EAS message that is, which much of the time there isnt ! ...No budgets for this at Radio..only TV so just turn it up or extend your video system into your safe room.

Again, fellow babies...welcome to the 21st century....

No KRVN?

Some smart owner in that market will discover the financial value of an information image. If you're only going to hire one on-air person, find yourself a really excellent radio-guy news director. Such a quest may not be insurmountable, given the cuts of late.

Stake claim to the information image. Sell trust to your clients and to every Rotary Club, and never let them down. Justify it, especially when it counts. This Kearney event sounds like a critical failure.

And by the way, there will be plenty of opportunities. There's more severe wx, tonight, in that same region. It's that kind of climate. A smart operator will not let this slide by.

I have no idea what KRVN did, or didn't do. I should have checked. Didn't check KGFW last night either, but I did check them last week and they did better than anyone else in the market. As a full service station, they'd better.

Now, let's have Deane Johnson check in from our Omaha desk with the latest there. Deane?

Ya,

Very severe weather tomorrow for much of the midwest.

Commercial radio is no good as a breaking news media anymore because of automation, consolidation, syndication.

Get a weather radio so you can hear bulletins and warnings from NOAA instead.

Automation or not, when something big breaks in Roseburg, we go after it....whether its during Rush, Lars, or dinner...

Probably why the news guy keeps winning all those awards....

But you are right...alot of stations blow it off.....I can think of one market where I am told staff won't take breaking news calls during weekends.....cause they're "off".......

I live in Topeka, KS (moving back to the Rose City in August), and we have been fortunate to have pretty good radio coverage during recent severe storms and tornados. One station that normally does country switched to simulcast the broadcast of a local TV station's live weather coverage, while another radio station brought in its morning drive meteorologist (who, ironically, used to be an icon at said TV station) for the evening.

We have a NOAA radio in our apartment, but it doesn't beat a live forecaster watching radar and receiving live reports from storm chasers (amazing what cell phones and wireless broadband have done for live TV). The weather radio is great for coming on in the dead of night to alert you to danger while you sleep, but once that happens, the TV comes on, and if we have to seek shelter, we bring the AM/FM radio.

Because of the frequency of severe weather, I would not want to be without either of the three. They all have a niche to fill.