Would you ignore emergency news because it was on a station you didn't like?

[nbs2]

Broward (http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/broward/sfl-churricane13jun13,0,4183214.story?coll=sfla-home-headlines) County, Florida currently broadcasts their emergency news (hurricanes, etc) on radio station WIOD "because of its signal strength, numerous FM sister stations and willingness to give Broward top play."

But, county commissioners don't want to renew the deal. Their complaint isn't that WIOD has failed to meet expectations or that they have performed at an unsatisfactory level. No - their crime is airing views that they find politically disagreeable.

I'd love to see how they can justify that as in the best interest of the community...

[FFTT]

So you broadcast what we want you to broadcast or we pull our sponsorship.

Now you understand why the media is so gutless.

[SMM]

Broward (http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/broward/sfl-churricane13jun13,0,4183214.story?coll=sfla-home-headlines) County, Florida currently broadcasts their emergency news (hurricanes, etc) on radio station WIOD "because of its signal strength, numerous FM sister stations and willingness to give Broward top play."

But, county commissioners don't want to renew the deal. Their complaint isn't that WIOD has failed to meet expectations or that they have performed at an unsatisfactory level. No - their crime is airing views that they find politically disagreeable.

I'd love to see how they can justify that as in the best interest of the community...

Let me try for them. Just because O'Reily has the biggest, loudest mouth on TV, does not mean I want FOX as the primary source for the EBN. Neo-conservatives are not the voice America trusts any longer. They will still command a large political block. But, the tides are beginning to turn against them.

[Ugg]

I'd love to see how they can justify that as in the best interest of the community...

bushco's all for discrimination, isn't he? he's made it perfectly clear that toeing the party line is more important than being able to deliver the goods. Perhaps his vengeful politics are being viewed as a viable alternative.

[LethalWolfe]

Let me try for them. Just because O'Reily has the biggest, loudest mouth on TV, does not mean I want FOX as the primary source for the EBN.

If FOX got the clearest broadcast signal to the widest audience that would make it the most logical choice to air emergency news. Who cares what the regularly scheduled programing is? If a person balks at receiving possibly life saving information because someone like Rush or MM has a daily program on that station said person is an idiot.


Lethal

[WildCowboy]

Wouldn't it be logical for emergency news to air on all stations? :confused:

[EricNau]

Wouldn't it be logical for emergency news to air on all stations? :confused:
I think that would be a little too logical. ;)

In all seriousness, that's what we do in CA; emergencies are broadcast on all radio and TV channels. ...That is, when the system actually works. :rolleyes:

Actually, in my area, in the event of a serious disaster, everyone in the city will be notified by telephone. ...Luckily, we haven't needed to use it yet.

[takao]

actually quite a serious problem is that in this age of computers old proven techniques like radio and television emergency broadcasts don't work as efficent as they used to since a lot of people, especially young people, don't have a radio or tv running at all neither at work nor at home

if i'm browsing the internet i would depend on somebody calling my telephone or some instant messenger or an email which i might ignore anyway

[Legolamb]

Actually, in my area, in the event of a serious disaster, everyone in the city will be notified by telephone. ...Luckily, we haven't needed to use it yet.
My cell phone was set on default to pick up disaster alerts from local areas. I didn't know this until I was in Hawaii during flooding and was hearing the phone go off at all hours. I was ok, but very sleepy....

[Rodimus Prime]

this is a stupid question. If it was on a station I didn't like wouldn't that means I would never hear it because when it was broad casted I would not be listening to that station to begin with.

[PlaceofDis]

Wouldn't it be logical for emergency news to air on all stations? :confused:

thats my thought as well. if its an emergency, every station should be covering it.

[Queso]

Wouldn't it be logical for emergency news to air on all stations? :confused:
My thoughts exactly. Each country has its fair share of idiocies but come on, using emergency news contracts to curry political favours is just totally ridiculous. Off the scale :rolleyes:

[Thomas Veil]

Maybe they figure this is a way of "thinning out" their political enemies:

Political opponents listen to WIOD > Hurricane comes > WIOD listeners don't learn about it until it's too late > WIOD listeners (your political enemies) get killed > You win

[atszyman]

thats my thought as well. if its an emergency, every station should be covering it.

I think the issue is every station will broadcast the "Emergency broadcast system" alert and tell you to tune to the station that is actually getting the emergency feed. This eliminates the need to contact all stations and get them the emergency feed and instead only distribute the feed to the strongest broadcast stations in an area to reach the most people. It allows for easier debug and maintenance as well. How many times have you listened to a syndicated show on a local station and had their tape/feed mess up and have to deal with either some kid just out of school covering the dead air or whatever music happened to be handy when the feed messed up?

Getting the information out in an Emergency could save lives to ensuring the reliability of a few big stations will get the message out better than trying to make every piddly little station set up/maintain the emergency feed.

However using the emergency broadcast feed as a method for influencing a stations programming should be illegal. The biggest players in a market should have the feed to reach the most people. If the people don't tune in when they are told via the "Emergency Broadcast system" they are idiots. I may not like the programming on a station, but in all my life I don't think I've ever seen anything other than a test of the EBS and I've never had it tell me to tune elsewhere, I can only assume that if I ever hear it for real something BIG is going down and to not tune in would be the height of idiocy.

[Ugg]

Hmmm, I'd either have to tune into a station on the internet or go out to my car to listen to the radio as I have neither a radio or tv.

It seems that the whole system needs to be reassessed to reflect that there are a lot of people like me who don't own either. Maybe I need to buy a battery operated radio too...

[Swarmlord]

Wouldn't it be logical for emergency news to air on all stations? :confused:

Makes too much sense. Funny how they all seem to have a crawl at the bottom of the screen with this type of information anyway. I had no idea that all stations weren't informed of emergency info. Seems like a no brainer to me.

[LethalWolfe]

Hmmm, I'd either have to tune into a station on the internet or go out to my car to listen to the radio as I have neither a radio or tv.

It seems that the whole system needs to be reassessed to reflect that there are a lot of people like me who don't own either. Maybe I need to buy a battery operated radio too...

I'd get one of those hand-crank powered radio/flashlight combo things. I hardly use radio at all so if I got a batt powered one I know the batts would be dead when I needed to use it...


Lethal

[SMM]

If FOX got the clearest broadcast signal to the widest audience that would make it the most logical choice to air emergency news. Who cares what the regularly scheduled programing is? If a person balks at receiving possibly life saving information because someone like Rush or MM has a daily program on that station said person is an idiot.


Lethal

If you are not tuned to the channel, who cares how strong the signal is? This is about emergency public notification, right?

[atszyman]

If you are not tuned to the channel, who cares how strong the signal is? This is about emergency public notification, right?

All stations get the EBS signal, I'm sure you've heard the "This is only a test" with the horribly annoying siren on the radio at least once in your live. The message also states "In the event of an actual emergency this message would tell you where to tune for information" (italics not an exact quote).

I've never actually heard anything other than the test so if there were an actual emergency (and I had my radio on to hear the broadcast) then I'd be sure to go where they told me no matter what programming the station normally aired.

Broadcasting and maintaining the link for all radio stations is pointless as long as they can get the information of where to tune reliably and tell you where to tune. Why invest the time and money to put the information on 93.3 when it only covers a few square miles when you can hit 96.5 and cover the whole metropolitan area and just tell the 93.3 listeners to tune to 96.5?

[Lyle]

I went back and re-read the story a couple of times, since it just sounds so bizarre on the surface. Despite the way the story is being spun (by both sides), I think this paragraph from the linked story gets to the root issue:
The deal with WIOD would ensure that news conferences are broadcast start to finish live from the county Emergency Operations Center in Plantation. Emergency managers became concerned during hurricanes in 2004 and 2005 that radio and television stations preempted their announcements in favor of news out of Miami.So it's not the case that this is the only radio station that is allowed to broadcast emergency information. The problem is that the Broward County government wants a deal with some local radio station that will promise to broadcast their local emergency information in its entirety, and not switch out to other news sources (namely, Miami). To date, WIOD has been that station. A couple of other radio stations (WFTL and WLRN) offered to be that station as well, but WIOD won out "because of its signal strength, numerous FM sister stations and willingness to give Broward top play."

The part that I don't get (and which I don't see addressed in this article) is why they don't just simulcast the information to all three radio stations? Is this just a desire on the government's part to have one "Official (tm) Voice of the Broward County Emergency Management System"?

[Desertrat]

"why they don't just simulcast the information to all three radio stations?"

Make sense to me. However, if it's to be one and only one station, I'd pick the one with the largest audience. My idea would be to reach the greatest number of people.

"Is this just a desire on the government's part to have one "Official (tm) Voice of the Broward County Emergency Management System"?"

Sounds like it, and sounds like they want it to be a station that in the political view of TPTB that the station is "politically correct"--even if nobody's listening.

'rat

[mrkramer]

Wouldn't it be logical for emergency news to air on all stations? :confused:

Since when did the government start acting logically?

[yg17]

I'd be ******** anyways if it was broadcast on FM. I own 2 FM radios. One is in my car. But since I have Sirius, I replaced the long fishpole-looking antenna with a little short one (its from a Honda S2000) that doesn't work worth a damn. And my home theater receiver doesn't have an FM antenna connected to it, and I don't know, or care, where the antenna that came with it is.

With so many people listening to MP3s instead of FM radios. Watching TV shows downloaded from BitTorrent iTunes instead of TV and using cell phones instead of landlines (since just because their area code belongs to city X doesn't mean they're located in city X), there really is no good way to alert the masses in case of emergency.

[Desertrat]

In Florida and the eastern and Gulf coasts, generally, the worry is hurricanes. Between co-workers, newpaper headlines in the racks, and general conversation, it's hard to be more than a day behind--which means three to five days preparation time ahead of the storm.

California? MP3 or no, I imagine folks will feel an earthquake--and warnings aren't gonna happen, anyway.

In tornado alley, from around May through September, most folks pay attention to whatever early warning system is available. If they don't, hey, evolution works...

'Rat

[EricNau]

California? MP3 or no, I imagine folks will feel an earthquake--and warnings aren't gonna happen, anyway.
Believe it or not, we actually can have other emergencies in California besides earthquakes. ;)

[Cassie]

Wow what jerks. There's no reason why they cant put the emergency news on there!

[LethalWolfe]

If you are not tuned to the channel, who cares how strong the signal is? This is about emergency public notification, right?

This is about the public interest. Is it in the public's best interest to have the radio station that can reach the largest audience carrying the local emergency info? And, is it in the public's best interest to have the government strong arming media outlets into dropping political programming that the current elected officials don't agree with?

It was wrong when the White House put NPR's programming thru the ringer, and it's wrong for these county commissioners to try and force a local radio station to make changes to its programing. Especially when failure to comply by the radio station will be a possible detriment to public safety before, during, and/or after an emergency.


Lethal

[Queso]

Believe it or not, we actually can have other emergencies in California besides earthquakes. ;)
Yeah. People need to know to turn off their TVs when Tom Cruise is about to give an interview :D

(Seriously, yeah I know about forest fires, weather warnings etc...)