Quote:
Originally Posted by Sandy G
Oh, yeah...Our little Angel Modulation kuntry luvin' station, WRGS, is totally "Programmed", nothing live about it, which makes me slightly FURIOUS when we have a terrific snot-slingin' thunderstorm go thru, & you CAN'T find out ANYTHING pertinent. I, of course, know the owner of the station, & if I can remember, I'm gonna fuss at him about this...The canned "Tennessee Mutual News" to me, is NOT living up to the "Community Involvement" clause that I think is part of every station's charter & license...
|
Sandy, automated radio stations like your town's WRGS don't care about anything other than their own programming; should a thunderstorm or anything else happen these stations don't give a hoot about it, because they are programmed from national networks hundreds or thousands of miles away and are run at the local level by computers. The local talk station here, WABQ 1460, is exactly like that, with talk programming from something called the "Revolution Radio NetworK" and NBC News Radio at the top of every hour, but the only local programming is a 120-minute block of local news early in the morning. Once that is over the Revolution Radio Network comes in and is all that is heard over the station all day and night long, except of course for NBC's hourly 1-minute news summaries. Should a thunderstorm blow into the area at any time during these automated programs, the local station here would not interrupt its national programming for even a minute.
This is the way most if not all AM radio stations (except, of course, the big network-operated all-news ones in big cities like New York, Washington, Philadelphia, et al) are operated today, like it or not. They are automated, with no (or very, very little) live programming whatsoever, so Heaven help us if an emergency situation such as a severe thunderstorm pops up. The warning will almost certainly be seen and heard over local TV stations (because of the Emergency Alert System), but again, heaven help anyone who happens to be listening to a small automated AM station when the storm comes, unless the station's automation equipment is set up to cause the EAS warning to break in to the automated program if the need arises; however, I doubt that most automated stations are that sophisticated -- yet, anyway.
Television does a better job of informing the public of natural disasters (the local TV stations in Cleveland will begin a scheduled newscast with a weather bulletin if conditions are bad enough to warrant such action), but unfortunately, if such warnings are posted during working hours, most people will not see them as they are at work at this time. This is as good a reason as any to have a NOAA weather radio operating at all times. These radios will respond to emergency warnings (via a special signal sent from NOAA weather radio stations) and can be programmed to respond only to weather emergencies for specific areas such as individual counties. Some of these radios can even be set up to break in, if need be, to programming over a local FM station, replacing said programming with NOAA weather bulletins and/or emergency information; I have a Midland all-hazard weather warning receiver which will do just that in the event of a weather emergency.
This is, IMO, a much better way to keep informed of weather emergencies or severe weather than relying solely on AM or FM broadcast radio, or even TV. Television is not always accessible, and as I said, most automated AM stations cannot interrupt national programming for weather warnings unless an engineer is present in the control room at all times. Since many small-town stations run on a shoestring budget, they may not and likely do not have near the funds available to hire a 24-hour engineering staff. Some stations may get around this problem by hiring a person who will monitor the station during overnight hours, and who will be ready to override the automated programming on a moment's notice, replacing it with a warning or alert in case of a severe weather event such as a thunderstorm, snowstorm, etc. There is a talk station near where I grew up (western Lake County, Ohio, near Cleveland) that will be in the same situation if/when a severe weather event takes place, although that station may be much better prepared to broadcast severe weather alerts than the local station near where I live today.