When you turn on any of the local TV stations, they are running nearly 24/7 coverage of the storm and it's effects. Turn on the radio, however, and you'd never know anything was going on. Why is this? I'm sure that there are people out there in their cars and work that have no access to a TV that would still like to be informed of what's going on: traffic and weather reports, road closures, reports from various parts of the city.

KXL has had some people on. Quick reports here and there. And earlier in the week, they reported they are the only live radio broadcast. This was morningish, I think.

Agreed it's not close to what TV is doing. Bummer too. Have been out and about. Would have been handy.

Heck, could have people talking up their snow adventures, if nothing else.

Last Sunday afternoon, KXL was simulcasting KPTV's coverage of the storm. If things change for the worse today, I think that they might do it again. I can think of two reasons why there is no 24/7 coverage of the storms on the radio:
1) The radio stations only have a minimally-sized crew covering weekends
and
2) The storm has generated a lot of footage with primarily visual appeal (big pileups of snow, car crashes, heavy snowfall, weather maps, etc.). These wouldn't play very well on the radio.

Agreed on both counts. Stories and such would though. Lots of fun going on right now, adventures too.

Took us an hour to walk down and get coffee. Didn't even know if the place was open. (don't think they have a store phone) It was!

Radio used to scoop the T.,V. stations on breaking news. Now try to find a newsman in almost ANY radio station. Matter of fact You are more likely to find a space alian sitting in a control room chair on evenings, overnights and weekends. Than a live D.J. And the radio stations wonder WHY, the numbers are falling...Go figure.

860 KPAM has been rebroadcasting KATU audio.

Just a thought...If the power is out most people who have a portable TV that runs on DC and have reception will turn to that. Radio seems to serve the mobile audience and we are being asked to stay home.
What will happen after 2-19-09? Portable sets will not work, so radio might have to step up or at least have a plan. Anyone know if there are plans to provide audio silmulcasts in case of emergency?

HDTV portables?

http://www.amazon.com/Axion-AXN-8701-Widescreen-Portable-Handheld/dp/B001FWYLLG/ ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1229893617&sr=8-1

Right now, my portable solution is a USB DTV tuner card plugged into a laptop. It should provide 4 hours of reception in a power outage.

KPAM is but it is mostly a rebroadcast of tv ch2KATU!!

It's Alien not Alian.

What we are reporting here is why every station in Portland should lose their license. Under their FCC license they are to broadcast at no charge emergency information.

But since the weather event is on a weekend, and many stations just have a board op on weekends there is nobody to inform the public what issues exsist beyond the front door.

Hopefully the new Democrat based FCC will begin revoking these licenses, or radio will have to get back to providing service, which has been missing for the past decade.

So all of you laid off get ready to get back to work.

Why do we need radio to stay on the air 24/7 to remind us it's still snowing? TV is doing enough of that. At least you have an outlet if you want to get away from the repetitive TV coverage, you can listen to Xmas music on the radio, oh wait......

An excellent opportunity for radio to regain its relevancy to the public is being squandered. Instead it is reinforcing the need to go to TV or the web for up-to-the-minute information while long form remote radio programming goes on uninterrupted.

This is when dedicated local radio people should be camping out at the station with sleeping bags and have those lines open to connect with their listeners.

KPAM was originating reports (half-hourly?) and airing KATU audio between them. Struck me as a good strategy as when cruising the dial I probably would have missed them if they were playing music between reports (though their commercial sets ran 3? minutes each.)

Power was out in central Milwaukie 11a-12:45p today. I turned on the radio after briefly wondering how long a 13" TV would run off my computer's UPS.

WEATHER UPDATES?

Check out our website at KBK*.com direct from TV88.com, click the weather link.

also view our babe of the day, play trivia challenge, and check out our sponsors specials at our website kbk*.com NOW STREAMING AROUND THE WORLD. Why around the world? because that's what corporate wants!

...It's Alien not Alian.....

Alian is a French alien.

Just wind and cold here....

Totally agree with Tom Parker, and come to think of it, I usually do. If you want to see a radio station that goes out of it's way to serve the public's interest in weather coverage, check out WPOZ-FM in Orlando.

Yes, they are a Christian station, but serve as the EAS LP1, are always staffed live and when the hurricanes hit Central FL a few years ago, were the ONLY Orlando station to stay on the air live and not simulcast TV.

>>An excellent opportunity for radio to regain its relevancy to the public is being squandered. Instead it is reinforcing the need to go to TV or the web for up-to-the-minute information while long form remote radio programming goes on uninterrupted.

This is when dedicated local radio people should be camping out at the station with sleeping bags and have those lines open to connect with their listeners.<<

If you want to hear that kind of radio - it's being done right now - in Seattle. Click: http://wma.fsci.com/komo-1000

The problem with radio is that corporations have merged and bought local stations. The idea is to run the same programming on local stations. It was meant to shave budgets for programming and thus increase profits. Staffs were systematically reduced to create better profit margins.

The problem is that radio no longer has the will to react to situations like the snow and ice were are experiencing. Most radio news staffs are one person who tries to rewrite and gather audio and do a cast each half hour. With that type of corporate limitation placed on local stations, it is no wonder that little locally produced programs are available. Former FCC Commissioner Newton Minow was ahead of his time when he stated, that "televison is a vast wasteland."

Here is his quote from 1961 that can also be applied to radio today.

"When television is good, nothing—not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers—nothing is better. But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite you to sit down in front of your television set when your station goes on the air and stay there without a book, magazine, newspaper, profit and loss sheet or rating book to distract you—and keep your eyes glued to that set until the station signs off. I can assure you that you will observe a vast wasteland."

This culture is ripe for a return of the fairness doctrine.

........Author: Stevethedj
Sunday, December 21, 2008 - 12:50 pm


Matter of fact You are more likely to find a space alian sitting in a control room chair on evenings, overnights and weekends.........

Only if they shove you out of the way Steve.

Speaking of going to the web for info, here's a fun weather site. Enter your zip code in the search box then scroll down and check out the weather stations in your neighborhood.

http://www.wunderground.com/cgi-bin/findweather/getForecast?query=pdx

I like this obs page:

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/mesowest/mwmap.php?map=pqr

A little more direct for the above link to Oregon:
http://www.met.utah.edu/cgi-bin/droman/mesomap.cgi?state=OR&rawsflag=1
Under "Networks" select "All Networks.

Last night I was trying to get to Salem from the Stayton area. There were lots of downed trees, and the road I usually take was closed. I was pretty sure there'd be no live bodies for weather updates at KYKN or KBZY in Salem. I tuned to KEX.

It was close to 9pm, so I waited for the top of the hour news. The sounder fired..."Now, Storm Team Coverage on your 24-hour news, traffic and weather station, 1190 KEX, Portland Vancouver Salem...." This dramatic stager was followed by 5 and a half minutes of DEAD AIR... and then back to the syndicated talk show. (I kept listening just to see what would happen.)

After that, I just switched over the The Fish and listened to Christmas songs. Next time I need up to date info, I'll just download the weather to my phone, while shedding a silent tear over the slow, painful mostly self-inflicted death of the business I've loved most of my life.

>>5 and a half minutes of DEAD AIR

my get is that's about the length of the newscast that was prept and read but not aired due to someone/thing not getting the board hot to the TX otherwise the way Prophet (can) work is to have the macro go server straight to the TX bypassing the console during syndicated shows then having a macro switching the board hot or done manually for their live newscasts...have heard this more than once myself. When monitering off the board in the ole headsets you don't know the difference if you can't hear the silent sensor alarm going off down the hallway.

Regarding Salem snowman coverage, local stations don't have the staffing or dollars to cover especially evening/weekends. When they do it's during their staffing's normal work hours...some might work overtime for maybe comp time/trade $ later but just speculating.

True Broadway, but unfortunately that's my point... 10-15 years ago those same Salem stations WOULD have been staffed 24-7. So would KEX...by jocks and board ops who know how to switch the board to "live" before doing a newscast.

Or, to avoid an error, the newscast could have been prerecorded 10 minutes ahead of time and dropped into Prophet.

Live, local radio -- the steam engine of the 21st century --an industry that time is passing by.

Of course nobody in the building is listening to the off air signal anyway...thanks to HD Radio the delay makes it impossible to monitor live air.

So even if it's live in studio there's no way for the on air staff to know if it's actually getting out.

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/forecast/MapClick.php?site=PQR&llon=-122.888747&rlon=-12 2.181247&tlat=46.084584&blat=45.377084&smap=1&mp=0&map.x=126&map.y=161
(this link puts us roughly near the Hearthwood School campus [hello Class of '96!], which is between my Folks' place and mine.)

Just listen to 162.525 or .550. There's plenty of radio weather coverage on those stations. ;o)

Oh, but that bot's voice hurts my ears.

heaven forbid one is traveling through Eugene during bad weather... Especially on a weekend.

KPNW had the same canned weather forcast at the top and bottom of each hour with no current temp, no current conditions, just generic winter forcast...

KUGN had Paul Harvey and Handle on the law playing simultaneously from 12noon to 12:15 Saturday and no local weather breaks at the top or bottom. Then they played some of the Handle segments again in the same hour.

Is anybody live in Eugene radio on the weekend? Is anybody even paying attention?

Jeffreykopp:

Izzit just me, or does the girl bot sound like she/it has kind of a Swedish accent?

(They don't use that one here, but I have heard her/it on the Olympia and Salem stations.)

Noise: KYKN did have someone on board at that time that night.
Live bodies from 5:45 am until 11pm mon-fri and Saturday mornings from 8-11
Next time you need Salem-Keizer info, tune into the #1 station in the Valley, 1430, KYKN

>>tune into the #1 station in the Valley

No (wink) bias here...right Bill!
Merry Christmas!

Doesn't KXL have live reports every half hour? I listened on the stream and it seems to be that way. Aside from talking about closures what else is there to talk about?

Well, there's a lot to talk about. Weather events like the one we're all really enjoying now are dynamic, constantly changing, and perfect for the medium of immediacy. That's us, folks!

Real-time coverage tells you what's actually going on now, as opposed to what's predicted to happen, which is often just a little wrong, or what happened yesterday, which is what we read in the paper. It should give you information first, and color second, and abundant amounts of both.

The coverage begins with the weather--what it's actually doing, and for that you need reporters and callers in different parts of town, along with a live meteorologist or at least a credible weather geek who can explain in understandable and accurate terms exactly what's going on, and where, and what's going to happen. There's nothing wrong with Sally in Aloha calling to say it's snowing like crazy, because Marvin in Beaverton will get it next.

Then you need coverage of the effects: road conditions, what's impassable and what's OK, traffic accidents, and experiential anecdotes, again from callers and reporters around town. Information and color. If Rex Hill is a sheet of ice, that's got to be on the air. Traffic reports should expand to any length, but you have to bring in real-people to keep it alive and dynamic.

Power outages, mass transit updates, airport closures, anything else that's brought on by the storm should be covered using frequent live interviews with the affected agencies, complemented with listener calls and reporter stories that provide, again, both information and color. It's fine to interview aggravated stranded travelers and hear their interesting tales of woe, but tell me how many flights are canceled and whether it's getting better or worse.

Closures are a part of it, but the new pdxinfo.net system is simply too much to chew. It allows school districts to enter microscopic detail, and makes unlimited space for private schools big and small along with day cares and businesses. It can easily run 16 to 20 pages, takes half an hour to read, and is boring enough to anesthetize an elephant. And since the same information is also pushed to the web sites and schools are doing robocalls, phone trees, and text messages, what most stations are doing is triage. Hit the big ones, summarize the rest.

What I've described is how radio used to do it, and how television does it now (and gets roundly lampooned, largely by The Oregonian, which uses mocking and hugely exaggerated terms like "apocalyptic" "breathless" and "hyperventilating" to describe TV storm coverage, then proceeds to do it pretty much the same way, only in print, and a day late. That's got to be frustrating for them).

Where's radio? Well, I know of some stations that still do it that way in morning drive. Other dayparts? Go and visit their web site, I guess. And listen again during the top of the hour, before we return to the replay of the syndicated talk show or whatever.

Well, true to form, KLYC gets a "fail" for their coverage of events in Yamhill County. I'm in a motel room in McMinnville for a few hrs, because our place in Sheridan has no power, no phones, no water, etc. You'd think that KLYC would've pulled-out the stops to get weather and road coverage... but no-o-o-o. Lots of lovely Xmas music, but I'd rather hear what the ETA for PGE is to repair the downed lines (it's been 4 days, going on 5 for us now). Anyway, their "info" has been dismal. OK, back to recharging the cellphones, the laptop, take a shower and get back to town. See ya' on the other side of this.

which radio station has Bob the Weather Cat doing
the Portland forecasts???

"which radio station has Bob the Weather Cat doing
the Portland forecasts???"

None!!
You must be losing it.....
None ever did. It was on television. It hasn't been for a long time. Bob is dead. Has been. A long time. I don't remember how long. Maybe KQ4 does. However, unless you are able to communicate with dead cats, it ain't happening.

I remember the "Bob the Weather Cat: I Remember Bob" special KATU ran shortly after the cat died. Somewhere between 1989-91 sounds about right.

Link to a good "Bob" history

OK, I have to put my 2 cents in on TV and radio weather coverage. Radio does way too little, and TV does WAYYY too much. I'm so tired of reporters in the field showing us closeups of snow and, "hey cameraman, zoom in on that ice on this handrail!" Also, since they have to appear that they're giving us constant coverage, there is a LOT of filler crap, and c'mon, these people are not very good entertainers. I don't care about the reporter at the max station showing us the snow and talking for ten minutes about his mother-in-law coming to visit.

Also weather reports..., is it just me or do we really need to hear all the weather mumbo jumbo that most people don't even understand? Even if one does understand it, I don't care about high pressure ridges and fancy computer-generated crap on the green screen, I just want to know what the weather is going to be without having to wait for the weatherman to justify his meteorology training by blabbering on and on about high pressure rigdes and such. When I ask dominoes about their pizza specials, I don't want to hear the guy go into detail about how they cook the pizzas! Just tell me what pizza's you have! Phew...I feel better now.

Here ya go, right from the source. They all probably get there information from here anyway so why not cut out the middle man/woman and all the Mumbo Jumbo!

http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?CityName=Portland&state=OR&site=PQR&tex tField1=45.5236&textField2=-122.675&e=1

http://www.nws.noaa.gov/


And do you think the reason radio does too little or no weather coverage is that Otto just can't handle it when the live air talent can't make the drive, if there is even any live air talent to do it in the first place?

I think you will find that every radio station in town has been downsized to the point where we have about 1/10th of the staffing of tv stations when you consider how many news producers, editors, photographers, reporters, etc. that they have. I myself work for KEX and can tell you we always led with what I believe is most relevent information. That is, closures, highway conditions, power outages. There is only so much coverage you can do when there has been such extreme downsizing in the radio field.

It comes down to ownership/management commitment to the community and dollars available to pay for it...not much these day on commitment and money.