Weather Crawls & Ruined Shows
 

I find it's getting more difficult to watch network television due to the constant use of weather crawls. Where I live, every network affiliate squishes the picture and inserts gigantic weather crawls or crawls for trivial news items. This happens constantly in prime time on ABC, CBS, NBC and so on. Sometimes they even cut away from shows for five or ten minutes at a time with local news/weather reports. Does this kind of thing happen everywhere? I'm about to give up on watching network TV and just wait for the DVD releases.

Here in Cleveland, I wish for those crawls sometimes. The weather emergencies are sort of a running joke here. The networks must know this by now, because the other day, one of our local affiliates started broadcasting commercials to, in effect, apologize, stating that they will no longer panic viewers and will modify their coverage of severe storms in the future.

I guess the networks are in heavy competition with each other, so they'll cut away for 30+ minutes to follow a storm moving from one side of the city to the next.

The networks then brag about it the next day - "We were the FIRST to bring you the breaking weather news last night;" or "We provided the LONGEST, most IN DEPTH coverage in the city;" or "We were the ONLY network to have someone standing outside LIVE in the path of the storm;" etc.

I understand and appreciate the need to warn us of severe weather situations and/or the possibility of harm/danger, but I don't need minute-by-minute updates to the person standing outside in the studio parking lot to hear him/her say "Yep, it's still raining here." It's almost a bad SNL skit. I kid you not - minute-by minute - 30 seconds to check local radar; 30 seconds to chat with the person standing outside. This will go on all night long.

This has happened a few times and I initially thought a major tornado was heading our way the way the weather forcasters were in panic mode - turns out it was a small thunderstorm. It kinda has that "cry wolf" effect on me now. Personally, I can get the message via periodic updates and a crawler or a graphic in the corner of the screen.

Given how much rain and thunderstorms we have had in DC the last 3 months, it is almost rare when you see a show without some kind of weather crawl or break in. Plus the DC viewing area is so huge, they are posting weather warnings for counties in West Virginia so even if you are over a hundred miles away from bad weather, everyone gets annoyed by the crawls.

It pisses me off too. Who cares if there's a tornado warning in some rural Wyoming town? Screw those hicks, I wanna watch my "American Juniors."

Thank you.

I admit that not all weather crawls/break-ins may not be necessary, but many times they are. Having a crawl go across your screen during World's Scariest Clowns on FOX is a minor inconvenience to you if it can help prevent other people in the area from getting injured or worse if a tornado is heading toward them and they wouldn't know it if it wasn't for the crawl. When I hear people complain about this, I can't believe the selfishness they're showing. (No personal offense to anyone in this thread.) There are more important things in life than seeing every last second of Strangers Sleeping with Each Other for Money.

In my area, the weather crawl only happens when it is necessary. It repeats once and then goes away.

It might be a little annoying it is necessary. If there are storms that can end up harming people, it should be there, contrary to the people that don't give a crap about others. "Its worth it for people to die so I can watch Buffy and not have to worry about weather crawls." Maybe one day, you'll die because there was no warning, but at least you will die knowing somebody didn't have Jeapordy disturbed.

We don’t get ‘em in the L.A. market.

We don’t get “weather” in L.A. It’s not allowed.

We may get a Fox program preempted for the latest pursuit (high speed, low speed, whatever). But there are few shows on Fox I’m interested in these days, so I couldn’t tell you for sure. I know it has happened in the past. Always with a warning for those driving and watching TV to make sure they get out of the way…

It annoys me like none other when I miss shows due to severe weather announcements. I've missed a lot of shows because of this, since I am smack dab in the middle of tornado alley (manhattan, KS). I missed the entire Friends' season finale, that one made me mad. But hey, sometimes it is good to know there is a tornado coming your way...it gives you time to grab the camera and go sit out on the porch ;)

Happens here in Pittsburgh all the time. Hey, anyone ever notice that they'll break away for Weather News or put a crawl on the screen during the programs, but NEVER during the commercials!

Oh, on Election Night it gets even better...they reduce the size of the program to a fourth of the screen so they can use the other 3/4ths to show Election results. This is when I flip over to HBO...

Here in Toledo the local NBC affiliate head metorologist has garnered the nickname "Blizzard Bill" Spencer. Last winter he started airing the weather crawls on Saturday afternoon about a blizzard coming for Monday. It was 3-4 minutes long and was repeated about 3 times in a row 2 times per hour. Plus at the hour, he would break in live to update us. The crawl predicted around 8 - 10 inches (Quiet all you Snow Belt people, cheese heads, and other Northerners that's alot for us :))on snow and that we should all go stock up on water and non-perishables at the local grocery store. By that evening the grocery stores were bare on all of the essentials. Come Monday, guess how much snow we got???










NOTHING, NADA, ZIP!!!!!! It did not even rain that much, so he couldn't blame it on a warm up. His forcasts are alawys 2-3 inches more than the competition. I understand people need to be informed, but please weather guys, just the facts!!

I think Groucho was joking.

I mean I was LMAO when I read his post.

What's worse than that, our NBC affilaite often preempts network programming completely to air local high school basketball games.

Exactly. He laid the sarcasm on pretty thick, which is why I thanked him - for supporting my viewpoint.
Ironically, both the local ABC and NBC affiliates had their Weather Bulletin graphics on the screen earlier this evening for a flash flood warning. Just noticing them while flipping through the channels, the ABC affil, at least, did have it on the screen during the commercials.

Who cares? Perhaps we're missing the bigger picture here. I just want to know when "World's Scariest Clowns" and "Strangers Sleeping With Each Other for Money" airs.

Actually, that gives me an idea - "Strangers Sleeping With Scary Clowns for Money." Hello, Fox?

rotfl

Favorite post today. Thanks.

When there is "severe" weather, and I mean a tornado watch or a flash flood warning, I completely understand cut-ins and crawls.

However, where I live, the weather guys completely freak out when it starts to just sprinkle. This is not an exaggeration.

The worst part about it is, they cut-in, during shows, to talk about "threatening weather" (i.e., rain) in parts of the state that are OUTSIDE of their viewing area!!! Who the hell are they trying to warn?

They are morons.

Actually I wouldn't mind a simple craw across the bottom of the screen when a serious storm is legitimately threatening the area. But around here, every time the skies darken slightly, our NBC affiliate will have a giant crawl across the bottom of the screen, and then the tv show shrinks to about 1/4 the size of the screen, and it's angled, like a parallelagram or like it's in perspective. This is on the left side of the screen. Then on the right side is another "in perspective" box containing the current radar screen. The tv show sound is usually overridden in favor of the weatherman's voice. And to top it off, this is all accompanied by an annoying beep alert, just in case we didn't notice all this going on.

I agree that lives are more important than shows, but I've got to admit it's annoying. It wouldn't bother me as much if they were more selective about when they do this--right now they do it EVERY time it rains. Gentle spring showers get the same over the top coverage as tornados. I have a feeling the stations do this to cover their butts though--in the town I used to live in, one of the smaller stations didn't have a news show or weatherman. This station was sued by a couple who were watching this station, and claimed they weren't warned that a severe storm was approaching, which proceeded to damage their home.

Before you call the meteorologists "morons" (and I hope you're referring just to those on a particular station or 2 in your market, not meteorologists in general), why don't you consider the fact that it may be the station's policy to do that. The meteorologists are just employees of the stations for which they work. If the staTion management tells them to break into programming because of a minor weather event, they don't have much choice.

That's the crazy thing about Kansas.

They break in constantly for things that happen in Wichita -- and for some reason western Kansas. If a cloud floats over Dodge City, they'll preempt programming for a half an hour, and instead of seeing your program, you get to watch a weatherman tell you that the cloud does not represent a threat for a half an hour. Which is strange because there is nothing in western Kansas.

Pretty much the same for Wichita, they'll preempt programming for a thunderstorm, a little rain, or anything else.

If you don't happen to live in Wichita or W. Kansas, you're pretty much ****ed. A tornado could be crossing the state sucking up entire small communities, and they'd just give it a crawler.

I swear I saw a Mad TV sketch like this when flipping channels a few years back, where it was raining lightly and they had the guy out in the field, ect.

Give it two years. The ratings would be huge. That would be a good challange on The Mole or something, having to sleep in the same bed as a scary clown. An actor hired to be a mean, abusive clown. Do it with kids, and the laughs never stop.

"and when you're down here with me..."

Wasn't this idea covered in the movie Vulgar with really scary results?

That said, out here during election time most stations break out the election results by reducing the screen size of the program currently on-air to a quarter of the TV screen. They run this annoying bar on the side and then at the bottom have the vote tallys so far.

On major election nights, I have no problem with this. But the results of the town council in Indiana during the next to last episode of "24"??????

A scary clown in bed with kids?

What were you thinking?

Thinking like a Fox Executive.