Idiotic interruptions of scheduled network TV shows to tell viewers bad weather is happening somewhere in the area a particular station covers.
Interrupting when something serious happens, that I'm okay with.
Terrorists attack America, break in with live coverage. Slovenia launches a nuclear attack on Non-Slovenia, break in with live coverage. Lee Harvey Oswald shoots JFK, break in with live coverage. Osama bin Laden captured, break in with live coverage. Hitler found alive in Argentina, break in with live coverage.
But what happened Tuesday night on KDFW FOX 4 Dallas-Fort Worth was brain dead moronic.
GLEE is one of my few guilty pleasures. Tuesday was a highly touted 90 minute Lady Gaga "Born This Way" special.
My DVR was set to record GLEE. I did not try to watch it til at least an hour had been recorded.
When I went to watch I was appalled to find that the first half hour.
Or more.
Was devoted to breathless, non-stop, weather information. Including live images of pea-sized hail falling.
Yes, we had a bad storm roll through North and East Texas on Tuesday night.
Power was knocked out for thousands of people. A tornado damaged a lot of homes. The very people who might have found weather info useful, no longer had TV access.
If one knows the weather is turning inclement one has many info options. If one chooses to turn on ones TV to watch a scheduled program one should not have that choice interrupted by useless weather information that is totally pointless and about which one can do nothing.
It works perfectly well to put weather info in a crawl across the bottom of the screen, or in the lower right or left. There is no need to break in to regular programming so a TV Weatherman can have fun being all dramatic about the weather.
What I did get to see of GLEE was very amusing. But my recording ran out before I learned if Rachel went ahead with her nose job. And I did not get to see the "Born This Way" production.
Sunday night we also had some storm action in North Texas. The local CBS affiliate did not mess with The Amazing Race. CBS kept viewers informed about possible tornado and hail and lightning action via the non-obtrusive means I've already mentioned. I have no idea how CBS handled last night's storm. I suspect way smarter than FOX did. Or the local ABC affiliate did with its embarrassing Pete Delkus Weather Drama Queen.
No weather drama is on the schedule for tonight for North Texas. So, I suspect the local FOX affiliate will let American Idol run uninterrupted.
4 comments:
CBS/Channel 11 is the best. If it is not duck and cover time, they air weather during commercial breaks.
Best team in DFW.
I'm sorry you didn't get to see Glee. My guess is you are in a viewing area that was outside the main path of the storm and so did not feel overly concerned about its direction or intensity.
My home was directly in the path of the storm and I was happy to see the local TV stations showing its progress. Because they did, I had the opportunity to assess whether my family should stay, or seek shelter at the nearby hospital. I can tell you that I was hardly worried about missing Glee.
My sixteen year-old daughter is a huge fan of the show. She plans her homework around watching it. Last night, she didn't care that she missed it. As obsessed as she is about Glee, she knows it is just a show.
Watch it online. Then you can find out whether Rachel got her nose job. And other important stuff.
John, the posting about Glee being interrupted by storm coverage was written April 27. I think you must be referencing the May 24 Glee episode, which I've no idea if it was interrupted by last night's storm or not.
There are multiple methods of getting weather info during a storm. Relying on TV to tell you whether or not you need to seek shelter for your family seems a tad irresponsible. What is the fallback plan if power goes out and you lose your TV access?
Realizing a TV show is just a TV show has nothing to do with also realizing that the way local TV covers weather events it totally overdone.
My power went out even before the May 24 storm hit. TV weather info was of no use to me. I relayed on this thing called a weather radio. You might want to think of getting yourself one.
You're quite right; I missed that your post referred to an older episode of Glee (shows you how much I keep track of the show). I couldn't help but respond though, because I always get a kick out of people getting into a tizzy about missing their favorite TV shows. (After all, you were "appalled" that so much time was given to storm coverage. Really? "Appalled?" How would you react if something truly tragic happened?)
But, whatever. . . .
I never said I solely relied on the TV to make a decision about seeking shelter (in fact, I used my radio and my iPad) but the radar images on the TV (which showed the progress of the storm a good hour before it got near my home) were quite useful.
Again, you might think the weather interruptions are totally overdone. But so what if they are? You're complaining that one silly drama interrupted another silly drama. That's almost as bad as someone complaining about a silly blog post! :) (And I've clearly spent WAY too much time doing that!)
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