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Broadcasters responded to changing Charley
Broadcasters jumped into action and fulfilled their most important role - - informing the public - - as Hurricane Charley devastated Florida on Friday. But the storm showed just how unpredictable weather emergencies can be as it made an unexpected turn - - heading inland well before it got to the Tampa-St. Petersburg area, where broadcasters had assisted local officials in carrying out a massive evacuation effort, and suddenly turned TV and radio stations in the Orlando market from interested observers into active participants.
Stations from Ft. Myers-Naples through Tampa-St. Pete had dropped regular programming for full-time emergency information well in advance of the storm. But after Charley caused only moderate coastal damage around Naples, the hurricane suddenly changed course and headed inland just north of Ft. Myers, devastating the barrier islands of Sanibel and Captiva (and splitting North Captiva into two islands) and churning up Charlotte harbor to wreak havoc in Punta Gorda. It then headed toward Orlando and eventually Jacksonville as officials and broadcasters in Tampa, St. Petersburg, Sarasota and Bradenton began stepping down emergency preparations as their inland counterparts suddenly found themselves scrambling to issue warnings. But with so little time to prepare, many people who had remained in inland mobile homes and even more substantial structures were killed or injured as Charley charged through.
Most TV stations in all three markets continued wall-to-wall storm coverage well after the storm had passed. From the RBR/TVBR offices near Tampa, it appeared that most radio stations were running hurricane coverage as well. Clusters with a locally-programmed News/Talk station generally simulcast its programming on all of its sister stations, while others rebroadcast coverage from a local TV news partner.
For NBC affiliates, general managers had to decide how to deal with the scheduled opening ceremonies of the 2004 Summer Olympics at 8:00 pm Friday while continuing to keep the public informed about the storm aftermath. "It was an easy decision," Waterman Broadcasting GM Steve Pontius told RBR/TVBR. He'd expected Charley to have only a moderate impact on his Ft. Myers-Naples market as it headed northward toward the Tampa Bay area. But when his seven-person staff of meteorologists detected a change in the storm's path even before the National Weather Service altered its forecast, WBBH-TV (NBC) and LMA partner WZVN-TV (ABC) began warning viewers around 11:00 am that Charley could come ashore in the Charlotte harbor area. "I am convinced that we saved the lives of a lot of people," he said. Waterman Broadcasting simulcast wall-to-wall storm coverage on both of its stations, ran the audio on some of Beasley Broadcast Group's local radio stations and streamed video and audio on the Internet. Without hesitation, Pontius scrapped NBC's Olympics coverage on Friday night, although he noted that the games were carried on WBBH's high-definition digital signal. By Saturday night he elected to carry NBC's primetime coverage from Athens on WBBH, while running a crawl advising viewers that storm news coverage was continuing on WZVN. When we spoke with him Sunday, Pontius was working on programming plans for the next few days.
In Orlando, Bill Bauman, GM of Hearst-Argyle's WESH-TV bounced Friday's night's NBC Olympics broadcast to local partner WOPX-TV, a Paxson O&O, while continuing wall-to-wall coverage of the storm on the wide coverage VHF station. Media General's WFLA-TV had been prepared to do the same with its Pax partner, but that proved unnecessary after Charley changed course and moved inland well before it got to Tampa Bay. Instead, WFLA joined the NBC telecast about 15 minutes late and carried most of the opening night broadcast from Athens. Meanwhile, Gannett's WTSP-TV, the CBS affiliate in Tampa-St. Pete., was forced off the air for a while on Friday as authorities insisted that the station evacuate its studios near the bay. Broadcasting resumed from temporary studios borrowed from a public access cable operation in Clearwater.
NBC, by the way, had to postpone its Olympics couch potato viewing marathon (8/12/04 TVBR Daily Epaper #157), which was to take place at the Universal Orlando Resort. The attempt to break the Guinness Book of World Records certified record for consecutive hours of TV viewing was to have begun yesterday evening, after Hurricane Charley forced NBC to delay the scheduled Friday start.
TVBR observation:
This was broadcasting at its best. From our vantage point in the Tampa area, broadcasters earned high marks for delivering information that was important, useful and, in some cases, life-saving. Watching TV stations from Tampa-St. Pete, Sarasota and even Ft. Myers (via the Internet), we were particularly impressed by the professionalism of the meteorologists. Apparently, you really have to study hurricanes if you want to be a TV meteorologist in this area. News staffers worked long hours and kept information coming about evacuation orders, shelter locations and other emergency notices, along with the obligatory shots of reporters in front of swaying palm trees on the beach. Radio coverage was less impressive, for the most part, given the limited scale of radio news operations in recent years, but at least they were providing useful information - - even if, in some cases, that meant carrying audio from a better-staffed TV partner.
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