Local TV affiliate WFMY 2 should lose its broadcasting license for preempting entire second half of Duke-Baylor NCAA Southeast Regional Basketball Championship Game to run painstakingly repetitive thunderstorm updates.
AAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The founder of this Facebook page was so upset that he misspelled "dook."
I see the locals point. 8 and 12 did the same... I think. Safety first.
However, I think similar coverage could have been achieved with far less. All but wall to wall coverage for hours with 3 meteorologists and a weekender was a bit over the top IMHO. They were stumbling all over one another 1/2 the time. I am also glad someone finally informed them that suprisingly not all viewers have TWC and could not access the game or regular programming on 2-2 or 521 or 10-4 or whatever. They seemed a bit ignorant there.
How about a crawl, split screens, breaks for updates, etc. Probaly a no win situation for the stations. Reminded me of the BIG SNOW SCARE a few years ago. As someone I read elsewhere said... weather geeks just took over. The complaints are pointless. Really, who is gonna argue that Dook or Regularly Scheduled Programming is more important than a tornado? But, the station(s) deserves the complaints anyway.
I wonder if Desparate Housewives was the real winner. Unfortunately, there were some real-life losers as well. Glad no one was seriously injured so far.
Tanya R said they had received hundreds of complaints.
It was just Dook afterall.
Posted by: mick | Mar 29, 2010 at 10:05 AM
Reminded me of the kentucky derby on wxii around 2004 or 2005.
imho, they would've accomplished just as much with a crawl that directed people to their weather channel.
"It was just Dook afterall." wonder what the reaction would've been if it had been a tar hole game.
Posted by: greensboro transplant | Mar 29, 2010 at 10:19 AM
I have TWC but lost it at 6:30pm and had no cable and no internet. Found the game on FM, which was amusing at best. The Dook announcers need to listen to Woody & Eric and pick up some pointers.
Posted by: Mad Dog | Mar 29, 2010 at 10:32 AM
Duke's radio team are atrocious homers. K can do no wrong, their players never commit fouls and never turn the ball over unless the opposing player fouled them first. And Matthew Laurence has one of the worst voices on radio.
Posted by: John Burns | Mar 29, 2010 at 10:53 AM
"Duke's radio team are atrocious homers"
as is Woody. i recall a game a decade or so ago where Woody was going on about how horrible a call was. Mick Mixon stepped in and said that actually it was probably a good call. i thought i could hear Woody stroking out in the background.
Harris is about the biggest homer i've ever heard. But he's not arrogant.
as you might have guessed, Garry Dornburg and Wally Ausley are my all time faves.
Posted by: greensboro transplant | Mar 29, 2010 at 11:22 AM
Those guys (no matter the college) are paid to be homers but I suppose their is a point of no return.
Transplant: That would have been a whole nuther ball o wax!
Posted by: mick | Mar 29, 2010 at 11:25 AM
I called the station to find out what the heck 2-2 was. It took a lot of persistence to get through. I finally got a tech on the line and he told me that's the over-the-air channel. I said, "Who watches over-the-air anymore?". He said, "I hear you, Dude"
Couldn't they have said that when directing people to that channel?
We watched the game on NCAA.com.
Posted by: Thomas | Mar 29, 2010 at 12:24 PM
Duke's radio team are atrocious homers* John Burns
When you make the NC Sports Hall of Fame, and get back in touch with Sports Reality, maybe we can see if a job exsists for you at the Hall of Fame in cleaning out the Halls restrooms.....
http://www.ncshof.org/inductees_detail.php?i_recid=161
Posted by: Jock Lawyer | Mar 29, 2010 at 12:30 PM
Breaking news: Some of us yawn at sports and would rather watch weather. Just sayin'...
Posted by: Michele Forrest | Mar 29, 2010 at 01:39 PM
MF-You wonder what's wrong with us, we wonder what's wrong with you. It's all good.
Posted by: Thomas | Mar 29, 2010 at 02:04 PM
ah, michelle. sporting events can be beautiful and inspiring. curt schilling's bloody sock as he led boston. the miracle on ice. did you enjoy chariots of fire?
admittedly, they can also be ugly and depressing (see the NBA). and people shouldn't worship sports stars (see tiger, etc)
but yawn at sports? maybe at a unc football game...
Posted by: greensboro transplant | Mar 29, 2010 at 02:25 PM
Jock Lawyer
I read your link and if that was Bob Harris I heard on Sunday, I am not impressed. It may also have something to do with the announcers Harris decided to model himself after. Charlie Harville & Add Penfield? Please.
Posted by: Mad Dog | Mar 29, 2010 at 02:36 PM
"Some of us yawn at sports and would rather watch weather. Just sayin'..."
Which is why most of the local on air talent needs to be replaced. They're like Barack Obama -- they can't carry the broadcast unless it's fully scripted right in front of them.
Case in point: WFMY has the best storm tracking graphics of all the local broadcasts, but they got caught with their pants down last night. The crew couldn't avoid sounding like the airline passenger subbing for the disabled pilots talking to ATC.
Their version of "How do I fly this thing?" was not too impressive. Things improved a bit when Eric Chilton showed up, but he couldn't carry the broadcast by himself.
Posted by: Bubba | Mar 29, 2010 at 03:08 PM
I liked how the girl kept saying that the purple was worse than the red.
Posted by: David Boyd | Mar 29, 2010 at 03:09 PM
Sports are for boys. And purple is prettier than red, so it's confusing.
Posted by: Michele Forrest | Mar 29, 2010 at 03:20 PM
"Sports are for boys."
That is so wrong.
Posted by: Thomas | Mar 29, 2010 at 04:29 PM
gso transplant, I got chills at just the mention of curt's bloody sock.
Posted by: Tony Wilkins | Mar 29, 2010 at 04:37 PM
I switched to live feed on the NCAA website and turned WFMY the hell off.
Posted by: anonymous | Mar 29, 2010 at 05:43 PM
I just had to LMAO at John Burn's use of the word "atrocious".
Guess he must be a TAR HEEL fan. The coverage on WFMY was a bit annoying. It surely didn't need to be full screen, and they should have directed the weather watchers to 522 instead of the main program. I love the Heels. I love the Deacs. I love the Dookys. I love the Pack. But mostly I love Sparty!! Go Sparty!!
Posted by: Jon A Firebaugh | Mar 29, 2010 at 09:25 PM
Jon, them's fightin' words. Nobody has ever called me a Tar Heel fan and lived to tell the tale.
Go Davidson!
Posted by: John Burns | Mar 30, 2010 at 10:16 AM
WFMY's action Sunday night was the most ridiculous thing I can remember since the Greensboro Daily News removed Dick Tracy and Little Orphan Annie from the funny pages while asserting that the paper was doing its part to reduce violence in the community.
WFMY would have us believe that they were mandated by the FCC to do what they did and were simply doing their job, but the FCC's requirements could have been met with a crawl and periotic updates.
As a result of all this, tens of thousands of basketball fans were denied full access to the game. If anyone was frightened by the storm, extensive coverage was available on two other channels. (One blogger remarked thar he comes from Florida and less coverage had been give to hurricanes.)
Certainly no one wants to see anyone get hurt by a tornado, but WFMY's action was superfuous and insensitive to a large segment of their audience.
Posted by: hamilton | Mar 30, 2010 at 06:27 PM