This happens all the time (and has for years), as I can attest, as a veteran of the broadcasting salt mines. Viewers want to watch their favorite shows, or special programming, like coverage of the Master’s. Local stations are licensed to serve the community and they see continuous severe weather coverage as one way to meet that obligation. Heck, even when I worked in local radio 30+ years ago, we’d get phone calls if we aired EBS (now EAS) alerts, which were required by federal law, or read more than just the bare-bone details of a weather bulletin. Invariably, they’d say “it doesn’t affect me.” Of course, if the storm was heading their way, it was a different story.
Actually, I can declare a pox on both of their houses. One reason location stations go wall-to-wall with severe weather coverage is because of the ratings bump. On average, a station will get a 15-20% increase in viewership, and some of that audience will stick around when they return to local programming. And, if your chief meteorologist is a market icon (like James Spann in Birmingham), the ratings boost is even bigger.
Also, let’s face it, some of the coverage is over-hyped. These days, every station has a SuperMaxDopplerStormTracker9Million radar, but they don’t tell you that most are simply taking a feed off the nearest National Weather Service WSR-88D Doppler Radar, and the info on our screen may be five minutes old (or more dated) as its presented to viewers. A tornado traveling at 50 mph can cover a lot of territory in that time. I’m also amused by meteorologists who highlight every rotation marker as a possible tornado. The station my wife favors has a history of doing that; I always make a point to switching to another station (with a better trained weather staff) who can offer a less breathless assessment of the situation.
As for the viewers, they have options, too. If your favorite show isn’t on the local station, pretty good chance you can watch it through an app on your phone and/or a streaming service. Not much of a golf fan, but I kept up with the Master’s on the CBS sports app. No reason those dimwits in Georgia couldn’t have done the same thing. Also, many stations operate more than one channel; in a situation like the one that arose Sunday, broadcasters could have pushed regular programming to the sister station or even social media. And when all else fails, the old “split screen” technique still works.
Lastly, the claims of death threats against that Atlanta meteorologist may actually be a career enhancer. Ms. Dorsey works for CBS46, the bottom feeder in the local market. The day after her coverage (and reported death threats), the station fired its chief meteorologist, Paul Ossman, clearing the way for Ms. Dorsey to possibly assume the top spot. Ironically, those death threats will create a little more hype for a station that needs all the promotion, publicity (and viewers) it can muster.
Any death threats made against Ms Dorsey should be thoroughly investigated, and the perps brought to justice. It will be interesting to see what happens on that “front” in the coming days.
Agreed on most all of that, although we do have one local station with their own radar - it was particularly nice when the nearest NWS radar went down for several days, several months ago.
I will say though, that due to the rapidity with which a funnel can develop and reach the ground, and the speed with which some storms travel (we had one near here with forward speed of over 70 mph, recently), “pouncing on “rotations” is not all bad. Our better stations tend to identify them, but then look for other indicators (like “debris balls”) or sightings before getting REALLY excited.
Of course, there was a recent local storm where the met was talking about a “possible tornado”, and “behind him” when they brought up their tower-cam, the tornado was clearly visible. He’s talking, mentions the cam, then we could see him squint @ his monitor (in front of him), do a double take, and say something to the effect of “oh, my goodness!”
It wasn’t just an odd cloud - it did significant (F2) damage over a 16+ mile path. Some fairly well built houses & other structures had roofs ripped off, walls knocked down, etc., and there was 1 injury (a big grain bin got thrown on a truck on nearby highway.) It was not a “monster storm”, but still, I would not want to be in its path! :-(