I guess the Harley 100th is too big for the world.

[Gregg Lengling]

I don't know how many others noticed that Channel 4's news didn't say a think about the black-out in London.  Granted it's not local news...but it is one of the worlds large Capitols (and a neat place...remember I was there in May...glad I didn't get stuck in the tube/underground).  I mean the Harley 100th is a big deal and even don't mind all the "Fluff News" related to it...but you think they could at least take 30 seconds to mention London....I mean they do for the advertisers don't they???

[oflaherty]

Gregg - It has been busy with all the Harley coverage, but for the record the London blackout story was on both the 4pm and on the lightning delayed 10pm newscasts on Thursday. It was also on Friday morning on Daybreak.

Here's the 10pm script:

(*MGO/FBVS*)
THE LIGHTS ARE BACK ON IN LONDON TONIGHT...
(*/NATSOT*)
THERE WAS A BIG BLACKOUT EARLIER TODAY... FOR ABOUT 40 MINUTES.
IT BROUGHT MUCH OF THE LONDON UNDERGROUND TO A HALT... AND TRAPPED COMMUTERS IN TUNNELS.
THE GOOD NEWS, THERE WEREN'T ANY ACCIDENTS OR INJURIES.
A UTILITY SPOKESMAN SAYS THE PROBLEM STARTED IN TWO HIGH-VOLTAGE LINES IN THE NATIONAL POWER GRID.
(*TAPE ENDS*)

----
Sean at TMJ

[The Law]

and all over the nat'l news...

[Tom Snyder]

As a former broadcast guy, I can tell you that there is strategy to ordering your news stories... TV or Radio...  and it's driven by hundreds of thousands of dollars of research and audience testing.  

Generally speaking, the stories that have the greatest emotional personal impact to the local viewer will lead...  a national story will have to be pretty important to trump a local one, and an international one needs to be spectacular to get more than a line or two. ..especially if there's no way to tie it into a local connection.  

A 40 minute blackout in London doesn't have much impact on Joe Machineshop employee in West Allis.

As an aside, I remember doing an auditorium test when I was with WZTR. We had "people meters" that allowed realtime line graphs scrolling across a moving grid that went up (postive) and down (negative) as we played samples of all sorts of morning radio "bits."  We tested both stuff from our own morning show, as well Dave and Carole, Reitman and Mueller, WTMJ Morning News, etc. One was a series of sample news elements...local stories, national stories, feel-good stuff, etc.  Of everything we tested, only one element actually pinned the needle at the top of the positive scale and held the position throughout the entire bit...

WTMJ Traffic!

[Joseph S]

WTMJ Traffic!

Really? I don't ever listen to the traffic, because I haven't seen any here. At best the "traffic" costs me 15 minutes, but I'm used to a min of 45min to 2 hours.

[Tom Snyder]

That's why it was the most amazing thing I had ever seen. In a city with few traffic jams, and even when there are, it lengthens the average commute from 20 minutes to 35 minutes.

But the nanosecond the TMJ Traffic sounder started, the spike was immediate and almost unanimous.