Severe Weather Crawls 2010

[BK7725]

If you watch NBC, FOX, or ABC in HD and we have severe weather... don't worry, your channel will remain in HD! That' right, TMJ4, FOX6, and WISN have all updated their severe weather alerts to a smaller, HD format look. Unfortunately, CBS 58 has not yet. 3 for 4 is very good for 2010 at least. The order of the attached images are 4, 6, 12, 58.

**My source for FOX6's crawl is from WITI6Fan's post in the FOX6 HD Review thread. They did not post a crawl this morning. I guess their no hype campaign means no crawls?

[LoadStar]

If we have to have weather alerts on the screen, 4 and 12 appear to have really gotten their stuff together! Kudos!

6 and 58... you seem to have some work to do...

[trev57]

Maybe another step towards HD news for WISN? A guy can only hope.

[Jack 1000]

That's cool!

As a sidenote, is the meteorologists face in the picture for channel 12 supposed to be that purple? LOL!!!  She looks like she sampled Willy Wonka's Blueberry Gum, and like Violet Bueroguarde, could turn into a blueberry at any moment!!! LOL!!

Jack

[kevbeck122]

I'm still not a fan of being alerted when we only have a severe thunderstorm watch (WISN, during LOST twice), but at least they don't drop to SD anymore.

[LoadStar]

Maybe another step towards HD news for WISN? A guy can only hope.

I hate to be this cynical, but something tells me that at least one anchor is vetoing the newscast going to HD until they leave the station. I don't have any confirmation, it's just a gut feeling.

[trev57]

I hate to be this cynical, but something tells me that at least one anchor is vetoing the newscast going to HD until they leave the station. I don't have any confirmation, it's just a gut feeling.

Tim Cuprisin of onmilwaukee.com sent me an email and said that he hadn't heard a date that WISN will go HD, but he also said that anchors don't have the power to "veto" technical upgrades, so who knows? It does seem odd that the #1 newscast is one of the last to go HD.

[LoadStar]

Tim Cuprisin of onmilwaukee.com sent me an email and said that he hadn't heard a date that WISN will go HD, but he also said that anchors don't have the power to "veto" technical upgrades, so who knows? It does seem odd that the #1 newscast is one of the last to go HD.

Yeah... I figured I was being overly cynical. As I've said before, as long as they keep doing the best newscast in Milwaukee, I don't think the fact that they broadcast in SD has much of an impact to me.

Going back to the OP, I actually think that TMJ's "bar" is the best, and a gigantic upgrade from what they had last year. (I'm pretty sure they were the ones with giant inch-high letters on a tickert that was there the entire night.) I'm not thrilled by the map floating way up in the middle of the screen, however.

WISN's map placement is perfect, although their bar could be SLIGHTLY more streamlined..

In both cases, it's so much better than anything they've ever done before... the L-shaped graphics and "squeeze mode" is hopefully gone for good, and good riddance.

[jkane]

But when they cut the whole feed out like ABC did during V on Tuesday, it does not matter what size it is.  That was very frustrating!  They could have moved their local coverage to a commercial.  V is the only show that I watch on local stations.  I really hate local programming!

[BennyDK69]

I to was very disappointed with the interuption during V but I've pretty much come to expect my viewing being ruined somehow during stretches of weather

[gparris]

But when they cut the whole feed out like ABC did during V on Tuesday, it does not matter what size it is.  That was very frustrating!  They could have moved their local coverage to a commercial.  V is the only show that I watch on local stations.  I really hate local programming!

Local as in Milwaukee, of course.

When a storm comes about in the Chicago area, the network-owned stations there seem to do it much better, the storm icons come up, but they almost never interrupt their own programming.

[beeper]

The last time that Fox 6 ran a weather crawl during American Idol, the surround audio was lost during the duration of the crawl.

[trev57]

CBS 58 now has their crawl in HD. It's not the best because it squishes the picture on top, but it is better than what they had.

[Xizer]

Yes. As usual, they are very annoying. I have to play musical stations between the Chicago and Milwaukee affiliates when severe weather happens.

These stupid things should only appear during a Tornado Warning. It's obvious when there's a thunderstorm outside; I don't need my TV set to **** its pants and point out the obvious.

They should also ditch the crawls in favor of small text below the map - Tornado Warning - Expires [Time]

And why do we need beeping to announce the severe weather? I thought that was why those ugly ass distracting graphics were plastered all over the screen? :bang:

[techguy1975]

The beeping is to get the attention of people who  may not be watching the screen.  The text is there for people who cannot tell my looking at a map what  county they are in.  Stations air watches and warnings of all kinds because they consider it to be fulfilling the requirement of their FCC license to serve in the "Interest of the community"  

While I don't live in WI anymore, I have seen you guys have had some really bad weather up there as of late.  From what I saw, there have been some very dangerous storms that moved through there on a frequent basis.

Living in Nashville now, I do notice a bit of a difference.  The network affiliates try to not interrupt network programming.  If something comes up they will usually run a ticker on the bottom, and if needed they will break in but not till a commercial.  However, that was all different during the floods that hit here a month ago, all stations dumped the entire weekend of network programming and were on almost 24x7, but that was a extreme event, and just as much news related as it was storm related.


Now... as far as winter goes..you think Milwaukee tv freaks out when it snows?  You should see what happens here...