Clear Channel and Public Service - We don't need no stinking local DJs
 

Is Clear Channel qualified to run all six non-religious commercial
stations in Minot, SD? Is any single company?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/ma...IdeaLab.t.html

In the early morning of Jan. 18, 2002, a Canadian Pacific Railway
train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed just outside Minot, N.D.,
spilling roughly 240,000 gallons of anhydrous ammonia into a woodsy
neighborhood on the outskirts of town. The resulting toxic cloud grew
to some five miles long, two and a half miles wide and 350 feet high,
enveloping the homes of approximately 15,000 people. Confused and
afraid, thousands of Minot residents turned on their radios to get
public warnings and instructions on how to stay safe.

Yet no such information was available. Minot’s six nonreligious
commercial stations, all of which were owned and operated by the
nation’s largest radio company, Clear Channel Communications, were
broadcasting prerecorded programs engineered in remote studios. Police
dispatchers couldn’t reach anyone in Clear Channel’s local offices:
the town’s new emergency-communications system failed to automatically
issue an alert, and no one answered the phones at the stations. What
ensued was horrific: as one man died and hundreds became ill from
inhaling the poisonous gas, the airwaves were filled with canned music
and smooth-talking D.J.’s.
[...]

Clear Channel and Public Service - We don't need no stinking local DJs
 

On Sun, 28 Jan 2007 05:42:26 -0500, Tester wrote:

Is Clear Channel qualified to run all six non-religious commercial
stations in Minot, SD? Is any single company?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/ma...IdeaLab.t.html

In the early morning of Jan. 18, 2002, a Canadian Pacific Railway
train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed just outside Minot, N.D.,
spilling roughly 240,000 gallons of anhydrous ammonia into a woodsy
neighborhood on the outskirts of town. The resulting toxic cloud grew
to some five miles long, two and a half miles wide and 350 feet high,
enveloping the homes of approximately 15,000 people. Confused and
afraid, thousands of Minot residents turned on their radios to get
public warnings and instructions on how to stay safe.

Yet no such information was available. Minot’s six nonreligious
commercial stations, all of which were owned and operated by the
nation’s largest radio company, Clear Channel Communications, were
broadcasting prerecorded programs engineered in remote studios. Police
dispatchers couldn’t reach anyone in Clear Channel’s local offices:
the town’s new emergency-communications system failed to automatically
issue an alert, and no one answered the phones at the stations. What
ensued was horrific: as one man died and hundreds became ill from
inhaling the poisonous gas, the airwaves were filled with canned music
and smooth-talking D.J.’s.
[...]

This is a failure of the EAS, not Clear Channel's business plan.
There ahould mechanisms in place to allow the local authorities to
override the regular programming when a time sensitive local emergency
warrants.

Clear Channel and Public Service - We don't need no stinkinglocal DJs
 

David wrote:
This is a failure of the EAS, not Clear Channel's business plan.
There ahould mechanisms in place to allow the local authorities to
override the regular programming when a time sensitive local emergency
warrants.

EAS is that mechanism. My understanding is that the local authorities
failed to activate it, or failed to activate an alternative local plan
that, if activated properly, would have alerted personnel who *were* on
duty at the Clear Channel stations and resulted in the broadcast of an
alert.

In any case, how much good would it have done if an alert had been
broadcast over Clear Channel's stations? They may have a 95% *share* of
the listening audience at 2am, but how many people are actually
listening to the radio in Minot, North Dakota at 2am?

The right place for this type of alert is NOAA Weather Radio.
Inexpensive radios are available that can be left on while sleeping,
that can be used to awaken the owner when something like this happens.
(you're not going to leave KZPR "Power 105" on all night every night in
case there's a disaster - the disaster will be when you try to function
in the morning without sleep!)

While we're at it, the EAS (and this should happen at the state level)
should be modified to stop running alerts over excessively large areas.
For example, several recent Amber Alerts issued *statewide* in
Tennessee in the early-morning hours. A Memphis resident can do nothing
about a child abduction in Bristol 400 miles away at 3am; if you keep
waking them up for this kind of alert, they're just going to turn off
their NOAA radio. (and next time there's a chemical spill in Memphis...)

--
Doug Smith W9WI
Pleasant View (Nashville), TN EM66
http://www.w9wi.com

Clear Channel and Public Service - We don't need no stinkinglocal DJs
 

Doug Smith W9WI wrote:
David wrote:
This is a failure of the EAS, not Clear Channel's business plan.
There ahould mechanisms in place to allow the local authorities to
override the regular programming when a time sensitive local emergency
warrants.

EAS is that mechanism. My understanding is that the local authorities
failed to activate it, or failed to activate an alternative local plan
that, if activated properly, would have alerted personnel who *were* on
duty at the Clear Channel stations and resulted in the broadcast of an
alert.

In any case, how much good would it have done if an alert had been
broadcast over Clear Channel's stations? They may have a 95% *share* of
the listening audience at 2am, but how many people are actually
listening to the radio in Minot, North Dakota at 2am?

The right place for this type of alert is NOAA Weather Radio.
Inexpensive radios are available that can be left on while sleeping,
that can be used to awaken the owner when something like this happens.
(you're not going to leave KZPR "Power 105" on all night every night in
case there's a disaster - the disaster will be when you try to function
in the morning without sleep!)

While we're at it, the EAS (and this should happen at the state level)
should be modified to stop running alerts over excessively large areas.
For example, several recent Amber Alerts issued *statewide* in
Tennessee in the early-morning hours. A Memphis resident can do nothing
about a child abduction in Bristol 400 miles away at 3am; if you keep
waking them up for this kind of alert, they're just going to turn off
their NOAA radio. (and next time there's a chemical spill in Memphis...)

AND NOAA should be an override on EVERY portable radio sold in the
country (programmable). IMO

deet

Clear Channel and Public Service - We don't need no stinkinglocal DJs
 

Tester wrote:
Is Clear Channel qualified to run all six non-religious commercial
stations in Minot, SD? Is any single company?

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/28/ma...IdeaLab.t.html

In the early morning of Jan. 18, 2002, a Canadian Pacific Railway
train carrying hazardous chemicals derailed just outside Minot, N.D.,
spilling roughly 240,000 gallons of anhydrous ammonia into a woodsy
neighborhood on th


Hey blame deregulation.

Hold your breath for a little while and we will see the return of Ma
Bell (remember I said here).

Clear Channel and Public Service - We don't need no stinking local DJs
 

In article ,
D Tiernan wrote:

Hold your breath for a little while and we will see the return of Ma
Bell (remember I said here).

It won't be Ma Bell. Ma Bell served everyone, rural and urban alike. Ma
Bell's rates were reasonable and understandable. Ma Bell didn't skimp on
maintenance to make sure the stockholders got richer. Ma Bell sold
*service* not *plans*.

"Oh, you want it to WORK?" (The NEW AT&T)

--
John Higdon
+1 408 266 4400

Clear Channel and Public Service - We don't need no stinking local DJs
 

On Sun, 28 Jan 2007 16:31:33 GMT, Doug Smith W9WI
wrote:

David wrote:
This is a failure of the EAS, not Clear Channel's business plan.
There ahould mechanisms in place to allow the local authorities to
override the regular programming when a time sensitive local emergency
warrants.

EAS is that mechanism. My understanding is that the local authorities
failed to activate it, or failed to activate an alternative local plan
that, if activated properly, would have alerted personnel who *were* on
duty at the Clear Channel stations and resulted in the broadcast of an
alert.

In any case, how much good would it have done if an alert had been
broadcast over Clear Channel's stations? They may have a 95% *share* of
the listening audience at 2am, but how many people are actually
listening to the radio in Minot, North Dakota at 2am?

The right place for this type of alert is NOAA Weather Radio.
Inexpensive radios are available that can be left on while sleeping,
that can be used to awaken the owner when something like this happens.
(you're not going to leave KZPR "Power 105" on all night every night in
case there's a disaster - the disaster will be when you try to function
in the morning without sleep!)

While we're at it, the EAS (and this should happen at the state level)
should be modified to stop running alerts over excessively large areas.
For example, several recent Amber Alerts issued *statewide* in
Tennessee in the early-morning hours. A Memphis resident can do nothing
about a child abduction in Bristol 400 miles away at 3am; if you keep
waking them up for this kind of alert, they're just going to turn off
their NOAA radio. (and next time there's a chemical spill in Memphis...)

I agree 100%. Right on.

Clear Channel and Public Service - We don't need no stinking local DJs
 

On Sun, 28 Jan 2007 10:31:08 -0800, D Tiernan
wrote:

Hold your breath for a little while and we will see the return of Ma
Bell (remember I said here).

Yeah but.....I predicted that they were going to solder the Bell
System back together almost 15 years ago. During those years my son
has worked for three of the incarnations (Pac*Bell, SBC, and now ATT)
and never left the same employer....now add BellSouth into the mix.

--
Phil Kane
Beaverton, OR

Clear Channel and Public Service - We don't need no stinkinglocal DJs
 

D Tiernan wrote:
AND NOAA should be an override on EVERY portable radio sold in the
country (programmable). IMO

I think you'd find if that were enforced, many bottom-of-the-line radios
would simply disappear from the marketplace, and many devices that
contain a radio essentially as an afterthought would simply drop the
radio function.

--
Doug Smith W9WI
Pleasant View (Nashville), TN EM66
http://www.w9wi.com

Clear Channel and Public Service - We don't need no stinkinglocal DJs
 

Doug Smith W9WI wrote:
D Tiernan wrote:
AND NOAA should be an override on EVERY portable radio sold in the
country (programmable). IMO

I think you'd find if that were enforced, many bottom-of-the-line radios
would simply disappear from the marketplace, and many devices that
contain a radio essentially as an afterthought would simply drop the
radio function.

A few decades back there was an "all channel radio bill" introduced in
Congress that would have mandated that all radios over $15 be FM
capable. Did that ever get off the ground?