Ridin' The Storm Out

The first thing is that we're fine. The hurricane is gone, we were prepared, the storm hit just up the coast but we avoided a direct hit, and now we go back to awaiting the end of Hurricane Season. We're almost there.

Okay, then, radio. I'm not going to belabor the points I've previously made about how radio performs in an emergency, because I'm tired of doing that and you're tired of reading that. Radio should be prepared, it should have all-hands-on-deck coverage, it should have redundant technical facilities, it should be in communication with all emergency sources. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't, sometimes it can't. You know that.

Did my local stations have any of that stuff for Hurricane Nicole? I dunno. We lost power three times but for very short bursts; otherwise, the power was on, the TV worked, and we watched one of the local stations for coverage. If we'd lost power, we have emergency radios galore, some hand-cranked, some battery powered, and we'd have listened to....

Turns out that we'd likely have been hearing the audio of the same TV coverage we were watching. Every so often, the anchors would remind viewers that they could hear the coverage on several radio stations in the market. The emergency plans for these radio stations, as they are for so many stations across the country, is to drop regular programming and just air the audio from the TV coverage. It's not the same as doing your own coverage, but if you can't turn on your TV, it's way better than nothing.

But you can guess the problem. A LOT of the coverage we saw was visual. Anchors and reporters were talking about what we were seeing on the screen, with a lot of "look at this" or "you can see right here." Graphics offered critical information that the anchors didn't read in its entirety. There were maps galore, and "spaghetti models," and the meteorologist pointing at the map and saying "if you're on this side of the storm" or "you can see where the gusts are strongest."

Not if we're listening to the radio, we can't. Which leads me to a modest proposal: Maybe the stations signing up to carry a TV station's emergency coverage audio should assign one or two of their own people to jump on and interject with an audio description of important visuals. This exists on television as an accessibility option on some shows, and it's called audio description. Simply put, it's someone quickly describing what's on the screen in the gaps between dialogue. It's like if someone read the stage directions in a script to you while you watched a movie. And in the case of radio carrying TV audio in an emergency, having someone say "he's pointing to Boca Raton and Delray Beach" or "the lines run through Indian River and St. Lucie County" would help listeners comprehend what's going on. It wouldn't cost much and it would vastly improve the experience and the usefulness of the information.

It's just a thought. I know that the radio industry's financial position means that many, if not most, stations outside major markets can't or won't devote a lot of resources to the play-by-play of an emergency, and they're going to farm it out to a crosstown TV station if they can. And because that's the way things are, it would just be nice to make that work as best it can under the circumstances. It won't replace original team coverage, but at the very least it would alleviate some of the problems with using TV news audio.

Oh, and one more thing. Having a battery-powered or hand-cranked radio on hand when the power goes out and a hurricane (or wildfire, or tornadoes, or blizzard, or any other emergency) is essential, and it was even stressed on that TV coverage we were watching. Your cell phone may not be able to get a signal when the power's out, and smart speakers will be useless when the router's off, but radio will work. Shouldn't radio stations be giving away emergency radios to everyone? They're cheap, they're reliable, and when research shows so many people without radios in their homes, and when you can't even find radios to buy in many stores, it seems like a good idea for stations to put those radios in people's hands. Get a sponsor to foot the bill, buy 'em in bulk, slap your logo and the sponsor's logo on them, and hand them out. Nobody's going to turn them down, they'll be happy to get a free piece of technology, and, hey, you've gotten an actual radio into their home.

Who knows? They might even listen to it, and to you. Couldn't hurt.

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The emergency is gone this time, and so, except for a few straggling races, are the midterms, which means you'll need some more stuff to talk about on the radio or on your podcast. That's why there's All Access News-Talk-Sports' Talk Topics show prep page. Get there by clicking here, and you can also follow the Talk Topics Twitter feed at @talktopics and find every story individually linked to the appropriate item. Also, don't miss "10 Questions With..." my ol' pal and talk radio veteran Peter Thiele, now PD and morning host at KZRG/Joplin, MO and always an entertaining and funny guy who will surprise and delight every time.

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You can follow my personal Twitter account at @pmsimon, and my Instagram account (same handle, @pmsimon) as well. Yeah, I'm on Mastadon, too, for now, at @pmsimon@c.im.

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The hurricane left town. The Eagles remain undefeated as of this writing. The Phillies gave it a good run, ended up with a pennant and a future. The sun's out. Democracy's still mostly intact. We can ignore Twitter and the Sixers for now. I'm gonna call it a good week. Hope it was good for you, too.

Perry Michael Simon
Senior Vice President/Editor-in-Chief and News-Talk-Sports-Podcasting Editor
AllAccess.com
psimon@allaccess.com
Twitter @pmsimon
Mastadon @pmsimon@c.im