4 ms·
> Local TV stations are required to broadcast weather. Television stations in the U.S. are required, in a broad sense, to serve their local communities, and ma
by wsh 5y ago
> Local TV stations are required to broadcast weather.
Television stations in the U.S. are required, in a broad sense, to serve their local communities, and many choose to do so by providing weather forecasts and alerts, but I don’t know of any law or regulation that requires broadcasters to provide weather information, in emergencies or at all.
Stations do have to participate in the Emergency Alert System, but they don’t have to transmit anything other than the required tests and an Emergency Action Notification for a national emergency. (See 47 CFR 11.52(d)(4).)
The better source for tornado and other warnings is NOAA Weather Radio (https://www.weather.gov/nwr/ https://www.weather.gov/nwr/), a network of dedicated FM stations transmitting in the 162 MHz band. Receivers are widely available and can be programmed to turn on only when a warning for a specific area is broadcast.
- dylan604 5y agoWell, yeah, required might have been too strong. It is strongly frowned upon for a station with a news/weather program to not participate in a "The NWS has requested...". Not sure they'd not get their license renewed, but their audience sure wouldn't watch them for much longer. What kind of news station would NOT broadcast this info? Besides, if you're a news/weather station in Tornado Alley, you pride yourself on the equipment and people operating it. They do entire promos dedicated to storm spotting etc. I've worked with one local station shooting a package specifically for this.
- Rebelgecko 5y agoSome of the news channels where my parents live have experimented with outsourcing and/or prerecording their weather reports. On one channel, the daily weather report talks about yesterday's weather and tomorrow's weather, but skips things like the current day's high temperature because it hasn't happened yet when that segment was recorded. Although I suppose if the anchors are live they can jump in with an emergency warning.
- dylan604 5y agoI hate everything you just said about current local station ownership. Budget cuts to the extreme to get outsourced weather. I don't know where "here" is for your parents, but I'm assuming weather doesn't get severe often there. Reminds me of LA. LA doesn't have weather. It has climate. The local programming there is beyond ridiculous. In my area, local weather people can literally save lives with their broadcasts. Yes, they get updates from NWS, but they are true meteorologists to be able to reach conclusions on their own without needing hand holding from NWS. That's my base line. Anything less than just seems like a waste.