Hurricane Helene

[tyrannical bastard 4036]

This record-breaking storm is heading directly for Tallahassee, and could have far-reaching impacts in surrounding areas including even Atlanta. 

 

Tallahassee being the media market that it is, there's Gray's WCTV and Scripps' WTXL.  

 

And then there's Sinclair's WTWC.  Last time (during Idalia) they piped in dedicated coverage from West Palm Beach.  Their Fox channel still gets their news from WCTV. Not even a weather warning so far on the NBC side.  Hopefully Sinclair is prepared, especially since they have to pipe in coverage and if there's any local effects to the stations this may actually be an advantage.

 

I'll be curious to see if WMBB in Panama City and WFLA in Tampa actually offer live coverage online...since it's a hurricane and people need to evacuate out of their market areas...

Edited September 26, 2024 by tyrannical bastard

[MediaZone4K 2254]

16 hours ago, tyrannical bastard said:

This record-breaking storm is heading directly for Tallahassee, and could have far-reaching impacts in surrounding areas including even Atlanta. 

 

Tallahassee being the media market that it is, there's Gray's WCTV and Scripps' WTXL.  

 

And then there's Sinclair's WTWC.  Last time (during Idalia) they piped in dedicated coverage from West Palm Beach.  Their Fox channel still gets their news from WCTV. Not even a weather warning so far on the NBC side.  Hopefully Sinclair is prepared, especially since they have to pipe in coverage and if there's any local effects to the stations this may actually be an advantage.

 

I'll be curious to see if WMBB in Panama City and WFLA in Tampa actually offer live coverage online...since it's a hurricane and people need to evacuate out of their market areas...

Your post prompted me to check this out. It's is quite the situation with a category 4 hurricane headed towards the area, and *only one station offers live newscasts --- WCTV. Well, big 'win' for them!

 

Is WTXL all Scripps casts? It'll be interesting to see how a prerecorded newscast works with rapidly changing storm information.

 

And of course the Sinclair station has no news department. 

Edited September 26, 2024 by MediaZone4K

[tyrannical bastard 4036]

It's not even wall-to-wall at this point with ANY station.  Maybe because of the "total evacuation" of coastal counties, or the general state of TV itself.  Or it could be the timing of the landfall.

 

Several years ago, being this close to landfall without wall-to-wall coverage was unheard of.

 

Even the Weather Channel stayed with regular programming after midnight to 6am ET.  Fox Weather went with full coverage.

 

And from what I saw with WTXL, it was mostly Scrippscast with their chief meteorologist leading coverage in the studio.

 

I would hope Sinclair starts something real quick.  There's no excuse to have NOTHING for a storm of this magnitude, especially in an area that's never had one like this before.

[tyrannical bastard 4036]

Update: WTXL and WCTV are live with storm coverage. (Cut-ins only)

 

If WTXL doesn't do live from the field, they may stay in the weather wall or feed packages or look-lives as they come.

Edited September 26, 2024 by tyrannical bastard

[tyrannical bastard 4036]

It's 5pm ET and WTWC has a NBC News Special Report about the Hurricane.  Afterwards, they went back to Dr. Phil, already in progress...

 

Come on Sinclair....

 

At least "FOX 49" is relaying WCTV's coverage....

Edited September 26, 2024 by tyrannical bastard

[tyrannical bastard 4036]

WTWC has coverage now.  It may be WPEC feeding them (with a CBS 4 bug) like they did last year.

Edited September 26, 2024 by tyrannical bastard

[tyrannical bastard 4036]

At some point in the evening, YouTube TV lost both WTWC NBC and "Fox 49".  They've been replaced by a feed of WNBC New York and FOXNET.

 

I didn't know FOXNET still existed!  I thought it went away after Greenville, MS started a subchannel affiliate in 2006.

[GoldenShine_10 104]

WALB is also wall-to-wall right now, although sharing with WCTV at times. Not sure how much WCJB did in Gainesville.

Edited September 27, 2024 by GoldenShine_10

[tyrannical bastard 4036]

Likely due to the connectivity and power issues in and around Greenville/Spartanburg/Asheville, Fox Carolina is not available on YouTubeTV or streaming online.  WLOS in Asheville is available.

 

The devastation there may be difficult to cover because of the access issues caused by the flooding that washed out the roads leading in and out of these places. 

So when people ask "why is this not leading the news?"  the access itself is so limited that it is only for the locals and those able to help them. 

That's why the outside is being encouraged to stay until the immediate issues are tackled.

[MediaZone4K 2254]

Surprisingly for me,  Fox 5 Atlanta went all the way down to Valdosta (3.5 hours away) for wall-to-wall coverage well past 2 am. I'll check to see if other stations did the same. 

 

I've spent a lot of time in ATL and never got the impression that the two areas were that culturally connected. Regardless the well-resourced O&O station filled the coverage gap in the Tallahassee market, and it built up to what was coming ATL's way. 

Edited September 30, 2024 by MediaZone4K

[tyrannical bastard 4036]

2 hours ago, MediaZone4K said:

Surprisingly for me,  Fox 5 Atlanta went all the way down to Valdosta (3.5 hours away) for wall-to-wall coverage well past 2 am. I'll check to see if other stations did the same. 

 

I've spent a lot of time in ATL and never got the impression that the two areas were that culturally connected. Regardless the well-resourced O&O station filled the coverage gap in the Tallahassee market, and it built up to what was coming ATL's way. 

That coverage may have had the dual purpose of serving Fox Weather (and even Fox News) as well, which has really been on top of things moreso than the Weather Channel.

[nathannah 2505]

On 9/26/2024 at 10:38 PM, tyrannical bastard said:

At some point in the evening, YouTube TV lost both WTWC NBC and "Fox 49".  They've been replaced by a feed of WNBC New York and FOXNET.

 

I didn't know FOXNET still existed!  I thought it went away after Greenville, MS started a subchannel affiliate in 2006.

Fox maintains a backup streaming-only feed for the few stubborn stations which refuse to get anything online.

[tyrannical bastard 4036]

17 minutes ago, mrschimpf said:

Fox maintains a backup streaming-only feed for the few stubborn stations which refuse to get anything online.

By now, I thought all markets had access to a Fox affiliate.  Even Glendive pipes in the Fox afflilate from Billings.

 

FOXNET must truly be a network feed that's filled in with other FOX sources, unlike the channel it used to be with old series and "The Fox Report" at 10/9pm.

[GoldenShine_10 104]

3 hours ago, MediaZone4K said:

Surprisingly for me,  Fox 5 Atlanta went all the way down to Valdosta (3.5 hours away) for wall-to-wall coverage well past 2 am. I'll check to see if other stations did the same. 

 

I've spent a lot of time in ATL and never got the impression that the two areas were that culturally connected. Regardless the well-resourced O&O station filled the coverage gap in the Tallahassee market, and it built up to what was coming ATL's way. 

 

That's interesting. I know WANF also brought a few people down to support WALB and WCTV (including a meteorologist). Not sure if WSB or WXIA brought anyone down.

[EVVTV12 146]

On 9/30/2024 at 3:24 PM, tyrannical bastard said:

By now, I thought all markets had access to a Fox affiliate.  Even Glendive pipes in the Fox afflilate from Billings.

 

FOXNET must truly be a network feed that's filled in with other FOX sources, unlike the channel it used to be with old series and "The Fox Report" at 10/9pm.

FOXNET is used as an emergency back up service. After Hurricane Laura hit in 2020, KVHP was taken off the air. FOX piped in the network on cable via FOXNET until the station was able to get back in full operations later that year.