Am I the only one around that feels we needed better local news coverage by our local TV stations?
I mean, I had to tune into Houston and San Antonio stations to get info on places a few hours away. Not to mention local weather advisories.
But whenever I switched to our local ABC affiliate, I never even saw a text crawl on the bottom of the screen.
I think it's really sad. We had people in our area with families there, we had people in our region who were fleeing the storm, not to mention plant workers who work near the coast, and we couldn't even give our guests and people who stayed here in our area updates.
I mean... I guess I'm just a layman but SA news sent people around and they were farther away, did live shots, and when they couldn't they piggy backed off of other sister stations in the area (isn't that what affiliates do?)
Sad to say, when I awoke Saturday morning to see if we got any winds we were expecting, all I got was a Hanna Montana episode on the Victoria station, and had to tune into San Antonio and CNN of all things to get footage, news and updates.
SO the next time that Victoria television station group wants to advertise they are on top of things with their big bad 6 tv stations, I would like to call shennanigans on them. If they can take the time to make cooking segments in the mornings and low budget high school football shows on Friday nights, they can take the time to break in every hour or so to let locals know what is going on.
Too bad they are the only game in town... that's why I broke my TV addiction, I'm sad this storm made me start watching again.
-end transmission
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TIM:You remember our blogger buddy Keli Rhea. She had a 4.0 GPA in Journalism at UHV. The LOCO station wouldn't even talk to her, probably because she could SPELL and write intelligent copy. Evidently being a gringo disqualified her because they hired some local amigas & amigos because they were "family" or "friends" of the staff. This isn't the only instance where UHV grads couldn't even get interviews in Victoria. Fortunately for those who were so snubbed, they went elsewhere to be appreciated and to be given a living wage. Their chances for advancement are probably much better as well. After all, what did you expect?
September 15, 2008 at 2:49 p.m.I was lucky enough to have DirecTV. They ran KHOU out of Houston 24/7 on channel 361....and still are. I also have SuddenLink for the local networks (can't get local networks on DirecTV living inside Victoria) but they were running infomercials all day on KHOU's channel (channel 11). Apparently to not step on Victoria's local NBC affiliate.
September 14, 2008 at 11:21 p.m.I'm not endorsing DirecTV, but it was nice to have the somewhat local 24/7 access to hurricane coverage....along with the Advocate's Hurricane Center and the Weather Channel. They use that channel to run the local news where ever a hurricane hits....interesting to watch whether we're in the cross bars or not.
For around-the-clock coverage, I would encourage you to check out our Hurricane Center. We had Associated Press feeds giving you the latest news as it happened. The good part of reading the news is you don't have to wade through all of the TV filler. AP also provided video.
For live video of the storm, though, I did tune in to The Weather Channel. That guy in the parking garage was something else.
September 14, 2008 at 4:39 p.m.I'm not complaining about all media in Victoria... just TV
September 14, 2008 at 3:33 p.m.The reality is that doing a text crawl costs the television station almost no money because I have seen them do it for strong thundestorm warnings.
I am not asking them to stand out in the weather like Geraldo did and get battered on by the storm, but breaking in every hour to give us an update or at least tell us what to expect locally would not have killed them, their little studio and weather chroma key screen would have worked just fine for me and the rest of the residents of VIC so we could at least keep up on a local level.
The reality is, our station is a joke, I have heard from college students in other cities that some professors use our newscasts as examples of what not to do. This could have been a situation where they could have won over some critics and given some residents some peace of mind, but didnt.