Read More.At 5:40pm Central time, the TV stations serving Joplin were readying their early evening newscasts – and likely went on early with warnings and advisories. But at 5:40pm on a Sunday night, it’s likely most of the radio stations serving Joplin were running on automation.
How do I know this? Because I tuned in to a few on my Blackberry, using a lifesaver of an app called TuneIn Radio.
Many of the area’s radio stations weren’t streaming. I don’t know how many had emergency generators when the power went out. Or a backup phone system when the phones went out. Or any response plan for this kind of an event – at 5:40pm Central time on a Sunday night in Joplin.
If you are a station manager, you need to see to it that the phrase “Weekends? They’re the same everywhere” is banned from your premises. You need to assure that you have the assets and the people to throw at any life-threatening crisis – anywhere in your coverage area – at a moment’s notice. And perhaps most especially, on weekends, overnights and holidays – when your station may be the only game in town.
And you need a plan for round-the-clock sustained operations. Tornadoes, hurricanes, ice storms, earthquakes – all of these, and other disasters, too, can take down your over-the-air transmission systems.
Which means if you’re not streaming – and have a plan for creating and distributing streamed content from someplace OTHER than your studios and transmitter site – you run the risk of being put out of business in an instant.
HOWARD B. PRICE, CBCP, MBCI Howard is the director of business continuity and crisis management at ABC News in New York. A 35-year veteran of radio, television and newspapers, he is a two-time EMMY Award winner, and a recipient of The George Foster Peabody Award. He has worked domestically and internationally as a news producer, assignment editor, bureau chief, reporter and anchor, covering some of the biggest stories of our time, including the 9/11 attacks and the 2003 Northeast blackout
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