Nations Best Sports Radio Show Opens Dialogue On Cut-Ins
I run late for work several times a month. I am supposed to be here by 2pm, and normally am, frequently sooner and sometimes later. But I digress. When I am late a few minutes, I am listening to Finebaum. When it is 2:07 and I am in my car, I will change the radio to WBHP to listen to the Bald Man. Monday afternoon, apparently after several Birmingham television stations blanketed the television airwaves with enough severe weather coverage to raise the ire of Central Alabamahians to take the complaints to the Finebaum show, since many of the important sports programs were covered by television stations’ weather coverage.
While what makes Paul’s program so compelling is his allowing callers to speak their minds, he frequently makes his show even that much better by providing just enough antagonism to each and every side represented to cause callers to bring their ‘A-game’. No extra energy was needed from Paul to spur the Finebaum listeners to speak their minds. In droves. In anger and in frustration. After hearing parts of 2 hours of this, Paul was gracious enough to allow me to speak with him regarding WAAY-31’s weather coverage philosophies, television weather coverage in general, and customer service in the broadcast business.
Listen to our Conversation HERE
I am reminded that if you anger enough customers, even if they feign anger at you when THEIR home is not affected, and then later blame you when their home is destroyed and you weren’t on, they will soon have such bad feelings about your product that no matter what you say, you’ll never gain their trust. A very interesting Finebaum program. Most of those who have watched me perform the weather at WAAY-31 for the past 5 years know how I feel about severe weather coverage. When we are on, it is time to listen, if we are off, you can let your guard down just a bit. When the storms get worse, we’ll let you know, and when we need to stay on for hours at a time, we will without hesitation. But as a rule, staying on for the artificial duration of a Tornado Warning is just not our policy. An NWS meteorologist may issue a warning for 20 or 40 minutes, but I can assure you that the thunderstorm doesn’t look at the clock. So neither do we.
The good news is, if you want to see people talk incessantly about thunderstorms that either are or aren’t severe, until the storms pass toward their expiration time, you’ll find that. It may or may not be me on a given day, but you can find it nonetheless. If you want to be scared, you can find that. If you want to be bored to tears, you can find that as well. As for me and my staff, we’ll behave only as is dictated by the thunderstorms themselves. We’ll cut in when there aren’t warnings at times, when no one else will, and we’ll only provide sporadic coverage in situations when the storms are strong enough for warnings, but not quite strong enough for wall-to-wall speaking, trying to justify for this reason and that why a storm is or is not dangerous.
And I’ll keep listening to Finebaum, when I can sneak in late, travel from here to there during the appointed hours, and from my desk in the weather office occasionally when I just can’t get enough of the subject of the day, and fellowship with the F-man, I-man, Charles from Reeltown, Tammy, and the rest of the crew who makes the show darned hard to miss. Oh, and today, Brad from Huntsville.
Brad Huffines, Chief Meteorologist / Storm Force 31
