What happened to KIRO's 24/7 weather reporting?

KIRO neglecting the weather in the middle of Snowmigod 2010??

KIRO? Say it ain't so, Joe.

We've always made fun of the 24/7 radio weatherpaloozas, but they're always some of the most listened-to broadcasts ever. They may be tedious if newsmeat's what you're looking for, but if you're nervous about shelter, and transpo, or just need to hear a commiserating voice in the cold night... guess you may be pretty fond of such.

It's what's about live & local radio: it's community when the community needs it the most.

An email we got:

KIRO 97.3 offered no late night coverage of the Seattle blizzard, KOMO 1000 did. They are no longer a reliable local news and info. station and most stranded by the blizzard would probably agree.

We're out of town, when we tuned in to KIROFM Tuesday night, we  were shocked to hear a fill-in for Frank Shiers who's best known in Seattle for his brave all-night stretches behind the mic as the wind blew and the streets frizzed-over.

Frank, apparently, was home in bed.

A comment in the trade Radio-Info forums:

I am sitting in snow impacted traffic in Seattle. I tuned in KIRO and they are talking about Dave Ross vacation and playing clips from Saturday Night Live. I tuned into KOMO and John was taking weather/traffic related calls.

KIROFM's abandonment of this signals another big change in  direction of this heritage local news station.

 Or as another Radio-Info reader opines, "Another sign that KIRO is no longer a news station."

(Cartoons H/T The Penquin Times)

Comments

[Rat_Bastard]

KOMO has always been the "neighbor to neighbor" coverage for storms.
I did the same thing...
Heard Ross talking about airport scanners and then jumped to Carlson who was taking calls about conditions.

[bmacv]

Back-benchers (non of the regular KIRO news team) on duty Thanksgiving Day. News stops, you know, on holidays.

[Tommy008]

Mormons should never be put in chsrge of anything except a church. I used to joke about apes in suits running kiroAM/FM, but it seems it is all coming true. A race to mediocrity and much, much lower, instigated by- The Mormons- , the latter days (end days) of KIRO radio people. If we wanted to live in a bland, anti-intellectual nonentity like Salt Lake City we'd move there, you vulgar, beancounting assholes.

[Tommy008]

Mayor McGinn was torn a new one by Ken Schram and Dori Monson alike on the hours and days following the storm. That's when you know you really screwed up.i've had bad feeling about this guy from day one.

[Tommy008]

Why is a freaking religion owning and running secular radio stations in this country? Even the damn Catholics don't do this.

[Seattle to Mormons- get out of Seattle Radio]

Mormons, get out of Seattle Radio---about time soneone said it.

[cueburner]

So, is it true that KIRO and its parent company, Bonneville, get tax advantages by being owned by the tax exempt LDS Church?

A now retired GM of a Bonneville competitor swore to me some time ago that it was true, and it wasn't the liquor talking.

[Fred]

Amazing how people so quickly forget that Bonneville owned KIRO from the '60s through 1997 - and during that time it had the best newsroom in the market and lead the ratings.

Entercom swapped the station back to Bonneville in '06 and at the time people were giddy hoping for a return to the "salad days" of Bonneville's earlier ownership of the station. Sadly, that never happened.

[kb]

Amazing how people so quickly forget that Bonneville owned KIRO from the '60s through 1997

Thank you! The previous comments obviously can't remember past 10 years.

KIRO has indeed fallen - but I think they're just an example of radio in general. The morning news sure has slipped - I don't care for Radke basically having the whole slot with Linda Thomas coming in and repeating the same headlines every 20 minutes.

[Earl Shankmeister]

Bonneville, the first time around, was a much different company. The biggest difference was the CEO.

During the first go-round, the Bonneville CEO was Rod Brady. Brady allowed local managers to run things with a great deal of autonomy. They had to produce and make a profit, but the local managers called the shots.

The second time around for KIRO, the CEO is Bruce Reese. Reese and regional manager Drew Horowitz who is based in Chicago, call all the shots. They made the decision to move to FM and to dump much of the live and local content nights and weekends and to cut back on news staffing.

The local managers who were in charge when Bonneville took over in 2007 were emasculated on day one.

[ExPatBrit]

Tommy008

I don't live in Seattle, but my wife works by Lake Union and took 9 hours to get home on Monday night (Sound Transit). Not a big fan of McGinn, but I think the main problems were
1.not opening the Northbound and Southbound express lanes(WSDOT)
2.Metro and Sound Transit not having chains on their buses
3 Both sound transit and metro
using articulated buses.

All three decisions effectively gummed up Seattle as suburban commuters hit the local streets desperate to find a way home, and McGinn wasn't the decider on any of them.

Furthermore Munson has consistently said we don't need light rail, because more buses would be much cheaper.

Light rail did good on Monday, but I don't see Munson pointing that out.

[dave, not dave ross]

light rail did well and i did talk to one person from my gym downtown who was commuting that way to south seattle. the problem is light rail doesnt go where most people in seattle need to go. I do not understand why there is not a dedicated team of people who can open and close the express lanes, no matter what else is happening. The salt brine that was put down stopped working in the coldest weather, and dot allowed the icing to get ahead of them, thus closing suspended bridges. There did not seem to be much co-ordination between metro, the city and dot. After the weather went above 20 degrees or so the brine did seem to work, and i thot the roads cleared faster than usual of snow and ice. But really, WHY WERE OVER 200 BUSSES STUCK AND CLOGGING UP THE ROADS??? We may not know much about handling our snow situation, but WE KNOW those busses will get stuck, they do every time and nothing is done to change this sad story. The articulated busses cannot drive in snow or ice at all, period. also, i am told by metro employees that the experienced drivers call in sick during these episodes because they dont want to be stuck out there in an articulated bus that THEY know they will be driving. that leaves less experienced drivers on the road. and speaking of car drivers, many were not prepared, not even with a full tank of gas, they were in vehicles that could not perform in the ice and snow and were a large part of the problem. I was able to travel in a 4wd on eastlake from the north to downtown during the worst of it with no problem, likwise taking aurora back north and up by greenlake. If nothing else can we at least fix the bus getting stuck issues? sorry for the long post, its cathartic

[Andrew]

This was a pretty quick "snow event". I think most people will forget all about this. People don't start reaching for their daggers until we're about three days into impassable roadways. Missing a single day of anything for whatever reason simply isn't that big of deal. On the other hand, there's still a good chance we might have to deal with much worse before winter is over.

[Tommy008]

Dori is complaining today (week or two old show repeat) about the old 1995 era tv set he has in the studio. It's so old that he can't see the scorebox on the side of the screen during Seahawks games because the broadcasts are geared to the new widescreen plasma format. His new PD at KIRO just got a 32 inch plasma installed in his office.

[Tommy008]

Phillips has a brand new portable digital tv with a 9 inch screen for 99 dollars. i dont know if it has a cable plug, probably does, but the Seahawks are carried on over the air tv locally so it is a moot point. Dori can bring that screen right up close, and see that scoreboard with no problem. PROBLEM SOLVED. Get your keyboard clicking on Overstock.com Dori.

[Tommy008]

And yes you're putting it on YOUR credit card Dori. Don't be such a cheap bastard.

[Stillhandsome]

I don't think any of you were listening to KIRO during afternoon drive. Ron and Don were gone, Jessica Gottessman and Seattle news/music legend Mike West were teamed up. Started out awkward, but when they brought the news team in, (Led by Lisa Brooks, who pioneered driver-to-driver coverage on KOMO radio) they were wonderful. Tim Hake showed his experience with storms in Seattle. Too bad it stopped when that sad DJ guy took over for Frank. I heard it all, and preferred KIRO to KOMO while I was slogging through a 6 hour commute home. You still got it, KIRO. You just gotta believe it and give your news department some space, for crissakes.

[ExPatBrit]

Dave not Dave Ross, I think you are correct about the inexperienced drivers. The driver of my wife's ST bus did everything he could to convince the passengers to "abandon ship" but WTF were they supposed to go. At the end of the route it was apparent he was lost in Redmond and he kicked everyone off about 1/2 mile from the P&R at 12:30 am.

[Tommy008]

thankfully all was clear for today Black Friday. I just got back from downtowm and I've never seen so many people downtown in my life. It looked like the anti-war rallies during the Vietnam War in 1969=70. Good fo rthe city's economy. Things seem to be turning around a bit, moneywise.

[Tacoma Listener]

I drove two roundtrips from Tacoma To Seattle Monday night/Tuesday Morning.

I turned off KIRO FM too that substitute host was terrible.

KOMO sucked on the driver to driver in the evening. I never did hear good reports of how road conditions were. Instead you'd get a call on air "I live in Kitsap county and the roads are slick over here", or the guy in Tumwater "I came to work at 9:30 am and there was an accident" WHO CARES?

Four years ago during the Monday Night Football game we had terrible conditions. Made it through that too. Charlie Harger at KOMO did great job that nite, people called in with suggestions to get around the mess

I tried calling KOMO to give them the route of 4th and Hwy 509.

I came up I-5 to Tukwila 599 and when I got to Old Hwy99, 599 was closed and we had to detour up 99 to E Marginal/Boeing Access Road. I got on Airport Northbound and smooth sailing.

Going back to Tacoma, I went down 4th Ave over the rail yards, then to 1st Ave and 1st Ave Bridge; South on 509 to S 188th, Hwy 99 to S 200th and then back on I-5.

Reversed it for the 2nd trip to Seattle from Tacoma and again going back. Never saw more than 10 cars each trip on 509.

I tried to give this info to KOMO and early in the AM they finally starting saying to get off I-5.

BTW we'll have to figure out how SeaMar Community Health Centers, a non profit organization giving health care to mainly minorities is buying radio station KKMO for 2.7 MILLION DOLLARS! How much of that money came from us, the taxpayers thru Federal and State monies. Or from a sponsor called United Way of King County.

[joanie]

Traveled north on the freeway to BB Wednesday evening and had no problem at all. Everything I heard on the radio said freeways were doing fine.

A snow causes problems in Seattle. Esp. first snows. I thought this was handled well considering it was the first The wind was amazing. Lots of wind damage up north but my place was fine.

I thought we fared pretty well this year. Too bad everyone has to try to get to work . . . we ought to just close down as long as these weather crises are as infrequent as they are.