Even as this post is being written the wind is whipping and the rain coming down in sheets on the Providence-New Bedford TV market. Like the rain WPRI (CBS) and WNAC (FOX) both saw their signal go down during the storm. At about 11PM Wednesday WPRI/WNAC posted this message to Facebook. Signal was lost during the 10PM hour.
"Due to technical difficulties related to the weather, WPRI 12 and FOX Providence are currently off the air. Our staff is working feverishly to resolve the problem and hope to be back online within the hour. We apologize for the inconvenience."
This loss of signal comes at a most unfortunate time, WNAC was in the middle of airing game 2 of the World Series, and WPRI 12 had a newscast scheduled to start at 11. Losing the world series signal is bad for the obvious reason, it is a live sporting event, and when or if it comes back there will be a whole chunk of the game missed.
Being off the air for news is equally bad because in the middle of severe weather at 11 at night people are likely to be in bed and looking to get the latest on the weather from the TV. When you are not on viewers will go somewhere else and usually stay there.
WPRI and WNAC were back on around 11:30, and we are not in a ratings period so no true foul for the Providence Lin properties. It is also fair to mention that in two hurricanes (2011 and 2012) WPRI never lost signal. WLNE lost signal during Hurricane Irene in 2011, and was off the air for several hours.
No comments:
Post a Comment