KETV Defends Decision To Split Screen

Chief Meteorologist Bill Randby said KETV (Cox Channel 9) did its best Saturday night to provide a public service to those at risk of severe weather while still allowing the Nebraska-USC football game to be seen.

"Tornado warnings during an extremely highly-viewed event are so rare, but we were prepared," Randby said. "When the worst case happened - a metro tornado warning, which we have always covered with continuous coverage - we acted by going to a double box."

Randby credits Assistant News Director Vonn Jones for the idea of splitting the screen - half of it showing ABC's coverage of football game, the other half showing live severe weather coverage anchored by weekend meteorologist John Campbell.

"We were still doing a public service of getting out street by street, neighborhood by neighborhood information of who was at risk, and still allowing viewers to keep track of the game," Randby said.

Randby said the station's game plan was to use its news ticker at the bottom of the screen for severe weather warnings during the game, then go to "normal" storm alert (with looping counties and radar images) during pregame, halftime, and commercial time.

"That served us for the first half of the game," he said.

When the threat of severe weather intensified, the split screen was put into place and the phones in KETV's newsroom started ringing. Randby says he has "no idea" of the exact number of viewer complaints (newsroom personnel were answering the calls), but says he received 93 e-mails during the game. Five of them were complimentary of the station's coverage, he said.

Campbell Received Death Threats
On his blog, Campbell said he received death threats for interrupting coverage of the football game.

"I want to set the record straight that it's our policy to cut-in when there is danger to the public and this was definitely the case last night," Campbell writes. "We worked hard to keep the game going in the double-box system. I did not want to cut-in, but the situation warranted it. I apologize for the people trying to watch the game. I really do feel bad for the the interruptions.

"At the same point, while I feel horrible about interrupting the loss, I found the reaction by some people horrible too. Again, I wish I could change how things turned out. However, it's never fun getting death threats or having people calling me things I wouldn't even call Hitler or when people wish me a 'slow and painful death.'"

New 'WeatherNow' Not Utilized
Randby said the station opted not to use its new "WeatherNow" feature, a local 24-hour local weather channel KETV-DT 7.2 and online at KETV.com, as an alternative to interrupting the game.

"The decision to go to a double box for cut-ins meant it would not translate well to a live video window in WeatherNow," he said. "We would have had a double box in the video window - surrounded by the L bar of information - and I am certain it would be too small to see either one of the boxes, remembering that the video window is much smaller in weather now than on KETV."

Randby said the station is now looking into how to adjust its live weather feed to better accommodate a situation like that in the future.

Other Stations' Coverage
On WOWT (Cox Channel 8), weekend meteorologist Jeff Jensen handled in-studio coverage while Chief Meteorologist Jim Flowers phoned in reports, including one of a wall cloud north of Gretna. It was on the basis of that report that the National Weather Service office in Valley issued the tornado warning, according to Jensen.

KMTV (Cox Channel 5) interrupted CBS' broadcast of the Florida-Tennessee game to go wall-to-wall with its severe coverage. Weekend meteorologist Dean Wysocki was joined by Chief Meteorologist Ryan McPike and morning meteorologist CT Thongklin.

At KPTM (Cox Channel 10), weekend meteorologist Nathan Moore worked his first night on the air while Chief Meteorologist Tyson Pearsall filed reports from the field via phone.