How Much (Hype) For Philly?
I have lived in Philadelphia for nearly five years. It’s not as if I’ve never seen snow or snow on the TV news before – I’m a native of Minneapolis and have seen plenty of wonderful winter storms. It’s not as if storms were not hyped either – the larger winter storms (6 or 8 inches and more) were given their fair share of coverage.
However, the nature of coverage given to Philadelphia winter events is not only intriguing to me but also seems like a pattern of perpetual habit. Each event features the same coverage by the same channel. From following the plows to going to the ACME to Home Depot, the goings-on at 3, 6, 10, 29, and CN8 are almost clockwork in nature and an exact science to follow. Given this, I was curious to know why snow coverage by Philadelphia television is what it is.
I posed this question a couple of weeks ago, directed to those who live in Philadelphia and those who have lived or visited Philadelphia and have seen the hype first-hand at some point. I received many replies and I thank each of you again for sending me your thoughts. I truly appreciate it and it helped me gain insight into the phenomenon.
The French Toast Phenomenon
Several individuals have told me publicly and privately about the copious quantities of french toast consumed around and after a storm. Whenever it snows, one runs to the ACME (in Bala Cynwyd or elsewhere) to get their bread, eggs, and milk. What to do with all that bread and milk? Make French Toast. Kyle Barger, a native of North Carolina, says he thought that this was only a particular phenomenon of the Carolinas and that when he “moved here to go to grad school in 1990, I figured people wouldn’t act like that in a big northern city like Philadelphia. Boy, was I wrong.”
One individual, a meteorologist in this area who asked to remain anonymous (not to sound like Bob Woodward or anything) for this piece shares with me the idea that perhaps the TV stations, whenever they go to nonstop storm coverage, should air a PSA on how to make French Toast and how to properly store their shovels after the winter is over. It is as if a shovel is one particular item constantly being bought on an annual basis for one reason or another.
It seems that I may have seen a few of the shovel buyers at least twice on Philadelphia television in my time here. What do they do with their shovels? I don’t think I have seen any shovels on the garage sale circuit over the years!
Joy Matkowski, who lived in Philadelphia but has moved outside the area in recent years, thinks, with a slight twinkle in her eye, that the supermarkets are in cahoots with the local news outlets because they “pay many of the bills for the local news shows for the very reason of selling excess milk before it goes bad.”
That could seem viable. How many ACME or ShopRite ads are plastered in the local news? Some free publicity is always nice – especially since we know that whenever it snows the cameras flock to the ACME on City Line Avenue!
The roots of hype
For many growing up in the 1960’s and 1970’s, whenever Herb Clarke, Jim O’Brien, and others forecasted snow on the TV, the drone of KYW News Radio running three and four digit numbers for 20-30 minutes in a row was music to a child’s ears. Edward Hershon, South Jersey native and now resident in the Baltimore area recalls “cursing out the school administrators for not closing when we had five or six inches of snow.” Back in those days, several noted that KYW did not hype up the snowstorm but simply ran through the business of getting those hundreds of numbers announced.
How times have changed. Most TV outlets have a school closing tracker, 1060 does not always read EVERY number each half hour, and the internet allows anyone to find out about their school closing with a point and click to a few websites.
Technology has aided those changes but what changed the attitude towards snow in Philadelphia?
Josh Rosenberg believes that “1994 is a big part of the reason for the hype. Just ten months after the March 1993 storm that shut down the city for a weekend, you’d think we would’ve been better prepared for winter weather. But every time another storm hit in 1994, it was more ice and more disruption.”
The winter of 1994 featured a full week consecutively missed of school and power outages because of the ice storms. Rosenberg guesses that “newscasters didn’t want that problem to repeat itself.”
Paul from East Nantmeal brings the start of the hype slightly closer to today. “I can tell you exactly when this all began - it was with the Blizzard of 96 when the local networks all noted how big weather news was for ratings.”
Ratings, ratings, ratings
I admit that on occasion I turn into a deer in the headlights whenever the threat of big snow comes towards us. Not just because I need to see what Hurricane, Kathy, Cecily, or Rob thinks will fall from the sky, but also because I get a kick out of watching the cameras scurry out to 202 in North Delaware, to South Jersey, King of Prussia, and Whitehall in the Lehigh Valley. The most common response I received to why this was occurring was ratings, ratings, ratings. When people watch, news outlets make money. Cash is king to TV news, as it is the single-biggest revenue producer for a television station.
But is it justified? A couple of individuals told me that the media is in the business of making the news.
“When it comes to predictions of snow, I think the media has broken one of the basic rules of journalism by creating the news,” was the reply of Brendan Kelley, a resident of Philadelphia. He went on to tell me that “if you track the total inches of snowfall predicted in a year compared to the number of inches that actually fell, it won’t be a question of whether the predictions are excessive, simply how much of an excess.”
I guess Hurricane Schwarz’s 12-17” prediction would beg to differ on that standpoint alone. However, NBC10 was cited by several as one of the chief offenders in the hype wars. From naming winter storms in the late 1990s to developing a five category scale for winter storms that they use today to have changing background colors for the Earth Watch weather center, NBC10 is consistently banging the winter storm hype drum as well as anyone. I guess I am trying to wonder if it matters that their backdrop is RED when there is a snow advisory for someone. Does that make their coverage better than the others? I would disagree on that point.
Click for Part 2
However, the nature of coverage given to Philadelphia winter events is not only intriguing to me but also seems like a pattern of perpetual habit. Each event features the same coverage by the same channel. From following the plows to going to the ACME to Home Depot, the goings-on at 3, 6, 10, 29, and CN8 are almost clockwork in nature and an exact science to follow. Given this, I was curious to know why snow coverage by Philadelphia television is what it is.
I posed this question a couple of weeks ago, directed to those who live in Philadelphia and those who have lived or visited Philadelphia and have seen the hype first-hand at some point. I received many replies and I thank each of you again for sending me your thoughts. I truly appreciate it and it helped me gain insight into the phenomenon.
The French Toast Phenomenon
Several individuals have told me publicly and privately about the copious quantities of french toast consumed around and after a storm. Whenever it snows, one runs to the ACME (in Bala Cynwyd or elsewhere) to get their bread, eggs, and milk. What to do with all that bread and milk? Make French Toast. Kyle Barger, a native of North Carolina, says he thought that this was only a particular phenomenon of the Carolinas and that when he “moved here to go to grad school in 1990, I figured people wouldn’t act like that in a big northern city like Philadelphia. Boy, was I wrong.”
One individual, a meteorologist in this area who asked to remain anonymous (not to sound like Bob Woodward or anything) for this piece shares with me the idea that perhaps the TV stations, whenever they go to nonstop storm coverage, should air a PSA on how to make French Toast and how to properly store their shovels after the winter is over. It is as if a shovel is one particular item constantly being bought on an annual basis for one reason or another.
It seems that I may have seen a few of the shovel buyers at least twice on Philadelphia television in my time here. What do they do with their shovels? I don’t think I have seen any shovels on the garage sale circuit over the years!
Joy Matkowski, who lived in Philadelphia but has moved outside the area in recent years, thinks, with a slight twinkle in her eye, that the supermarkets are in cahoots with the local news outlets because they “pay many of the bills for the local news shows for the very reason of selling excess milk before it goes bad.”
That could seem viable. How many ACME or ShopRite ads are plastered in the local news? Some free publicity is always nice – especially since we know that whenever it snows the cameras flock to the ACME on City Line Avenue!
The roots of hype
For many growing up in the 1960’s and 1970’s, whenever Herb Clarke, Jim O’Brien, and others forecasted snow on the TV, the drone of KYW News Radio running three and four digit numbers for 20-30 minutes in a row was music to a child’s ears. Edward Hershon, South Jersey native and now resident in the Baltimore area recalls “cursing out the school administrators for not closing when we had five or six inches of snow.” Back in those days, several noted that KYW did not hype up the snowstorm but simply ran through the business of getting those hundreds of numbers announced.
How times have changed. Most TV outlets have a school closing tracker, 1060 does not always read EVERY number each half hour, and the internet allows anyone to find out about their school closing with a point and click to a few websites.
Technology has aided those changes but what changed the attitude towards snow in Philadelphia?
Josh Rosenberg believes that “1994 is a big part of the reason for the hype. Just ten months after the March 1993 storm that shut down the city for a weekend, you’d think we would’ve been better prepared for winter weather. But every time another storm hit in 1994, it was more ice and more disruption.”
The winter of 1994 featured a full week consecutively missed of school and power outages because of the ice storms. Rosenberg guesses that “newscasters didn’t want that problem to repeat itself.”
Paul from East Nantmeal brings the start of the hype slightly closer to today. “I can tell you exactly when this all began - it was with the Blizzard of 96 when the local networks all noted how big weather news was for ratings.”
Ratings, ratings, ratings
I admit that on occasion I turn into a deer in the headlights whenever the threat of big snow comes towards us. Not just because I need to see what Hurricane, Kathy, Cecily, or Rob thinks will fall from the sky, but also because I get a kick out of watching the cameras scurry out to 202 in North Delaware, to South Jersey, King of Prussia, and Whitehall in the Lehigh Valley. The most common response I received to why this was occurring was ratings, ratings, ratings. When people watch, news outlets make money. Cash is king to TV news, as it is the single-biggest revenue producer for a television station.
But is it justified? A couple of individuals told me that the media is in the business of making the news.
“When it comes to predictions of snow, I think the media has broken one of the basic rules of journalism by creating the news,” was the reply of Brendan Kelley, a resident of Philadelphia. He went on to tell me that “if you track the total inches of snowfall predicted in a year compared to the number of inches that actually fell, it won’t be a question of whether the predictions are excessive, simply how much of an excess.”
I guess Hurricane Schwarz’s 12-17” prediction would beg to differ on that standpoint alone. However, NBC10 was cited by several as one of the chief offenders in the hype wars. From naming winter storms in the late 1990s to developing a five category scale for winter storms that they use today to have changing background colors for the Earth Watch weather center, NBC10 is consistently banging the winter storm hype drum as well as anyone. I guess I am trying to wonder if it matters that their backdrop is RED when there is a snow advisory for someone. Does that make their coverage better than the others? I would disagree on that point.
Click for Part 2
