Useless traffic reports on WX

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Postby tuned » Sun Jul 23, 2006 9:36 pm

I am so disgusted with how inaccurate and useless most of the traffic reports are on all of the stations. I'm driving up from Seattle this afternoon and hit massive gridlock on the Oak Street bridge. I flip to WX and their traffic report says " there's a major accident Northbound on the South end of the Oak St. bridge and there may be a stall going Southbound". I am heading Northbound and approaching the South end of the bridge and there's no sign of anything. After I crawl across the bridge and finally get to 70th Avenue there is a car abandoned in the center lane and no sign of an accident or anything going Southbound. Mind you that's better than NW that was carrying a "health" infomercial and "all traffic radio" that had a repeat of something or another on.
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Postby radiofan » Sun Jul 23, 2006 10:06 pm

Weekend traffic on WX is definately served up by the "B" Team. Saturday and Sunday on several occasions I heard the traffic reporter say that they couldn't get through to the folks at the Albion - Fort Langley Ferry so we don't have accurate info and also he was begging for up to date info for the Peach Arch and Truck crossings as the cameras weren't working .

Isn't there a lesson #1 or #2 that you don't share negatives on air with the listeners?? It definately didn't sound major market. But, as tuned said above, it's still better than what NW or Traffuck-up 730 has to offer on a weekend.
Those who danced were thought to be quite insane by those who couldn't hear the music.
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Postby jon » Mon Jul 24, 2006 6:03 pm

Unbelievable. Compare that to a few years back when we had a nasty and unexpected snow storm on a Sunday. Cool 8-80 focuses on music and does not even run newscasts on weekends. But newbie Michael Hogan, Edmonton's first Brit-sounding DJ (he is actually ain Aussie) in decades, had just started doing noon-6 p.m. live on Saturdays and Sundays.

He did an amazing job of traffic reporting during each break, relying on listener calls. It wasn't clear if CHED was feeding him much, but the Shaw Cable traffic cameras weren't here yet, so he didn't have much to fall back on.
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Postby cart_machine » Wed Jul 26, 2006 12:16 am

radiofan wrote: Weekend traffic on WX is definately served up by the "B" Team. Saturday and Sunday on several occasions I heard the traffic reporter say that they couldn't get through to the folks at the Albion - Fort Langley Ferry so we don't have accurate info and also he was begging for up to date info for the Peach Arch and Truck crossings as the cameras weren't working .

RF, I'm going to speak generally here and not about WX, as I can't speak for them.

One of the difficulties doing traffic is someone (or more than one) will call and say "There's an accident at so-and-so..." That's fine and well, but a half-hour later, unless a traffic reporter is psychic, (s)he doesn't know if the accident's cleared. So, traffic reporters have to ask listeners in the area to call. Same if (s)he gets conflicting info from callers.

I wouldn't call this "begging" any more than Warren Barker asking people to call in news tips would be begging.

Agreed, it may not be smart to tell the listener about problems with phone calls or cameras.

One of the other things traffic reporters had (and maybe still do) to worry about it "fake tips" by poop-heads at other radio stations, who think it's cool to mislead people listening to the competition. That's bush. Stations are trying to provide a public service; the public interest should come ahead at some misguided display of company loyalty. If the competition's so threatening, respond by providing a better service.

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