TV Coverage Of The Storm

[Mark Watson]

  While radio may be busy with sports, birdfeed, or voice tracked weekend
programs, Boston TV stations have been on top of this weekend storm. From my
observations today, this is what I saw:

 WBZ-TV (Channel 4) had a special local newscast on when I woke up just
after 8AM. They remained on till 11. CBS had college football (Army/Navy) on
when 6PM rolled around, so WBZ-TV aired a special 1 hour newscast at 6 on
WSBK (Channel 38). The weekend anchors worked the morning show, with Barry
Burbank & Mish Michaels handling the weather duties (Mish out in the field).
At 6, The weeknight 10PM UPN 38 anchors Ted Wayman & Sara Underwood manned
the anchor desk, with Ed Carroll at the weather map.

  WCVB (Channel 5) had cut-ins on the hour & half hour till Noon, mostly
just a weather update with Dave Epstein. A special hour newscast aired at 12
Noon, anchored by weekday Eyeopener anchor Ed Harding, with J.C. Monahan and
Dave Epstein sharing the weather duties. ABC had a college football
tripleheader that started at 1PM, but Channel 5 promised halftime updates
during each game & between each game, with weeknight meterologists Dick
Albert & Harvey Leonard joining weeknight anchor Liz Brunner. WCVB will be
airing a special 3 hour newscast Sunday from 7-10 AM and expanding their 12
Noon Sunday newscast to an hour.

  WHDH (Channel 7) had their regular 2 hour Saturday morning newscast, with
2 meterologists sharing the weather map. Weekday morning meterologist Pete
Bouchard joined weekender Chikage Windler. Channel 7 expanded their 6PM news
to an hour, pre-empting the NBC news at 6:30, and had chief meterologist
Todd Gross joining Pete & Chikage at the weather map. Do you really need 3
meterologists on one newscast?

  New England Cable News had 3 meterologists on duty today, as weekender
Matt Noyes was joined by weeknighter Tim Kelley & former WCVB meterologist
Mark Rosenthal for their storm coverage.

Mark Watson