Is Garth really gone? Yes!

[Summers]

> > DEFENDING someone that is FAR from being INNOCENT... Garth
> I can remember a tornado being ON THE GROUND (and headed due
> east into okc/edmond) in Canadian County during a Memorial
> Day weekend, and 1520 was airing paid talk programming
> instead of simulcasting KFOR-TV.  
>
> That's just *one* gripe about Garth...

During the 10th Anniversary of the Murrah Building bombing
Garth played down the idea of doing any live broadcasts from
there and even wanted to pull the live memorial broadcast from
channel 4 all to go back to syndicated programming.  Again
the 10th Anniversary of an event that change Oklahoma City forever
and he almost pulled it off air.   At least until someone finally
convinced him that was not a good idea.

Want more reasons?

[rpmoose]

> OK, if that happened, it is inexcuable ... terrible.
>
> Terrible.  The old WKY and KOMA would never have done that.
>
> When I was at WKY, three meterologists from WKY-TV kept
> track of the weather.
>
> A station is licensed to serve the community of license.
>
> In this case, it failed ... miserably.
>
> One question: Were lives lost?
>
> If so, the station's license should be challenged.
>
> Tony
>
No lives were lost. 1520 did air the warnings from the NWS via the EAS and had occasional cut-ins from their own staff. What I am trying to get at is, the actions taken on that day were not what I would consider to even be logical for a PD of a News/Talk station to make. Yes, 1520 complied with what the FCC would probably consider to be "public service".

It was Memorial Day weekend, a large number of people were apt to be on the road - the tornado went within 1/2 mile of Lucky Star Casino which was packed at the time.   Meanwhile, KFOR-TV had a helicopter in the air and one or two chase teams following it, as it went right by Piedmont and continued almost due East.

Finally after it was approaching Oklahoma County (less than 5mi from it), 1520 started to simulcast KFOR-TV, but they joined them much later than other Renda stations did.

Of course, 1520 went to syndicated talk programming (Clark Howard I believe) before the tornado had gone near the town of Luther, yet it was got very close to I-44 and still in Oklahoma County, yet KFOR was in wall-to-wall weather for at least another hour and a half to two hours.

A few weeks later, a squall line moved into the metro, and many people experienced 80+mph winds, and golf ball sized hail.  This storm affected 80% of the metro!  While watching KFOR, Mike Morgan mentioned 1520 several times and when you went over there, Neal Boortz was airing yet traffic was at a standstill in all parts of the metro area at least one point in time that afternoon.

Garth would even send his own news teams to go out into the field to more or less repeat what a more experienced and articulate David Payne or Jim Gardner were saying on TV.  He would cut back from simulcasting KFOR-TV, bring in Bob Sands or someone like that from the field that said the same thing that was being said on KFOR (from a slightly different perspective) then rejoin KFOR a few minutes later.  

This is just a handful or so of examples I can cite regarding 1520 during severe weather operations.    

Another thing, I am surprised after the Clear Channel/Fox News deal was inked that 1520 could not manage to acquire Paul Harvey.  They had been airing ABC News at the top of the hour for several months (different feed than KTOK used), yet failed to get Paul Harvey (he worked at 1520 a long time ago).  It just seemed kind of strange to me.  

I hope whoever is running K-OKC now would consider getting rid of that Rick Roberts from California that does their AM show, and consider Mark Shannon or Larry Stein.


So long Garth!