The National Association of Broadcasters praised local radio and television broadcasters in the Midwest, Mid-Atlantic and East Coast regions for their news and weather coverage of recent historic snow storms.
“Broadcasters have always been a lifeline in times of crisis, but never more so than in recent days for millions of Americans living in the path of these historic storms,” stated the association’s president/CEO, Gordon Smith.
He said the coverage stands as a testament to “the enduring value of free and local broadcasting,” adding that “there is no technology that matches the reliability and immediacy of a local broadcast signal delivering credible information to thousands of people simultaneously.”
Many local stations across the storm region preempted scheduled programming and limited commercials for news coverage of the 2010 snow storms.
NAB noted that broadcast efforts were recognized as follows by The Baltimore Sun (“Baltimore TV goes all live, local for second storm”), The Philadelphia Inquirer (“Local TV news comes through in the storm”), the New York Daily News (“Winter storm blows in exceptional — and unusual — snow coverage by Ch. 4 WNBC”), The Washington Post (“Weather coverage lets local TV stations such as WUSA, WRC and WJLA stand out”), RW sister publication Broadcasting & Cable (“As the Snowy World Turns”) and NTS MediaOnline (“‘Snowlapalooza!’ 2010,” “Blizzard challenges Philly and NYC stations, too” and “Nothing like a team-building sleepover”), among others.