Idiotic interruptions of scheduled network TV shows to tell viewers bad weather is happening somewhere in the area a particular station covers.
Interrupting when something serious happens, that I'm okay with.
Terrorists attack America, break in with live coverage. Slovenia launches a nuclear attack on Non-Slovenia, break in with live coverage. Lee Harvey Oswald shoots JFK, break in with live coverage. Osama bin Laden captured, break in with live coverage. Hitler found alive in Argentina, break in with live coverage.
But what happened Tuesday night on KDFW FOX 4 Dallas-Fort Worth was brain dead moronic.
GLEE is one of my few guilty pleasures. Tuesday was a highly touted 90 minute Lady Gaga "Born This Way" special.
My DVR was set to record GLEE. I did not try to watch it til at least an hour had been recorded.
When I went to watch I was appalled to find that the first half hour.
Or more.
Was devoted to breathless, non-stop, weather information. Including live images of pea-sized hail falling.
Yes, we had a bad storm roll through North and East Texas on Tuesday night.
Power was knocked out for thousands of people. A tornado damaged a lot of homes. The very people who might have found weather info useful, no longer had TV access.
If one knows the weather is turning inclement one has many info options. If one chooses to turn on ones TV to watch a scheduled program one should not have that choice interrupted by useless weather information that is totally pointless and about which one can do nothing.
It works perfectly well to put weather info in a crawl across the bottom of the screen, or in the lower right or left. There is no need to break in to regular programming so a TV Weatherman can have fun being all dramatic about the weather.
What I did get to see of GLEE was very amusing. But my recording ran out before I learned if Rachel went ahead with her nose job. And I did not get to see the "Born This Way" production.
Sunday night we also had some storm action in North Texas. The local CBS affiliate did not mess with The Amazing Race. CBS kept viewers informed about possible tornado and hail and lightning action via the non-obtrusive means I've already mentioned. I have no idea how CBS handled last night's storm. I suspect way smarter than FOX did. Or the local ABC affiliate did with its embarrassing Pete Delkus Weather Drama Queen.
No weather drama is on the schedule for tonight for North Texas. So, I suspect the local FOX affiliate will let American Idol run uninterrupted.
