Like many people, I wasn’t aware of the tsunami alert until my alarm switched on and Sean Plunket was on-air, with the special Morning Report.
Reporters were on deck in Whangarei, Hawkes Bay, north of Auckland, Akaroa….other people, such as Civil Defence, were put on air.
I flicked across half a dozen commercial stations and it was normal programming. A reporter stopped a boat going in the water at Akaroa. They’d been listening to a radio station but weren’t aware of the danger. Meanwhile, TVNZ proceeded with Q and A.
Doesn’t this again under-score the value of a well-resourced, non-commercial radio network?
Yeah, that’s pretty bad, the could’ve at least put a ticker at the bottom of the tv screens.
totally disgusting!
This was a point was made by a commenter at kiwib_og. It went right over their heads.
Brendon, actually ZB had very good coverage. You must have forgot to tun into that one. Y’know, the evil commercial one.
yea radio live was pretty good too. Also TVNZ had half hour bullettens. It’s actually hard to get the message to all of the people all of the time….
Hah, forget Q&A – when I flicked the TV on at quarter to eight TV3 were still running a televangelist show.
Your post assumes that the “well-resourced, non-commercial radio network” has the majority of the population listening to it (and it dosnt)
Yes informing all people is a problem – but your well-resourced, non-commercial radio network is sure not the solution.
TV1 was doing alright with the half-hour bulletins. But I do agree that Radio New Zealand did an excellent and thorough job. Certainly more informative than my local radio station.
I thought Tv1 did ok with its half hour broadcasts – but was really frustrated that 2 and 3 were way behind – in fact saw nothing on 2 (could have been scrolling under the screen) and Tv3 did not even do the scrolling message until quite late in the morning. God forbid it was a real biggie – then where would the folks be. I had made the assumption that if it was a massive deal (rather than a big concern) then police would have blocked roads, and CD would have been out on the streets – in force. (SIRENS raging etc)
But it is a rather large concern just how many kiwis disregarded the warnings – one day people are going to be drowned and then – and only then – will kiwis stop being so laid back about these kinds of things.
Best coverage i could find was Radio NZ, a station i never listen too and we went to it on Sky.
Not much online.
Even the free to air tv NZ news channel was hopeless.
I didnt realy care about Radio NZ until today.
It needs to stay as it is.
I was up at 5.30 am to try to squeeze in a quick fish (the snapper are finally in the inner Waitemata harbour) before the launch of the tax bus 10. The Tsunmai warning was repeated on the metphone marine forecast so that literally turned me around at the wharf. Early on, Radio Live was on the ball but he RNZ coverage didn’t seem to ramp up until 7 a.m.
I was up at 5.30 am to try to squeeze in a quick fish (the snapper are finally in the inner Waitemata harbour) before the launch of the tax bus 10. The Tsunmai warning was repeated on the metphone marine forecast so that literally turned me around at the wharf. Early on, Radio Live was on the ball but he RNZ coverage didn’t seem to ramp up until 7 a.m. – RNZ was great after that and it shows the value of an authoritative public broadcaster.
Can’t quite follow the implied reasoning that therefore this non-commercial radio station needs to be coercively funded.
Appears not everything is sweetness and light at RNZ, not when a former news boss alleges that the the state broadcaster “deliberately concealed financial reports in order to hide the misappropriation of taxpayer money.”
Oh dear. Should we be forced to fund a broadcaster accused of hiding reports that might have revealed our money being stolen or misused? I say freeze RNZ’s taxpayer funding immediately until these allegations are sorted out.