[143985] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: East Coast Earthquake 8-23-2011 - comment and a bit of a
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Mark Foster)
Thu Aug 25 06:06:55 2011
Date: Thu, 25 Aug 2011 22:05:54 +1200 (NZST)
From: Mark Foster <blakjak@blakjak.net>
To: Don Gould <don@bowenvale.co.nz>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.LNX.4.64.1108252131440.3710@skyhawk.blakjak.net>
Cc: nanog@nanog.org
Errors-To: nanog-bounces+nanog.discuss=bloom-picayune.mit.edu@nanog.org
On Thu, 25 Aug 2011, Mark Foster wrote:
>> Radio - That was very interesting to observe. Clearly radio stations don't
>> have disaster broadcast plans in place for content. When you're crying out
>> for information about what's going on, the very last think you want to hear
>> is an inappropriate advert break. The number of stations that kept
>> broadcasting adverts for 'exciting things in Christchurch' was un-nerving.
>> It's my view that media news desks also need to remember to listeners who
>> are in the middle of the disaster area and are hanging on every word of
>> their 'emergency radio'. To hear that my city is 'devastated by a MASSIVE
>> earth quake and hundreds of people have been killed' every 10 minutes in
>> the 'over hyped' news reader voice gets very alarming.
>
> Commercial, nationwide-broadcast radio stations are not going to (by their
> very nature) broadcast disaster-information on a continuous basis as a
> significant proportion of their listener base may not be directly affected,
> and dont necessarily need the trauma. There's a psychological hit in this,
> and value in keeping up the norm as much as is reasonable.
>
> On the other hand I expect that Radio New Zealand was one of the better
> transmitters involved, and to a lesser degree any radio station whos focus is
> talkback is going to be better value than someone who plays pop music.
>
I neglected to mention that Radio NZ's IP data volume exploded during and
in the immediate aftermath of the Christchurch quake, and a substantial
amount of the load was international - friends and family, and folks out
of town, wanting to check up on the situation and unable to receive local
TV or FM broadcasts. If you host a broadcaster on your network, be
warned....
(For little ol' NZ, International Bandwidth is the expensive bit...)
Mark.
