KMOV will repeat ‘Ghost Whisperer’ season finale
Because of weather interruptions last Friday, KMOV (Channel 4) will repeat the season finale of “Ghost Whisperer” at 1:07 a.m. Wednesday.
Unfortunately, KTVI (Channel 2) won’t repeat the series finale of “Prison Break.” General manager Spencer Koch said Monday that after review, he didn’t think the interruptions were bad enough to warrant a repeat and noted that the episode can be viewed as streaming video on Hulu.com. (The entire series will also be available on DVD in early June.)
Interruptions for tornado warnings and watches, thunderstorm warnings and flash flood alerts make TV viewers crazy — as long as they’re not in the path of the storms. Viewers accuse weathercasters of showboating and trying to grab screen time with interruptions. (And it helps their case that stations routinely boast about their weather vigilance in promos.) The weathercasters themselves point out that they don’t issue the watches and warnings, the Weather Service does, and that stations have guidelines about when to interrupt programming. When they do it, they say they’re potentially saving lives.
I think both sides are partly right. TV meteorologists are self-admitted weather geeks, and they get excited about giving us details of storms that we probably don’t need to know. They arguably come on too often and stay on too long, when they might interrupt during commercials or try to get in and out more quickly. On the other hand, knowledge of an approaching tornando could truly save lives. (I’ve never been sure what I’m supposed to do about a severe thunderstorm warning — worry?) I’d be reluctant to urge a TV station to give priority to an entertainment program over even the potential to save one life.
Channel 4 is doing the right thing by giving “Ghost Whisperer” fans a chance to record the season finale in late night. I wish Channel 2 had made the same decision. “Prison Break” wasn’t just an ordinary episode or even a season finale. It was an action-packed series finale that wrapped up years of story — complicated story that would have been a challenge to follow even without interruptions. As a “Prison Break” fan who watched for four years and then missed big chunks of the finale noted, not everybody has a computer or internet connection that allows them to watch streaming video. It’s too bad Channel 2 didn’t take these viewers into account and schedule a late-night repeat.
I understand that the stations must inform the public of weather alerts–but KMOV is always over the top. Just come on — say what you have to say once and get off. Yes, we know KMOV has invested in lots of fancy weather equipment–but Kent (the weather person) seems to think we care that they have it. This “storm mode” concept is annoying–we did not turn on KMOV for the Kent show — we do not need to look at the storm from 12 different angels. Why are they putting sky zoom in danger by making someone go up in the air?
Whenever there is the slightest weater issue I don’t even turn on KMOV–I simply watch the show on the internet later in the week.