Re: East Coast Earthquake 8-23-2011 - comment and a bit of a Christchurch Telco report :)

[Mark Foster <blakjak () blakjak net>]

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.