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Post-Gazette TV writer Rob Owen answers reader questions online every Friday in Tuned In Journal blog at post-gazette.com/tv. Here’s a selection of recent queries.
Q: I know that the Pennsylvania Emergency Broadcast System test is conducted once a week, but why isn’t it on all the channels at the same time? It seems like I’m seeing the test every day on different channels.
— KAREN, PITTSBURGH
Rob: I contacted a state spokesman to clarify the bureaucratese I found online but never received a response. But I was able to confirm what I suspected is accurate through WTAE director of engineering Dave Kasperek.
While stations are required to do a weekly test, it does not appear that the test has to be conducted at exactly the same time.
A monthly test, however, does have a specific transmission time, but it only has to be retransmitted within 60 minutes of when the monthly test signal is received by each station, so even that test may go out on different stations at different times.
Q: I have finally given up watching local news on all the Pittsburgh stations. Can you please tell me why we are bludgeoned with the weather forecasts three to four times during a 30-minute news cast? What happened to getting the forecast once, halfway through the newscast, unless a big storm was coming? Now the stations usually lead off the news program about the day’s up-and-coming weather and go into detail two or more times all the while having a crawl across the bottom with the weather in local communities, and if the news is on for an hour, it’s doubled.
Come on! Why the crawl? Isn’t the weather going to be the same in Coraopolis as it is Pittsburgh? I get the news and weather now either on the radio, my computer or in the newspaper with less angst.
— JOHN, AVALON
Rob: The reason there is so much weather coverage in local TV news is because ratings go up when weather coverage comes on during a newscast. Viewers collectively have only themselves to blame. And yet ratings for all forms of TV continue to decline for many reasons, but I suspect some of it may be attributable to the behavior John describes of abandoning TV in favor of other information sources.
Q: What is going on with “Hawaii Five-0”? Have watched it from the beginning, and it seems as though they are not using Scott Caan very much. In fact some weeks he is not even on the show. They seem to be using the actor from the police force more and more. I would like to see them go back to the original four characters.
— LU, MARS
Rob: I actually received and ran this question earlier this year, but the non-response from CBS Studios was unsatisfactory. So when I spotted Mr. Caan at a CBS party in August, I was able to get a response straight from him.
“I do five episodes less than [series star] Alex [O’Loughlin],” said Mr. Caan, who lives in Los Angeles while the show shoots in Hawaii. “I just do a couple episodes less so I can come home to see my family and stuff. They were cool about it, so we just all came to that.”
Ask TV questions by emailing rowen@post-gazette.com, including your first name and location, or submitting the form at post-gazette.com/tv.
First Published: November 22, 2015, 5:00 a.m.
