I'm calling to complain about the broadcast stations that go over and over the same things for two hours in the morning and then when national news is due, they're still on saying the same thing. Can you convey our concern that after two hours of saying the same thing, we want national news? They force you to look at cable.

-- Anonymous caller last Friday, complaining that KDKA, WPXI and WTAE pre-empted their 7 a.m. national newscasts for reports on a minimal amount of snow and ice.

When is local news going to stop scaring folks with their over-the-top reporting of the weather? They constantly overstate the conditions of the roads and highways. For God's sake, they act like a 1-inch snowfall is the end of civilization. They show the parkways with cars traveling at 50-plus mph on WET pavement, yet report life-threatening conditions. Isn't there enough real news to report rather than spending half the newscast on wet roads and overstated storm conditions? ... With all the scaring going on you would think that they are writing reports for George W. Bush.

-- E-mail from Randall of West Mifflin

This morning's coverage of the weather was unbelievable overkill. It seems particularly ridiculous when the weather hasn't been that bad.

-- Anonymous caller on Wednesday

These viewers are right: Enough already!

For at least the third time this month, last Friday local TV stations pre-empted their national morning news shows last Friday -- the morning after a Democratic debate, the day after The New York Times' John McCain story broke -- for incessant, fear-mongering local weather coverage.

Viewers with cable can always watch national news on CNN or FNC or MSNBC, but if you're interested in politics, it's especially frustrating in this presidential election season to be denied morning access to top political reporters such as NBC's Tim Russert or ABC's George Stephanopoulos. We can only hope that in the coming digital age, as sub-channels are added, stations that feel the need to steamroll national news shows will shift those programs to a sub-channel and alert viewers to their presence there.

Do KDKA, WPXI and WTAE think viewers here are so parochial, so incapable of surviving a little snow that they must be spoon-fed repetitious local coverage? Do we really require that much coverage of snow, a normal weather occurrence in the region?

And what do the networks think of these morning pre-emptions, particularly during a sweeps month? Multiple calls for comment to ABC and NBC representatives were not returned. CBS News senior vice president of coverage Paul Friedman offered a cautious response to the complaints.

"It's hard for me, not being there, to know how serious the weather emergencies were," Friedman said by phone last Friday. "Today in New York, for example, the weather has been truly atrocious during the morning rush hour. I can't blame the local stations for doing as much as they can do, but they didn't pre-empt 'The Early Show' here in New York, which is great. ... This is obviously preferable to us, but each local station does get to make that call when they consider it a major story going on in their home area."

Friedman said at a network level, CBS News impresses upon affiliates the damage to a national newscast's ratings if pre-empted.

As for the local coverage, I put Randall's questions at the top of this column to local news directors. KDKA's John Verrilli did not reply.

WPXI's Corrie Harding said viewers respond most to weather coverage.

"We want to make sure that Pittsburghers know we will be there when they need us, which is why we cut into programs outside of regular news time," Harding wrote in an e-mail. "There are many times, like the last several days, where we decide that the roads are clear enough, the school decisions were in, and there is not a compelling reason to pre-empt any programming.

"We make those decisions knowing that some of our viewers won't necessarily agree and that they may get frustrated, and we listen to them. It is definitely a balancing act, but because we know weather information is so important to our viewers, weather news carries a lot of weight."

Randall's question also got a response from Bob Longo, news director at WTAE, which has taken to billing itself as "Pittsburgh's official winter weather station." (FYI: That's self-designated.)

"We go out of our way to NOT overstate anything. It is a big, diverse market with plenty of diverse weather on any given day!" he wrote in an e-mail. "Combine that with the fact that feedback, ratings and research all show viewers overwhelmingly want and expect solid, timely and accurate reporting of severe weather, and the job we are doing reflects the needs and desires of most of our audience."

Ratings, of course, are what it's all about.

One day early this month when one station opted to stay with national news while the competition went local, the national news ratings did not go through the roof. Viewers, evidently, do like to live in fear.

So local stations are likely to continue this pre-emption trend, even when the snow totals are minimal (3 inches in Butler and Cranberry last Friday, only about 2 inches in Pittsburgh).

Still, I can't help but think: This is Pittsburgh. The season is winter. There's going to be snow. This is not news.

KDKA and WPXI both reported on a new study about bacteria found in the lemons you get with a glass of water when dining out. KDKA ran a report from another CBS affiliate, but credit WPXI's Stacia Erdos, who went out and tested some local lemons, finding no significant bacteria and making lemonade out of what could have been a lemony scare-ya story.

WTAE's Paul Van Osdol did a follow-up to a May report on the dangers of texting while driving, but I didn't really learn anything new. Texting while driving remains a bad idea.

WPXI seems to be airing an awful lot of rising gas price stories in its 5 p.m. news, more than I've seen on other stations. I wonder if that's related to the gas giveaway contest in the 5 p.m. news?

Proving my own imperfection, last week in writing about sweeps reports, I matched the wrong reporter with a WTAE story. Jim Parsons reported on staffing levels at Pittsburgh International Airport, not Paul Van Osdol. My apologies to them both.

February sweeps ended Wednesday with few changes from a year ago in ranking. KDKA still comes in first at noon, 4 p.m., 5 p.m., 6 p.m. and 11 p.m. The station didn't see a lot of ratings improvement (up at 6 a.m., noon, 4 p.m., flat at 5 a.m. and 5 p.m., down at 6 and 11 p.m.), but in many time periods it won by a wider margin than a year ago, solidifying its lead.

In continuing trends, morning news ratings, especially at 6 a.m., continued to rise on all three stations while 11 p.m. newscast ratings on all three declined. The 10 p.m. news ratings were up slightly, and ratings for "The Oprah Winfrey Show" on WTAE continue to fall.

Read more ratings news in Tuned In Journal at post-gazette.com/tv.

HBO, which has been making new episodes of "The Wire" available on demand the Monday before their Sunday pay-cable premiere, will not do that with the show's series finale. Fans will get their first look at the 95-minute swan song when it premieres on HBO at 9 p.m. March 9.

This week's TV Q&A responds to questions about "Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicles," portable TVs in the digital age and the voiceover guy on WTAE.