TWIN CITIES RADIO SWINGS INTO ACTION Kevin Carter – Radio and Records As recovery efforts continue in Minneapolis following Wednesday night's (Aug. 1) catastrophic bridge collapse, local radio, as expected, is leading the charge to keep the public informed of the latest developments.
The crew at Clear Channel's Minneapolis-St. Paul cluster, for instance, has been working around-the-clock since Wednesday's incident.
Doug Westerman, PD of FM talk KTLK describes the immediate aftermath: "It happened just after 6 p.m., in drive time, and our news director was on his way into downtown Minneapolis for something when the bridge collapsed, so he was able to get on the scene really, really quick for us and started breaking things down and filed a lot of live reports. Obviously, we then started mobilizing as many people in the station as possible, and began searching for contacts to help us with our coverage."
Over on top 40 KDWB, the phones immediately lit up, and haven't slowed down since. PD Rob Morris explains: "Most Clear Channel music stations fielded phone calls from listeners, trying to reassure people to remain calm, and urge them to stay away from the area of 35W, because the scene in downtown Minneapolis was inaccessible," he says. "There was also a plea for blood donations and information for families who could not locate missing relatives."
Thinking quickly, listeners were also re-routed to KTLK, which was already set up in disaster mode. Westerman said, "That's a great credit to our music stations, because Wednesday night during our coverage, the jocks were alert enough to send people over to KTLK for up-to-date information. We also had a Twins game, with about 25,000 fans, empty out around 10 p.m., so we had to re-focus our efforts and try and get to those listeners who were just getting out of the ballgame."
Needless to say, with a major interstate artery now out of commission for the next year or more, the CC/Twin Cities traffic department has been working overtime to best re-route commuters to and from work.
"The capacity of that bridge was somewhere in the neighborhood of 200,000 cars a day," Westerman notes.
Over on KDWB, Morris has ordered all contesting and promotions suspended during this sensitive time. He notes that Dave Ryan's Thursday morning show continued the heavy phone dialog, allowing listeners to share their feelings, including an uncomfortably large number of callers who remarked, "I just went over that bridge two minutes before it went down."
Morris notes that Clear Channel corporate has been solidly supportive during this time of need: "Susan Karis, our new executive VP of the western region, sent an email to the staff today saying, basically, 'Whatever you guys need in terms of Clear Channel resources to make sure you continue to keep your community informed and up-to-date, you got it,' which was nice to hear."
More Around-The-Clock Coverage
Over at CBS Radio, AC WLTE and adult hits KZJK PD John Lassman tells R&R that news/talk clustermate WCCO is providing around-the-clock coverage and that WLTE has added news updates and extended traffic.
In addition, both WLTE and KZJK are directing listeners to their websites to help those directly affected by the disaster through the Red Cross. |