Alert on fire broadcasts
Seven, Nine and TEN News chiefs have criticised the Brumby government after Sky News becomes the only channel to carry bushfire warnings.
- Published by David Knox
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- Filed under News
Victorian News chiefs from Seven, Nine and TEN have united in their criticism of the Brumby government for inaction on a recommendation of the 2009 Victorian Bushfires Royal Commission.
Their comments follow the announcement that Sky News is the first television channel to enter into an agreement to carry emergency information such as bush fire warnings. It will be would be the only media organisation to air official emergency information and warnings on TV, websites or mobile phones.
“They have been scandalously inactive, in my view, on this front,” TEN’s Victorian news director, Dermot O’Brien told The Australian.
“The government has not even come to us to say can we have an informal chat to work something out.”
Seven’s Steve Carey said news directors were not usually united “but we are on this one”.
“If the government asked us to help, that’s not a problem,” Carey said.
“Even if they don’t ask us to help, we will help, but it’s weird to hear we weren’t good citizens because we didn’t have formal agreements.”
The Office of the Emergency Services Commissioner spokesperson says it remains open to any approaches from free-to-air stations who wish to become emergency broadcasters.
Source: The Australian
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- Tagged with ABC News, Nine News, Seven News, Sky News, TEN News
12 Responses
tens news said that all radio stations in Victoria including commercial stations be will be airing the alerts ,although still no decision on fta tv.
@Neon Kitten…. who relaxes when there is a fire involved?
it only makes sense to have to official alerts airing on all tv and radio stations, and it need to be insured that this happens by the next bushfire season. it dosn’t make sense that only abc radio have be airing these alerts for all these years. @leon it is my understanding that this will be an official alert that will be identical on any stations it airs on, and will be made up of fullscreen warning in text as well as spoken as well as a audible warning tone. rather than just a written warning be read by news anchors.
Bushfire Alerts are Generally Broadcast on all channels anyways so why are the FTA Idiots criticizing??
@Richard W- Totally agree. Al Jazeera International, superior to CNN and BBC, with its excellent news and documentaries, is available – free. It is extremely popular on FTA in NZ, Fiji, etc., etc. GO! & 7TWO are the garbage cans of 9 & 7.
Relax, people. Only one more fire season to go before the unelected and unwanted sorry excuse for a leader is voted out.
Why don’t Channel 9 or 7 invest in a 24 hour news channel instead of bottom of the barrel programming such a GO! or 7TWO.
As my grandparents asked “What’s Sky News?”. This is something only a politician would do.
You have got to be kidding!!
Come on vic gov not everyone has access to sky news
or even want to pay for tv.
This should be carried on all TV FTA and Pay plus any other media like radio and txt messages on cell phones!
It wokuld be better if sky news was on the freeview platform, don’t you think?
Ironic, considering Seven and Nine own 66% of Sky News.