KYW 1060 no longer broadcasting snow-day school closing numbers

By the time KYW was the only one doing school numbers, it no longer mattered to me to pay close attention (I knew they would still stop for traffic, which on days like that was my primary reason to check in), but I do recall at a certain hour WIP would stop reading the full list and only do new additions--maybe 8 am? Not sure if KYW followed any system like that, though it would possibly make sense seeing that the value in the numbers is considerably earlier in the morning.

I think we see less of this now because a LOT of schools (particularly Catholic schools) have closed since I was a kid.

And most public school districts are using texts and robodialers to spread the word.
Our office gets a call every time the local school district shuts down.....although none of us have kids there.

I can remember back in the day working at stations and fielding phone calls during storms. Kids would endlessly call and ask if there was school in their town/district. We'd tell 'em "listen to the radio!" Quite often the response was, "I don't have a radio!" C'mon, really???

In 2017 I imagine the same thing happening, "Check our website". "But I don't have a computer". C'mon, really?

Of course, this was in an upper-middle class area. Your mileage may vary.

I'd just started working at this quite successful major market A/C station with their trenchant news-heavy approach. Two days into it all, they had a a late overnight blizzard -- on April 6th.
We knew it would all be gone that afternoon -- melted -- since it would get up to 52° or so. But for a few hours that morning .... maybe 6 to 8:00 .... there was chaos, on the roads and on the newsroom phones. The sun had come out, was already turning the snow into sheets of ice, and with immense snow-blinding to boot during morning rush. Many accidents. I'll never forget the date, and the chaos that morning with the school closings -- two days after I'd begun working there. For maybe two hours I was on the phones which never ceased ringing.

I realize that, for radio purposes, snow-closings are not 'scheduled' per se. Conditions vary from event to event and time of day ... weekday/weekend. And it seems sensible to suggest that the parents of school-age kids would be at that very desirable age (mid-Thirties?) sought by any radio station, let along an AM station.
So what is KYW going to use as backup content for those four or five such days? More commercials?

Steve Green NEPA said:

So what is KYW going to use as backup content for those four or five such days? More commercials?

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There's no shortage of content during a storm. Every neighborhood has a story. Have the plows come yet? Abandoned cars on I-95. How are businesses responding to the situation? Is Neshaminy or Plymouth Meeting closed? Just a few things they could do.

Good points, Big A. I imagine that those matters are things they would be doing anyway, no ?

The skeptical/half-empty side of me sees this as a CBS cost-cut. It's just too early in the season to be abandoning some of the programming elements that helped get KYW through its documented slump during that terrible winter we had just a few years ago. I have to think that a station would WANT that bonus listening from 35-year olds with kids, not discard it.

Steve Green NEPA said:

Good points, Big A. I imagine that those matters are things they would be doing anyway, no ?

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Sure, but you asked what would they fill the time with, and I said more of those kinds of things. As I said, there's no shortage of content during an emergency. Those are stories they don't have on a normal day. When you have an over-abundance of content, dropping something doesn't cause a content problem.

Steve Green NEPA said:

The skeptical/half-empty side of me sees this as a CBS cost-cut.

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Huh? It doesn't cost anything to do school closings. That's free information. At our station, authorized reps contacted us, not the other way around. Lots of radio stations sold school closings to sponsors. So from my perspective it's the opposite of a cost cut. But there are other things to sell, like more traffic or weather reports.

School closing numbers on the radio no longer draw in that desirable audience. Almost everyone uses "newer" tech (mobile, etc.) to get this info instantly. And those who don't, get it from the scroll at the bottom of Action News. If I turned on the radio and they were droning on to churn out 10 minutes of school closing numbers--information that I, as a parent, would have already received--I would tune right out. I'm much more likely to stay tuned in for actual storm coverage.

gr8oldies said:

When you clear hear another (out of town) station in the background, you want to say "I don't know, what did Bob and Tom say?"

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Who are Bob & Tom? We have Preston & Steve in Philly. This is the Philly board right? No Bob & Tom here.

Miguelito said:

If I turned on the radio and they were droning on to churn out 10 minutes of school closing numbers--information that I, as a parent, would have already received--I would tune right out.

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I agree. There are hundreds (maybe thousands) of schools in the area, and if I happen to miss mine in the list (perhaps the dog barked), I have to sit through the entire list for them to come around to mine again. Not very efficient. It's one reason why the traffic reports aren't as complete as they could be. They focus on the main roads, the ones most people care about, and skip the side streets. But you can't do that with school closings. You skip over the small suburban schools, and listeners assume they're still open. Not a good thing.

Somewhat funny timing was The Goldbergs doing a "snow day" episode in the midst of this being discussed last week, and the radio on the show going by names (not that most of the country would have been in on the joke if they'd used numbers).

You can still hear school closings/delays on AM here in Yakima, WA! KIT-1280's morning news show will air any school delays/closings in the Yakima Valley, Ellensburg or Goldendale area. And this includes Christian schools! But no matter what, I've never heard any number codes for the school delays, probably due to the size of our market. Seattle however didn't use number codes either...

AbrahamJSimpson said:

Somewhat funny timing was The Goldbergs doing a "snow day" episode in the midst of this being discussed last week, and the radio on the show going by names (not that most of the country would have been in on the joke if they'd used numbers).

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And the show is set in the Philly burbs so, in those scenes, that radio was ostensibly tuned to KYW!