KMOV dominated ratings when it bumped NFL for local storm coverage

Some football fans were stormin’ mad Sunday afternoon, when KMOV (Channel 4) cut into CBS’ telecast of the Steelers-Broncos NFL game to cover to a tornado warning that had been issued for some northern and eastern portions of the St. Louis region.

Channel 4 broke in at roughly 4:45 p.m. and stayed away from football for about half an hour as meteorologist Kristen Cornett anchored the weather warnings. She later was joined by Steve Templeton, the station’s lead meteorologist.

The lightning strike for football fans was eased a bit because the game was going to halftime when the interruption occurred, so they only missed about 15 minutes of that telecast. Still some were angry.

“You’ve got a really interesting football game going on, a close game,” Templeton said this week. “It stinks the warning happened during this awesome football game, we never want to cover that up. But that’s what we do. We stayed on until the threat was pretty much gone.”

In the process, viewers flocked to the weather report. That segment not only drew a better rating than the football game, it produced the two highest rated 30-minute blocks of the week (Monday-Sunday) on St. Louis television. That’s according to Nielsen, which tracks viewership.

“That certainly is interesting,” Templeton said

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