There was a lot of airtime on Monday morning given over to one of those emergency alerts that interrupted TV and radio in Southern Ontario last night. I'm not going to rehash whether they work or not, but there was one thing many callers and observers noted when this became a morning show topic. They indicated that turning their cable/sat box on and off for a second cleared the "annoying" message and electronic tone that accompanies it.

Is that true? If so, it seems like a major flaw in the system. If I can turn off the message that a deadly tornado is heading straight for my home by simply flicking a switch, it seems like there's room for improvement.

A few other observations about this incident, in which an Amber Alert regarding a possible abduction of a young boy in Orillia interrupted one of the most heavily watched nights of prime time during the week:

-TVO's Steve Paikin was on 'RB's 7:45 AM round table Monday and revealed he was watching TV with his daughter when the announcement flashed on his screen. He said he had no idea what it was or that there was an emergency alert system in place and the entire thing took him by surprise, until his daughter "cleared the screen." I can understand why the general public may not be familiar with the still new alert system. But Paikin's a veteran broadcaster supposedly up on current affairs. How could he possibly have never heard of the system's implementation, since it would potentially affect his channel and his show? Perhaps he's not as well informed as he seems.

-I found it hard to believe that when this same topic came up for discussion on AM 640's morning show, host John Oakley kept saying he had no idea whether the Amber Alert was resolved or what happened to the kid. In the first place, Amber Alerts by design only last a few hours. After that, police believe they lose their effectiveness and authorities find some other way to update the story. And more importantly, every other radio newscast had already reported that the entire thing had been a giant misunderstanding, with a father locating a runaway kid and forcing him back into his car. How could Oakley and 640's supposed newsroom be the only ones who didn't know that, especially when everybody else had it? Perhaps we should put out an Amber Alert on how they're running things over there. 

Last edited by RadioActive (March 7, 2016 10:18 am)