Peter the K wrote:

but I think they just jumped the shark.
At 2:07, in my inbox, is an ad for a car dealership.   Nothing newsworthy.  Nothing of importance.
But that's not what I signed up for.
This time, I'll chalk it up to an honest mistake.  If it happens again, I'll just unsubscribe. 

Well, you are getting the emails for FREE.  What's in it for them if they don't monetize the feature. That said, it should not have been its own bulletin: it should have been inserted within an existing (and real) bulletin.

Frankly, I've tried many of those missives in the past, from a variety of sources, and, without exception, it was inbox overdrive!  Every little thing was a "breaking" news priority.  Too little, WAY too much.

My preference is to use the old-school RSS feeds, where I can tailor the inbound messages to my liking.
 

Peter the K wrote:

I, for one, really couldn't care less that the Raptors dumped their coach but I suppose others might so fair enough.  The occasional promo for an upcoming event is tolerable, but I think they just jumped the shark.
At 2:07, in my inbox, is an ad for a car dealership.   Nothing newsworthy.  Nothing of importance.
But that's not what I signed up for.
This time, I'll chalk it up to an honest mistake.  If it happens again, I'll just unsubscribe.

Radiowiz wrote:

cGrant wrote:

Well, you are getting the emails for FREE.  What's in it for them if they don't monetize the feature. 

Even a brainless idiot knows that emails steer people to turn on the radio, or at least remind of the desire to do so.
If not right away, still, soon enough. 
There is no need to do anything more than remind people to listen to NT 1010.
Anything more than that steers people to unsubscribe, defeating the purpose of the emails.
 

Well, congrats RW, you've argued yourself into a circular loop. The thread starter was complaining of the non-breaking news nature of these emails. He was contemplating unsubscribing to them.

However, your argument is that people live in a clueless vacuum. You seem to believe that, unless endlessly prompted, their tiny little brains will forget where to tune to for their radio fix. That, unless they are slapped endlessly with a breaking news email, broadcasting every little minutia of trivial insignificance, their gerbil-sized memory will be wiped with that Men In Black pen.

So, to return your coined jab, only a brainless idiot would trigger useless emails that do not contain actual subjected breaking news. That, in turn, will tire out the recipient(s) thusly unsubscribing from their missives.

You see, you can't have it both ways: you can't constantly try to volley your hatred towards me and make a valid counterpoint. Why? Because, deep down, you know I make valid points.
 

Radiowiz wrote:

Restricting what is emailed out, maybe even asking people what they'd LIKE to be emailed would be smart.

100% AGREED!  Some providers do, in fact, have a specific checkbox-style specific subscription topic opt-in.  RB, for whatever reason, resists that choice.

Effectively, someone in the RB newsroom triggers an email of what they consider is "breaking news", from a war breaking out to the first sighting of some accordion-playing vagrant on the subway. In this day of a 24-hour newscycle, some media believe that, to stay relevant, and/or earn/maintain their "breaking news station" moniker, they need to break news when there is nothing to actually break.

As discussed on this board previously, all that leads to breaking news fatigue; the boy who cried wolf. It WILL come to pass that an actual large-population threat will be issued as breaking news and people will simply ignore it... and perish.
 

Peter the K wrote:

Taking a look over the last three weeks they've averaged about 5 per day.

Peter, with respect, FIVE per day isn't a lot of "BREAKING NEWS" emails? Out of those 5, how many are truly "breaking" news as opposed to, perhaps, a developing story or something the newsroom just came across? In my parsing of similar services, I'd hesitate to say maybe 1 or 2 missives PER WEEK across multiple sources aggregately qualify as breaking. The rest? Could be classified as FYI, PR, sports update or ad.