At around 5:35 PM Sunday, one of those emergency alerts sounded on every radio station in the GTA and quite probably throughout most of Southern Ontario. This was another Amber Alert, similar to one that aired earlier this month and created a lot of controversy. (Especially since there really was no emergency in that case.)  

The idea of these urgent advisories is a good one overall. We need to know if a tornado is imminent or a child has been kidnapped. But I was driving on my way home when this thing took over the airwaves and it was completely incomprehensible. The robot voice made no sense and if I hadn't heard an earlier announcement done by an actual human being, I would have had no idea what it was saying. And as a longtime radio producer, I'm usually pretty good at figuring out what people  - even robotic "people" - are trying to say. Plus the fact it comes on with absolutely no warning only makes it worse.

This Amber Alert might as well have been in another language. Plus there was a glitch at the end that sounded like it was telling listeners to call "September First, 2001" if they knew anything. I've since figured out that's the machine trying to figure out "911," which it must have read as the month, day and year!

I'm sure there must be a better computer generated voice program than what is being used by Pelmorex's Weather Network. If they're going to continue doing this, they have to fix it - and fast. Because to most radio users, as it stands right now it's far more of a hindrance than a help.

Last edited by RadioActive (March 20, 2016 6:17 pm)