Post #135 from Dr. Crankenfuss, The World’s Awesomest Raving and Rapping blogger –

Everybody knows what it’s like to be watching TV and a public emergency announcement comes on. You’re in the middle of your show and you hear a grating BEEP–BEEP–BEEP (like sandpaper against your eardrums) and a red scroll goes across the top of the TV and you’re going, “Well, there goes two or three minutes of my show and I’m never  going to be able to find out what I missed,” and you get TO’d (ticked off). They always run the announcement at least twice and end it with that same BEEP-BEEP-BEEP. Now I’m not saying the announcement isn’t important. Sometimes it’s a tornado watch, sometimes its an “amber alert” (where a little kid is missing) or a “silver alert” (where a senior citizen is missing). Sure, all of those are important! What I’m talking about in this post is the quality of the sound in that announcement. If they fixed that quality, the announcements would be WAY MORE EFFECTIVE.

You know how a police radio sounds? Where the cop in the car might hear something like “All units, there’s a 187 at 500 Sycamore Street,” which is police code for “There’s a murder at 500 Sycamore Street” and the cop listening says something like, “10-4” and speeds off to the crime scene. Let’s face it, the sound quality on those police scanners is pretty poor. It sounds like the guy’s chewing gravel while he talks or there’s a concrete mixing truck near where he’s talking. Now that might be okay for guys in police cars listening, but why do all those emergency announcements on TV sound just as bad?

Why don’t they have the TV announcement so it’s nice and clear? I’m sure a lot more people would bother to listen to it. Right now, most of us just can’t wait till it’s over and that’s partly because our ears get turned off by that irritating sound.

Get with it, people. There must be some way that you could find someone with a good broadcasting voice to give that announcement with some real feeling through some decent sound equipment.  I’m sure way more people would pay attention to you instead of sitting there and going, “Aw, drats, when is this scratchy announcement going to end so I can get back to my show.” (And I bet a bunch of people are saying way worse things than “drats.”)

Who knows? You might even save a few extra lives.

Just sayin.

From Your Dude with the ‘Tude,
Dar. Crankenfuss