Sunrise stays on air for Hurricane Sandy
Sunrise stayed on air until 1pm yesterday, Live in all markets, to cover Hurricane Sandy.
- Published by David Knox
- on
- Filed under News
Sunrise put in a marathon effort yesterday broadcasting from 6am – 1pm to cover the unfolding drama of Hurricane Sandy.
Kochie and Mel stayed on air as they crossed to Angela Cox plus CNN and NBC reporters as well as local residents and Australian tourists bunkering down in hotels and bars.
Executive Producer Michael Pell said, “Sunrise has a long-standing and very firm commitment to our viewers, to provide rolling coverage of the big stories. That means, if news is breaking past our 9am finish time, we stay on air. It’s as simple as that.
“This morning we went Live into every market in the country, even while our opponents remained on delay in some time zones. In this digital age, TV networks cannot afford to miss a beat.”
Nine did switch to Mornings at 9am but Nine has Denham Hitchcock on the ground in the US for Nine News. ABC News 24 is believed to have gotten footage of a building collapse in Chelsea and an interview with an Australian woman on the street corner on the phone, even before ABC America could find the location.
“Covering breaking news is why I became a journalist,” Melissa Doyle said. “It’s fascinating to see a story unfold and it’s our job to bring it to viewers live, whether it takes an hour or seven.”
“Mel and I have been working together for so long now that in situations like this we can second guess what the other is going to say,” Koch added. “Most of the seven hours were made up on the run by one of the best production teams in the business.. that’s why I love doing this job.”
21 Responses
@Bullswool
10’s Breakfast couldn’t extend, they couldn’t afford to pay P. Henry the current O/time rate
Ten’s Breakfast also finished at its regular time of 8:30am, Channel 7 was the only commercial channel with extended coverage
Thought ‘Sunrise” did a great job, I had friends in NYC without any power or form of communication other than text and I was able to let them know what was going on, thanks to Sunrise. I agree disaster porn is a real issue, but this one was genuine and handled with great taste . There was no need (as with Cyclone Yassi) to try and make it sound worse than it was, it was worse.
I was on ABC24…good coverage …no frills…no chatter….just the news….suits me.
I’m with Mainlander, Bobby Dazzler & Steveany 2.0 here.
Seven & Nine make me sick whenever First World (the First World only consisting of only Australia, US, UK & maybe NZ for Seven & Nine) disasters occur because they always treat these events more like entertainment rather than news. Always OTT & sensationalist at the expense of informing their viewers. They don’t even know what they’re talking about either. One of Nine’s army of young blonde women presenting the Morning News yesterday even starting giving figures on “Hurricane Sandy’s first deaths.” Such ignorance.
Kenny, you’ll find that Seven & Nine pretty much ignored the NZ mine collapse & Japanese earthquake/tsunami until mentions in their usual bulletins.
Sunrise did a first class job yesterday. My only beef is that if the disaster was in India or Bangladesh we would of only got a fraction of the coverage, even if the disater was bigger.. It seems that society rates a disaster worse if it happens in a glamour spot.
Steveany- exactly. Just look at the spike in news ratings last night. Commercial news loves a disaster.
Seven and Nine should show their shows live nationwide on 7two and GEM. The ABC do it for their breakfast show (and it’s what I watch most mornings)
I find this lust for ‘disaster porn’ a bit gruesome. I live in Brisbane and the excessive coverage of our flood, (especially by 7 & 9’s infantile morning crews), last year was a bit sickening. You can sense the barely suppressed joy of the talking heads at covering something important for change. Just irks me.
I poke fun at Sunrise as much as the next person. However people aren’t being fair here. They did a good job.
Why wasn’t there this level of coverage when Hurricane Sandy was going through the Caribbean, where it killed around 60 people?
@mainlander – Christchurch earthquake, NZ mine disaster, Japan tsunami – just a few that come to mind where programs were preempted for extended coverage.
But, yeah, am so annoyed that the 9am-1pm daily continuous serve of funeral insurance and steam mops was interrupted.
Melissa Doyle is a journalist?
She was with Seven News before Sunrise.
Really annoyed by the OTT coverage of this. Do you think US TV stations gave a shit about us when Cyclone Yasi and the others hit? Answer is no… so I don’t understand why TV networks here feel the need to provide blanket coverage of this……
Angela cox did an amazing job as did her camera man!!! I think Mel and Kochie spoke to every single Aussie that was in New York!! lol
Nat and Berets must have got told to go home about 10.30am!!
Great coverage tho!
Doutful they would do the same for similar disasters elswhere in the world.
Nine news was on air until 2pm. Ellen and The View was pre-empted.
What a long day Angela Cox had – from 7am our time on Sunrise, then still around for a live cross during the 6pm news. She deserves a medal – or at least a hot shower and warm drink after standing in that water all that time!
A little hard though to still call the show Sunrise at 1pm?!?!?
And… stupid move by Seven – airing Once Upon A Time at 1.30pm instead of 2pm? Should have left it at 2pm and inserted That 70’s show before it – I know of people watching the daytime rerun of Once who missed half of yesterday’s show.
Nine did the same with Two and a Half Men airing half an hour earlier in lieu of 2 Broke Girls. Crazy.
The Morning Show is on Seven not Nine
“Nine did switch to The Morning Show at 9am”
You’ll find that Nine switched to Mornings, not a programme that airs on Seven.