Having spent many years in local TV, I can tell you there are laws that require the station to break in for those types of warnings. I don't know the specifics, but they are required to do that.
I understand the anger, but in this day in age, there are SO MANY OPTIONS for you to stream these things on a platform that will not be interrupted. While the watch-to-interruption ratio is typically small enough where paying for a platform to avoid weather interruptions is bordering on the absurd, YOU DO HAVE THAT OPTION. Yes, the argument of "well if hits you, blah blah", but we know statistically that one person's specific odds in a DMA (DMA being the TV market, thus you likely receiving the interruption). to be hit by the tornado is very low.
While the technology exists for you to obtain your shows/entertainment via a wide range of options, the technology does NOT exist to interrupt only the viewers that are in the actual warning area. I know that in my Wichita station, we were able to target certain regions because of the towers, so a certain demographic on antenna could be targeted, but satellite viewers could not. That meant if we had warnings in say, southwest Kansas, we could target our receiver/tower in Garden City and those on that tower would receive the warning while folks in other regions would not be interrupted. But again, is you were on satellite, you got the warning. That's about as close as it gets.
Threatening replies, phone calls, and even the few that showed up at the station (yes, we got those), unacceptable, PERIOD. You lose all credibility the second you throw out anger-driver threats. There is no excuse for that, and I do not care if we interrupt your damn wedding, you do not threaten. Yes, it's mostly empty words from keyboard weinies, but it's still threats. Haven been exposed to those types of viewers on a pretty steady diet through my local TV years, I would push like hell to have substantial punishments thrown at those asshats. There's just no excuse for it. No one at the station gives a crap about your football game. No one does, it's the law, we have to do it, and whether you recognize that or not, there is nothing we can do to get around it.
And it's not fair, because if we DON'T do it, then suddenly we're on the opposite end of attacks. Truthfully, there is no win for it. But bottom line; it's the law, we have to do it. Secondly, threats of any kind are not and should not be tolerated. It sucks, I'm sorry your game got interrupted, but suck it up butter-cup, or do what you actually threaten to do and watch your crap on another platform. You have more ways to watch your crap without the interruptions than we do to avoid interrupting you. Go do that and shut the hell up.
Lastly, and this has been repeated plenty, but I'm gonna say it anyway cause it's true. Don't go whining about having no warning when it does finally happen to you.
