When much of downtown Peoria encountered a massive power outage recently, the Alpha Media stations in Peoria had to act quickly to keep the community in the loop and stay on the air. WMBD went old school by broadcasting at the transmitter site.
WMBD morning show co-host Greg Batton, traffic reporter Ken Zurski, chief engineer Wayne Miller and others packed up station vehicles and headed out the transmitter. Social media was also a big help. All Alpha stations used Facebook Live and other Web and social media to communicate to the public.
Alpha Media, Peoria SVP/Market Manager Mike Wild commented, “Our number one priority is serving the community and I’m extra proud of our team for how they handled this unscripted situation. They moved quickly and were able to keep our listeners and users well-informed. This is what Alpha Media is all about; live and local!”
Traffic reporter Ken Zurski added, “It was a throwback and kind of an educational thing for me. I do remember not having computers and doing it old school. This was definitely old school. We had no indication there was a problem, all of a sudden, boom the power is out. We did our best to inform listeners of what was going on while doing whatever we could to get back on the air.”
