first off I know that TV/movies <> real life, but in many movies/TV you see news helo’s in the air all the time ready to go to that important chase, so what I want to know is:
How many Cities have news Helo’s?
How often do the cities with news helo’s fly them?
Surely the cities with helo’s don’t fly them 24/7
What is the smallest city with a news Helo?
Are they really many’s news stories that requre the use of a helo?
With a few exceptions, I would think that most news stories would still exsist after the half hour or so it takes to get a van to the scene; the van would be much cheaper than a Helo.
Well, Southern California is probably atypical…but around here, every TV station has its own helicopter, and they are in the air constantly. They share the feed from the various traffic helicopters, but use their own for important stories, like high-speed pursuits!!
But high speed persuits happen very rarely (the cops won’t even chase a supersonic High speed chaser due to the very likely event of a bystander being hurt), so I highly doubt that they are in the air for high speed chases.
And do they really need to spend all that money on helo’s monitoring the traffic? AFIK, traffic doesn’t really change much day to day (barring special events) so why would someone need to know what the traffic is like?
does that happen often enough to warrent spending money on traffic helo’s? most accidents get cleared up very quickly. Meh, I don’t live in a really large city, so maybe things get F ed up for longer in big cities
Here in the Chicago area it seems just about every broadcast TV station has a traffic coptor - either they own it, or rent the chopper and pilot for the smaller stations. In this area, “morning traffic” (or evening) involves hundreds, if not thousands, of square miles, lots of interstates, and typically, mutliple accidents per day. One chopper can not only cover more territory in the same time as a van (or even several vans), but unlike vans they do not get stuck in traffic.
Such traffic coptors, of course, are also newcoptors.
Is it worth the expense? Well, a lot of folks tune into the morning news in part or even in whole for the traffic and weather. An aerial view can give much more accurate pictures of traffic jams. More accurate reports means more people choose your station to watch. More people watching means you can charge your advertisers more. So yeah, it probably IS worth it to spend the money.
As far as chopper vs. news van getting to the scene - although helicoptors aren’t that much faster than vans, they are not limited by the road speed limits nor are the limited by roads. For the most part, they can go on a direct line and as fast as they can go. No traffic lights. No stop signs. So the helos will almost always get there first, unless there’s some sort of weather problem.
It is obvious you don’t live in a big city, cuz you have no idea what the traffic is like during the morning and evening commutes. This morning, for example, there was a semi that sandwiched a compct against the guardrail on the 710, pretty much closing it down. This was at 6:30am, just in time for rush hour. Tooks them hours to get it fixed and traffic flow back to normal. Oh, yeah…traffic helicopters pay for themselves big time.
Oh, and about high-speed pursuits? You’re not from California, are you? Around here, the CHP will drop the hammer in a second. They love pursuits.
Although in NY, which also has nasty traffic, they don’t seem to rely on traffic helicopters as much as they do fixed cameras at various places like the bridges.
They still have news helicopters, but as far as I can tell they’re used exclusively for taking pictures of burning buildings at night.
For a while here in Portland the local ABC affiliate (channel 2) had TWO copters and they used every opportunity to brag about it. Of course they are lowest in the ratings and gave up one (leased) bird a while back, and I hear the 2nd is in danger of being repo’d…
Flying time is expensive. I doubt most news copters are airborne constantly, but rather fly during rush hour(s) and are kept on standby for major news events.
We have freeway cams and drivers for news/talk radio who cruise the hiways and have TV (voice only) and radio reports every 10 minutes between 6 and 8 am and afternoon radio only between 4 and 6 pm.
People who have to drive in congested areas absolutely obsess over traffic, and in particular like to obsess about it in their cars. Most news stations have traffic reports every 10 minutes during the rush hours, and many do it that often all day long. Non-news stations also do frequent traffic updates – it’s considered almost a must-have for metropolitan stations. Happily, much duplication of effort is avoided, as many stations outsource their traffic reports. Westwood One, an affiliate of Viacom, operates the Metro Traffic Control and Shadow Traffic operations, which together provide traffic to 2200 radio and TV stations.
The one regular, scheduled duty for the news helicopter owned by one station in this metro area is to pickup the station owner at his home each morning and carry him to the station offices, and then back home each evening. All at company expense.
Oddly enough, the station bought the helicopter shortly after the owner moved to a fancy new home across the state line, rather a long commute away. But just coincidence, I’m sure.
My old station in Vancouver just got a helicopter, and for that geography it makes a lot of sense. It can frequently take two hours to go less than 80 miles, and being right on the ocean it also helps for disasters at sea.
I don’t live there, but southern California has a lot of news helicopters, and they are in the air much of the time. That’s why when you watch these “America’s Most Daring Car Chases” and such, most of them have been filmed in southern Ca–not that other places don’t have car chases, but other places simply don’t have as many helicopters with cameras in the air, as much of the time the way LA and surrounding areas do.
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