FOX Weather Coverage Ruins Champions League Final For Fans in Twin Cities

If you thought Manchester United’s performance in the 2011 Champions League Final against Barcelona was frustrating to watch, spare a thought for TV viewers in Minneapolis-St. Paul who had the game interrupted by their local weather team who were reporting a tornado warning.

While tornado warnings are something that shouldn’t be ignored, it was the way that the FOX 9 News team interrupted the UEFA Champions League Final that bothered many viewers including EPL Talk reader Donald O.  He sent in the above picture and cataloged the following complaints about FOX 9’s actions:

• The FOX 9 news and weather team kept on referring to the Champions League Final game as “The World Cup,”
• FOX 9 said that they were required by the FCC to interrupt the game and inform viewers of the approaching storm. However, the local CBS affiliate continued showing their coverage of a golf tournament and just ran weather updates across the bottom of the screen,
• FOX 9 viewers had to watch the entire second half of the match (except for minute 45-50) in the split-screen mode (pictured above); the volume from the game was turned off so viewers could only hear the meteorologists,
• The half-time show was preempted with weather coverage,
• After the game ended, FOX 9 skipped the trophy presentation.

“This was so frustrating for a game you wait all year to see,” said Donald O. “While I understand the concern for public safety, there are better ways for doing things. Local communities have tornado warning sirens so FOX 9 can’t claim they are the only source of information for these sorts of things. The weather was also isolated to a swath south of the metro area, so it was even more frustrating as we watched the light rain coming down while we tried to watch our split screen with no sound.”

According to FOX 9’s website, “A line of severe thunderstorms rolled through the western part of Minnesota and southern parts of the Twin Cities dropping hail and rain on Saturday afternoon. There are no reports of major damage. One tornado touched down in Sibley County. It happened about 2:29 p.m. But there are no reports of damage.”