Traffic Reporting
Traffic reporting has been a primary focus in the Detroit area since CKLW, the 50,000-watt powerhouse radio station located in Windsor, Ontario, Canada but broadcasting to the Detroit, Michigan market (and 28 states and 6 Canadian provinces) helped with producing the concept of traffic reporting They launched their helicopter news and traffic reporting service in the late '70s with Jo-Jo Shutty on board. She became the first female helicopter news and traffic Reporter in North America and later married well-known Canadian/American news anchor Byron MacGregor, the voice of hit recording, "The Americans". These traffic reporting services are now primarily handled by a small variety of broadcasting companies and distributed through various media: radio, television, the Internet, and more recently through cell phones, in-vehicle navigations devices, and satellite radio (Sirius/XM). The larger companies having a direct presence in the Detroit market include Westwood One, Traffic.com, and Clear Channel Communications. They have established affiliate relations with most of the radio and television stations in the Detroit market to produce daily on-air traffic reports.
Westwood One owns and operates three different traffic reporting companies: Metro Networks, Shadow Broadcast Services, and SmartRoute Systems.
Traffic.com focuses primarily on the technology aspect of traffic reporting by producing traffic information for the Internet, radio, and television.
Clear Channel Communications is the largest owner of radio stations in the United States, and produces on-air traffic reports for its own radio stations, and traffic information for in-vehicle navigational devices. They produce their traffic reports under the trademark ‘Total Traffic.’
Most of these broadcasting companies also have working relationships with the local Department of Transportation (DOT), local and state police, and government agencies to gather and distribute traffic information through the various media listed above.
Read more about this topic: Media In Detroit
Famous quotes containing the words traffic and/or reporting:
“If you don’t have a policeman to stop traffic and let you walk across the street like you are somebody, how are you going to know you are somebody?”
—John C. White (b. 1924)
“I have been reporting club meetings for four years and I am tired of hearing reviews of the books I was brought up on. I am tired of amateur performances at occasions announced to be for purposes either of enjoyment or improvement. I am tired of suffering under the pretense of acquiring culture. I am tired of hearing the word “culture” used so wantonly. I am tired of essays that let no guilty author escape quotation.”
—Josephine Woodward, U.S. author. As quoted in Everyone Was Brave, ch. 3, by William L. O’Neill (1969)