Many people were upset over last night's storm coverage and the pre-empting of two of ABC's favorite shows, Grey's Anatomy and Lost. I completely understand the frustration, but at the same time I'm in a great position to be able to know exactly the whys and hows of the business.

Whenever there is a life-threatening situation, such as last night's tornadoes, we're going to be on the air. Protecting life is our number one priority. Shows can and will be re-aired (see below for programming information).

That being said, a lot of people wondered why if the tornado warning was lifted by 9:50 why we didn't get off the air and go back to Lost!. Here is the method to the madness. If we return to programming and you get to see one second of the show, there will be no re-airing. It's not a NewsChannel 8 thing. It's not an ABC thing. It's a Screen Actor's Guild thing.

A true re-broadcast means that some of the show (even one second) was aired in that particular television market. Since none of the shows were aired, we should be able to show them -- likely this weekend -- and it not be considered a re-broadcast.

Now, that being said, I know the next question is going to be why can't you just run a ticker at the bottom of the screen and let us watch our shows? Here's the reason. First and foremost, the protection of lives and property is more important than a television show. I'm a Lost! addict and of course it's a pain to have to set my DVR to catch it later. But, if I had family members in harm's way, I'd want someone watching out for them.

There are also rules and regulations regarding disasters of any kind, weather or otherwise. If you run a crawl at the bottom of the screen, you must also verbally announce the warning as well. This protects the hearing impaired as well as the vision impaired. And, as long as there is a tornado warning, you're going to see Frank, Clint, Taft, Mike, Phil, etc. on the air. Cutting in and out of programming or covering up only the commercials will only protect those who are watching AT THAT MOMENT. If a person returns home and flips on the television, how are they to know about the coming danger?

I just hope people will understand what we're trying to do here. We don't want to upset our viewers. But, more importantly, we don't want to let down our viewers.

P.S. - Grey's Anatomy will now be aired Saturday night (5/3) at 10:35 p.m. immediately after our newscast, followed by Lost at 11:35 p.m.

I've made a few changes and added some things to make the site a little more user friendly.

One of the changes has been in the videos section of the site. Some felt it would be easier if I split the videos into categories (i.e. news, weather, sports, etc.). So, I have now done that. You'll find there are sections for all three of those as well as Cool Schools, People Making A Difference and Waiting Child. I plan on adding other sections (user-submitted videos, bloopers, KTUL archives, etc.) later.

Another thing many people have been asking about is Frank's WeatherCall. It's our new system for alerting the public on the threat of severe weather. You can sign up for alerts on your phone or e-mail and your address is pinpointed to make sure you only receive a warning if your particular area is threatened.

There are three places you'll find the link to sign up. One of them is by visiting the weather page (http://www.ktul.com/weather/). The link is the first one in the list at the left -- Frank's WeatherCall. There is also a banner on the home page near the bottom and another banner that you'll find throughout the site. You can also just click HERE to get there directly.