Closure of the Weatheradio Service in Canada

Yeah. I'm down on commercial AM/FM radio being touted as an emergency service, because there's so rarely enough behind the scenes to make it reliable or even minimally usable as such, but this is something purpose-built to fill that role, and shutting it down means there's nothing which can fill it, given how worthless commercial radio is at the task:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minot_train_derailment

> Because it was the middle of the night, there were few people at local radio stations, all operated by Clear Channel with mostly automated programming. No formal emergency warnings were issued for several hours while Minot officials located station managers at home. North Dakota's public radio network, Prairie Public Broadcasting, was notified and did broadcast warnings to citizens.

If you wanted to make commercial radio even minimally acceptable as an emergency alert system you'd be... guess what... reinventing EAS and EAS-a-likes, except more expensive and less responsive! EAS never has to "Interrupt This Program" it can just get to the meat.

Yeah, super disappointing. Not only do many of my amateur radio transceivers tune to the weather FM frequencies, I just picked up a cheap low-power receiver for the purpose of having something that can last a long time during extended power outages, if necessary -- with the idea of being able to keep up with local radio and weather radio during those times. I assumed Canada of all places will keep these kind of services going indefinitely, because they are pretty important when all else fails.

> We still have CBC radio that broadcast weather reports, and whether reports are still available on the internet.

Commercial radio/television broadcasts are not the same thing since they do not offer continuous weather broadcasts. Getting weather information from the Internet is better in most respects, but it is not always the best medium to receive such information. I am a regular user of the Weatheradio service during the summer months, and have been through one situation where it most likely saved lives.

> I think we have to not maintain things that are older tech and unused and focus on things that are the future.

The problem is that we are ditching older tech without finding a viable replacement. I find it difficult to associate that approach with focusing on the future. I find it easier to associate it with forgetting lessons we learned the hard way.

> If I understand correctly, this service was for people who didn't have internet access, which with cell service, StarLink and similar services is become a very small minority of individuals.

You'd be surprised at how bad cell service is in Canadian areas that aren't even considered "boonies". There are often times when you're driving without cell service or any other options.

> people who didn't have internet access, which with cell service, StarLink (yeah, Elon Musk, I know but it has been a game charger in remote communities) and similar services

I'm not bringing Starlink on a week-long kayak voyage. My cousin isn't bringing it on his hiking and hunting trip in the bush. There's no cell service out there - radio is all you get, at best. This might not be tremendously well used, but there was and continues to be utility for radio broadcasting that one can receive on a cheap low-powered device for free with no subscription in the middle of nowhere. None of your suggestions touch that.

> we'd still have roads maintained for horse and buggies.

Do you leave the city, much? Ever drive up an FSR?

The current govt is on a bit of an austerity kick at the moment, particularly wrt staffing of public bodies. Would be surprised if this simply wasn't a casualty of that.

First guess is that it's due to the federal government cutting some stuff... and things like this are usually the first to go.