Making News: What Is Your TV Station's Energy Bill? (And why does it matter?)

As I write this, it is only a few hours until #EarthHour2022. For those unfamiliar, the date and event started in 2007 by "@WWF and partners as a symbolic lights-out event in Sydney to raise awareness of #climatechange", challenging people around the world in a grassroots effort to consider their own impact on the planet, and how they can reduce waste and overuse of energy, all by turning out the lights and other electronic devices, which will hopefully become a habit, especially for Americans.

"Earth Hour has also gone far beyond the symbolic action of switching off - it has become a?catalyst for positive environmental impact, driving major legislative changes?by harnessing the power of the people and collective action. ?Earth Hour is open-source and we welcome everyone, anyone, to take part and help amplify our mission and impact."" @EarthHour2022

Yesterday, I saw a Tweet from WFLA-TV (Tampa Bay) Chief Meteorologist and Climate Specialist @JeffBerardelli thanking his station @WFLA "for embracing #climatecommunication!" This is a refreshing change in attitude, one that has been (and should not have been) a long time in coming (with the growing #ClimateCrisis on the way) and one that I wish I could have personally experienced at my last station, which in any mention of #ClimateChange on-air was discouraged and often feared as a cursed phrase of some sort. Twere that it were that more stations would embrace the idea of climate change coverage. Here is an idea, and a challenge, before Earth Hour 2023...

Before Earth Hour, in 2002-2003, I created an energy-saving public awareness campaign that worked. More on that later. For six years, on this night, for this event, I went around my last station and conducted an experiment. I kept track of how many lights and various electronic apparatus were left on. Using information from @MLGW and @TVA to calculate how much energy was being wasted, and how much money was being overpaid because of that waste (which was substantial). I presented this information to the public on the weekend weathercasts and on my Your Environment podcast, ugly numbers and all, about our station's practice and what we were wasting. Hundreds of electronically-dependent lights and systems, were left on, each day, each night, each weekend, each holiday, which cost the station tens of thousands of dollars per year. These lights that stay on 24/7/365 take a toll. Some you can see, on your bottom line utility statement. Some you don't, except in international news coverage talking about rising oceans, dirty atmosphere and surging temperatures around the globe. "Oh, why should we do anything? Climate change, if it's real, affects other people. Not us in the States." Wrong. And we need to change both how we tackle it and how news covers it.

We need to start turning things off and we need to start encouraging others to do so. In our news coverage and in our personal lives.

Yes, I know that security lights and systems need to stay on. I'm not suggesting employees become unsafe by turning off everything. Some lights should stay on for safety.

Bathroom lights when not in use overnight do not.

Conference room lights do not. (Seriously...why are your conference room lights on all weekend?)

Sales office lights do not.

Closet lights do not.

All those alcoves for storage in the engineering office? Turn them over to motion sensors and stop wasting your corporations' moneys.

Americans don't like inconvenience. They don't like expending the efforts in trying to conserve energy and save the environment so much that they often fail to turn a light off in a room as they exit. Why? The overall idea and attitude is that Someone Else - Maybe Me Maybe Not - Will Eventually Use This Space And Since We're Americans We Can Waste Money On Energy Because We Are Americans And Will Always Have Cheap Energy So Why Should I Waste My Efforts?

Because... it matters.

Leave your lights on and you will pay for it. A lot of it. Midnight Sunday to Midnight Sunday. 168 hours a week. ALL week. The station sure was.

Find a way to selectively turn off what is not necessary to keep on constantly. If timers and motion sensors can deactivate supernumerary sources of drain, you will be paying for less energy in the long run. A lot less. 108 hours less on a Monday through Friday 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM schedule. Yes, your producers and photographers may have to expend extra effort turning on the lights and edit decks in the edit bays from time to time, but your bottom line will thank you. Imagine the advertising campaigns possible. Imagine starting a rivalry between stations: "This is how much WE spent on energy this week. This is how much LESS energy than what we spend last month. We challenge you to do better!"

Why the concern? Why the effort made to something that Americans take for granted and don't want to (apparently) hear about? If anything, saving the television station thousands of dollars per year. Looks good on the bottom line to the corporate managers, you would think that should be enough. Being a bragging point to the community at large by the creative services and promotional managers should count for something somewhere. Demonstrating to the viewing audience that there is both something that their socially-responsible television stations can do, and that they can do personally, is a remarkably powerful team to create and sustain. What better way to say We Care About Our Community than to show the viewers a way to help reduce their own utility bill at home? "We Can Do This At The Station. How Can YOU Do This At Home?"

If you take a look at @EarthHour's Events webpage, you see no events listed for Memphis, or in any part of the Memphis market area. Perhaps this is the golden opportunity for elected officials, managers of power utilities, news directors, managers of community events for businesses and organizations to show, to actively demonstrate, to put their money where their mouth is, what they care about and how urgent our climate situation is.

My challenge is this, to any city, county or state official reading this, to any news director of any television/broadcast/multimedia news source in the Memphis / Mid-South area (or beyond, especially in the United States): by next year, the climate crisis will still be with us and your viewers - particularly your younger viewers - will be visiting the websites and the broadcasts that cover climate change more than the ones that don't. Television stations and other media sites can #UseYourPower and can teach their viewers/surfers how to use their power wisely. It is time to embrace the ideas that

1. Some viewers will threaten to never watch you again if you so much as mention Climate Change. You will lose some viewers. Get over it. The costs are far too high to NOT speak about the damage to our planet. Action is required. Now. Local media can do their parts.

2. I have never met a news director who has not tried to turn a negative into a positive. Push headlong into the idea that Some People Won't Like This Coverage... but Some People Are Desperately Wishing For You To Cover The Topic And Do It Yesterday. These are the viewers you need to focus on.

3. Your power usage, and how to reduce it, could be the next best campaign for your station. I created and ran the Power To Save & Power 2 Save projects back in 2002-03, and it worked (want proof? contact me), and it could still be working now as a permanent station feature. (Want to know more? Hire me.)

My further challenge to any government official involved in planning: suggest to the elected leaders that, from this point onwards, every building in the planning stages should have one-third to one-half of their energy use from renewable/alternative sources, rather than the old Build A Building And Plug It In Who Cares Where The Power Comes From Because We're America approach. Mayors, CEO's, governors, legislators should all consider that going green is critical, and there will never be a better time than now to start working towards that, if local and beyond-local governments are true to the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG)?work theme. Put your money where your buildings are going to go. Is anyone in Memphis or Shelby County listening?

It's 8:30 as I finish this. Going to turn off lights and this computer and go out and stargaze for a bit, remembering how blessed we are, and how careful we have to be with what resources we have, musing over how many missed possibilities we pass over every day. Are there any news directors or government officials willing to try by this time next year? I hope the answer is yes.