STRATEGIC PARTNERS
NBC may fan the flames of millennium panic with its airing of "Y2K." The made for-TV movie will depict, among other disasters, a nationwide breakdown of ATMs.by Ann All, editor
November 18, 1999
The nation's ATMs failing en masse will be one of the millennium-related calamities depicted in "Y2K," a made-for-TV movie set to air Nov. 21 on NBC. According to an article in the Boston Herald, the fictitious mayhem will also include East Coast power outages and a near meltdown at a nuclear power plant. Experts fear the movie may cause more problems than any actual technological glitches that may happen. Some people are notoriously susceptible to suggestion, as evidenced by the panic that followed the 1938 radio broadcast of Orson Welles' "War of the Worlds." Though Welles issued a disclaimer at the top of his broadcast -- as NBC plans to do with "Y2K" -- his news-like report of a Martian invasion famously prompted some listeners to flee their homes. More recently, some viewers of "The Blair Witch Project" reportedly believed that events portrayed in the frightening faux documentary were real. The Gartner Group's Lou Marcoccio, a top Y2K consultant, told the Boston Herald, "I think it's absolutely wrong to depict a worst-case scenario of what can occur. It will impact people's thinking." NBC's decision to air the movie flies in the face of advice offered by industry experts like Clint Swift, the Bank Administration Institute's managing director for operations and technology. Swift said he hoped the media would proceed with caution when dealing with Y2K. Although all of the major ATM networks, processors and manufacturers insist they are ready for Y2K, some consumers may have lingering doubts. What will happen if an ATM user with an overactive imagination -- and a viewing of "Y2K" fresh in his memory -- inserts his card and doesn't get his cash? On Jan. 1, "a small percentage of ATMs will be down because they're out of paper or ink" Swift said. Wrongly attributing such problems to Y2K could create a public relations nightmare for deployers. Ed Bourgeois, president and chief operating officer of Automated Technology Machines Inc., a New Orleans ISO, agreed that the media may have a negative influence on ATM users. "If the media picks up on it and blows it out of proportion, then people are going to see that and panic," Bourgeois said. "Whether that'll happen once or a thousand times, I don't know. I don't think it'll be nationwide. It'll probably be in small pockets here and there." Yet NBC spokesperson Rebecca Marks defended her network's programming, telling the Boston Herald, "No way are we promoting ("Y2K") in a way that we feel would frighten the public."
