In the news this weekend, the Met office will no longer provide weather services to the BBC ending a 93 year relationship. There has already been a lot of speculation and comment as always in the press and online. What does it mean for viewers?
So the cat is out of the bag about the BBC and Met Office’s weather contract renewal. The Met Office is out of the running. This contract renewal normally takes place every 5 years and this current tender process is not yet complete, with un-named companies still continuing to win the business. This is a very competitive area and there has already been a lot of speculation in the press and on social media about who is left in. That is all it is, speculation. The Telegraph listing with certainty two companies today “… the BBC has ruled out the national weather service in favour of two foreign companies, Dutch based MeteoGroup and New Zealand forecasting service Metra” seems bizarre and inappropriate. The announcement will be at the end of this year. Currently, the Met Office provides weather services for BBC, ITV, STV and UTV. Channel 4 takes a service from Meteogroup and Ch5 from the Weather Channel. The weather graphics at BBC are already provided by Metra, who began this service when the old symbols disappeared from our screens.
The Met Office blog reveals “Much of our 93 years of working with the BBC has been based solely on radio and television forecasts. The world is changing though, and nowadays people access weather information in many ways”, which maybe a nod towards the provision of weather forecasts via other platforms and mobile apps.
Times change
The image of BBC weather is often about the faces we see and hear on the TV and radio, but in reality many people now just access a weather forecast on their mobile phone. This can be from many sources, including Netweather, the Met Office or quite often American data (the inbuilt app on your iPhone uses data from the US).
What will stay?
It seems the Met Office will still be providing some data feeds. The BBC has already said they will keep on taking the UK Met Office’s severe weather warnings. The shipping forecast information will continue to come from the Met Office but may well be read out by someone else. How this merging of MO severe weather warnings, MO weather data, AN OTHER’s weather provision will work in the end, we will have to wait and see, next year. The Met Office does have a duty as the National Weather service to provide certain data freely.
Will my favourite presentor still be on the telly?
Currently (and as far as I know), weather presenters or Broadcast Meteorologists (BMs) in the regions are employed by the BBC or freelance. So your local person for NE England or Wales will not change, only who is providing the weather forecast to them next year. However, the UK National weather team based in W1A within the News centre in central London, are employed by the Met Office (there are a few exceptions). Many of these people have been civil servants for most of their working life. Anyone who has been subjected to a tender process for their own work at the council, NHS, police authorities etc. will know these are very uncertain times.
As for snipes about dumbing down the broadcasts, the output is governed by the BBC and still will be after 2015. Currently, with 2 or 3 BMs, a MO forecaster, a BBC producer and other BBC staff, the output of the day is decided in a morning meeting. Timings, audience, time of day etc all influence a broadcast. Back in 2004, when the symbols were dropped, the new BBC graphics weren’t going to have any wind data on, but the Met Office staff ‘suggested’ that it would be a massive omission for many of the audience. It has been a long term relationship.
Michael Fish, Met Office trained forecaster, presenter on BBC for decades and now appearing each week on Netweather.
Appreciation
Other online snipes about the cheapest option seem misguided, there are bound to be political influences on this with the renewal of the BBC charter. What often isn’t appreciated is the enormous output from the BBC weather centre by the Met Office staff. BBC world, BBC News 24 every half an hour, broadcasts for THE ONE, THE SIX and THE TEN, radio 4 Today programme and others, farming today, BBC4, radio2, Countryfile. All there, on air, to time, to the pips, or longer or shorter as a buffer depending on breaking news or the next item not quite ready. Not on Autocue, live , recorded, with chat, or serious. And when the new provider starts, these broadcasts will need to be done without missing a beat, whilst the BMs adapt to new presentation of data, possibly new graphics and continue to smile and deliver the weather forecast on time , rain or shine.
Any comments, or to read more chat see the Community Forum BBC loses Met Office Contract
