Met Office loses BBC contract

[Nick L]

I just think this is a storm in a tea cup. If this were kept under wraps and the transition was made without announcement, I would wager that nobody would notice a thing.

 

As well as that, if the new forecasters are as terrible as some are worried about, then the BBC can always go back to the Met Office when the contract is up.

Edited August 23, 2015 by Nick L

[bobbydog]

I really don't know where to begin with this.

 

The Met Office are legally obliged to provide public weather warnings, and are paid for by the government, NOT the BBC...

 

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/what/pws

 

There is no evidence that the Met Office were outpriced.

but the contract is (i would assume) tendered out like any. value for money, based on requirements. if the new provider is as capable as the met office, why would their warnings not be as valid as the meto? the meto may have a legal requirement to issue warnings but does the bbc have a legal requirement to broadcast them?

[chrisbell-nottheweatherman]

I really don't know where to begin with this.

 

The Met Office are legally obliged to provide public weather warnings, and are paid for by the government, NOT the BBC...

 

http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/about-us/what/pws

 

There is no evidence that the Met Office were outpriced.

 

Trouble is, explaining that to the average viewer who is baffled by the fact that they read that the Met Office was losing the contract yet their TV weatherman/woman is still referring to Met Office warnings won't be easy.  I don't expect that most viewers will care that the Met Office is required to issue public warnings by the government yet those warnings are being read by a forecaster who, in the next sentence, is discussing a forecast from a company who won a BBC contract - all they'll see is an unnecessarily complex and (for many) utterly baffling set of circumstances.  I can think of elderly relatives of mine who will be most confused by this new arrangement.

[Yarmy]

Some more information starting to come out now in the media, whether it's true or not:

Met Office 'lost BBC contract over dumbing down rows and weather app'

I've also spoken to a few people today and can confirm some good news about the chance of some presenters hanging on:

http://essexweather.weebly.com/blog/met-office-lose-bbc-contract

If there's even any truth in the Telegraph link, then it's the BBC who look laughable. Concerns about a poxy mobile phone app, I'm not happy, in fact I'm quite sad. I suppose that the tendering and decision-making rules could be revealed via an FOI request? Anyhow, not a good day for new CEO Rob Varley.

Edit: Ha ha, gotta love the swear filter.

Edited August 23, 2015 by Yarmy

[Trancemaster1966]

In effect, the contract is out to "tender".  This is standard practice these days.  I work for a local housing charity and we have had to tender for the same services that we have provided for the last 18 years from our local authority.  Big forms, questions that we have never been asked before, data protection, health and safety issues...etc...the list was endless.  In the end we won with our bid beating off the likes of Shelter, who are a national organisation who if they wanted, could have undercut us (and probably did to get a foothold in the area).  In other words, the BBC have tendered the contract and if you ask me who would win that tender, based on VFM and previous experience, the answer would be.......Ummm...The Met Office!!!  

Edited August 23, 2015 by Trancemaster1966

[chrisbell-nottheweatherman]

In effect, the contract is out to "tender".  This is standard practice these days.  I work for a local housing charity and we have had to tender for the same services that we have provided for the last 18 years from our local authority.  Big forms, questions that we have never been asked before, data protection, health and safety issues...etc...the list was endless.  In the end we won with our bid beating off the likes of Shelter, who are a national organisation who if they wanted, could have undercut us (and probably did to get a foothold in the area).  In other words, the BBC have tendered the contract and if you ask me who would win that tender, based on VFM and previous experience, the answer would be.......Ummm...The Met Office!!!  

 

Unfortunately, they are already out of the running.  From reports both here and in the media, it's a two-horse race between Metra (the commercial arm of the NZ agency) and MeteoGroup (ditto in the Netherlands).

Edited August 23, 2015 by chrisbell-nottheforecaster

[Gael_Force]

To read some of the comments in here one would think the BBC is proposing to use some wee boy with a website and access only to the GFS charts. :nonono:If the piece about the app is accurate; that's a big part of public interaction with a weather provider - not one I use, but it is the way of the future and I'm sure the UKMO will address for next tender in five years.

[Trancemaster1966]

Unfortunately, they are already out of the running.  From reports both here and in the media, it's a two-horse race between Metra (the commercial arm of the NZ agency) and MeteoGroup (ditto in the Netherlands).

I hope this is wrong because It is illegal for organisations who have tendered for a contract to be disclosed prior to the tender and if it has been disclosed then everyone else has the right to demand that it be re-tendered.  From what I heard on the news earlier, a MET spokesperson said that they would be tendering for the contract?

Edited August 23, 2015 by Trancemaster1966

[kar999]

Shocking news...

 

,,,,,, "so John Ketley won't be the weatherman ... and nor will Michael Fish.. "

 

Showing my age now.

[cheese]

Given the BBC is our national broadcaster and the Met Office our national met agency - both funded by the taxpayer - why on earth should one pay for access to the other's services?

[snowking]

To read some of the comments in here one would think the BBC is proposing to use some wee boy with a website and access only to the GFS charts. :nonono:If the piece about the app is accurate; that's a big part of public interaction with a weather provider - not one I use, but it is the way of the future and I'm sure the UKMO will address for next tender in five years.

This is a really crucial point to raise.

Smartphones are now the most used device to access the Internet in the UK (as per Ofcom's most recent market report), whilst overall 'traditional' television viewing hours continue to decline, resulting in an increase in app usage. I'm not a big lover of smartphone weather apps because, much like their online 5 day counterparts, I find them really rather fickle and inaccurate.

That being said, a piece of work carried out by Essex Weather Centre I saw some months ago now did consistently place Meteogroup's graphical and text forecasts at the top of the rankings for forecast accuracy in Essex, with the BBC and Met Office equivalents some 3-4 percentage points behind (Tom may be able to elaborate on this further if he sees this post)

This, combined with the consistently high ratings for Meteogroup's Weather Pro app could have been enough to tip the scales of favour away from the Met Office.

Whilst I still personally prefer the human input of broadcast meteorology it would be naive to assume that other mediums are not at least on a level pegging of importance to broadcast meteorology now.

SK

Edited August 24, 2015 by snowking

[knocker]

Unfortunately, they are already out of the running.  From reports both here and in the media, it's a two-horse race between Metra (the commercial arm of the NZ agency) and MeteoGroup (ditto in the Netherlands).

 

Are they? I thought they are a London based company, founded in the Netherlands, but now owned by an American private equity company.

[William Grimsley]

Are they? I thought they are a London based company, founded in the Netherlands, but now owned by an American private equity company.

That's correct, they are based in London. I really hope the BBC take on MeteoGroup, one of the best weather providers in the UK apart from Netweather, obviously!

Edited August 24, 2015 by William Grimsley

[chrisbell-nottheweatherman]

Are they? I thought they are a London based company, founded in the Netherlands, but now owned by an American private equity company.

 

Apologies for the inaccuracy.  I had read references to them being from the Netherlands and other references to both companies being associated with national meteorological bureaus, and thereby got the idea that they were the Netherlands equivalent of the Met Office.

Edited August 24, 2015 by chrisbell-nottheforecaster

[feb1991blizzard]

Strictly can go - I never ever change channels from sky or talksport and never feel need to watch BBC so why should I pay for it?

[Snowyowl9]

Prince Charles will take up forecasting the weather.  

[johnholmes]

I think the comments alluding to modern perceptions on how to present weather forecasts is probably very valid. I'm way behind the times and maybe UK Met is also. Perhaps the smartphone app is a good part of why they appear to have lost the contract. As sk suggests re the app, neither am I all that keen on what it shows on my smartphone but then we have to move on, or so they say. Neither new nor old is necessarily better but someone has to make a choice and it appears old fogies like me and perhaps my ex colleagues are in that league. It is, other than the possible loss of work for staff, no great world changing issue. The core services I posted about will remain or I would suppose they will.

[Winter Cold]

It is a surprise and I was very shocked when I first read this story, as if it should never happen. But then you think about it and we shall just have to wait and see. For all we know the new forecasts could end up better. However, the reports of the BBC wanting it dumbing down are a little disappointing, ive been thinking recently the tv forecasts have been a little more indepth than they used to be and I enjoy that. They mention the jet stream a lot nowadays for example and that never used to be the case. Also they did talk of the uncertainty over the past weekends weather. I appreciate that and I think most people respect honesty. I certainly dont want any dumbing down of forecasts.

 

I hope the loss of money to the Met Office doesnt lead to hundreds of redundancies, but fear it may do. We've seen massive cuts in the civil service already with thousands of job losses (of which im one) so this will probably mean the whole 'BBC section' of the office at risk. Sad times.

 

All we can do is wait for the change and for the first new forecast and see what its like. We will only have the power to judge the change later on

[Dami]

Prince Charles will take up forecasting the weather.  

Oh my sweet lemons, NO! 

Edited August 24, 2015 by Dami

[feb1991blizzard]

I think i would care more if it would have meant we would have lost Fish, McCelwee, Kettley, Giles, and the daddy of them all - McCaskill but weve already lost them anyway, yes i think the only thiing the Beeb out do the other channels on is weather and the girls are pretty good on the BBC national forecasts but not sure a great deal will change, i agree with J.holmes's point, lets see weather things improve from a forecast POV first - pardon the pun.

[Paul]

Jo's written a blog with info and views on the BBC contract situation:

 

http://www.netweather.tv/index.cgi?action=news;storyid=6837;sess=

[TheRepublic2015]

I have worked in tv news and weather production off and on over the years, I don't think it's a big surprise that the BBC have dropped the UKMO.

There had been rumours for years that the BBC weren't entirely happy with the service provided by the UKMO.

 

I doubt his decision will not have been an easy one for the BBC, this tender process has probably been lengthy, with submissions from many bidders and this announcement suggests that the UKMO bid was not good enough to retain the business, that's the commercial reality.

Knowing how important the weather is to us Brits I don't think the BBC would replace the current service with something inferior, they will be wanting a superior one.

 

The weather industry is a very competitive GLOBAL business, I believe there are a number of companies who could replace the UKMO and do a very good, even better job than the UKMO, the biggest of these provide complete data services, meteorologists and very sophisticated tv graphics systems, some with offices and meteorologists in the UK.

 

The companies speculated to be involved are familiar, Metra from NZ currently provide the graphical system for the current UKMO BBC service, Meteogroup seem to be a current favourite, are a big European company. There are many more - WeatherOne, Trivis, Storm Geo and the big US companies like Accuweather or The Weather Company group which is comprised of The Weather Channel, WSI, Wunderground, Weather Central.

 

From experience and people I still know who work in weather production I believe these are the current UK tv weather providers:

 

BBC - UKMO / Metra

ITV - UKMO

Channel 4 - Meteogroup

Channel 5 - Weather Central part of The Weather Company group

Sky - I think is StormGeo / Viz (which is a very big tv industry graphics system)

S4C - Weather Central part of The Weather Company group

UTV - UKMO

 

 

 

[Hodgheg]

Looks as if it's already dumbing down in anticipation. Haha thumbs up or thumbs down?

Edited August 26, 2015 by John Hodgson

[The Enforcer]

I'm not that surprised considering there have been a few 'nowcasts' like this in recent times:

 

[Nights King]

Do you think me might see the old graphics brought back in? I still prefer the ppn maps they used to display especially in winter.

 

They have also definitely been dumbed down over the years although I find Ian F goes into quite a lot of detail with our regional forecasts.