The New ITV & BBC Weather Thread

TV Weather forecasts are so short, that this gimmickry has to be pre-planned, so why not programme it into the storyboard anyway, maybe a go forward button, but as for faux selection of screen images forget it.

I’ve yet to see a touchscreen add anything to any aspect of TV presentation.

Call me old fashioned, but I’d rather images on a screen behind a presenter change without them awkwardly having to press on it.

It's a no from me. Why the hell do you need two presenters and a touch screen.

Because they can- which seems to be the case for most inappropriate things on TV these days.

Interestingly BBC Weather have stuck to the traditional clicker even when using the touchscreen they share with Outside Source. The opportunity is there of they thought it added anything.

I agree, no touchscreen, whether it’s on the election results or ‘screeny’ on Peston ever results in anything better for the viewer than if the gallery changing the screen behind the scenes, also you wouldn’t have the presenter pressing it over and over when it doesn’t work.

The Dutch public broadcaster NOS used to use a touchscreen for weather forecasts and election results, which worked about as well as you can imagine, as can be seen in the video below (starting from about 5:40):

Touchscreens for Elections work well, in the hands of professional journalists. Emily Maitlis drives the BBC Elections ones excellently..

And I can't imagine a U.S. election without John King and his Magic Wall:

I’ve noticed in recent times the clicker has increasingly become an outdated piece of technology, especially for the BBC.

More forecasters seem to prefer to time their slides so that it fits perfectly into the allotted time.

I think clickers are only used now for longer forecasts where they have time to tell the weather story and just in case they need to suddenly end it for some Breaking News etc.

5.20am for Weather for the Week Ahead. That’s got to be a new record!

I’m only paying attention for decent length idents at closedown whilst the News Channel is on BBC Two. So far they’re being stingy

Clickers are perhaps of more use during live forecasts that are part of a busy hour of breaking news or a regional programme where the duration can end up being very fluid, so being able to skip to the next part of the sequence or stay on a point for a little longer so that the forecast contracts or expands is very useful.

Eddie Mair wrote a nice piece a few years ago about that skill, describing weather presenters as "sickeningly good broadcasters"