The Weather Thread

Ooops Helen Willets graphics have failed to work...Bravo superb performance though. Ever the professional!

BBC Weather graphics just failed at the end of the national news. Helen did well to get through though!

And I'm sure there were a flood of complaints about it from DM readers...

Just seen this tweet regarding the change of format to the late bulletin, leading onto the National Weather


https://twitter.com/danholley_/status/433133134486310913

All this new ending does is flag up even more obviously that what you've got is basically two weather forecasts one after another. Some people have complained about that before, not me I hasten to add, but joining them together doesn't fool people that it is one forecast with two forecasters.

And often much more difficult to perfectly time the regional forecast. In London last night we saw the 'summary' for less than a second because they were obviously overrunning. At least the closing of a bulletin can provide a bit more flexibility. Do we really need a separate weather forecaster for the regions on the late? Wouldn't maps with a newsreader VoiceOver suffice before the national weather?

Or incorporating the national into the 10 like the 1 and 6?

I find the regional forecasts much more useful than the national ones which by their nature can't be very specific. Maps with a newsreader voiceover would still need to be prepared by somebody with meteorological training, and if they're in the building keeping an eye on how the forecast is panning out and updating the maps and script accordingly they might as well present it on-screen. I could see an argument for dropping the national forecast and the regional ones being extended to include a national overview.

If you keep both, there is an argument that it would be more logical for the regional forecast to follow the national picture. Doing it that way would mean that the regional forecasts had a fixed duration across all regions whereas keeping it part of the regional news means that local editors can decide that the weather situation in their patch means that they need a longer, more detailed forecast. It would also mean that the regional forecast duration would have to be finalised by mid evening and stuck to because some regions have to pre-record their forecast (eg Hull)

This is actually what BBC Wales now does - and from what I've seen, it's pretty rubbish. The national forecast after the Ten is always one of the most comprehensive and informative IMO - giving a proper old-school lecture of what the weather's going to do over the next 48 hours or so, from a decent network forecaster - and the Wales forecasts are poorer in comparison. You only get a brief national picture from someone who doesn't usually do national forecasts in any other bulletin - it just seems completely out of place.

Of course there are plenty of people who find regional forecasts preferable - but I don't think it's much to ask to provide a proper national forecast after the flagship news on BBC1 for those who need it either.

Having a bit of a nosey at various BBC regions' weather forecasts online, I've noticed that Spotlight always seem to take forever-and-a-day to get zoomed in to the SW England part of the map. There's always a long bit with the map zoomed right out, like you'd expect to see on the national forecasts (i.e. the whole UK fairly small, and much of the Atlantic etc out to the west/south can be seen).

I think all other BBC regions rarely/never use such a high degree of zoom-out. Maybe just the full "whole-UK" view, at a push.

Coupled with lots of bibble at the start involving showing scenic footage of some beauty spot in the region from earlier that day (plus stuff about waves for surfing etc, once the local part of the forecast finally gets underway), the whole "weather" part of the programme end up seeming ridiculously long-winded compared to any other region.

I wonder if at least part of the reason for this is to help fill the airtime, in a perhaps not massively news-rich region?

Simon Parkin with ITV Yorkshire weather today. Midweek fill ins seems to be random.

There's probably a bit of that. But I think the long weather section on Spotlight has always been popular with viewers. This probably stems back to the days of Craig Rich and the daily 'weather picture', a picture sent in from a kid at home.

I never understand why people think nothing happens news-wise in the South West, especially with the fact that in recent weeks, the South West has born the brunt of the severe weather including 80mph winds, lots of rain, and some of the biggest waves ever seen in this country, which have caused infrastructure damage on our railways. The flooding on the Somerset levels has been unprecedented. Even with all that going on, we've still had our regular streams of local politics, crime and courts, local business and sports news, and all the regular run of the mill stories.

To say the South West is not a news-rich region, is not true. We have as much news as any other region. The problem is, with a very London-centric media, as we have in the UK, some regions get under-represented on national news. The South West of England is one of those regions that gets less coverage on the national stage.

But it is fair to say that the weather is a big part of everything that happens in the South West. It's always been a fairly major segment, usually about 3-4 minutes. Sometimes, even longer than that, especially when the weather is the major story. Spotlight was the first regional news programme, to have it's own dedicated forecaster in Craig Rich. Where we have led the way, others followed. That's why Plymouth is one of the BBC's main weather broadcasting hubs.