A note re the new weather contract. Paul Hudson said on Radio Lincs during the week that the new weather graphics will be "in the next couple of months"
Why was it reported, then, that the new contract would start in the spring of 2017 (of which only 10 days remain)?
Because plans change?
Up until now, has there ever been regularly-renewed "terms" to provide the Beeb with its weather data?? (e.g. periods of circa 10 years at a time, a bit like the ITV/Channel 3 regional licences/franchises)
Or has it just been a "permanent"/open-ended thing since the 1920s?
If the former, then it would surely have a finite expiry/changeover date, which would have been long-since already known (and therefore factored into any announcement about when the change of provider would take effect). I therefore presume that the latter is in fact the case?
I also presume that as things stood in the 1920s (and for many years/decades thereafter) The Met Office must've been either essentially or literally a monopoly, and the concept that there would ever be any *other* weather data provider(s) in existence for the Beeb to potentially choose from would have been unforeseeable? Hence the lack of a finite expiry date.
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