Re: WBZ Weather

[Steve Sawyer <steve5@tiac.net>]

Roger Kirk wrote:

> The above scenario is a touch more complex i.e. whenever weather
> transcends "normal" and becomes "complex", "interesting" or
> "threatening",  radio news calls upon one of WBZ-TV's weatherman to
> provide more "insight" than is available from the accu-guys.
>
> I question whether it would be truly cost-effective for radio to
> divert
> 60 seconds of TV-WXguy time every 10 minutes - all day long.
>  Realistically, I'll bet TV would view it as a resource drain and
> constant source of interruption/irritation.  The result would be an
> hour
> or two of reports all taped at once.  Just like David Brudnoy
> "pretends"
> to talk to Jack Williams (taped) twice each evening about the upcoming
> 11
> o'clock news - and Jack "pretends" to answer him.  It's so phony.

Even before they brought in Accu-Wx many of the reports were taped.  The
pointhere is that the local tv guys are much more knowledgeable and
interesting.
For example, think back a few weeks to when the tornadoes hit in western
Mass and
at the Cheshire fairgrounds.  Up until there were actually tornado
warnings, WBZ
Accu-Wx guys only had a taped forecast of a 40% chance of a thunderstorm
running
on air, but the weather had become extremely severe in the western
portion of the
state.

Years ago, when the TV weathermen did radio, the meteorologist's
concerns about severe
weather would have aired starting in the morning drive and they would
have kept updating about the
wx conditions up to and including when watches /  warnings were issued.
The fact is that
if I were ignorant of weather conditions and listened to 'BZ during the
last round of
strong wx, I wouldn't have known until I heard thunder or turned on the
Weather Channel.

>
>
> At least now, each forecast is fresh, new verbiage - logical content
> probably doesn't change that often.  But it can as conditions warrant.
>
>

I think not!  Maybe once an hour, if that.  I have nothing against the
Accu Weather people and I
do like Elliot Abrams, I just think WBZ did a far better job with their
TV weathermen on radio
than is done by Accu-Weather.

Just think, they could have had Roger LaPlante!

Steve Sawyer
WINQ / 97.7 Q-FM
Winchendon, MA

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