Viewpoint:TV WEATHER

The recent arrival of presented weatherforecasts on the lTV network must invite com­parison with the long-established (since 1954)weather output on BBC television.

On the technical side. the lTV computer­graphics are years ahead of the BBC's. This isperhaps because more money is spent on them.particularly now that they are sponsored. It isalmost unbelievable that on BBC the same sty­lised cloud symbols - cumulus look-alikes ­should have survived for about 15years. althoughthey are now computer-produced rather thanmagnetic stick-ons, The lTV clouds look morerealistic even if they are all bulging stratocumu­Ius. Their animated representations of precipita­tion could do with some refinement but are stillan improvement on the static BBC dots andstars. Neither channel has overcome the problemof distinguishing between persistent rain andshowers or occasional rain. though lTV havetiny intermittent lightning flashes to enliventhunder forecasts.

On lTV. synoptic charts as such are seldomshown. and when they are there is a perversereluctance to include fronts. For meteorologi­cally minded viewers it is helpful that. on BBe.at least one chart is shown per broadcast. andoften some forecast charts as well. But I wonderwhy their fronts and occlusions arc alwaysshown as black lines with red bobbles and bluetriangles instead of the traditional red. blue andpurple lines. On the rare occasions when frontsare given on lTV they are. at least. in the correctcolours.

Charts showing forecast precipitation areas,although based on the same computer output.have been given a better-looking graphical ap­pearance on lTv.

If anything. the BBC are a little less meanwith time than lTV. but most time-slots arc veryshort and I feel that too many pictures arecrammed into them. even if the computer-drivenones provide good revenue for the Met. Office.In particular, wind charts showing white arrowsof different sizes and spacings. many of themoverlapping. must do nothing but mystify themass audience.

There is little to choose between the peopleinvolved. All of them deserve admiration fortheir expertise in delivering complicated storieswithout hesitation or deviation. and with littlerepetition. and at the same time controlling allthose graphics; and this in a slot which mostlyvaries between one and two minutes. All areprofessional meteorologists except TrishWilliamson and Sian Lloyd on lTV. but theyboth overcome this disadvantage by careful pre­paration. My long-term bias against non-profes­sionals doing the job is being eroded by thesetwo young ladies.

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A few years ago Ian McCaskill achieved theultimate recognition as a frenetic but genial pup­pet on the programme Spitting Image. but thepersonality of the presenters is no longer the fea­ture it used to be. TIme limitation leaves them noroom for individuality or anything but a straightexposition. It may be that the Met. Office hier­archy and many viewers prefer the impersonalapproach. The broadcasting authorities cer­tainly do not, but are reluctant to provide theextra seconds that would make a lot ofdifference.

There is a good mix of regional accentsamongst the presenters DOW that Sian Lloyd hasbrought a touch of Welsh to them. PreviouslyMartyn Davies's name had sounded promising asa representative of the Principality. but he turnsout to be a Brummie.

Sartorially they are all immaculate - a farcry from the time when Michael Fish was votedthe worst-dressed man on television. It must costthe two wardrobe departments a small fortuneto clothe them so splendidly, but well worth it forgiving meteorologists. who tend on the whole tobe rather scruffy. a smart new image.

It is a pity that many of those elegant pre­senters have adopted a sentence which has be­come a cliche. It is ~As we go through the . . .morning. afternoon. night. etc." and becomesirksome when used as many as three times inone broadcast. It is also unnecessary. I managedto 'go through' over 10000 weather broadcasts inthe south without once 'going through' a part ofthe day.

An 'Alice in Wonderland' kind of mathem­atics often creeps into temperature forecasts onboth channels - ~4 is 39" and ~12 is 54" etc .. withno mention of units. More importantly, there arefeatures, and this applies only to BBe. which aremisleading and must be known to be so. Therearc the statements that a place was the warmestor coldest or wettest in the country. It was. ofcourse. the warmest. coldest or wettest only ofthe comparatively few places that note and re­port their readings. and there might well havebeen a dozen or a hundred locations with supe­rior figures. This should be made clear everytime. Another anomaly is the tendency to statethat. say. Bournemouth was the sunniest placewith 13.2 hours of sunshine, when large sur­rounding areas, perhaps the whole of southernEngland. were cloudless from dawn to dusk andmust have had exactly the same duration ofsunshine.

To sum up. I think the lTV presentationscould do with a few more synoptic charts. butotherwise they look better and more modernthan the BBe's which are decidedly past the sell­by date. There is talk of sponsorship creepinginto the Corporation - perhaps that will help.

TREVOR BAKER