weather

In an increasingly competitive, multi-platform environment, TV stations can deepen their relationships with viewers by creating an alerting strategy that goes beyond emergencies to enhance their lifestyles, while harnessing technology to empower content creators. It all starts with, for broadcasters, extremely familiar territory: the weather.

TV stations now connect with audiences on many different platforms, and changing technology offers an opportunity to expand on a key strategy, weather alerting, making it the catalyst for a broader approach that includes lifestyle forecasts, school closings and more. Join TVNewsCheck and The Weather Company for an in-depth conversation about the changing world of alerting during a June 8 webinar. Register here.

WBRC, Gray’s Fox affiliate in Birmingham, Ala., plans to roll out a four-spot weather image campaign on Sunday during the Super Bowl. “This was a different type of campaign, built to not look or feel like a local news promo and to create a ‘stop and look’,” says Nate Mills, WBRC’s creative services director.

Ginger Zee, chief meteorologist for ABC News, provided her millions of social media followers with behind-the-scenes updates before and during Hurricane Ian as well as live reports on ABC World News Tonight and Good Morning America.

TVNewsCheck‘s Michael Depp talks with meteorologist Jim Cantore from The Weather Channel about climate change, heightened competition in television weather and the critical role of empathy in telling weather’s story to TV audiences.

The strange allure of watching someone else stand in the blizzard.

A new “multi-pronged” reporting initiative will debut early next year, focusing on climate and weather’s impact on business, health, household finances and lifestyle, says Barb Maushard, Hearst SVP of news.

Fox News Media is getting into another rough-and-tumble world — the weather. The company is launching Fox Weather, a free streaming service and app that it expects will be used most frequently by customers on their mobile devices.

Nate Johnson, director of weather operations for NBCUniversal Local, says the group’s NBC and Telemundo stations are using augmented reality to enhance weather reporting. Every tool counts, he emphasizes, since competition for talent is getting stiffer as Fox readies its own weather network. Note: This story is available to TVNewsCheck Premium members only. If you would like to upgrade your free TVNewsCheck membership to Premium now, you can visit your Member Home Page, available when you log in at the very top right corner of the site or in the Stay Connected Box that appears in the right column of virtually every page on the site. If you don’t see Member Home, you will need to click Log In or Subscribe.

Meet SciLine, an organization that’s offering you 23,000 weather or science experts — for free.

A first-of-its-kind nanosatellite project is expected to launch its first qualification unit on Monday. The constellation will ultimately consist of 7 small satellites that will monitor Earth’s tropical zone, which spans about 40 degrees of latitude to the north and south of the equator.

Twitter is partnering with veteran climate journalist and meteorologist Eric Holthaus to launch a local weather news service on the platform called “Tomorrow” that will be built using all of Twitter’s new creator products — from paid newsletters to ticketed live audio rooms and more.

When a deadly tornado touched down in Birmingham, Ala., during the late news, WBRC’s coverage led the market in household viewers. Station management says strong First Alert branding and an all-hands approach made the difference.

How machines are helping meteorologists tell a better story.

The current temperatures. The satellite map. The 10-day forecast. They’re all sturdy staples of the weather report on your local station. But nowadays, they’re not enough to compete with the convenient phone apps in every viewer’s pocket. Meteorologists need to give viewers something more than an app can provide. And many have responded by breaking down walls between weather and news, and using journalistic storytelling to deepen their coverage.

After more than 30 years as a television weatherman, Jeff Lyons was accustomed to people honking a horn or pulling a goofy face from time to time as they passed by his outdoor live shots. He thought unexpected guests were a thing of the past when he moved his nightly forecast for WFIE Evansville, Ind., into his dining room last month amid the coronavirus pandemic. Then, three weeks into his new routine, Lyons’s 11-year-old cat Betty showed up.

The data doesn’t lie. As local TV news viewership has slowly but steadily declined, the local weather segment has endured as the most ‘must-see’ aspect of many local newscasts. Research by media consultants and by Pew Research shows that local weather is the most valued topic covered by local newscasts. It might be tempting to stop right there. Thanks for watching, goodnight. But it would be perilous to take this narrow view.

Brad Smith of Videa explains why local broadcast weather news is adding viewers and why that’s a good opportunity for advertisers.

Audience research consistently shows weather is a primary driver of news audience in every TV newsroom. And in many markets, members of the weather team are some of the most popular people on air.

Used exclusively by NBC/Telemundo station meteorologists, the StormRanger radar trucks are honored for revolutionizing the timeliness and accuracy of local weather forecasting and reporting.

While consumers with GPS-enabled smartphones expect real-time weather reports down to the street-corner level, station meteorologists say it’s not that simple. Most of what one gets from apps is just model data that hasn’t been subject to human interpretation. Sifting through the various models and presenting a forecast that incorporates local knowledge is where station meteorologists excel. “The local knowledge that experienced meteorologists can lend to the product is invaluable,” says Justin Keifer,  chief meteorologist at WMBB Panama City, Fla.

Historic wildfires have burned all summer long in California, but meteorologists across the state are focused on the immediate impact and are cautious about pointing the finger squarely at climate change.