Doubt it, people will still blame the Met O

Weatherquest already do the BBC forecasts for Look East ...   And very good they are too

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My god, Jim Bacon has been at the pies hasn't he

That.

I seriously cannot remember the last time I actually sat down to watch a TV forecast. I don't want to sound like I'm blowing my own boots and getting too big for my trumpet but it had got to a point where since I do my own forecasts under the nom de plume that is The Cloud Master using the freely available raw data there are on the interwebs for so long, there simply isn't any need for me to watch the telly forecasts. In fact, I hardly ever look at the Met Office's own web site. It's not because they do a poor job, in fact, it's far from that, it's just become quite redundant in my eyes.
  But of course, not everyone have the skills and expertise to make their own forecasts so there'll always be that demand for telly forecasts, even in this era of mobile apps and web sites and amateur forecasters such as moi doing the rounds. It's how they are going to be presented under the new contract that will be of interest.

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IIRC that graphics package they use (Weatherscape XT) is from a New Zealand company - wonder if they've branched out into data these days?

The sad thing is that we're going to lose something unique. It's not just the data, you see, but all the behind-the-scenes stuff too. For example, forecasters on the Beeb have access to the Met Office briefings each day. We rarely get to see them but they're written up by experts in their field - during winter at least they're absolutely fascinating, discussing various things such as frictional forcing causing showers in the Thames Estuary, boundary layer variations and all that stuff. It's something that no amount of data can replicate, as it's relying on the accumulated years of experience of forecasters.

We've seen the benefit of this many a time in winter when the models are showing a real dumping of snow whereas the Beeb isn't - and more often than not the Beeb's right. They can of course get it wrong, but on balance they have more hits than misses.

There are all sorts of private companies out there providing weather services. Some will say anything to get into press, one was founded by a convicted paedophile and others are actually pretty decent - but no matter how hard you try, how many people you hire and how much data you pay to access you'll never manage to beat the resources the Met Office has.

 

 

 

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The recipe for the next five years.Force competetive tendering,undermine the Met Office finances then privatize on the cheap.Ditto for The BBC itself and the NHS.

I hope Brian is going to tender for it!

As The Met Office and the BBC are both government owned, I cannot see how tendering to a private company will improve the overall government finances.  It doesn't add up.

I wouldn't be surprised if the BBC were trying to make a political point.

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Oh dear! The thought of weather forecasters wearing clogs and funny hats leaves me feeling queasy. Neither do I want the NZ company getting it lest the weather maps are shown upside down. 

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Some excellent points here and I don't have too much to add with regard the business and economic arguments.
I do however have a massive issue with the emotive side of it, however irrational that might be.
Sometimes tradition is more important than anything, and I fear we will lose (via mainstream media) a huge chunk of our history and a little bit of what makes us British.
It's how I felt when I heard Rob McElwee was retiring from BBC duties, only more amplified. If I wanted a presenter and not a meteorologist delivering a forecast I watch ITV - and it doesn't get much worse than that.

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The beeb could use Gavin but the only problem is they don't do adverts and by the time Gavin finishes explaining about the Ads the weather slot will be over 

P.S only pulling your leg Gav 

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And usually only 1.30 mins to 2 mins is allocated to telly forecasts and just uses splodges, not 10 minutes involving showing actual raw data.  

PS: I am also pulling your leg, Gav.

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Oh ye of little faith!!!! The other day I actually got the Ad Announcement done in 14 seconds!!!!!! 

As far as the Met Office losing their contract with the BBC goes, it is quite a shocking and surprising development. Hopefully, all that will change is where the BBC get's their information from, and the presenters and quality/length of forecasts will stay broadly the same. If so, then there's no reason why the viewer should notice much difference.

End of an era for sure though and bound to be a big shake up to the Met industry one way or another!

 

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"The Met Office also provides many of the presenters who read the weather on the BBC and said it would be supporting them to "ensure clarity on their future"."

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-34031785 

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TUPE law. Won't happen. 

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Wow huge shock. For me I would hate to see all the weather staff forced to leave...I do like a fair number of the onscreen ones. It would be disasterous to replace them with the poor BBC employees such as on local telly (odd one excepted - imagine Shefali presenting the national from Mids!).

However I am more excited at the prospect of better radar. Could we not get something along the lines of the doppler radar like America where they can zoom in and give more detail.

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I think you're being very optimistic there!

Who owns the radar sites across the UK? The Met Office. So unless doppler radar is already provided (which it isn't, at least at most sites) you're not going to see it come in - it's not as if some foreign company will set up their own radar network.

The best you can hope for is 5-minute radar such as that on Netweather etc - that's the best that they provide for commercial use.

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I like Sheff!

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She is a bit better than she was, but after 20 odd years you would hope so. As for the doppler, I presumed a new company would install new weather sites which could allow for this detail. I was not aware that the Met would sti provide this.

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Sad times.

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Osborne and Co only value things that provide profit to shareholders. Since Thatcher came to power, everything has been sold off, often to foreign companies and consortiums largely to the detriment of consumers

People laugh at Corbyn, but another 5 years of this government, and who knows. Maybe voters will finally wake up to what successive governments have done to this country

 

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A sneak peak at how the BBC forecast presenters will look post 2016.

 

 

 

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A lot of even reasonably intelligent people I know have a poor opinion of weather forecasts and forecasters, and the Micheal Fish hurricane and the BBQ summer that wasn't are often trotted out as specific examples to support their view. So, if the watching public have a poor view of the product then the BBC executives have to justify why they are paying for a premium service.

Added to that I have realized that a lot of people younger than me never listen to or watch a broadcast weather forecast. If they want to know what the weather is going to do they look at their phones for a location specific forecast. Now I know lots of people on this forum will throw up their hands and say what rubbish most of the internet autogenerated location specific forecasts are. But for most people that is what they want. They don't want a rambling discussion of fronts and air-masses and mention of probabilities and uncertainties. So the BBC are looking to provide what the mass of the people want.

Yes I know it is likely to be rubbish and a dumbing down. But that's generally what people want, and there are a plethora of examples to prove this, from the quality of MP3 music to TV programming. The BBC's move is just another nod to the contemporary zeitgeist.

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Yes I'm sure the pendulum will swing and we'll end up with a lot more essential functions brought under state control.  Just like Greece.

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Sign of the times. This decision is not in the same context as others, but this country's decision making has gone to the dogs for some time now and I do fear what the future holds.
Anyway back OT, would like to see an American equivalent weather channel for us. In the few times have visited the U.S., I have this programme on all the time when in the room there.
Our weather is not as diverse as the U.S., being so small in comparison, but the appetite for weather here is huge, it's a main topic, so sure a programme could adapted to show features and advertising as well as live radars and reports.
Think the viewing figures could be quite large with a dedicated channel with people tuning in and out to see how the weather will affect their day.
Surprised we don't have one already in this day and age and an opportunity for someone with the opportunities advertising provides.

MetO spokesman saying that the BBC contract was a relatively small part of their business - hope he wasn't just handing out sour grapes.

 

But the prospect of ITV-style forecasts is definitely doom and gloom -inducing. It's bad enough for the MetO presenters being squeezed into a minute or so by a self-indulgent John Humphreys and his producer, which shows the BBC attitude to decent weather reports and forecasts.

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