TV News: Why Weather is King…

BiB Contributor | Anonymous News Director

Every time it rains, you’re likely to see many news directors go into their “game” mode. They want pictures. They want to send their crews out for live, team coverage.

Although everyone seems to understand the mentality of wanting to win weather, it’s also easy to be cynical. Viewers know what rain looks like. Viewers know what snow looks like. Viewers know what it feels like to be outside on a hot, sticky summer afternoon. Why should we do the story? It’s stupid.

Let me be the first to say I understand why people feel this way. I used to. But I snapped out of it. The bottom line is television is a highly competitive business. You have less than ten seconds to make an impression. Weather is the number one reason people watch local news. If there is a universal truth from market to market, it’s the value of weather.

Does this mean people want to be patronized with vapid, repetitive weather coverage? No.
But it is important to cover multiple angles when weather is the main story of the day. People who wouldn’t otherwise watch the news will tune into see what the weather is. If you shortchanged the weather coverage by only providing a short forecast, the people who are tuning in for weather will go elsewhere to find out what’s going on. They may never come back.

The simple lesson: by shortchanging your weather coverage, you’ve shortchanged your viewers. If you impress some who otherwise wouldn’t have watched your newscast, they may become loyalists. It’s important to remember in this day and age when there are so many different choices.

Tags: breaking, broadcasting, coverage, weather