Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 85 total)
  • Have the BBC lost the plot?
  • TheDoctor
    Free Member

    Given all their recent issues, they’ve now gone and dumped the met office for weather and will be replacing them with the lowest bidder!

    gwaelod
    Free Member

    Piers Corbyn?

    scaredypants
    Full Member

    they iz skint*, innit ?

    *relatively speaking, that is

    I assume this decision is at least partially “aimed” at those who provide their funding

    MSP
    Full Member

    The met office will still be financed by public funds, but the BBC (public) will now also provide profits to a private tory friendly company. Isn’t privatisation great.

    Nipper99
    Free Member

    Fox weather services.

    IanMunro
    Free Member

    I’m guessing the met office contract was vastly over-priced for what is a pretty basic forecast. Everyone else is probably using the US GFS data which is free

    Klunk
    Free Member

    bbc forecast presentation is crap anyway so no loss there, a few Showers dotted about and it looks like rain set in for the day for the entire country*.

    *possible hyperbole 😉

    Nobeerinthefridge
    Free Member

    Given the money Gary bloody lineker gets paid, I’d say the plot sailed a while back.

    convert
    Full Member

    The met office will still be financed by public funds, but the BBC (public) will now also provide profits to a private tory friendly company. Isn’t privatisation great.

    Yep, unless the costs of the met office goes down more than the fee they charged to the BBC the shortfall will have to be made by the taxpayer. Those of us who are TV licence paying tax payers are not getting any sort of saving from this. One (effective) government agency not using another one to provide a service that will have to be funded anyway and using a private company instead basically sucks.

    Edit – TV forecasts lost the plot for me when they were dumbed down and pressure charts lost their prominence in favour of pictograms for idiots.

    moose
    Free Member

    We have MET office forecasters at our place, I’ve never paid any attention to the TV weather reports.

    RustySpanner
    Full Member

    It’s very sad, a polital move, I suspect.

    Cutting a few salaries would be preferable.

    Does GBBO need Mel AND Sue for every episode?
    Perhaps they could take turns?

    Would be good if all posters could confirm whether they pay for a licence or not.
    Ta.
    And yes.

    matt_outandabout
    Full Member

    glasgowdan
    Free Member

    The sooner the BBC gets dumped the better. And I’ll to ignore the obscene payoffs and pensions the staff will get. I’ve not lined the pockets of the overpaid BBC presenters for a couple of years now.

    Why can’t they provide proper coverage of sporting events? Athletics…they spend time chatting in the studio until either a british or a winning competitor is on and miss out the vast majority of the action. It’s utter crap.

    moose
    Free Member

    Haha, we have a variant as a door stop at work. Weather Brick. But this is a polished and far better one! 😆

    pictonroad
    Full Member

    Makes perfect sense, we can all get met office weather forecasts for ‘free’ (we’ve already paid for them) why have the BBC pay for them twice.

    IanMunro
    Free Member

    Would be good if all posters could confirm whether they pay for a licence or not.

    I pay and am happy to pay, but it’s a TV license not a Met Office license.

    convert
    Full Member

    Makes perfect sense, we can all get met office weather forecasts for ‘free’ (we’ve already paid for them) why have the BBC pay for them twice.

    Did you actually think that through before posting? Go on, give it a go – it might hurt a bit!

    Clue- will the BBC get their new service for free from some benevolent private company?

    scotroutes
    Full Member

    The BBC weather forecast (for my area at least) is generally pants (yes – I mean the forecast – I’m not blaming them for the actual weather 🙂 ). If that’s provided by the Met Office then I can see why they’d dump them in favour of someone else. We might even get them on a more accurate map of the UK as a result.

    spooky_b329
    Full Member

    I’m sure the MET office will be tendering along with all the other bidders, that is unless negotiations have already broken down.

    Presenters, possibly they would be tuped over to the new supplier?

    moose
    Free Member

    The BBC weather forecast (for my area at least) is generally pants (yes – I mean the forecast – I’m not blaming them for the actual weather ). If that’s provided by the Met Office then I can see why they’d dump them in favour of someone else.

    The forecast would be quite detailed, however the way the information is interpreted and delivered is aimed at the lowest common denominator. if you live near an airfield/aerodrome, learning about TAFs and METARs and getting one of the many free apps would give you much more detailed information.

    matt_outandabout
    Full Member

    So far the Norwegian’s are predicting weather more accurately for me in the UK.

    RustySpanner
    Full Member

    Really?
    Ours is usually excellent:

    Summer – rain, occaisional sunny periods.
    Possible wintry showers.
    Winter – Snow, wintry showers, possible rain.

    convert
    Full Member

    I’m sure the MET office will be tendering along with all the other bidders,

    They did. They lost. That’s what the news article is about.

    5thElefant
    Free Member

    Why would anyone pay any attention to the BBC weather forecast? The met forecast is a click away.

    moose
    Free Member

    It doesn’t matter who gets the contract. TV weather reports are so vague and generalised it won’t make a shred of difference.

    fasthaggis
    Full Member

    You need to get yourself a Norwegian weather stone then Matt 😉

    imnotverygood
    Full Member

    if you live near an airfield/aerodrome, learning about TAFs and METARs and getting one of the many free apps would give you much more detailed information.

    Well, the TAF is provided by the Met Office & funnily enough, doesn’t really seem to be any more accurate than the BBC/Met Office forecast.

    moose
    Free Member

    Really? The one for where I am is spot on. Maybe it’s just particular forecasters, we have quite a good team at my place so they’re usually on the money. But then, the MOD does pay a handsome sum for their services.

    Kunstler
    Full Member

    I don’t watch TV but occasionally watch the video of the forecast on the bbc weather page. I do however really like the bbc weather app. I find it’s local forecasts and frequency of updating updated pretty accurate in the short term.

    surroundedbyhills
    Free Member

    Not bothered with met office for years. Norwegians and others provide much better accurate and detailed forecasts. Met office been lagging for some time. BBC stuff is weather for dummies.

    convert
    Full Member

    There’s a term I forget now for criticism of things like weather forecasts for being inaccurate. Lots of studies show the human condition is to focus on when we feel let down and forget about the majority of the time when it is spot on. We fixate to on the ‘failure’ irrationally. Apparently it quite a British thing for certain persoanality types – ones predesposed to depression and blaming others. Is that you Mr Routes?

    moose
    Free Member

    Convert, true. But for some people a poor forecast can have pretty disastrous consequences in the extreme, or just a lot of time and effort wasted as a minimum.

    beej
    Full Member

    The BBC have a massive hole in their finances – they’re going to have to absorb licence fee costs for over 75s for a start. They are cost cutting all over (e.g. BBC3 going digital only).

    Norwegian weather service for me, plus rainfall radar/predictions from Met office. Oh, AccuWeather premium on the phone, predicts when rain will start/end to the minute – pretty accurate too.

    bigrich
    Full Member

    try living in a country without the BBC.

    the standard of everything is shite.

    politician on telly ‘everythings going great minister, but why don’t you tell us how great your future plans are?’

    imnotverygood
    Full Member

    Really? The one for where I am is spot on. Maybe it’s just particular forecasters, we have quite a good team at my place so they’re usually on the money. But then, the MOD does pay a handsome sum for their services.

    Most TAFs for civil airports are produced remotely. The presence of a TAF doesn’t automatically mean local forecasters.

    moose
    Free Member

    Most TAFs for civil airports are produced remotely. The presence of a TAF doesn’t automatically mean local forecasters.

    Ah, I see. I guess I’m used to being spoilt. Just been checking out a Norwegian app, I’m impressed.

    molgrips
    Free Member

    Everyone else is probably using the US GFS data which is free

    That’s why everyone else is rubbish. If anyone has any actual stats showing that someone else is better than the met office I’d like to see them.

    If you think yr.no is better, get your spreadsheet out and prove it. I think I will do it for Cardiff.

    ninfan
    Free Member

    Bring it on!

    [video]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DB96kXL3mFc[/video]

    IvanDobski
    Free Member

    Weather forecasts wide me up much more than they should really. They start with reporting the weather we’ve already had – I was either there and already know or wasn’t there so it doesn’t matter, then move on to a poorly structured trip around the uk.

    “It’ll be raining in Norwich at 1300hrs on Tuesday, snowy in Carlisle at 1700hrs on Wednesday and getting back to earlier today in Manchester…”

    So I don’t really care where they get their base data from as the forecasts are crap regardless.

    Still, at least they’ve yet to start standing with their back to us swiping a pretendy giant iPad like their sports update counterparts.

    And relax!

Viewing 40 posts - 1 through 40 (of 85 total)

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