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Monday, August 24, 2015


A CHANGEABLE OUTLOOK..

The picture shows BBC weather lady, Carol Kirkwood, either hearing the news that she has been pitchforked into Strictly Come Dancing or that the Met. Office have lost the contract to supply weather forecasts to the BBC.  Instead, the BBC are putting the service out to tender with a hint of delicious irony.  They claim that the move is being made so as to guarantee `value for money` which would be fine, were it not for the fact that they have more management layers than you would find in a mille feuille as well as high altitude salaries and expenses both internally and to `talent.`

Now if they are genuine in their search for `value for money` for the licence payers, maybe they should look at other areas than might be ripe for tendering.   For example, the burgeoning number of regional programmes - both TV and radio.  At the last count there were 15 separate regional television stations in England alone and an extraordinary 48 local BBC radio stations.   

Now I must confess to watching about three of the 15 TV stations - South East Today, `cos that`s where I live;  South Today to keep tabs on Southampton FC; and BBC Spotlight, the regional channel for the south west, where I have vested interests.  And I`ve noticed that they all have their cast of news and weather presenters, their Political Editors, their Environment correspondents; Sports sections, Social Affairs persons, Education correspondents and on and on it goes - they all seem to mirror the main BBC News channels, so I guess the whole of the BBC News output could do with some `value for money` examination.

It will be interesting to see what the change from Met Office forecasts brings.  I imagine the weather itself will be whatever it will be, but the presentation might be very different.  I can see announcements such as, "And now for the weather, brought to you by Ryan Airways."    Or the next spell of cold and frosty weather will be sponsored by Snuggles Duvets.  

As for Carol and her chums, well there are loads of them scattered across the 15 regional channels as well as in Salford and I wish them no harm in this process, but there is always Strictly Come Dancing, The Voice, Britain`s Got Talent, Bargain Hunt and Big Brother to turn to.  


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