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If Play School Produced Weather Reports

They would probably be very similar to Mark Carmody’s dreadful attempts at presenting the weather on ABC TV News in Canberra.

By all accounts Mark Carmody was very good at presenting the gardening show on 666 ABC Canberra, but he is really quite dreadful when it comes to the weather…it really does come across as an audition for the book reading role on Play School. He talks down to the audience, and insists on cluttering the weather reports with useless information about which newspapers are produced in which towns, and what movie he was reminded of when he woke up this morning and looked out his window.

Mark has taken over as the weather presenter from John Ringwood. John retired on the same day [2] as WIN Television’s newsreader Peter Leonard, and I commented in the linked article that:

Rumour has it that 2CN’s (666 ABC Canberra for those of you not familiar with the callsign) garden expert will take over as the weather presenter. That might sound odd, but considering that last night they presented a five minute editorial from federal political editor Jim Middleton as news, no change in that place would surprise me.

Clearly I was wrong because Mark Carmody retired in April last year [3] and his return to the airwaves did surprise me. It would appear to have split the ABC audience as well, as his return has prompted a mixed reaction on the ABC Canberra guestbook [4].

I personally found John Ringwood’s style of presenting the weather with the facts, and only the facts, as quite mundane, however I liked it. When John read the weather, it was clear and concise. Unfortunately Mark Carmody is being given free reign over his script and is producing garbage. His interactions with Virginia Haussegger are forced and completely unnatural, his weather presentation is cluttered and unclear, and the ABC would have been much better off doing the same thing WIN Television have done…have the newsreader present the weather from the news desk. I’m certain that Virginia would do an excellent job presenting the weather.

And if they must have Mark Carmody on the air and can’t ship him off to the Play School set…well they could easily move him to Stateline and give him a two or three minute weekly gardening segment, similar to the one David Young presented on Ten Capital News before it was axed. I’m sure Mark’s scripts would work much better in that kind of segment.

Incidentally, in case you didn’t spot it towards the end of the video embedded above, take a look at the following image. Does anything strike you as odd?
Virginia Haussegger on ABC TV News in Canberra

On the left of screen is a 2CC microphone.
Radio 2CC Microphone on ABC TV News in Canberra

I suppose it’s not really odd, but it was rather amusing.

Samuel

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Comments Disabled To "If Play School Produced Weather Reports"

#1 Comment By John7772399 On August 17, 2007 @ 2:53 pm

Mark Carmody is an extremely ‘animated’ weather presenter.

#2 Comment By Samuel On August 17, 2007 @ 3:04 pm

Well that should make him a perfect candidate for Play School, or one of the myriad of childrens programs which follow it.

#3 Comment By Tony On August 21, 2007 @ 10:32 pm

There is rain in there
And a storm as well
There are people with dams
and stories with swells
Open wide
In comes the tide
It’s weather school

Now let’s look through the seeded cloud window boys and girls and see if them seeds have sown?

#4 Comment By Trent On August 22, 2007 @ 11:40 pm

I found this fellow rather amusing.

He would be good for a children’s or light entertainment program if that is the way he likes to do things.

Perhaps he could be quite reasonable if he did not add his chatter to the report and just got on with it.