Weather Channel radio reports extending to Australia now
May 5th, 2009 at 12:54pm
I just noticed what appears to be a new addition to the service lineup on the Fairfax Syndication website: state based weather forecasts from The Weather Channel.
The service is aimed at automated radio stations, with three weather bulletins being provided for each state per day. The service is similar to a well-established service run by the US version of The Weather Channel where they provide individual radio stations with forecasts relevant to their broadcast area which stations then add to their schedule. KXNT Las Vegas are a good example of this, as they receive multiple updates per day from The Weather Channel, and have their newsreader provide the current temperatures at the end of the forecast:
[audio:https://samuelgordonstewart.com/wp-content/KXNTWeatherExample.mp3]
Download MP3
Whilst KXNT do this in a live environment, I can see how this would work perfectly in an automated environment where a local presenter could record a bunch of temperature announcements and the automation could play the relevant temperature announcement straight after the Weather Channel forecast. The only issue I see with this Australian version though is that, with the exception of the ACT, a state/territory forecast is not going to be very locally relevant, and wouldn’t be an ideal replacement for the local forecast.
It will be interesting to see how many stations pick up this service, and how they use it. I can only assume that, at some future stage, more specific forecasts will be available by request as the service probably won’t have a high adoption rate otherwise.
Samuel
Entry Filed under: TV/Radio/Media
