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Sunday, November 24
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Local stations put forecasters in spotlight
By Susan T. Port, Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
Sunday, November 24, 2002
Bill Peterson got his first broadcast television job in 1965 at WPSD, the top-ranked station in Toledo, Ohio.
As an assistant,
the 22-year-old Peterson was responsible for many of the lowly and menial
tasks that had to be done around the NBC affiliate. One of the most important
was helping put the weather forecast together.
Weatherman
Frank Venner used wax pencils to draw the high and low temperatures, cloud
conditions and wind directions on a glass board, writing backward because
the camera would reverse the markings. Peterson's daily job was to clean
the board with a foul-smelling specialty cleaner and a rag and move the glass
map, which was mounted on wheels, outside.
Yes, outside.
Rain, snow or shine, Peterson wheeled the map to The Commodore Perry Hotel
near the station, parking it outside under the marquee, and then set up the
lights.
There, in the great outdoors, Venner would give his daily weather forecast. The station called it "Weather in the Weather."
"It was all
kind of fascinating and seemed exciting at the time," said Peterson, who
these days is general manager of WPTV-Channel 5, the NBC affiliate in West
Palm Beach. "There was no technology in weather television. It's laughable
today."
Today's weather broadcasting is anything but a laughing matter.
In fact, it's
the single most aggressively contested part of area broadcast journalism.
Insiders and experts say weather news is the primary reason most South Florida
viewers tune in to their local broadcasts.
"Weather is
on the top of the list of why people watch local news," said Joe Coscia,
general manager at WPBF-Channel 25, an ABC affiliate. "That's why we make
such a big investment in weather technology and talent."
Insiders say
the three network stations -- WPTV, WPBF and WPEC-Channel 12, the CBS affiliate
-- spend close to $1 million apiece on their weather broadcasts, amounting
to 15 percent to 20 percent of their total news budgets.
The actual
numbers are a jealously guarded secret. West Palm Beach is the 39th-largest
media market in the country, but it plays for bigger stakes.
"Weather is
one of the only subjects everyone is interested in," said Jim Jaggers, chairman
of the board of broadcast meteorologists for the Boston-based American Meteorological
Society. "They might not care if the mayor is stealing money out of the till,
but they are interested in how hot it's going to be."
Jaggers, who
has been chief meteorologist at WHBQ in Memphis for 25 years, said he and
other forecasters nationwide are "quite jealous" of how much South Florida
stations get to spend.
"We don't
spend as much on weather," he said. "It's serious in Memphis, but it's not
quite as deadly serious as it is in South Florida."
It's 4:30 p.m. on a recent Thursday, and John Matthews is scuttling back
and forth on a rolling chair between his weather workstations, getting ready
to go live.
Matthews arrived
at WPEC studios in Riviera Beach two hours earlier to get ready for a day
of broadcasts: the 5 p.m. and 10 p.m. shows for WFLX-Channel 29, the Fox
affiliate with whom WPEC shares its news team, and the 6 p.m. and 11 p.m.
newscasts for WPEC itself.
Like his
eight forecasting brethren -- only one is a woman -- hereabouts, Matthews
is a one-man band when it comes to putting together that mix of hard data,
gee-whiz science, pretty pictures and cheerful banter that makes up the daily
weather forecast.
"This market
has great talent. They are really responsible for what they put out there,"
said John Spinola, general manager at WFLX, the market's fourth-ranked station.
"An anchor sits down there and has a team of reporters covering a story.
Somebody has written it. Some associate editor has cut and rewritten it.
The weather person, it's all their work. They even do their own maps."
Matthews sits
in a narrow office on the side of the studio, facing several computer screens.
One has a satellite picture of Florida, another a readout from the station's
Doppler radar apparatus. On a third, Matthews is designing graphics, pulling
in high and low temperatures. This is Big Technology, and it's at the heart
of today's forecasting. It's also very expensive, though no station would
divulge the total bill.
Peterson said
WPTV spent about $300,000 initially on its Doppler radar a few years ago
and spends about $200,000 annually on upkeep and new equipment.
"It's almost like narcotics," he said. "You just have to keep on investing."
Matthews,
55, an outgoing Michigander who's been in the South Florida market for 26
years, said he remembers the days when clouds were represented by stickers
on a map. Crafting today's broadcasts, by contrast, takes a great deal more
preparation. "You just don't walk in and do the weather."
The other
two chief forecasters in the area -- Steve Weagle at WPTV and Mike Lyons
at WPBF -- also operate out of a formidable enclave of technical apparatus
that is separate from the rest of the news operation.
"We are kind
of a satellite orbiting the newsroom," said Lyons, 48, a 12-year veteran
of local TV. "In the weather business, you are your own boss. They kind of
leave you alone."
The modern forecasting era dawned April 1, 1960, when the first weather satellites
-- called TIROS, for Television and Infrared Observation Satellite -- were
launched into Earth's orbit.
"Before satellite,
everything had to be done by hand," said Kevin Lavin, executive director
of the Charlottesville, Va.-based National Weather Association, which has
4,000 members nationwide. "They used to have to rely on reports of airplanes."
Legendary
CBS anchorman Dan Rather, who was then a weatherman at a Houston TV station,
is credited with the first use of a satellite picture on a broadcast, showing
Hurricane Carla as it bore down on Texas in September 1961.
Technology now allows forecasters to do much more sophisticated close-ups, almost down to individual neighborhoods.
"It doesn't
look clunky anymore," said Jim Brihan, media marketing vice president for
WSI, the largest weather information provider to TV stations nationwide.
"Now you can get so close."
Madison, Wis.-based
WSI provides 350 stations around the country, including WPTV and WPBF, with
satellite feeds, graphics-creation software and work stations.
The local
stations pay between $1,200 to $3,000 for monthly upkeep, in addition to
hundreds of thousands of dollars up front, Brihan said. He declined to give
specific numbers.
At WPBF, Lyons
also relies on constant satellite updates from Billerica, Mass.-based Weather
Central, a forecasting service for media and industrial clients.
All three
network stations use WSI's Storm Tracker technology, which determines times
of expected storm arrivals in a given city. It sells for $50,000. The graphics-designing
software that goes with it retails for $85,000.
"We spend
a lot of money to make a very small change in how the radar works," said
Weagle, 36, of Scripps Howard-owned WPTV, the market's top-rated station.
"We have to be at the top. We have to be number one in weather."
Most stations
nationwide have Doppler, a radar apparatus that sends out narrowly focused
beams that help determine wind speed and rain velocity. Each station has
its own name for their Doppler. At second-ranked WPEC, a Freedom Communications
station and Palm Beach Post news and weather partner, it's Doppler
12000; third-ranked WPBF, owned by Hearst-Argyle, calls it Pinpoint Doppler,
and at WPTV, it's Digital Doppler.
Next month,
WSI plans to introduce TrueView. With this technology, priced from $50,000
to $80,000, a forecaster stands in front of a wall displaying weather scenes
that he can interact with by using a mouse, drawing tablet or touch screen.
To viewers, it will appear that the forecaster is actually out of doors.
Call it a high-tech version of "Weather in the Weather."
"It will be like a virtual scene of the weather 24 to 48 hours in the future," Brihan said.
This market's weather forecasters are among the best-compensated broadcast
journalists in the area. Insiders say the major broadcasters make in the
high five to low six figures annually, matched only by the pay of veteran
anchors.
In addition,
the area's forecasters have plenty of programming clout. Whenever threatening
weather appears, each forecaster has the power to go live and interrupt scheduled
broadcasts. Each station also permits its broadcasters to run "crawls" on
the bottom of the screen to inform viewers about important weather.
WPTV's Weagle
gets three to four minutes of each newscast. But if it's a big storm, he
can have as much time as he needs "to tell the weather story."
In some cases,
he takes more than seven minutes, or about a third of the 22-minute broadcast.
"This is the weather big leagues. We have more face time than anyone else
on the station."
That's not to say the forecasters are happy when the area is menaced by a Category 5 whopper aiming at South Florida.
"Everyone
always thinks we want hurricanes to happen," said Matthews, of WPEC. "But
we don't want storms. We like storms in the middle of the Atlantic that don't
hurt anyone."
Still, they know how good they have it -- a weather-obsessed market, fierce competition, plenty of toys and good paychecks.
Lyons appreciates
his job, particularly when he goes to out-of-state conferences and talks
to other forecasters. They always are envious of his bevy of gadgets and
his plentiful screen time. "I have the best job in the world. I just got
lucky."
Matthews
concurs, saying South Florida's changeable weather and the high level of
viewer interest makes working in this area "paradise for weather forecasters."
Weagle tells
a story about the curious looks he got recently as he headed home after the
11 p.m. newscast in his Sunfire convertible. The sky looked threatening,
but Weagle kept the top down.
"I know they thought, 'Hey, this guy is going to get wet,' " he said. "But I knew where I was headed, it wasn't going to rain."
susan_port@pbpost.com
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