http://www.windycitizen.com

Now get back to work, the water cooler's leased.

my “this is a joke” assumes weathercasters have several years of specialized training so they DO know what they are talking about. you don't think that the promotions people pressure the weather people to spin thereby “driving audience”?

yeah, driving them away.

no, i really have no interest in sharing insights with anyone other than my two college kids who have benefited from that same indianapolis radar as far back as this past summer. i'll settle for the prestige i get in keeping them informed.

like they say- you can fool some of the people all of the time. i'd say that's the demo that relies on tv news/weather these days.

the title of your piece is 'can “prestige” be a business model for local media?' i say not until they get rid of the “driving audience” mindset (or the entire promotions dept.)as part of that business model.

this is a joke, right?

one day last week, everywhere i went (gas station, grocery, etc.) people were saying “they say we're in for alot of snow”. the only thing those folks got was a snowjob by their local “expert”. i was looking at a radar out of indy that is scaled beautifully for me (encompasses detroit and two college towns where i have interests) and i could not see what the heck those weather people were seeing in the form of “alot of snow”. i even asked a county plow driver who was dropping salt that afternoon and he confirmed my suspicion- “the guys back at the yard say it's all bullshyt”.

it probably drove ratings, but kills your prestige.

days later i wasn't surprised to see the fine folks of boston were treated to the same bs story– then the stations had to trot out the excuses… and someone to take the bullet for the lousy “weather team” call.

all f'in hype!!!

i'll keep my indy radar, thank you.

i'd suggest digging around on the internet for a recently published piece on the perils of referring to “driving your audience”.