Just after the new year, the Los Angeles-based Allen Media Group decided to remove local weather teams from 27 of its stations and use The Weather Channel's meteorologists instead, with some local meteorologists moving to Atlanta to help in the effort.
The initiative would ensure "the most accurate, timely, and engaging forecasts for communities across the country," the company said.
Northeast Mississippi refused to accept its local weather team's impending layoffs, however, and after the community petitioned Allen Media Group and many businesses pledged to pull their advertising dollars, the parent company reversed its decision, at least for WTVA.
"The WTVA Severe Weather Authority — the meteorologists you've come to know and trust — will remain here," the station reported last week.
Neal Barton, who spent 45 years in TV broadcasting as a meteorologist in Dallas, Nashville, and Seattle and as a news director in Tyler, Texas, says broad cuts like that "work out great for the mother company because it's cheaper."
"The problem is who's going to follow that thunderstorm warning or that tornado watch all day long [when] they have to get off the television feed and talk to the next station," he adds.
When he was news director, Barton says markets suffered when they tried using his station's meteorologists for two other regional markets.
In a perfect world, he says every station would have a meteorologist who can work in real time. And even though money will always be an issue, Barton insists that "weather is one thing you should not trust on your app. Somebody needs to be massaging that forecast."
