Radio Weathercasting

By Jon Ahlquist

Although very few people exclusively do radio weathercasting, it is common for TV weathercasters to do radio, also. This gives TV weathercasters publicity for their TV weather broadcasts as well as extra income. Income for doing radio weather may be split with the TV station since it is they who are providing you with the weather information, and you are probably preparing your radio weathercast while at your desk at the TV station. Specifics of financial arrangements are negotiated individually with your TV station. I know one weathercaster who split 50-50 with his station and another whose station let him keep 100% of his radio income.

Radio weather is usually recorded, unlike TV weather, which is almost always live. For radio weather, you will usually telephone the radio station a few minutes before your weathercast will air. You will identify yourself to the receptionist, who will transfer your call to a studio. The person in the studio will set up a tape recorder and ask you for a countdown. Then you'll say, "3 ... 2 ... 1" followed by a pause of a second or so before you start your weathercast. You may have to record several weathercasts of different lengths for the station, say 15, 30, and 60 seconds. The radio station will often want you to open and/or close your weathercast in a particular way, such as "This is meteorologist Jane Doe with my exclusive WXYZ weathercast." Work this out with the station. Even though a tape recording means that you can do a re-take if you goof, professionalism demands that retakes be extremely rare.

When you first start doing radio weather, I suggest that you work from a written script, unlike TV weather, which is always "ad libbed." The reason for a script is that a radio weathercast is not long, and timings must be within a second or two. A script makes sure that you say the important things and that you stay on time. After you do radio weather for enough weeks, you can probably start doing "ad libbed" radio weathercasts using just a few notes on paper giving the current conditions and forecast.

Unlike someone reading a newspaper, a radio listener cannot pause, recheck, and ponder what you said, so plan your material carefully. You may wish to give a forecast overview at the beginning and a more detailed forecast at the end. Surveys have shown that an audience remembers only 6 or so facts from a radio or TV weathercast, so for the extended forecast, it is probably better to give approximate temperatures for the whole period rather than day-by-day specifics, which probably will not be accurate anyway. For example, you might say, "Over the next few days, temperatures will warm up a few degrees. Lows will be in the low to mid 50's with highs in the low to mid 70's. Each day, the chance of rain will be about 30%." An undesirable alternative would be, "The low tonight will be 52, the high tomorrow will be 71. The next day, the low should again be about 52, but the high should be 73. Finally, two days from now, the low should be up to 56, with the high reaching 75. The chance of rain tomorrow is 20%, with 30% for the next two days decreasing to 20% the day after that."