Streaming, Interactive Boosting Weathercasts

As last January’s blizzard approached New York, WPIX meteorologist Irv Gikofsky streamed updates live on the station’s Facebook page, apprising users of the powerful storm’s imminent arrival and what it might mean for them.

The reports were  unscripted, featuring shots of a computer screen and, by broadcast standards, rough around the edges — as were the reports from the field.

Yet, Rolando Pujol, director of digital and social strategy at the Tribune-owned CW affiliate, says Facebook Live, which broadcasters had access to for the first time this past winter, proved to be a boon to the blizzard coverage.

“We found no quicker way of reaching as big an audience than doing a Facebook Live video … delivering a reach that can hit the hundreds of thousands in a short period of time,” he says.

Enabled by the emergence of user-friendly platforms like Facebook, Periscope and Google Hangouts, stations like WPIX are expanding their use of live streaming to complement regular on-air weather coverage and build a community around the coverage.

Weathercasters say the streaming also results in more personalized — and therefore more impactful — coverage, which is particularly important in severe weather.

“The most important thing is this allows us to give viewers the most accurate information as soon as possible so they can make decisions in severe weather situations,” says Andrea Romero, chief meteorologist at Telemundo’s WNJU New York. “Some of these are life and death.”

Romero says she has been using Facebook Live to reach the market’s Spanish-speaking viewers since January. Using weather maps and radar, she says, she can give viewers a better understanding of how a storm might affect their particular neighborhoods — as well as why discrepancies often exist in forecasts.

Brad Panovich, a WCNC Charlotte, N.C., meteorologist, is a fan of using Google Hangouts to stream weather reports on YouTube, which he did in January in the hours leading up to a big Southeastern storm.

Panovich and meteorologists from other Tegna-owned stations in the region — WFMY Greensboro, N.C.; WBIR Knoxville, Tenn.; WLTX Columbia, S.C.; and WVEC Norfolk, Va — used the platform to discuss how the storm could impact their various markets, as well as answer viewers’ questions.

The hour-long show, which was promoted on all participating TV stations, drew roughly 30,000 people, Panovich says.

WCNC’s volunteer weather watchers have also gotten in on streaming. They host a weekly show, The Carolina Weather Group, featuring guest scientists and technical experts from around the country.

“This is a way to connect with your biggest fans,” Panovich says. “It’s an outlet to get into more detail and answer those questions you can’t do in a 2-minute, 30-second weathercast.”

James Spann, the chief meteorologist at ABC affiliate WCFT Birmingham, Ala., was an early adopter of live streaming, using Google Hangouts to boost coverage when tornados hit.  

The platform, Spann says, allows him to simultaneously broadcast multiple streams provided by volunteer storm-chasers, who capture the shots using iPad minis attached to the dashboards of their cars.

Albeit a fairly low-tech system, the streams serve their purpose, Spann says. “It doesn’t matter if they are not the highest quality. When you get a good stream of a tornado, people see it and they do something.”

Denis Phillips, the chief meteorologist at Scripps’ ABC affiliate WFTS Tampa, Fla., for last four or so years has hosted a live weather-related show online, which he describes as “a video call-in show.”

Broadcast via the platform Livestream, Phillips has interviewed guests from as far away as England who call in using Skype, and hosted conversations with up to 12 people at a time. Viewers have spent roughly two million minutes watching the show, which used to be on nightly.

During severe weather, the stream has garnered viewers “in the thousands,” Phillips says. The interactive component, which allows viewers to ask questions like how a storm will affect their particular neighborhood, is key to its success, he says.

“It gives people the opportunity to specifically find out what’s happening in their house,” Phillips says.

He says live streaming can also be a powerful crowd-sourcing tool. Most people with a Smartphone and a streaming app are equipped to file on-the-ground weather reports from their neighborhoods, he says.

“We have 20, 30, 40 [computer weather] models out there that we have to go through to determine which forecast is accurate,” Phillips says. “I think information from a human element is much better than anything a computer can give you.”

WPIX’s Pujol says WPIX meteorologists are also big proponents of using streaming to create robust communities surrounding weather.

Gikofsky, for instance, has hosted live video Q&As with viewers following his nightly newscast using Facebook Mentions, the live video app available to public figures.

The station’s weather team has also used Google Hangouts “with great success bringing viewers right into the video,” Pujol says. “We can have a conversation.”

In Denver, KUSA, Tegna’s NBC affiliate in the country’s 17^th largest market, is experimenting with taking the interactive weathercasts from the internet to broadcast with The Video Call Center, technology partially owned by Tegna.

The technology permits people to call into a talk show using Skype and lets the show host  direct the entire telecast with the help of a screener or two.

Tegna started testing the platform last spring with KUSA-produced call-in shows in conjunction with the James Holmes murder trial, Broncos football and the GOP presidential debate in Boulder, says Bob Sullivan, Tegna’s SVP of programming,

Sullivan says KUSA plans to shift the Video Call Center’s focus to bringing viewers into weather coverage.  “What we like about the concept is the ability to interact with your viewers in volume, which in traditional ways required us to roll out three live trucks and get three live shots,” Sullivan says.

“This way we can get six at a time and really have an interactive conversation with our viewers no matter where the viewers are,” he says. “We love that.”

Regardless of technology or platform, the interactive weather efforts are all aimed at closing the gap between the weather pros and viewers.

“We have the heritage of being a TV station, but as news and entertainment organizations we also understand that success really lies in one-to-one,” Pujol says. “And that’s what these tools allow us to do: speak to our viewers one at a time.”