Meteorology in the Television Programme

Because of its obvious and special advantages as a medium for the mass communication to the public of the crucial elements of meteorological information and advice, the Director had already formulated principles for the introduction of television services from his experience overseas in 1953 and 1955. He had developed guide lines from inspection of a variety of weather presentations in the United States and on the advice of the United Kingdom Meteorological Office which, in its BBC weather programme, could claim the longest "run" of weather presentations on Television.

The main requirements for the television weather programme laid down by Mr. Dwyer were: an ideal presentation would be one organised by the Bureau and given by Bureau personnel; the optimum length of programme would be five minutes and it should not be at the beginning of a session; if this is not practicable, it should at least be given at the end of the news session; the primary need is for adaptability and mobility, so a special producer and a separate studio would be needed; for complete satisfaction, there must be an understanding that the schedule time of the programme will not be shortened on any account.

A conference was held at Parliament House, Canberra in August, 1956 by the Minister for the Interior, with representatives of the commercial companies to clarify the principles which would govern the presentation of forecasts and meteorological news in the new medium. The main points made at this meeting were: the specifications developed by the Director as the guide to the production of meteorological presentations; a standard. type of release which would be made uniformly and freely available by the Divisional Offices to each television agency; that charges would be imposed for the provision of any further material or service which a television agency might require additional to the standard "Official Television Weather Report" involving the Bureau in extra staffing or administrative costs; there would be no material departure from the text of any official announcement which would obscure its meaning; the broadcasting of any particular report or forecast would be restricted and endorsed as to the times at which it could be published without confirmation or amendment; there would be proper acknowledgement of the Bureau as the authority and source of the material; commercial sponsorship of weather presentations would be permissible, but advertisements would be clearly separated from the text of the weather information and the acknowledgement of the Bureau; the presentations must be to the satisfaction of the Director of Meteorology.

The Australian Broadcasting Commission approached the Bureau for the production of presentations by the duty forecasters on the commercial stations in Melbourne and Sydney and also invited meteorologists to participate in their introductory television "schools" at their studios in Sydney. Harold Bond and John Lillywhite then took an active part in developing production techniques for utilising the working material ordinarily available to the forecasters. They succeeded in transposing the purely written versions of weather announcements into an audio-visual form which was authoritative and informative and took full advantage of the unique opportunity to present the public with an informed explanation of the atmospheric processes affecting the development of weather. The ABC weather programme started in Sydney an 6th November, 1956 and in Melbourne on 31st December, 1956.

Weather programes were first introduced by the commercial stations on Channel 9 in Sydney on 16th September, 1956 and on Channel 7 in Melbourne on 4th November, 1956. Each station favoured the studio presentation by studio personnel who had been given a few weeks briefing on meteorology before undertaking the presentations based on the official television weather report. This policy was followed by both the national and commercial stations in the other capital cities when they commenced transmissions in 1959 and 1960.

The other commercial station in Melbourne Channel 9, commenced weather presentations on 20th January, 1959 using a very effective system in which the charts and graphics were displayed at the studio by station personnel while the audio commentary was supplied through a landline link from the Divisional Office, being spoken by the Duty Forecaster at his desk. A monitoring television receiver was installed in the Weather Room to enables the Forecaster to coordinate the picture and the commentary.

Bureau of Meteorology