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Should Radio Stations give time & temperature at night ?

CTListener said:
Yes, it is.

Seriously, why would the listener care if it's 72 or 74, 90 or 92, 25 or 27?
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Here in New England.......in the winter time......if it's 34 degrees --- it may be raining......if it's 32 degrees....there's probably black ice forming on the roads.....!!!
Ummmm....yeah.....WE DO CARE about the temp.....and we take weather SERIOUSLY!!
The Northeast is blessed with some of the finest meteorologists ANYWHERE!
 
Oldie919 said:
Here in New England.......in the winter time......if it's 34 degrees --- it may be raining......if it's 32 degrees....there's probably black ice forming on the roads.....!!!
Ummmm....yeah.....WE DO CARE about the temp.....and we take weather SERIOUSLY!!
The Northeast is blessed with some of the finest meteorologists ANYWHERE!
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You bring up a very good point: this depends on the market and what happens at certain temperature points.

As contrast, during my 30 years or so of working on the programming of various stations in Puerto Rico, we only gave the temperature if it was well below normal... such as very low 70's or high 60's. Or if it was very high, such as into the 90's. That changed how people dressed.

And, unless we were having a tropical depression or greater, we never reported rain... as it was almost always raining somewhere in the market and nobody cared.
 
Oldie919 said:
Here in New England.......in the winter time......if it's 34 degrees --- it may be raining......if it's 32 degrees....there's probably black ice forming on the roads.....!!!
Ummmm....yeah.....WE DO CARE about the temp.....and we take weather SERIOUSLY!!
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This sort of weather is so localized that if the DJ says "It's 7:32 and 33 degrees in Hartford" you should not change your plans. While it might be 33 degrees at the airport or at that particular radio studio, that doesn't mean the roads won't be icing over 10 miles away.
 
PTBoardOp94 said:
This sort of weather is so localized that if the DJ says "It's 7:32 and 33 degrees in Hartford" you should not change your plans. While it might be 33 degrees at the airport or at that particular radio studio, that doesn't mean the roads won't be icing over 10 miles away.
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And those "Hartford" temperatures are most likely recorded at the airport in Windsor Locks, nearly 20 miles north of the city. I'm 20 miles south of Hartford, and the snow being reported on WTIC is often sleet or rain here.

I wonder if stations still do what a station in Syracuse did during my college days. I had the occasion to meet a jock from one of that city's AMs back then and asked about the station's practice of giving temperatures in several area towns at the end of the twice-hourly forecast -- "And at 9:35, it's 32 degrees in Fayetteville, 29 in Skaneateles, and 30 in Syracuse at (name of station)!" I was told that the Syracuse temp was legit -- taken at the airport -- but the others were faked, as there was a list of towns the jocks had to rotate through while adding or subtracting a degree or two to make the temps different from Syracuse's. It made sense, because the NWS doesn't take official readings in every little village in every state, and I'd imagine many stations did this. Is it still done today?
 
With regard to "faked" temperatures, in its Top 40 days, WMCA never reported the temperature to be 77 degrees.
 
CTListener said:
...It made sense, because the NWS doesn't take official readings in every little village in every state, and I'd imagine many stations did this. Is it still done today?
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You do get a LOT of crowd-sourced weather data now collected by amateur weather-geeks on small weather stations that can be tied to the Internet for a couple hundred dollars. These stations can be situated in such a way that they'll provide good, reliable data in a given region.

If you know where to look, you can get accurate, hyper-local weather information.

...or, you could continue the 'fake-it' method as described above.
 
CTListener said:
I'd imagine many stations did this. Is it still done today?
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I've definitely done it. I worked at a classical non-comm for a while. We had NPR news hourly, which ends at :06:00. Then we would give the weather ending with the current time and temp. "For tomorrow a 60% chance of rain, cloudy and a high of 80. It's 2:06 and 84 degrees at Classical WQQQ. I'm PTBoardOp94. "

But normally the temperature was made up, as the official NWS observation at the local airport typically had not updated by 6 minutes past the hour. I'd often take the previous hour's observations and fudge it up a couple degrees.
 
TheBigA said:
I read how people don't like cookie cutter programming techniques. That's what time & temp is to me. Requiring all stations do time & temp without regard to format or context is more cookie cutter programming. If there's a reason to do it, if it fits with the format, sure. But no need to force it. Most people have a device nearby that provides time and temp. It's called a phone. I don't even wear a watch anymore. And I own a dozen of them.
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I'm so old, that I find Rock Radio Drive Time segments "cookie-cutter." I'm remembering Underground FM and Free-Form stations that would have nothing to do with "morning drive time shows" with blue humor, whacky jokes, etc.
 
CTListener said:
Because nearly all listeners have easy access to the time, either via a watch, the clock on their phone or the clock on the dash of their car or truck. As for the temperature, who cares? The listener has a general idea how hot or cold it is, which is sufficient in itself without having to know the exact temp.
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Siri will tell me the temperature 24/7. Siri is now a time and temp jock
 
Oldie919 said:
LOL!!!
"Reserved" for "W-A-B-C-dee-grees".....!
Wonder if "Music Radio" had the same "rule" regarding 57 degrees.....?!
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I had just arrived in Tampa in February of 1980. It was sunny and in the low 60s. Top 40 Y-95 kept saying "77 in the sunshine". A thermometer in the sun. O....k
 
SomeRadioGuy said:
Someone who thinks radio stations should do time and temperature all night also think 24/7 live djs and a 5000 song playlist are the absolute answer to success of a station

I work for a 50,000 watt fm and we'll soon be adding time and temperature in an automated format.. each of us 3 dj's will record the time and temperaturein every possible combination and right after the weather youll hear "it's three 20 and 69 degrees" by the voice of the dj currently doing the airshift thats on the air. we';re not doing current time and temp on air now...when we had this during dj shifts, we'll continue with time, temp and weather forecasts overnight (our weathjer runs overnight now) and we'll have current temp but it'll be a voice that isnt one of our djs​
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I agree with you Mr. SomeRadioGuy. I still have no live announcers at all and to this day, I still don't give out the time or temp on air. I let the EAS Device keep the listeners up on any severe weather that moves through Selma. Like everyone else, I can get the time and temp from many different sources now. Why should someone depend on me to do this, when they can obtain it much quicker and faster, through other means? Just saying.

Dan <><​
 
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If as is often the case there is no one at a station the temperature could not possibly be accurate. It would be nice if they inserted the weather occasionally just like during the day. It's all recorded anyway. I miss the live & local days of radio, but they are gone for good.
 
MHVRadiofan said:
If as is often the case there is no one at a station the temperature could not possibly be accurate. It would be nice if they inserted the weather occasionally just like during the day. It's all recorded anyway. I miss the live & local days of radio, but they are gone for good.
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There is a thermometer connected or they can use the latest airport temperatures.
 
MHVRadiofan said:
If as is often the case there is no one at a station the temperature could not possibly be accurate. It would be nice if they inserted the weather occasionally just like during the day. It's all recorded anyway. I miss the live & local days of radio, but they are gone for good.
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I don't trust web sites that give the temperature. It seems too cold in some cases and then clicking on a link means i get a completely different temperature.
 
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