UKMO to lose BBC contract for weather forecasting

Yes but AFAIK not for the UK… but I may be wrong - as I have been in the past :wink:

Stuart

Is it clear if the Met Office were excluded from the bidding process? I wold have thought an announcement of the tender in the relevant European Journal or wherever would have triggered a debate some time ago. If they have bid and lost it, I wonder how the contract had been advertised, or was it limited in its advertising for other reasons.

Mike

It appears that their tender did not make the final cut. On what grounds is not clear but I believe their Phone App was a sticking point which if true is ludicrous in my view as it does what it says it does - forecast the weather ACCURATELY it might now be hugely inspiring to look at but who the hell cares if the forecast is accurate. I also suspect they probably were not the cheapest which is what the BBC wanted but why on earth send all this money overseas when we have probably the best and most accurate forecaster in the world here in the UK.

Stuart

Although this tender (U.S. = RFP or RFQ) process seems to be a bit of a surprise to folks over there, they last did it in 2009/10.

This is the only document I could find for the current tender.

Niko that link no longer works as it says session expired.

Stuart

Bummer. So go to https://bbc.bravosolution.co.uk/web/login.shtml click View Tender Opps, then Past Opps, then on my screen it’s on page 6, #51 with a deadline of 30/06/2014.

Somehow I dont they will apply the ‘cheapest’ rule to the presenters and ‘entertainers’ whom they employ. They would argue you have to pay large amounts of money to attract the right talent. Everything from Director General downward. Methinks that this was a foregone conclusion and that something else will appear in the system when the new company takes over that will raise money for the Beeb.

Mike

Commentary on the situation today from the U.K. Telegraph “The bulk of the data used by the winning bidder will still have to be supplied by the UK Met Office anyway”.

Well we all knew that anyway :wink:

Stuart

Well of course…the organisation that wins the contract, will of course be using publically available data but will no doubt be paying for Raw Model Data commercially available from UK Met Office, as well as that from other Met organisations, but not ALL of the Met Office data is going to be available. They obviously will have fully qualified Meteorologists, some no doubt ex Met Office. But I maintain it’s a diabolical decision to end the direct association with the Met Office.

TrevP

"Their

[quote author=niko link=topic=61217.msg489310#msg489310 date=1440951270]
"Their

The graphics were, and quite rightly slated when they were introduced, and yes still not liked widely by weather geeks and non weather savvy folk

TrevP

I did see a BBC forecast the other day where they used the http://earth.nullschool.net/ graphics for once of the wind visualisations, haven’t seen it used again though. I think the ‘standard’ wind animations they use are pretty crude in comparison.

I seem to recall that it was the Metra division of the NZ Met Service that has been supplying the flybuy type graphics?

Right. I really didn’t care for that flyover the UK map thing that they do, almost got motion sickness :lol:

It all stems from the BBC getting less and less funding, also less and less are paying for the license too, they have been cutting
many costs just lately and obviously the Met Office was quite a big drain…

Well to be honest if they stopped the hugely inflated salaries for some of the “stars” and the huge management structure they might be able to afford other things. I have no problem with them trying to get the best possible price but NOT at the expense of the best possible weather service, and to my mind that is neither of the likely candidates.

Stuart

The Met Office contract was a relatively small amount out of the BBC coffers… I’ve seen a reported figure of

Agree 100%