The Battle for the European Business Weather Forecast

It has been a mainstay of filling break time for as long as business news channels in Europe have existed, albeit in different guises, but the business weather forecast is back, and the battle for supremacy couldn't be bigger.  CNBC across Europe is the latest network to relaunch it's weather forecasting offering, thanks partly to NBC's recent acquisition of the Weather Channel and its associated global network of websites.

So firstly with CNBC's forecast.  In the past, a graphical aerial tour of Europe greeted the viewer, with weather-centric graphics whacked on to the big cities showing whether it is going to be sunny, cloudy, raining, snowing or something else in between.  The forecast also gave the forecast temperature.  Now, the forecast looks very neat and tidy indeed, although still keeping the 100% graphic-based option. Now with the weather data coming from CNBC's counterparts over at the Weather Channel, the assumption would be that the weather information contained within the forecast will be very accurate indeed.  The viewer is also regularly reminded that the forecast has come from the Weather Channel, subtly directing the discerning weather-mad businessperson to the weather.co.uk, seemingly wherever they are viewing in Europe.

Bloomberg Television's European feed is also on the bandwagon of filling the space between programming segments with weather forecasts.  Viewers are treated to a more eye-friendly effort with shots of the cities in question shown in full view thanks to feeds from Earth TV (incidentally, the same feeds that are available here at News on News). The forecast information for each city is splattered on top of the image, giving the weather conditions and expected temperature.  The difference here is that unlike CNBC's forecast which comes from the Weather Channel, we aren't given any visual indication as to the source of Bloomberg's forecast.

In any case, I don't think it really matters how good, or how pretty a weather forecast is, I'm struggling to find any value in providing it, other than it being a useful tool for padding out breaks between programming segments.  I can't really see a business traveller waiting for any network to go to a break in order to get a weather forecast for a European city which they might be travelling to that day. The safe money surely would be a weather forecast via the modern filofax - the blackberry, or the wider internet on a laptop before setting off.

Sky News, a UK newschannel which also broadcasts an international feed across Europe, recently dumped its presented weather forecasts for a brief, presenter read, basic forecast.  This, to my eye, shows a dramatic shift away from the provision of weather information on broadcast television in the European news arena, which makes it all the more interesting as to why the two business heavyweights would be going to such lenghs themselves to provide weather information.