The MetService has given its British counterpart a run for its money but has missed out on taking over the contract to supply the BBC with weather forecasts.The MetService general manager of marketing, Mark Ottaway said the company was "disappointed&
The MetService has given its British counterpart a run for its money but has missed out on taking over the contract to supply the BBC with weather forecasts.
The MetService general manager of marketing, Mark Ottaway said the company was "disappointed" to have not become the BBC's source for weather forecasts, but had received some positive feedback.
"The New Zealand forecasters proposed to supply all the BBC's weather services, including forecast data and on-air presenters, providing more than 100 forecasts a day across TV, radio, mobile and online."
Mr Ottaway noted the BBC had been impressed by the quality of the work which the New Zealanders had offered and the creativity of the solutions in the bid.
"It was a full solution -- it offered all the components that they were after," he said. "We would have had a forecast desk there, gathering our own data and sorting out forecasts for the BBC."
Mr Ottaway said the announcement from the BBC made it clear that value-for-money over the life of the contract had been important in the tender decision: "Cost and price became key issues".
After Britain's Met Office was criticised for a series of blunders including what turned out to be a wildly optimistic prediction last year of a "barbecue summer,"the BBC announced it was considering ditching its home-town scientists after 87 years of using their weather forecasts.
It was the first time that the BBC contract had been put out to tender since 1923.
MetService bid for the work through its commercial arm -- Metra.
But today the BBC announced that the Met Office contract to supply weather services for the next five years had been renewed, The Guardian newspaper reported.
"The Met Office leads the world in broadcast meteorology and we are delighted to renew our weather broadcasting partnership with the BBC," said John Hirst, chief executive of the Met Office.
"This announcement follows a very thorough and competitive tender process."
In January, London's Sunday Times reported a poll showed that 74 percent of Britons believed the Met Office's forecasts were generally inaccurate, and it noted that Metra was already software supplier for the "fly-over" graphics used by BBC television, and that Weather Commerce, Metra's UK subsidiary, already supplied forecasts to UK shopping giants Tesco, Sainsbury's, Marks and Spencer and Waitrose.
"Metra has been negotiating with the BBC since September, when a new tender document, seen by The Sunday Times, was sent to forecasters," the newspaper said. "It stated that the corporation was seeking a single forecaster to provide meteorological data and presenters for five years."
