The way this announcement of the contract extension has been made public seems to me to be a shot across the bows of Meteogroup. It's a "get your house in order before we have to retender the contract" message, and taking into account that this new contract was obviously agreed some time ago but not announced, one that the Beeb don't think is going to be enough. I'll be surprised if there isn't a new tender process beginning by late January.
At this rate the BBC should just stick with the tried and trusted Met Office rather than go with an unknown quantity who have so far shown they can't deliver.
Meteogroup are hardly an 'unknown quantity'. They supply numerous broadcasters with forecasts and graphics.
What the real issue is between them and the BBC we may never know.
Major question is - with the weather team get the latest version of Weatherscape in the meantime, knowing how flaky and prone to crashing the current on air version is?
Last edited by Hatton Cross on 6 November 2017 9:27am
The BBC said the delay would not leave it out of pocket because the Met Office contract has been extended on existing terms and it would not begin paying MeteoGroup until the new system was live.
That can only be true if the MeteoGroup deal is costing more than the existing Met Office contact. In which case it's hardly a cost cutting measure (unless the cost of continuing with the Met Office was considerably higher than the previous contract).
That said, I know how these EU tendering processes can take on a life of their own and the buyer has very little choice of what they actually end up.
At this rate the BBC should just stick with the tried and trusted Met Office rather than go with an unknown quantity who have so far shown they can't deliver.
Depends what the issue is. If it's to do with the production system then that's not something the Met Office do now anyway.
From what I've seen I think that might be the case
The BBC said the delay would not leave it out of pocket because the Met Office contract has been extended on existing terms and it would not begin paying MeteoGroup until the new system was live.
That can only be true if the MeteoGroup deal is costing more than the existing Met Office contact. In which case it's hardly a cost cutting measure (unless the cost of continuing with the Met Office was considerably higher than the previous contract).
Then again you don’t know how much a new contract with the Met Office would have cost - could well be that MeteoGroup’s bid was cheaper than any of their competitors’, while all were more expensive than a contract renewal with the Met Office. We also don’t know if the new deal has the exact scope of service as the current contract - it could be the BBC has asked for them to provide new, enhanced or simply different features in the new contract that isn’t there at present.
Remember that the Met Office were ruled out at an early stage in the process. Not sure how true it is but I read elsewhere the suggestion that they were fairly complacent about the contract nd lost it partly because of that
Remember that the Met Office were ruled out at an early stage in the process. Not sure how true it is but I read elsewhere the suggestion that they were fairly complacent about the contract nd lost it partly because of that
Sounds like part of the reason why Rediffusion got forced by the ITA into their "shotgun marriage" with ABC to create Thames back in 1968! They were apparently arrogantly complacent.
Lucy Martin doing the national forecasts on the News Channel this afternoon. Guessing this is her first Nationals debut after her usual forecasts for the regions?
Lucy Martin doing the national forecasts on the News Channel this afternoon. Guessing this is her first Nationals debut after her usual forecasts for the regions?
She's been doing them semi regularly for the last few months.