Weather at his fingertips
Florenci Rey is one of the lead weather presenters at Spanish Canal Cuatro. He is also the editor of the weather shows. Florenci has pioneered the use of interactive screens and devices during weather shows and shares with us some insights and experiences on how to create non-linear interactive shows.
Can you explain what your current role at Canal Cuatro is?
Right now, I'm the editor for weather shows at Cuatro. I'm also one of five presenters.
Why do you think weather shows have become such an important part of TV lately?
Mostly because all activities in our social and economic life are influenced, in one way or another, by the weather. This is especially true in a country like Spain, where tourism is directly affected by the weather. You must remember that Spain's most important industry is tourism with its related businesses.
You are known as a precursor on the weather scene. How do you define the role of a producer and presenter?
This role has been changing profoundly in the last, let's say, ten years. Today, you can easily find all the weather information you need no matter where you are in the world. The Internet could be a dangerous competition for TV weather teams. But our job is more than only telling the audience what the weather is or will be. We try to explain why the weather is going to be like this or that. And that's why graphic tools are essential: they allow our team to explain weather and climate in an easy way.
What differentiates your weather shows from similar shows on other channels or in other countries?
We are just talking about the weather; not putting on a 'show'. We don't see weather information as entertainment. It's important for economics, culture, and so on... You don't need a daily gala show just to predict the weather. Our aim is to combine weather information and high-end graphics to create a pleasant experience for our viewers.
Why did you decide to use interactivity in your shows?
Quite easy: because it saves a lot of intermediate steps and gives our presenters an unknown freedom to decide on the spot what to show and in which order.
What was the viewer reaction when you introduced interactivity?
Well, to interact with screens is not a revolutionary thing: you do it with cash machines, when buying a train ticket, or drop off your luggage at the airport. The 'trick' is very well known. Viewers understood that it is a good idea to use interactivity in a weather show because it makes the program flexible and easy-to-understand. And of course, the impact of a presenter moving maps, icons, or weather fronts across a 3m wide screen is spectacular.
How is interactivity changing the way weather shows are done?
Our performance is improving day by day. We can change the structure of our show at any time. We don't have to decide what to show in a preview or create a stack of scenes with a pre-defined order before the show starts. As a presenter, you have all the weather data available on screen with a single touch. You can navigate by going forward and back as many times as you want. That results in a very personal show.
What type of challenges did you face when going towards interactive weather forecasts?
The most important was not to forget what we're broadcasting. It's all about the weather, not only fancy graphics. We always have to remember: the content is more important than the tool. Ok, the tool is so powerful that we could make mind-boggling weather shows, but then we'd loose our aim: communicate weather news.
What is your routine when preparing a weather forecast?
It begins early in the morning. We receive weather forecasts from our data sources (mainly ECMWF). There's a board-discussion about mid morning between our meteorologists and journalists. After that we focus our activities in many fields: collecting and analysing real-time data, satellite and radar images treatment and analysis, news, alerts, foreign weather and climate news... All the data is stored in Viz Weather, ready to be used in the afternoon and evening TV shows.
Do you have an online or mobile strategy for your weather forecasts?
We sure do. We are working on providing specialized weather data for specific groups of end-users: sailors, skiers, golfers, soccer players, etc. In a few weeks we are also going to launch our iPhone application.
What is your next challenge?
We want to integrate all our data into a single multimedia platform that will allow us to provide our services to all our customers. At this moment we're using different tools for TV shows, newspapers, radio broadcastings, and websites. We really want to handle this with a single platform.
Where do you look for inspiration when thinking about new shows and new formats?
You have to open your eyes and look. Look, understand and learn. The answer to how the people want your weather show to be is in the people themselves. The way they chat to others, their kind of relations, the way they look at things, their style. It's that simple.