Ö÷²¥´óÐã

One particularly apt truism for the incident on R4 LW last night was "worse things happen at sea" which was certainly the case when listeners were denied the coup de grace despite being given multiple warnings and advice that the Shipping Forecast was about to interrupt their cricket. No-one could have been more delighted than I with the successful Ashes outcome but the real time commentary was hardly the key to England's performance.

2. For the sheer sake of pedantry, could you tell us if there was in fact any dangerous weather round any of our shores or shipping areas?

I have this image of that rare thing - a cricket mad sea captain, sitting there as the waves built up...and knowing the one wicket could be masked - torn, knowing he has to hear Finisterre, and also knowing the weak and wobbly night time radio 5 medium wave transmission.
So he tires to judge the timing, winding the tuning button frantically as soon as his area is covered buy the forecast...

long wave cricket fans have to shut up about this one - most fishing boats are not more interested in cricket than knowing if they need to turn away from a storm...

@CharlieMudlark

There was indeed dangerous weather. The beginning of the forecast lists those sea areas for which a gale warning is in effect, meaning a warning of severe and potentially dangerous. On this occasion, gale warnings were in effect for 11 sea areas, which is a lot.

The Met Office shows this graphically on their website here: This shows the current forecast; the situation has worsened since last night's forecast in question.

I feel sorry for the poor sailors who were huddled round their radios listening closely to the final balls being bowled only to have their coverage interuptted. They did not have the flexibility to switch to 5LSX

I agree. Weather was dangerous. Forecasts also listed several area's.

@Greavsie: Nice info there at Metoffice.

Wind Cyclonic 6 to gale 8, perhaps severe gale 9 later.Sea StateRough or very rough. Weather Rain or snow. Visibility Moderate.

Quite interesting that Radio 5 used this to their advantage though - as they did in the previous test too - by using their own commentator (Mark Pougatch) rather than the TMS feed.

The point seems to be being missed: is there any need to broadcast the shipping forecast at all? My suspicion is that it is part of some archaic public service charter that the Ö÷²¥´óÐã relies upon to bolster it's arguments for taxing us to listen to the radio and watch tv.

Do the maritime community rely on this at all? Listen to it even?

I suggest that in this age of GPS and the Internet all sea going vessels have ample means of finding the weather; it may even be compulsory that they carry such equipment.


If someone can confim that some seagoers do indeed rely on the shipping forecast as the sole means of getting their weather then I accept that it has to be broadcast. But that brings me to the second point: why on Radio 4 Long Wave when there are thousands of digital channels, not to mention the Internet that could be used?

This is clearly the usual arrogance of the Ö÷²¥´óÐã, mired in a bygone age where it is used to dictating what an audience will hear and no one will question it. You can tell it from the language of this blog as well: "but this requires us to give at least 6 hours notice of its new position". Don't people think "outside the box" at the Ö÷²¥´óÐã? Who dictates that 6 hours notice should be given: the powers that be at the Ö÷²¥´óÐã? The Government? Some quango?

Point is that sentence should be " but this requires us to give at least 6 hours notice of its new position, which we acknowledge is absurd so we will be getting this changed....". But I bet no one there ever even thought of any so "radical".

As you can tell I have a much wider anger at this than just missing the end of a Test Match. Principally it is this: I am forced to pay to listen to the Ö÷²¥´óÐã, you interrupt a program I (and a large audience) enjoy to inflict on me a really boring and inconsequential (to me) broadcast (aimed at a minority audience) regularly. If you were a normal broadcaster relying on advertising revenue where would that business model get you?

Tim091 - the shipping forecast is broadcast on the Ö÷²¥´óÐã broadly as a back up for when satellite and internet connections go down. Also there are many smaller craft that don't have internet or GPS and rely completely on the broadcast. I wrote a book about the shipping forecast and most of the mariners I spoke to told me they rely on the radio broadcast to a great extent.
I'd imagine the six hours' notice are necessary because the forecasts are broadly six hours apart: you'd have to announce the change of time during the previous forecast or vessels would have no way of knowing that the time has been changed if they're just tuning in for the shipping forecast.
By the way, strictly speaking you're not actually forced to pay to listen to the Ö÷²¥´óÐã - the licence is for television: the Ö÷²¥´óÐã's radio output is free.

Well said Tim091. Of course the interruptions don't only relate to the Shipping Forecast. At 8.30am we have to listen to "Yesterday in Parliament" and at 9.45am it's time for "The Morning Service". Whilst this winter these programmes only interrupted the Perth test, when England are playing on the sub-continent or South Africa then we have frequent disruptions. Like many listeners,I'm driving to work at 8.30am and quite why Yesterday in Parliament cannot be delayed is beyond me. Come on Ö÷²¥´óÐã, sort it out!!!