I used to work for one of the big Toronto TV newsrooms, so I fully understand why weather is considered a flexpoint for the hour long shows. It's a chance to get a meteorologist or weather guy or gal out in the community doing something, scoring points with the public and the CRTC. Fair enough. But it's become my pet peeve when the people they send out do the shtick first and then barely manage to squeeze in the weather, which, after all, is what they were hired to do in the first place. 

The worst current offender in this regard is CTV Toronto's Anwar Knight. Whenever they send him on location (which is far too often), he spends the bulk of his small allotted airtime yammering on - often with a guest - about something I really don't care about. Whether it's cross country skiing, kids making Valentine's Day cards at a local school, showing off a lottery prize or doing a cooking demo, when it's 30 below with the wind chill and we're expecting 10 more centimetres of snow, I find myself screaming at the TV, "I don't care about this sh*t! Just get to the bloody forecast!" Worse yet, all that wasted blather means the weather - which viewer surveys in the past have shown are one of the most important things people tune in for - gets almost no air time. (Many's the time I recall my producer screaming in the control room to tell our on-location weather guy to "wrap it up already, we're 10 minutes heavy as it is!")

So it was nice to see Denise Andreacchi filling in for Anwar, who apparently had a day (Knight?) off from CTV's noon news. She was on location for some Chinese New Year's deal at a Thornhill school, not a big point of interest for me. But at least she did her weather stuff first and THEN got to the extras. It was a lot easier to take and I wish others would follow her lead. 

Last edited by aflem (February 19, 2015 1:39 PM)