The Fabricator
Promotion of television weathercasts has taken a scary turn in the last few years, with crisis-oriented monikers like “Storm Team” and “Severe Weather Experts” becoming more common than afternoon and evening thundershowers in July.
But last weekend’s snowfall provided WTVF-Channel 5 its first test of a new type of weather promotion, the gender-oriented appeal. Its new weather slogan, as viewers heard repeated over and over throughout the weekend’s coverage, is “Get your weather from a man.”
The slogan points out and attempts to capitalize on the fact that of the four local television news operations, Channel 5, with its weather stable of Ron Howes, Lelan Statom and Charlie Neese, is the only one with no female on-air forecasters. Lisa Spencer is the lead forecaster at WSMV, Lisa Patton holds that role at WKRN, and FOX 17 has a female on the weekends, Cindy Tremblay.
“Every station is always looking for an advantage, and since the retirement of [veteran WSMV forecaster] Bill Hall, Channel 5 obviously thought there may be viewers looking for that masculine weather component that the other stations don’t always deliver,” says one broadcasting insider.
Reached in retirement at his palatial rural villa, Hall said he didn’t approve of the new Channel 5 campaign.
|
---------------------------Advertisement---------------------------
|
|
---------------------------Advertisement---------------------------
|
“I think it’s a little out of place and what-not,” he said. “When you’re telling people that a precip mix is coming in from neighboring Arkansas and that they should go check on the pets and elderly, it doesn’t matter whether you’re a man or woman. Or a cartoon penguin for that matter.”
“I certainly don’t think of the slogan as sexist,” WTVF general manager Debbie Turner says. “It’s just a way to tell viewers how our product is different from the other guys’. So to speak.”
(The Fabricator is satire. Don’t believe everything you read)