RTE is not meant to be flippant, even about the weather

As soon as the rest of the media got wind of the fact that RTE television had decided to replace its Met Eireann forecasters with professional presenters, it was easy to foresee that a storm was brewing. And so it has proved.

What, perhaps, was less predictable, was just how severe and enduring that storm might be. Initial speculation focused on "weather babes", generating a rash of pretty harmless gags about "warm fronts", "high pressure" and "dirty nights".

But reaction to the change has not simply fizzled out like an overworked punch-line. Certainly, if letter-writers to this newspaper are representative of public opinion, there is considerable opposition - ranging from merely peeved to thoroughly outraged - among the public. There are, clearly, a number of aspects contained in the generally negative reaction to the changes.

The weather has always been a national topic of conversation here. At its most glib, weather guff has really just been an extension of social and verbal pleasantries. When somebody greets a friend or an acquaintance or even a stranger with a "nice day", only the most boorish would dream of replying, "I can see that for myself, you fool."

But beyond its social function as a subject for easy geniality, weather, very notably for people who work outdoors, has a serious side. Farmers, fishermen, building workers, drivers, even sports people maintain a more than casual interest in the weather. Likewise old people, arthritis and hay-fever sufferers and holidaymakers.

So, there is a scale of interests in weather which, Lincoln-like, suggests that some are concerned about it all of the time and all are concerned about it some of the time. What, unless there is an organised weather-lobby bombarding the media, seems clear however, is that a great number of people take their weather very seriously indeed.

It may be that a great number of people take their television even more seriously. Without doubt, the change from weather professionals to television professionals has acted, for people who see it as further dumbing down of TV content, like a breeze fanning a bush-fire.

So, an unanswerable style v substance or entertainment v information debate has erupted. Because of this, weather - in which we all have an interest - has become symbolic of other changes within the overall culture and its media. The battle may well concern the merits of more substantial Met Eireann people against those of, arguably, more stylish TV presenters. But the war, of which it is just a part, reflects a greater, infinitely more wide-ranging, ideological conflict.

When TV3 weatherman Martin King, a showman not a meteorologist, attracted a flurry of attention by turning televised weather-forecasting into a performance (which was primarily entertainment, albeit with information added) RTE Television's managing director, Joe Mulholland, moved to secure ratings and so the weather-babe gags began.

Now that Mulholland's changes (which, in spite of the gags are rather more subdued than Topless Darts or Red Hot Dutch) have been implemented, he finds himself having to weather a storm of protests. But it should be remembered that career journalists, like career meteorologists, have, for decades now, faced an intensifying blizzard of seeing footballers, models and politicians displace them in their work.

TV3, being a totally commercial enterprise, has vehemently opted for easy-on-the-eye gloss. Indeed it has been quite extreme in its commitment to info-tainment, in some instances to the point where it appears that its policy is to convince viewers that, like, say, Hello! magazine, style is, in fact, its substance.

But RTE is not meant to be so flippant, crass or lowbrow. It is expected to carry out a public service broadcasting remit, in which authority is to be valued above appearance. In a flagrantly commercial culture, RTE finds the twin tasks of serving the people and serving profits to be increasingly in conflict.

So, we can expect dumbing-down as lowest common denominators - that is programming which is more concerned with quantity of viewers than quality of content - are sought. This is, everybody knows, the logic of the market and a logic to which RTE executives have taken with alarming conviction.

It should also be remembered that the currently displaced Met Eireann forecasters did themselves displace an older generation of Met Office presenters. It is true that, unlike the present situation, this was a replacement of like with like. But the boundaries between natural obsolescence and ageist policies are often in the eye of the beholder.

Consequently, the displaced Met people feel aggrieved and those who have replaced them have got to be feeling some pressure. Most complainants among the public appear to focus on a lack of authority and a dearth of details in the new weather bulletins.

There is too a grand irony in all of this squabbling. Time and again, the weather professionals were accused of getting their forecasts wrong - sometimes spectacularly so. Now that they've been replaced, their supporters have practically deified them.

Ultimately, this switch in the style of weather presenting by our national television station reflects not just changes in television but within Irish society. Where talk about the weather was once a synonym for a simple "Hello", stressing style over substance is evidence of the grip Hello! magazine culture has achieved.

The problem is this grip is not as superficial as its opponents characterise the culture of which it is a part. If only the economy was as mixed as the weather, we needn't be facing this row. But we are. So, whither weather?

Now that RTE can see which way the wind is blowing, it ought to introduce a mix of Met Eireann and professional presenter types. That should prevent everybody from making such heavy weather over televised forecasting and allow the public, not RTE, to profit. Doesn't the market claim that it can offer greater choice?

Eddie Holt, the television critic of The Irish Times, lectures in journalism at DCU