WeatherWatchTV on YouTube has smashed the ratings of most local NZ-On-Air funded television programmes following a huge few weeks due to droughts increasing in NZ and Cyclone Alfred hitting Australia.

YouTube Analytics says WeatherWatch (a small NZ business) had views almost 400% above normal as NZ viewers increasingly checked in for rain news, while Australian viewers checked in for Cyclone Alfred updates across Queensland and New South Wales.

Viewership for our individual videos exceeded 150 to 200K per video – ahead of most NZ made TV shows like Shortland Street and Q&A (although fair to note WeatherWatch’s YouTube videos broadcast into Australia and not just New Zealand).

WeatherWatch’s most watched single-day weather programme had 263,500 viewers, about Cyclone Alfred hitting Queensland and New South Wales.

Overwhelmingly the public comments on YouTube have said WeatherWatchTV provides ‘old school weather presenting’ coupled with ‘modern day data and visuals’, with many expressing their exhaustion with mainstream clickbait news outlets who continue to hype the most dramatic weather headlines, rather than focus on what is most likely to happen.

NZ mainstream news outlets rarely write or talk about WeatherWatch’s small business success or ratings and basically only promote NZ’s two Government forecasters without question. These same mainstream news outlets also complain directly to the NZ Government about the growth of social media like YouTube in NZ – and want the Government to help them.

We thank the NZ public (and our newfound Australian viewers) for seeing through this and recognising WeatherWatch is all about hard work and helping, not copying, pasting and hyping.

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NIWA DELETES CYCLONE ALFRED VIDEO
Niwa’s YouTube channel also produced a video about Cyclone Alfred – but it was quietly deleted (or unpublished) soon after. Historically Government owned weather forecasters (like MetSevice, BoM, NOAA, UK Metoffice etc) respect each others boundaries and “turf”. Niwa is a tax-funded double up in NZ, meaning they have to look elsewhere to grow. Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology (BoM) told WeatherWatch years ago they will never comment on weather inside the NZ area as they respect MetService – something MetService also respects in a public way and is why you don’t hear either talk about each other’s severe weather.

However, Niwa has no regulation or ministers that want to know – and Minister Collins has made it very clear Niwa’s commercial descisions as a Crown Research Institute (CRI) are theirs to make – even if using tax dollars to experiment with things like competiting with tax funded MetService (providing a tax funded double up) or competiting commercially against other nations like Australia.

WeatherWatch is a small private business and is allowed to compete anywhere we like. Government forecasters have, historically, respected the international borders because why tax fund a NZ agency to comment on overseas weather.

But either way Niwa deleted the video after their own effort had been made to produce it, once again proving that NiwaWeather stands for both everything and nothing all at the same time. In our view Govenment owned Niwa is competing against absolutely everyone they possibly can with very few friends – and Niwa no longer represents science and climate with passion, they are focused mainly on commercialism. This can be proven over the years as NIWA management has refused to answer basic Official Information Act (OIA) requests for multiple years from the NZ Herald, the NZ Listener and WeatherWatch itself. The Minister says it is not her place to comment – and NIWA says “for commercial reasons” they won’t comment. What a corrupted set-up that is, if tax money can be spent with no one asking questions or getting answers.

New Zealand tax payers fund this 15+ year secret experiment and if NiwaWeather is having to delete videos it suggests they are throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what commercially sticks, rather than proudly promoting science in New Zealand as what they stand for.

• WeatherWatch.co.nz