KIMT partnership a good choice for the Herald and its readers

Published 12:00 am Friday, September 8, 2000

We’ve been hearing some good comments about our new weather package that we launched in the Austin Daily Herald last week, and we appreciate it.

Friday, September 08, 2000

We’ve been hearing some good comments about our new weather package that we launched in the Austin Daily Herald last week, and we appreciate it.

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The process of improving our weather information has been a long road, but one we’re glad we took. We knew we needed to offer better information to our readers, and all the pieces fell together over the past two months.

If you think about it, weather is a common denominator for people. Everyone talks about it. Meet your neighbor in the back yard and what do you complain about? Call a friend across country and what do you chat about? Yep, the weather.

We looked at producing the weather information ourselves, using the resources we have available to us from The Associated Press. We also explored purchasing a service that would produce the information for us on a daily basis.

At about the same time, a team of meteorologists who track the weather in our region every day of the week approached us about teaming up on the project.

With a handshake, the deal was consummated. We’re not spending a dime to bring you this great weather information and the best part is that it’s up-to-the-minute.

The three meteorologists at KIMT Channel 3 – Ryan Burchett, David Paul and Adam Frederick – already are paying attention to weather in the Austin area because their TV station serves Austin. KIMT is the CBS affiliate in Mason City, Iowa, that serves the Austin-Albert Lea-Rochester-Mason City market. TV stations serve regional markets; their signals reach much farther than an area that might be served by a newspaper in a TV station’s coverage area.

When KIMT initially contacted us about teaming up on a weather project that would serve our readers, I didn’t initially jump because they are in Mason City. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that they already serve our readers, whether they choose to watch the station or not. They’re also the only TV station in the "market" that has three full-time meteorologists on staff.

I worked with Ryan Burchett for well more than a month in developing the weather information that we know our readers want and demand. We sought out sources for the information (some of the information KIMT wasn’t getting and had to procure just for us). In the end, we came up with the product that you can see on the back page of our paper – and our sister paper, the Albert Lea Tribune – every day.

KIMT was no stranger in partnering with a newspaper either. For almost a year, KIMT has been producing the information for a weather page in the Mason City Globe Gazette, too. Our weather information is produced exclusively for us. We don’t copy the Globe Gazette’s information. The KIMT staff has to custom produce data for both newspapers.

However, there’s an additional reason we teamed up with a local weather crew. They can offer instant updates to the weather via the Herald’s Web site. Click on "weather" on the left-hand side of our Web page and you’ll be taken to KIMT’s current weather information. If the weather is changing in the area, the information will be posted quickly there. Also, if you would like e-mail notification of weather bulletins, KIMT’s Web site (http://www.kimt.com) offers a service where you’ll get instant e-mail updates when local weather is changing.

I firmly believe that KIMT is devoted to its weather coverage. That’s why we teamed up with the station. And besides, their transmitter isn’t too far away ­ it’s near St. Ansgar, Iowa. The National Weather Service will be installing a weather transmitter on their tower in the near future that will allow Mower County residents to receive instant weather alerts on special radio receivers in their homes. Like I said, our partnership with KIMT was a good choice, and I welcome them to our pages.