Weathercast? I'll take mine without rap

My friend Sally in Western Massachusetts e-mailed me this link to a story about one of our local TV weathermen, Nick Kosir, the “rapping weatherman” on station KBTV-TV, Fox 4 in Beaumont, Texas. Hat tip to Sally!

After looking at the station’s Web page they are tooting their own horn some more since “American Idol’s” Ryan Seacrest mentioned Kosir on his Tweeter page. I should be as lucky.

I had heard through some local blogs about this very white, 26-year-old guy who breaks into a rap every once in awhile while doing the weather on the station’s morning news show. I told Sally that I don’t get up that early. Actually, I sometimes do but I don’t watch their newscast. I don’t watch it at 4 p.m. or 9 p.m. either. It really takes a lot to pull an hour-long local newscast and I don’t think the station is quite there yet. Plus, 4-5 p.m.? Who watches local news then? The folks at Fox 4 shouldn’t feel bad. I don’t watch the combined local NBC and ABC stations either (the same company owns both.)

My preferred local news is CBS affiliate KFDM-TV Channel 6, which I have more or less watched since Ralph Ramos left the NBC station when it was still located in Port Arthur, many, many years ago. KFDM is by no means perfect. It is far from it. It is more like the process of elimination.

I doubt the rappin’ weather guy will get me to watch his station more. I mean, I’m not watching it now. Nick Kosir maybe will become famous, or will get his 15 minutes of fame from this. Good for him if that’s what he wants. Me, I just want the weather and I’m getting to the point where I really don’t need a TV weatherman to tell me what the weather will or will not do.

As it is with Channel 6’s weather team, they do a fairly good job. They have been here for awhile. Greg Bostwick, the head meteorologist has been on the job for 30 some-odd years. He, James Brown and Kerry Cooper are pretty solid. They’ve been through quite a lot now, what with several bad hurricanes under our belt. Like pretty much all, longtime TV weathermen, Bostwick gets a little cocky every now and then. But I would definitely rather see and hear him prior to a hurricane than getting a forecast in rap. For one thing, I am into weather. Secondly, I’m not into rap, unless it’s a decent parody.

Enough. I didn’t really want to discuss my feelings about the local newscasts. They all try. It’s a very difficult business. But lots of local news, especially small-market where everyone comes to go somewhere, pretty much sucks.