Headquartered in Saint-Mandé near Paris, Météo-France is the French national weather service. To meet expanding demand for appealing and accurate weather forecast graphics on many different platforms, the institute has made a large investment in its social media, Web, and mobile presence over the past two years. In addition, the institute has seen greater demand from professional broadcasters and print media for more varied content, delivered faster and with the highest visual quality. Today, Météo-France has more than 26,000 followers on Twitter and receives more than 500 million visits to its website every year.
In 2015, after a year of market research, Météo-France launched a tender to upgrade its weather graphics production capabilities. The institute needed a solution that could accommodate its increasing production workflow with the same or fewer human resources. The system had to be capable of automatic content creation, and it also needed to be easy to use for forecasters as they create unique content for accurate presentation of weather information. In addition, since Météo-France media clients compete in the same market, it was important to find a solution that could create the desired content in each client’s branded design, look, and feel.
“It was important to find a flexible solution to accommodate our specific workflows and production needs. At the same time, the product must be open and easy to maintain so that we can evolve it as our production needs change and new weather data is added over time. After our thorough evaluation, it was clear that Metacast presented the best choice,” said Emmanuel Bocrie, director, media unit, Météo-France. “The Metacast team has a 20-year track record working with meteorological institutes worldwide, so it was easy for us to find recommendations from people in the industry. With ChyronHego and Metacast, we know we’ve found a team of experts that can help us take our operation into the future.”
Since its launch in 1993, Metacast has been installed in more than 200 sites worldwide, enabling forecasters and television presenters to visualize and display accurate weather information from any data source. Météo-France has deployed three Metacast workstations and two redundant Metacast servers, used by graphics designers as well as meteorologists to create customized and relevant content and then distribute the content automatically to clients.
“After partnering with more than 50 weather data providers worldwide, we understand the challenges that organizations like Météo-France face, and we know how to provide a graphics solution that can best serve both the weather data provider and its clients,” said Karl Eggestad, Metacast sales director at ChyronHego. “Being chosen by a highly regarded institution like Météo-France is an important recognition of Metacast’s technology excellence and the team’s competence. With Metacast, Météo-France can focus on its core competencies to offer clients — and ultimately, end users and viewers — the most accurate and compelling weather information in the industry.”
