Envirocast TV Adds Earth Science to Weather Reports

Boulder consultant provides expertise to federally funded project

BOULDER – A Boulder communications firm is helping take the nightly weather report to a whole new level.

Environmental Communications Associates, led by owner AJ Grant, has partnered with sister company StormCenter Communications Inc. to bring detailed environmental information to the public right through the nightly news.

Grant is a partner and co-founder of StormCenter, which helps television broadcasters add environmental information and news to weather reports.

StormCenter Communications, based in a suburb of Baltimore, produces a new suite of products called Envirocast TV. The company works with federal agencies, local scientists and national meteorologists to create custom broadcasts on environmental issues that affect the public. These broadcasts are sold to local television stations that also can tie the information together with an Envirocast Web package.

Grant and her team at Environmental Communications are no strangers to these issues. She has been working in environmental consulting and marketing for more than 30 years, and her company has contributed to marketing strategies for large entities such as the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Environmental Protection Agency down to small creative campaigns such as the city of Boulder’s water-quality campaign.

Through her Boulder-based consulting and marketing firm Environmental Communications Associates, AJ Grant is lending marketing expertise to StormCenter Communications in Baltimore. Grant is a partner and co-founder of StormCenter, which helps television broadcasters add environmental information and news to weather reports.

“The No. 1 reason people watch local news is for the weather, which takes up three minutes of air time,” Grant explained. “The weather supports the news, and the news supports the entire network. If we can make the weather 30 seconds longer, the public can hear words like ‘global warming and climate change’ and ‘watershed and erosion’ and understand the things they can do about them.”

The team at StormCenter Communications is led by Dave Jones, a longtime on-air meteorologist with NBC in Washington D.C. He wrote three winning grant proposals to NASA to determine ways to translate complex information gathered by satellites that could be easily understood. That information is an essential ingredient to his company’s products.

“There are billions of points of information that satellites gather every day. They can see encroaching noxious weeds. They can see the pollution in a watershed. It can tell you where the migration of fish is going. There is lots of information. It’s just a matter of getting it out,” Grant said.

Today, information from more than 180 satellites is used to create visually compelling direct broadcast reports for weathercasters all over the country. Information about environmental issues is integrated with graphics and visuals that can be used on the fly, turning weathercasters into station scientists. The company has created segments about topics such as ozone, climate change, fire danger and erosion. It also responds quickly to contemporary events such as oil spills and natural disasters such as the recent tsunami in Asia and the Hayman fire in Colorado.

The partnership gives its specially designed segments at no cost to 18 major television markets around the country ranging from Washington, D.C. to Mobile, Ala. and hopes to add another 10 this year.

Stephan Andrade of Boulder, formerly with the state of Colorado and founder of TESS Communications, is helping to build the company’s business plan. He expects Envirocast broadcasts to reach more than 20 percent of the U.S. viewing public by the end of the year.

“I see this environmental content becoming an integral part of our daily lives. Just as we expect to know the temperature and the forecast, we are going to need to know about the science behind our water and air quality,” Andrade said.

The projects are. funded through agreements with large environmental organizations such as the EPA and the U.S. Forest Service.

“We have been in this area for a long enough time that different agencies seek us out. They are just waiting for some way to reach the public, and this is a remarkably simple and consistent way to accomplish that goal,” Grant said.

Although the project has been financially successful, all of the Envirocast efforts are based in environmental earth science and seek to educate, not to influence.

“It’s a balance,” Andrade admitted. “There are a lot of commercial interests out there who would like to use this service, but the news stations are the final filter. Anything colored by commercial interests doesn’t make it into the content, and stations won’t report on items that are commercially driven or even environmental agency driven. We simply try to give weathercasters the facts, the background and the production tools to put together a forthright weather news story.”

StormCenter Communications and Environmental Communications are currently working on market research to reach other interested parties such as cities that wish to communicate vital environmental information. Grant also expects the concept to branch out from television and Web channels into print, cellphone technology and other multimedia avenues.

“We can use the best and latest technology in an era when science is becoming more relevant and bring it down to the public level. This is everyday science that is critical to people’s lives, and now it’s being brought to them by the people they know and love,” Grant said.

“We have been in this area for a long enough time that different agencies seek us out. They are just waiting for some way to reach the public, and this is a remarkably simple and consistent way to accomplish that goal.”

AJ Grant

PARTNER AND CO-FOUNDER, STORMCENTER COMMUNICATIONS INC.

BY S. CLAYTON MOORE

Business Report Correspondent

Copyright The Boulder County Business Report Jul 8-Jul 21, 2005