and now it's time for newswatch. this week, we examine the changes to the bbc weather forecasts. hello and welcome to newswatch with me, samira ahmed. on the show... how wise was it for a bbc reporter to be following this woman down a dark street? and the bbc‘s weather forecasts have had a makeover but are they clearer or have they made the picture more murky? tuesday marked 100 years since some women receive the right to vote and breakfast marked the occasion with an all—female line—up, from the two main presenters to sports and weather presenters and a roster of women guests. some members of the audience approved... thank you for a show presented exclusively by women. well done. but, she went on, what happened to the usual black and minority ethnic presenters that are on the show? and iryna questioned the whole idea.

in doing this, the bbc is demeaning women because it shows that according to the bbc, women get exposure because of their gender, not ability. across bbc news that day, the anniversary was recognised. kevin jones applauded the coverage as a whole but had one major reservation. wednesday evenings bulletins included a report

from michael buchanan about an nhs trust in liverpool where according to a report seen by bbc news, patients had suffered unnecessary harm because a senior leadership team was out of its depth. the chief executive at the time, bernie cuthel, was tracked down on the news at six. we tried to get an interview with her. excuse me. bernie cuthel. bbc news. we would like to talk to you about liverpool community health. we just want to ask you a couple of questions. are you a bully, ms cuthel? and as you can see, bernie cuthel did not want to answer any questions. a later version of that report for the news at ten made it clear that bernie cuthel had not responded to two previous requests for an interview. but some viewers of the news at six were clearly u nha ppy at what they had seen, with michelle smith explaining why in this video she recorded for us. i was absolutely appalled to see that the reporter

who wanted a comment from her was chasing her down a dark street, as she was walking alone, shouting at her and running after her, to get a quote, asking her questions like, are you a bully? well, in my opinion, bbc, your reporter was the bully in this case. and it was absolutely unnecessary. well, we put that objection to bbc news and they told us... please do let us know your thoughts on anything we are covering in the programme or on any aspect of bbc news. details on how to contact us coming up at the end of the programme. now, since its first radio weather bulletin in 1922, the data used for bbc forecasts has been provided by the met office. but no longer. although the met office will still work with the bbc on severe weather warnings, bbc now has a new weather service provider. although the presenters are the same, there is also a new look seen online on the weather app and from last tuesday, on television. for that day's news at one,

sarah keith lucas talked through some of the changes. let's zoom into northern england and in this example, you can see quite clearly the showers falling as rain but also as snow over the higher ground. and it is not only on the small scale that things are changing. but also on the global scale. we can now look at satellite data from right around the world, we can also add on pressure fields and frontal systems. well, some members of the audience have responded with enthusiasm like adam. but paul smith complained of a lack of clarity. apart from the change from a brown to green background,

some viewers detected a change in the shape of the map, with the new, longer, thinner version giving more space to scotland. others objected to the increased text shown on screen, with dennis franklin writing... well, to answer that question and others i'm joined by liz howell, the head of bbc weather. thank you for coming on newswatch. people are saying it wasn't broke, why did you change the weather? well, under eu laws we had to run a regulated procurement process when our previous contract ran out. and quite simply,

meteo group was the best fit. in every respect. and so that's why they were awarded the contract. so what are some of the specific changes you've made that will notice? we're really excited about some of these. so we have realistic mapping, so we can put roads on their and urban areas on there so we can show where weather is affecting travel. we have on the app and on the website 1a days now of forecast data for each hour of the day. we have a feels like temperature, which really tells people what it's going to be like when they step out the door. we have a percentage chance of rain. alongside that now the forecasters and presenters have far more forecasting models available to them than they ever had before. are they more accurate? well, we have, yes, we have more high—resolution data. and we have more models to choose from. the accuracy should go up. people have got used to more realistic mapping and that's what we've introduced. we've got a green map and we've got a green earth in the uk. we got a flat map now which gives a better proportion to the uk, a more realistic proportion.

and people needed a more modern and contemporary look, actually they had got, through audience research, they had got slightly bored with the brown map. it looks like a reversion to a flat earth. well, there are many projections of the earth. previously we had a tilted one and of course some people weren't happy with that. but this is a projection people are really comfortable with in the sense they are used to it, it's one you see on the news, it's used in many other organisations. why are they saying it's more skinny? they've noticed it's different. well, it'sjust proportional. it's more proportional to the actual landmass of the uk. we do get viewers complaining about the change of colour and the mapping detail and that actually it looks less clear, they would say. obviously we've only launched a few days ago. we've done a lot of audience testing with this work. we'll be listening to audience feedback. you might tweak it?

there are definitely going to be tweaks to this overtime. definitely. good, good, good. a related point. the size of the place names. tom holt, who also happens to be a lecturer in glaciology, e—mailed us. the label for birmingham stretches almost entirely across the cambrian mountains. he can't see the weather for a huge stretch of wales. it's hardly a user—friendly. people have different opinions about labels and towns and cities on the map so we've had comments they are too small, comments there are too many, comments there are too few. we've had comments we shouldn't have any town names on the map at all. maybe fewer. exactly. that's one of the many options people are writing into us about. over the years news watch viewers have often complained about too much detailfor whole parts of the country they don't care about because they don't live there. how do you approach that whole kind of competing demand situation, giving a national picture in the time you have and give you enough local detail for it to be useful? we tend to go for the bigger impact weather and start there and make sure people, where they are going to get storms or snow, or whatever,

understand the impact and the relevance of that for them. we try to give something for every nation so somebody goes away with something. bbc weather is a catalogue of services, so you have the network service that will give you the uk picture. you can have a regional tv service which will give you a much more detailed picture. then the app which really we've improved so much now. we'll give you a very, very local forecast for your postcode each hour of the day. liz howell, thank you very much. finally, we woke up on monday morning to some big sports news. big enough at least to lead sports bulletins and be the lead story on the bbc sport website. yes, the philadelphia eagles had won the super bowl for the first time by beating the new england patriot. if that leaves you cold, or even mystified, others, too, wonders why an american sporting event had achieved such prominence on british television. here is david gibbs.

i am a little perplexed by the bbc‘s continuing high profile interest american football. thank you for all your comments this week. if you want to share your opinions on bbc news and current affairs, or even appear on the programme, you can call us... e—mail newswatch... you can find us on twitter... do have a look at our website. the address for that is... that's all from us. we'll be back to hear your thoughts about bbc news coverage again next week.

goodbye. good evening. many parts of the uk have seen a little snow this week. it is still lying across many hilltops. as you can see in cumbria this afternoon. there is more wintry weather to come as we go through this weekend. there will be some hills so on saturday. most of you will see some rain. some colder weather. right conditions on sunday. a fairly windy weekend. this is out in the atlantic. we have some clear skies tonight. temperatures dropping away quite sharply. lifting over northern ireland and western scotland. rain later on but to begin with, quite a bit of snow falling. temperatures will be close to freezing at this point.

let's ta ke freezing at this point. let's take a look around on a pretty chilly saturday morning we could see as much as ten centimetres of snow on the ills of scotland first thing. most of it will turn back to rain and fragment. northern ireland strayed into brighter weather but for more than imminent, a spell of rain until snow pushing eastwards. not a huge amount of rain elsewhere to begin with. rain may come and go. wet weather arriving in the south—east late in the afternoon. northern scotland staying dry and reasonably bright. temperatures may be as high as 11 in cardiff. it won't be desperately cold if you are off to the six nations matches. but there will be rain around that time.

this area of low pressure could bring gales or severe gales, as well as snowfall for a time. it clears out of the way into sunday. some pretty chilly air on sunday. sunny spells for many. sleet and snow will continue to mount up across northern and western areas. a quick look into next week and on tuesday and wednesday, our city forecast, single figure temperatures and the risk of snow again. this is bbc news. the headlines: victims‘ families demand that two british members of an islamic state execution cell should answer in court for their actions. if it goes to trial, i'll certainly be there. i certainly want to look them in the eye and let them know that i am who i am and they have

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