Dear CBM/Seal Candidate;

The board members who will be reviewing your submission are experienced broadcasters and meteorologists with considerable experience both on air and as operational forecasters. Over the course of their careers, they’ve faced many of the same challenges you do. They will strive to be both fair and timely in their review of your work.

It’s important to understand that the Broadcast Board is responsible to and must represent the interests of several distinct groups; the profession of meteorology, the American Meteorological Society membership as a whole, its broadcast membership, and the viewing public.

Recognize that the CBM designation/Seal audition tape is to represent your personal best. Your application and supporting material should reflect your personal approach to weathercasting as well as your professional skills; that is why it is awarded to the individual broadcast meteorologist, not to the station.

While it's understood that station management and their advisors have a right to their opinion on what best serves their local viewers and what is consistent with their broadcasting philosophy, the AMS cannot and will not abdicate responsibility for setting and maintaining standards for professionalism that are consistent with the Society's mission statement: to advance the atmospheric and related sciences, technologies, applications and services for the benefit of society.

If station policies prevent you from forwarding actual broadcasts including all of the required elements set forth in the AMS guidelines for the CBM or Seal designation, you should include sample broadcasts recorded off-air that display your use of these elements. If you choose this option, all three weathercasts must be off-air. To better simulate the “on-air experience”, a single take, with no post production, is required and it must be recorded with current data (no misrepresenting a show as “today”, using canned older data from hours/days earlier) for each weathercast. Secondly, you must include a separate DVD with your actual on-air broadcasts from the same newscast, if possible, (all 5pm shows, for example) from those same dates. Failing to do so will adversely affect your application.

Sincerely,

Board of Broadcast Meteorology

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