A Sunny Outlook
With his warm personality and beaming smile, Seán Batty is Scotland’s favourite weatherman
SEÁN BATTY has been a cheery presence on our screens for more than a decade – first thrown into the spotlight in 2007 as a fresh-faced 25-year-old when he became the sole weather presenter on STV News.
That’s not to say that Seán was new to the industry when he first got that job – in fact, he was something of a veteran already, having been doing the weather since he was seven years old.
“I was given a BBC Weather Kit as a child,” he says. “It was a map with lots of little stick-on weather symbols. I used to have it on our fridge at home and I would update the weather forecast for my mum every morning.
“I’ve always been obsessed. They would go round the class at school and ask people what they wanted to be when they grew up and I was like, ‘I want to be a weatherman!’ I get so many messages from my classmates reminding me of that.”
Seán’s passion for meteorology, and the accurate reporting of it, soon led him to bigger things. At 13, he swapped his BBC Weather Kit for a work experience placement at his local newspaper, the Paisley Daily Express.
“I always thought the weather section in the paper was rubbish – it was a wee tiny section,” Seán says, “so I wrote to them and said, ‘I’d love to have a go at doing the weather for you.’ They said yes and I spent my summer holidays doing their weather forecast.”
His time at the newspaper was invaluable for Seán, especially as he got to meet BBC weather presenter Heather Reid.
“She was an absolute idol for me. We discussed what I would need to do if I wanted to work in meteorology.
“That went full circle. When I started to present for STV, we were rivals because she was on BBC Scotland. She wrote to me, though, and said, ‘Well done for getting here.’ She remembered me as a boy going to see her.”
“Whenever people contact me now, I always think that’s my opportunity to do what Heather did for me.”
Giving back to budding meteorologists is something that Seán has spent a lot of time doing. During lockdown in 2020, he set up the Mini Met Team for his young fans, where kids would become weather presenters and often appear on Seán’s STV broadcasts.
“I initially put a video up about how to make a weather gauge using a two-litre bottle,” Seán says. “Loads of people started contacting me and I was like, ‘I could probably make a bit more of this, why don’t I call it the Mini Met Team and set up a Facebook page?’ Every week I would give the kids a challenge.”
The Mini Met Team soon became a community, and Seán would chat to parents in the evenings – even receiving letters from grateful parents whose children had found a new lease of life through the activities.
“There was such a lovely letter I was given from a mum, her kid had learning difficulties and he really struggled because when the school closed there was no structure to his day at all. She said the Mini Met Team meant so much to him and really got him through it.
“It worked really well for us at STV, too. It became so popular, we had more than 1000 kids by the end of it.
“The CEO emailed me and said, ‘The response we’re getting from viewers is amazing.’ I even had grandparents contacting me saying, ‘I haven’t seen my granddaughter in months, but I’ve just seen her on the telly!’” says Seán.
Seán has always been a big believer in giving back, and using his fame for good. Since its foundation in 2011, he has been an ambassador of the STV Children’s Appeal.
He has also taken on plenty of challenges to raise money for the appeal over the years, including cycling more than 200 miles around the country.
“It’s about me travelling and finding out a zone” lot – it takes me out of my comfort
“When the appeal started, I really wanted to get behind it. It was about helping kids that live in poverty and being brought up in somewhere like Paisley, you see that first hand,” says Seán.
“I also thought, ‘A lot of people know me, perhaps I can raise quite a lot of money doing this.’”
And he certainly did – since it began the STV Children’s Appeal has raised more than £20 million for Scotland’s disadvantaged children, all of which is matched by the Scottish Government.
Seán might be synonymous with STV, but before he joined in 2007, he had been busy working on the weather for ITV and the BBC. In his first stint in broadcasting, Seán worked behind the scenes for ITV Weather, based in London. During his time at ITV, Seán worked alongside another of his weather heroes, Siân Lloyd, which he says was another “pinch-me” moment.
His stint at ITV was short but sweet, and Seán soon moved to the BBC, where he initially worked as a radio weatherman.
“You listen to the BBC radio and it’s all very posh and well-spoken and I’m thinking, ‘How can I work on the radio?’” Seán says, “I’d be on a Saturday or a Sunday and do Radio Berkshire, Wales, Northern Ireland or Yorkshire.”
“Eventually they asked me to have a go doing TV stuff – they thought my presenting style was good so they got me properly trained up.”
Seán’s mentor at the BBC was none other than weather legend Michael Fish, but unfortunately the two didn’t quite see eye to eye.
“Back in the day, Michael had his own style, he wore quite wild clothes and everything,” says Seán. “He wasn’t so keen on new people coming in with new ideas and being a little bit out there.
“He sat in front of me while I was actually doing a screen test one day and said, ‘You’ll never work for the
BBC, you’re too ITV for the BBC.’ I was too fun for the BBC!” says Seán.
Despite Michael’s appraisal, Seán did end up presenting on the BBC – all around the UK.
“I spent my two years at the BBC travelling around presenting the weather in Wales, Northern Ireland, the South West, the Channel Isles. I think I presented for pretty much every English region at some point, but never Scotland. Scotland was the only place I never conquered for the BBC!”
It was Seán’s work in particular with BBC Northern Ireland that caught the eyes of STV bosses, who offered him a job as the channel’s sole weather presenter.
Moving back up to Scotland to take the role was a tough decision for Seán, who agonised over leaving the BBC.
“STV basically wanted me to come in and build up their weather department and build a brand. So for me, at the age of 25, that was a really daunting thing. I spoke to a lot of the BBC presenters – Michael Fish was still there, I spoke to him – and all of them said, ‘Seán, you cannot turn down an opportunity like this, they have offered you this opportunity, grab it.’
“I look back with absolutely no regrets now because I never could have imagined I’d be in the position that I’m in now and be so well-known in Scotland.”
“Michael Fish told me I was too ITV for the BBC and I’d there” never work
His career with STV has also taken Seán to places he could never have imagined, namely hosting his own travel series, Seán’s Scotland.
“It’s just about me travelling and finding out a lot. We try to find things I’ve never done like Brussels sprout picking and feeding reindeer, which was one of the highlights in the Christmas special. It’s all things I’ve never done and it takes me out of my comfort zone,” Seán says.
The series has been a resounding success and STV’S highest rating regional production of 2019, reaching more than one million people across the series. Three of the episodes even got higher viewing figures in Scotland than Eastenders, which aired at the same time over on BBC1 Scotland.
“I thought, ‘Eastenders, there’s absolutely no way,’ but I think the Scottish audience have a love of anything Scottish over a soap, they can watch it on the iplayer to catch up. That’s what I did, I’m a fan of Eastenders as well!”
Alongside Seán’s Scotland, the presenter was given the opportunity to host STV’S Hogmanay programme to welcome in 2020.
“The Reverend IM Jolly, Scotch And Wry and Dorothy Paul were all institutions around Hogmanay – and I thought that I’d love to have a go and be able to say that I brought in the New Year for our channel.
“I did the show and it was our highest rated Hogmanay programme for 10 years,” he says.
A success in the ratings and with the public, Seán’s charm and sunny persona has brightened our screens for nearly 15 years.
With another series of his travel show in the planning along with his daily weather appearances, it’s fair to say the forecast is looking bright for Seán.