WGBA Strikes Viral Gold With 'Replacement Weather Guy'

Spontaneous nature of it made Green Bay NFL spoof a hit

By Michael Malone -- Broadcasting & Cable, 9/26/2012 12:33:46 PM

WGBA Green Bay's "Replacement Weather Guy," a dig at the second-string referees' bungling of a Monday Night Football call that doomed the Packers, was brainstormed and executed in about two minutes, says Joe Poss, WGBA vice president and general manager. The idea came up during a break in morning show NBC 26 Today on Sept. 25, was kicked around in the talent and producers' IFB earpieces, and went live a few minutes later, says Poss, with floor director Tom Legener stepping up as the buffoonish weather forecaster.

"It was all last minute and very spontaneous," says Poss. "There was no thought to it. Sometimes that adds up to a bad equation, but this one turned out pretty good."

Poss credits morning director Nick Thompson for hatching the idea.

The clip, which sees Legener forecast a low temp of -200 and a potential "thunderblizzard hurricane," has graced the home pages of everything from Yahoo.com to MSN.com and Deadspin.com, and Poss says it turned up on ESPN and CNN as well, along with countless other media outlets. Replacement Weather Guy has also set Twitter ablaze, and had 101,000 YouTube views by noon ET Wednesday.

Journal Broadcast owns WGBA, an NBC affiliate.

While page views on NBC26.com have hit the hundreds of thousands since the clip went viral, Poss says having a Web hit on his hands does not translate to a financial windfall. Instead, it's just a fun pick me up for WGBA staff. "We deal with bad news every day," he says. "They were able to make light of [the Packers' tough loss] and come up with a fun response."

The station has been kicking around follow-up ideas, but Poss believes you only catch lightning in a bottle once. "When things are staged," he says, "they're staged."