Reporting the Obvious: Cold Weather Means Higher Heating Costs

Analysis:

There have been several stories lately about heating costs going up. This News 8 piece was one of the longer ones at over two and half minutes. This particular story starts with the reporter noting that DTE energy has been getting calls form consumers distraught over high gas bills. The reporter gives the reason for high gas bills as a combination of “Higher prices and weather” but then spends the entire story only talking about weather as the reason for larger gas bills. The reporter then goes into a long explanation of how unseasonably cold temperatures led to people’s gas consumption going up and there for their gas bill going up. The Reporter then gives DTE’s equation for computing gas usage. Next the reporter states that bills should be less for the next month due to an increase in temperatures and includes footage of the DTE spokesperson who says that “Peoples usage will be down, which will mean that their bills will be less.” Viewers could ask themselves, of what value is a story reporting on the fact that cold weather causes increased gas bills. Another question people could ask themselves is would the public have been better served by a story asking why prices for natural gas have gone up by 51 percent form last year and what people can do who are having trouble paying their bill.

Story:

WOOD 8 Newsreader #1 – Well at DTE’s Grand Rapids Customer service center, a flood of calls from home owners coming in asking if there’s been some sort of billing error.

WOOD 8 Newsreader #2 – Unfortunately there are few mistakes. The reality December gas bills are up, way up. Higher prices and weather have much to do with it. 24 hour News 8 Consumer reporter Patrick Center joins us with an explanation of all this, Patrick.

Reporter – Well Sue and Brian, remember in early December how bitterly cold it was, temperatures reminiscent of mid-January had West Michigan furnaces running round the clock, December bills reflecting the effort. But if the early December cold snap helped drive up usage, 24 hour news 8 wanted to know if the recent winter warm up will help bring down the cost of your next heating bill, the simple answer, yes.

Roger Royer (DTE Energy Regional Manager) – Peoples usage will be down, which will mean that their bills will be less than what it might have been if it had been a regular two week period.

Reporter – DTE charts temperature and gas usage to find out just how much gas you use and pay for is based on an equation called a normal heating degree day. Let’s use December first as our example. On that day the average actual temperature is 28 degrees. To arrive at the normal heating degree day, we subtract the exterior temperature 28, from what is considered the average interior temperature 65 degrees to arrive at a normal heating degree day temperature of 37 degrees. That number is important because it signifies how many degrees it will take for your furnace to get your home warmed to 65 degrees. The colder the exterior, the more you’ll pay. From December 1st to December 21st, DTE estimates it was 20 percent colder than normal thus the average household used 2.7 thousand cubic feet of gas. At eleven dollars and thirty-eight cents per thousand cubic feet, we all paid approximately thirty dollars and 43 cents more. But from December twenty second through January third, temperatures were twenty five percent warmer. Therefore we didn’t use as much gas so we’ll all pay about twenty six dollars and fifty-five cents less.

Royer – Hopefully you know we are going to have more of that, and everyday that goes by that we have a day like this helps everyone’s pocketbook.

Reporter – DTE and storm team 8 meteorologists are both forecasting average temperatures for the rest of the winter season. With the price of natural gas increasing over fifty-one percent from this time last year, enjoy the brief winter weather reprieve.

Total Time: 2 minutes 36 seconds