I use to think TWC was great up through the 1990's. I was a fan of Dr. John Scala and thought he did terrific work at the severe weather desk, as did Dr. Greg Forbes once he replaced Dr. Scala. I don't really think TWC catered to storm chasers or enthusiasts in those days at all. But they did focus on what really mattered.......WEATHER FORECASTS. Back then, you could turn TWC on at any hour of the day, 7 days a week and at least know that you would be able to see regular radar updates and local and national forecasts. I would think people in general, including chasers as well as the general public would be better served if they went back to that approach. After all, if you flip on TWC, what do you go there for? Of course! You wanna know what the weather is going to be like within the next 24 hours or the next several days. And you don't want to have to wait on the 6 o'clock news to get that info.
But what has TWC become since the 1990's? Now you never know what you are going to find when you go to that channel. But you know it probably won't have much to do with weather or the current forecast. Instead, it will be some goofy documentary done about an event a year old or more. And it will suck compared to any decent documentary done by the likes of The Discovery Channel, TLC, National Geographic or other such outlets that are experienced in creating such programs and make that their bread and butter. Or it will be P. Allen Smith telling you how to plant flowers. Or it will be Dr. Anna Marie giving you tips about allergies. Or it will be Dr. Heidi Cullen doing her Chicken Little routine about global warming and telling us all the sky is falling. Enough already!
Frankly, I don't give a damn about any of that stuff. I'm not interested in seeing it. If I want to see any of the above mentioned things, I will go with a different source that will do a much better job than TWC can do in creating such projects.
TWC needs to get back to basics here and go back to doing what made them successful in the first place. That's giving frequent weather updates and forecasts. They need to stop trying to be the damn Discovery Channel. They will always fail miserably when trying to compete with channels dedicated to that type of programming. They should just stick to showing the local forecasts, the 5 day forecast, travel info, cover breaking weather situations, show some radar updates and leave it that. Or if they insist on showing all of those crappy programs like Storm Stories, Atmospheres, Heidi Cullen's show, whatever it's called, P. Allen Smith, Dr. Anna Marie, etc, they should create a second spin-off channel in which to host all that stuff like other networks do when their programming schedules grow too large for one channel. That would leave the other channel for actual weather info. If they'd do that, I would actually watch, just like I use to do. But I have no interest in seeing the circus that TWC has become recently. It's a joke. And it's a total waste of time. Don't get me wrong, I think they have some excellent people who work there. So I am not blaming them. Truthfully, many of them probably feel much the same as we do. But the management there is pathetic.
I'll also agree with what other posters have stated, in that CNN, Fox, etc do a much better job handling breaking weather situations than TWC these days. CNN will break in during outbreaks to update tornado warnings and share pertinent info with viewers. I've seen them do this many times over the past few years, while TWC is busy airing some one hour long documentary about a weather event of long ago that's already been aired about a dozen times. Unreal.
