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TWC dying, Accuweather gearing up, Weathernation in the hot seat

Rob H

Rob H

EF5
Joined
Mar 11, 2009
Messages
825
Location
Twin Cities, MN
Lots of changes with weather on TV coming up soon:

1. TWC dropped by DirectTV: http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702303819704579320963051945086
2. WeatherNation takes TWC's place: http://money.cnn.com/2014/01/13/news/companies/weather-channel-directv/
3. AccuWeather wants to make a play in this area now: http://www.accuweather.com/en/weather-news/accuweather-announces-the-laun/22055195

Does this mean we won't see a Great Tornado Hunt in 2014? Might make for an interesting Bettes presentation at ChaserCon. Will Forbes stick around? Will Al Roker have a hissyfit?

 
As someone currently pursuing a degree in broadcasting, this is a welcome sight. A little competition can be healthy, and there's an opportunity for variety in formats.
 
TWC has been dead for a long time now. To see their pathetic campaign to try and sway the powers that be at Direct TV is both embarrassing and laughable. It's like a teenager who has everything, appreciates nothing, and constantly whines about how crappy their life is and how they're gonna "get their own place"...and then the parents just say "Ok. You have until tomorrow morning to be out of my house." Then the backpedaling begins.

TWC built and maintained (for a while anyway) a very popular and successful platform that_benefited_people_needing_legitimate_wx_info. Over time, they decided to get cute, toy with the traditional markets, and slowly made themselves irrelevant among serious interests such as long-time viewers, wx-nerds, scientists, and EMS types. The gardening shows and talking heads sitting at news desks chit chatting about nothing became the rule, and real, useful weather information became an afterthought. And now, years later, when the Ferryman arrives to take his toll, they're screaming and crying like little girls and trying to argue their worth from a "we save lives" angle. They have long since ceased being a consistently reliable weather source that's valid enough to keep around once cuts begin. They created the perfect model, then destroyed it. Good riddance.

As for Accuweather going 24/7, all this really means is 300 pre-taped segment replays per day instead of 30. Whoopity doo.
 
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I don't envy anyone who has the job to keep a TV network going these days, new or existing. It's going to be tough for any of them to compete against the internet in the long run. Unfortunately for all of them (and us weather nerds), keeping the masses (and thereby advertisers) pleased and entertained is what pays their bills. I don't know the inner workings of format and programming decisions, but I have to think it's all an effort to keep viewers from changing the channel instead of just getting a quick weather update and moving on. That being said, I am curious how a simple all-weather format will fare these days. Maybe if it is shown to be as successful as it used to be, all of the channels will be compelled to go with that format.
 
TWC died when NBC bought into it. I was looking at their Facebook page, the #1 complaint was all the reality shows on and there were a lot of complaints!!!! (that and the naming of winter storms) Seems 9 out of 10 people said "good riddance " "These feuds are usually about the cost of channels. In this case, the Weather Channel is asking for a slight increase; DirecTV is trying to force the channel to accept a decrease" http://money.cnn.com/2014/01/14/new...id10|htmlws-main-nb|dl2|sec3_lnk3&pLid=430745
 
The mid 90's was the peak for me and their programming (with a few exceptions) seemed to compliment the ever increasing offerings over the WWW and third party data vendors which were becoming more affordable at the time. Once the early to mid 2000's rolled around and the number of long format shows and movies began to overtake the programming, I pretty much turned them off.

The relevancy of TWC as a television network is dropping exponentially by the day. There are local digital sub-channels that provide much better and timely weather information for those who are reluctant to rely on newer technologies (internet, smartphones, etc.) I guess since they were bought by NBC and had Al Roker plugged into their line-up, they seem to suffer from some sort of delusional, entitlement mentality.

Maybe their last hope is to go full blown tabloid and bring back Swizzle Stick Stokes. :D
 
I agree, the competition will be good for everyone.

I thought TWC was doing much better until they became too involved in Weathertainment (yes that is an actual word). I don't know how many people have told me they were turned off after last year's tornado rodeo coverage instead of responsible and informative programming.

It will be interesting to see how Weathernation covers severe weather.

Warren
 
Networks have as a whole have moved away from their core programming and now have shows that have nothing to do with their original purpose. TWC is no different and it bit them. Prospectors, Coast Guard Alaska, shows about truckers...why would anyone tune into TWC for this when Discovery has the same shows, only better? You never know when shows will be on and when they'll be live, the programming guide is never reliable. The gimmicks such as naming winter storms and the Torcon index (to me it's a gimmick anyways) are annoying, but I guess the general public is more receptive to it. Basically, these days there is weather available through a million different sources and the need for a full time national weather cable station isn't near as necessary these days.
 
I was not a fan of TWC morphing into RealityTV. On the other hand, watching endless loops of the same ol thing on weather nation the other day made me yearn to watch paint dry. I still think it is theoretically possible to make an all-weather show entertaining; profitable, I don't know.

[Maybe their last hope is to go full blown tabloid and bring back Swizzle Stick Stokes.
Click to expand...

No--naked weather, naked never grows old. ;)
 
If they acted like major news networks and send out crew every day to places of interesting weather, gave live reports, back up maps with explanations, etc. they would turn blockbuster. For the most part I click off their non-related series, like the one already mentioned with prospecting.
Imagine covering intense snowstorms, outbreaks of thunderstorms and/or severe weather, and everything else day to day. Even today where no convection whatsoever is firing across America, a blizzard warning is up for the northern Plains.
During the Spring and Summer-Fall convection season, multiple reports could be made across America. Day and night.
 
The lack of actual weather coverage and forecasting throughout the day has almost made the channel obsolete for the most part. The coverage for bigger events is still decent, but the regular day to day coverage is terrible and the push to paint themselves as some necessary public safety medium is almost laughable. Hopefully some competition will make them improve the product, but with a major network like NBC involved I think it will be hard for The Weather Channel to revert back to what it used to be.
 
According to someone on Reddit this morning, they just noticed that their email account had a bunch of bizarre replies to DTV and an internet fax service. It looks like someone used their email address without their knowledge as part of a "bring back TWC" campaign. It would be hilarious if this were true and TWC actually hired some group to hack/spoof/whatever a fake campaign against DTV:

http://imgur.com/a/whqPW
 
I heard, but can't verify that TWC was trying to get Congress involved. I liked shows like " Storm Riders, It could happen tomorrow, When weather changed history " But they screwed up by pretty much replacing those shows with unrelated to weather shows. They did still show some though ... 2-3 am !
 
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