Tim Vasquez
EF5
- Joined
- Dec 4, 2003
- Messages
- 3,411
I have to say that my viewing of the Weather Channel has been pretty spotty, so I'm curious to get an idea of when you all think the Weather Channel reached its peak and when it dropped. I was piqued by the subject after reading this:
http://dewdropinsga.blogspot.com/2008/01/what-happened-to-weather-channel.html
My memory may be unreliable, but chronologically it runs something like this:
1982-1983... it was like a station run by meteorology graduates in a candy store. Lots of radar stops, lots of info on where record temps & precip were broken, and you never knew what they'd toss up... I once saw them put up a map of temperatures over Siberia to make a point about how cold it was going to get soon.
Then it slowly started going downhill through the late 1980s. The comical "Weather & Your Home" segments started with Bill Keneely and Jeanetta Jones showing us how to make hot chocolate, and I'm sure we were all waiting for "Weather And Your Cat". And sleepy elevator music made its home, permanently, in the local forecast by 1987. Before that, they actually used to play stuff like Sheila E. and Ghostbusters!
Then I remember a renaissance around 1994-95 with lots of visible imagery, local radar, severe weather focus, and so forth. Chasers actually took time to see what the TWC was talking about, and TWC even put together that chaser conference in 1996.
Then there was the long slide around 1998-2001. Marketing kids fresh out of college clearly took charge of the ship, and I remember a massive shift towards the lowest common denominator, with a focus on business travelers, the "busy lifestyle", and 18 hours a day (well, maybe not that bad) of Storm Stories.
I have not seen TWC for more than a few minutes since 2003, so I don't even know what's on it anymore. I would like to hear that it's gotten better, but given the bottom-line motives of TV networks I'm not hopeful, and I think with what's on the Internet it's lost relevance among hobbyists.
Is this consistent with what you all remember? How has The Weather Channel changed for you since the 1990s or 1980s? Does anyone have the scoop on any management changes or executives who changed the direction of TWC for better or worse?
Tim
http://dewdropinsga.blogspot.com/2008/01/what-happened-to-weather-channel.html
My memory may be unreliable, but chronologically it runs something like this:
1982-1983... it was like a station run by meteorology graduates in a candy store. Lots of radar stops, lots of info on where record temps & precip were broken, and you never knew what they'd toss up... I once saw them put up a map of temperatures over Siberia to make a point about how cold it was going to get soon.
Then it slowly started going downhill through the late 1980s. The comical "Weather & Your Home" segments started with Bill Keneely and Jeanetta Jones showing us how to make hot chocolate, and I'm sure we were all waiting for "Weather And Your Cat". And sleepy elevator music made its home, permanently, in the local forecast by 1987. Before that, they actually used to play stuff like Sheila E. and Ghostbusters!
Then I remember a renaissance around 1994-95 with lots of visible imagery, local radar, severe weather focus, and so forth. Chasers actually took time to see what the TWC was talking about, and TWC even put together that chaser conference in 1996.
Then there was the long slide around 1998-2001. Marketing kids fresh out of college clearly took charge of the ship, and I remember a massive shift towards the lowest common denominator, with a focus on business travelers, the "busy lifestyle", and 18 hours a day (well, maybe not that bad) of Storm Stories.
I have not seen TWC for more than a few minutes since 2003, so I don't even know what's on it anymore. I would like to hear that it's gotten better, but given the bottom-line motives of TV networks I'm not hopeful, and I think with what's on the Internet it's lost relevance among hobbyists.
Is this consistent with what you all remember? How has The Weather Channel changed for you since the 1990s or 1980s? Does anyone have the scoop on any management changes or executives who changed the direction of TWC for better or worse?
Tim