This pretty well sums up why:
DirecTV: Received "numerous" complaints 40 percent of @weatherchannel programming reality TV: http://t.co/dQ4t8qZX7g
— Capital Weather Gang (@capitalweather) January 11, 2014
That, the constant drum of global warming hype, and the ridiculous naming of winter storms combined with an advertising heavy schedule pretty much drives away most reasonable thinking people.
My friends, John Coleman and Joe D’Aleo, co-founders of the Weather Channel never set it up to be that way, but over the years, it lost its way from their original vision.
See my interview with both of them here on the 30th anniversary.
Now what do I watch on DirecTV? The new far better replacement, WeatherNation TV on channel 361, which is close to the vision of the original TWC founders Coleman and D’Aleo.
Of course, TWC isn’t taking this lying down, they’ve started a Twitter war.
DIRECTV doesn't know the cost of dropping The Weather Channel, but you do. Take action: http://t.co/lNvwjyPSqf pic.twitter.com/HmH21yOehv
— The Weather Channel (@weatherchannel) January 11, 2014
The third comment is telling.
http://twitter.com/cshenkel/status/421992414744559618
As is this one:
@weatherchannel way to use human suffering to prove your point.
— Todd Amerman (@Paytodd1) January 11, 2014
@weatherchannel You clowns going to give this storm a stupid marketing name too?
— Young Ideas (@DickYoungsGhost) January 11, 2014
But alas, all this looks to be nothing more than saber rattling in contract negotiations.
http://twitter.com/DIRECTVService/status/422036228569968640
UPDATE:
DirecTV issued the following statement to the Washington Post:
We remain in discussions with The Weather Channel on how to provide its service to our customers at the best value since people now use so many other ways to retrieve weather-related information. We launched WeatherNation (DIRECTV channel 361) as an alternative to provide 24/7 hard news weather coverage in response to numerous customer complaints that more than 40 percent of The Weather Channel’s programming is dedicated to reality television shows. DIRECTV also offers city-by-city weather coverage on more than 1,400 local broadcast stations and on DIRECTV’s emergency channels in times of severe weather.
Hiring Sam Champion didn’t help things.
KInd of cruel, the way this post is set up. Get us all excited, then pull the rug out from under.
Wow, I hardly ever watch them anymore (or use weather.com, I figure weather.gov is closer to a source I understand).
I wonder if we could get Comcast to replace them with NASA-TV. Uninspired programming for the most part, but I could let the TV idle with a “webcam” from the space station.
@pokerguy sorry about that, I call ’em as I see ’em. Still may come to pass though, my guess is that DirecTV is asking TWC to take a big pay cut for carrying it, and TWC is strapped as it is. Who will cave?
Or it may reach an impasse, we can only hope.
I have Dish Network and often the contract negations will cause channels to come and go. Most of the time if it gets to the point where the channel is turned off, it only takes about a week or two before an agreement is reached. The weather channels is good as long as you turn it off after you get the weather and before the “educational stuff” comes on.
Weather forecasting itself is getting very automated and fragmented, global warming is another avenue for displaced outlets like TWC to use in order to keep interest alive.
I quit watching the Weather Channel except for current conditions years ago. Hyping weather and global warming was just too much. I’ve always found the weather person standing in a blizzard, hurricane or thunderstorm to show me the weather to be ludicrous. I keep waiting for one of the weather experts to meet a tree branch doing 70mph. All I really need is current conditions from radar and a forecast. I really don’t need storm stories or weather hype. If it is 0F and a 20mph wind outside, I bet the cold hurts your face very quickly, don’t need the weather babe to show me.
Nice little earner suggested on the BBC web site for a bit of weather analysis. Maybe Anthony could do it for less than £20,000,000?
“Questions about the link between flooding in the UK and climate change could be answered within two years, according to a leading scientist. Prof Myles Allen from Oxford University said the only thing holding back the work was the lack of investment. Around £10m a year would provide a real time attribution system on the role of humans in extreme weather. He said it was a “scandal” that the public should be denied clarity on this issue”.
Never any weather on the Weather Channel
All we wanted was weather, local weather, travel weather. That’s it.
Was it so difficult to hire attractive blondes to do this 24/7.
Much like MTV “evolved” from music videos to whatever it is they are today.
Much like SciFi “evolved” from science fiction to wrestling and bad TV movies.
Do they pass out LSD at cable network conventions or does the industry just attract people who can’t leave well enough alone and feel the need to improve things in their own image?
The Weather Channel … didn’t they used to broadcast detailed facts about the weather a couple decades ago?
Now they’re the weather/climate change propaganda arm of NBC.
And then in a touch of irony, the local NBC affiliate has started broadcasting, on one of its digital broadcast channels, a local feed of WeatherNation.
I’m all for fools to spout propaganda on every channel. Just check their successes
Alec: Never any news on Headline News Network.
the AGW on this channel actually surpasses that of the the SciFy Channel.
Weather Channel Calls on Congress in DirecTV Dispute (!)
Google News ‘weather channel negotiations‘ search a lively scene.
I use weather.gov, for the weather, and the tabloids, for all that other stuff.
Congress!?
That channel has become as unbearable to watch as MTV.
Twitter war – would that be a twitstorm?
Next they’ll be going after each other with hockey sticks….might be mistaken by channel
surfers as another sports channel and accidentally drive the ratings up…
Oddly enough, I only watch The Weather Channel these days for “Coast Guard Alaska” and “Prospectors”.
The TV at the airport used to be tuned to TWC all the time. Since there’s hardly any real weather reporting left on TWC, it is almost never on TWC any more. Usually some news channel or local channel is there instead.
Times change.
There is 50 times better weather info on the Internet now. And you can get it as fast as you want.
There is room for a Internet weather site that gives one really good animations of the weather model forecasts. Most seem to be focused on a current weather conditions. Dumb L and H’s. The weather models go out two weeks, will give you hourly temperature forecasts, hourly precipitation animation forecasts, cloud systems, we’re getting freezing rain right now, yup in the model forecast for my area 2 days ago already. And 20% of the population is extremely interested (if not obsessed) with weather if not more so on the forecast. Give it to them at their finger tips in more appealing ways.
My understanding is that TWC wants a BIG increase in the per subscriber charges they get from DirectTV. For this reason DirectTV is starting their own weather channel to try and force TWC to lower it’s demands. This sort of hardball goes on all the time between providers and the cable/satellite distributors.
I just watched a piece online from TWC on the Yarnell Fire in late June of 2013, in which 19 of the 20 Granite Mountain Hotshots were killed (why this happened will come later). Hardly 2 minutes into the piece, they set up the global warming strawman (Mike Bettes give his scary words of caution). Most of the piece was devoted to the fire, and what happened to cause the tragedy. However, from time to time, they came back to the global warming meme, including once more in the last minute and a half or so. The inevitable conclusion by the low information viewer (voter): global warming killed 19 young men with their whole lives ahead of them.
BS. At the risk of being misunderstood, this tragedy happened because the Granite Mountain Hotshots screwed up. Based on investigations after such burnovers, human error is almost always the primary cause, and it was true in this case. They were in a safe zone prior to the burnover, and the crew boss had just turned down a request (as was his RIGHT and RESPONSIBILITY) to move, because the conditions were becoming very untenable. However, for some reason, they suddenly did move out of the black (SAFE), moving into the path of the fire and in the midst of the green. To my knowledge, no one yet has revealed why they moved.
This tragedy had nothing to do with global warming.
I hardly ever watch TWC, and this is the primary reason.
What else is a weather channel going to do? When they used to show temp, barometer, wind gauges all the time people fell asleep. When there is an abnormal weather event they do cover that. I had actually not paid attention to its other programming. It’s like watching the documentaries on Discovery (man evil) – you know it’s BS so ignore it.
Um,,,, er,,,, 40% Reality TV? I would not use that term for most of it. The term Fantasy TV would be more appropriate. They really went far left nutzo when they purchased wundergound and caught a full case of CAGW from Jeff Masters groupies. Pitiful really!
We quit watching the Weather Channel about 6 years ago, get the weather from the computer/iPhone/iPad. Never ever want to glimpse Heide.
Just as MTV now has little to do with music, the Weather Channel has less and less to do with weather. I stopped watching either more than a decade ago.
They are claiming to Congress that DirectTV is creating a public safety hazard by not carrying TWC. Unclear whether they mean about severe whether (art fails because many other means to get actual weather) or AGW (art fails out of stupidity). Either way, more silliness.
Good, let directv Drop TWC, it’s no loss for anyone!;] It’s like cancelling the(cagw rabbid dog) Chron here in SF.
The last time I tried to watch the Weather Channel was in a motel, I was traveling and I needed to see a meteorological map to guess the weather for the next three days. Gave up after 2 hours.
I stopped watching the Weather Channel about the same time the internet became so ubiquitous. I dropped Cable a decade ago and did without. The Weather Channel had the same problem as other cable channels – too many commercials and lousy content. It’s jumping on the AGW bandwagon I’m sure was a marketing ploy.
TWC is plain gawd awful ugly since they went to their “new look” a couple of months ago. Featureless, dingy grey landmasses on their graphics. High/low pressure systems represented by icons that look like they were drawn by a first grader. Stuff moving around on the screen constantly. I’ve had to turn off the HD version and set the TV to “zoom” mode to get rid of all that junk. Too bad because TWC is about the only TV I care to watch.
We had always called it “The Commercial Channel” for years, because there always seems to be a commercial on when you tune to it. It’s the weather equivalent of NBC Olympics coverage – 18 minutes of action per hour, the rest is just inane filler. And don’t even get me started on those reality shows that they do seem to fill their evening schedule with – as if there aren’t enough of those out there already.
Please, please, somebody start up a real weather channel once again. One that discusses and shows the weather most of the time. Kind of like, y’know, the Weather Channel from 30 years ago.
The Weather Channel couldn’t predict 12:30 at 12 noon. If you cannot get the weather right, why should I watch the WEATHER channel? And why should I go to your websites if you cannot do the basics. Testerday, as we were leaving a ski resort and coming home, someone put on TWC. TWC said that the area where I live was under a TORCON 3 warning; an obvious play on defense condition (DEFCON) but instead it is a tornado condition. What other sensationalist tripe will TWC put out instead of focusing on actual weather?
Jim Cantorie (sp?) should leave as soon as he can.
I do like wunderground.com’s local weather stations, but nothing else about it.
TWC should change its name to Weather Doom and Gloom.Their new graphics are so bland there’s almost nothing of interest to look at. They’re so committed to pushing their MMGW religion, it makes you not want to go there most of the time. If TWC went away, virtually no one would notice.
So, I have DirecTV and never heard of Channel 361. I just turned on my set, tuned in 361, and they have a nice looking lady discussing a line of storms capable of producing tornadoes heading towards the Southeast Atlantic seaboard. That seems like a pretty good weather story.
I then switch over to The Weather Channel (362) which has on the info guide “Highway thru Hell”. I don’t know what that is, because they have two women discussing how the TWC is looking to adopt a “weather” dog, and giving the criteria for the dog they are willing to adopt.
I’ve kept it on TWC while writing this comment. Most of the time has been commercials, but so far, no discussion about the storms. Oh wait… just mentioned it, but what did they do? They throw it over to a guy to discuss how many tornadoes have occurred historically during this time, but still no useful information about the current storms threatening people.
I, too, let my hopes rise – but in the end will much really change? With icreasig success how long before Weather Nation begins with pre-produced taped “educational” segments (because “our viewers care about the how and why”) that early on are 1 – 2 mins but eventually stretch to 5 and ultimately to 30 – 60 mins?
And then there’s this: In an interview published online with and by Capitol Weather Gang
http://m.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/post/a-new-alternative-to-the-weather-channel—weather-nation-tv-interview-with-ceo-paul-douglas/2011/08/18/gIQAkvJcNJ_blog.html (An alternative to The Weather Channel: Weather Nation)
WN CEO Paul Douglas is quoted “At a time when severe weather appears to be increasing….” and later “At a time when extreme weather is on the rise….”
direct TV should offer a contract to mr Watts for the kind of content that appeals.
WUWT channel …. i’d watch it!
NOTHING ticked me off more whenever the Weather Channel would have original programming during a violent storm system. I’d rather have them switch, locally, to constant local weather stuff as they do every 10 minutes or so normally rather than original programming. If TWC wants to be about safety then maybe they shouldn’t do that.
That isn’t even a recent thing, that was 10 years ago.
I don’t know if this was posted the first go.
Even as recently as 10 years ago they would run their programming during SEVERE local weather. Yeah, when I’m concerned about local stuff, as in right now and the sky looks like the end times, I could care less about original programming.
The Weather Channel? I dropped Direct TV itself and saved myself $1000/year by replacing it with web TV, and high def broadcast. The weather channel was just one of many things I had given up watching. The Weather Channel, like Direct TV, is a wastand.
Eventually, all cable and dish services will be replaced by on demand web TV services. Now that Google has gotten into the act, its just a matter of time.
TWC acquired Wunderground in July 2012. CAGW alarmist Jeff Masters went right along with it.
He seems to have a propensity to conflate all extreme weather events with CAGW…
I’d bet a considerable sum that they’d get more viewers and liven up their broadcasts if they actively presented the other side of the debate. The party line is boring because by its nature propaganda is boring, at least for those with brain in their head…
I tried to get weather on TWC a couple of days ago, I was in a motel near Indianapolis and a report on local conditions would have been a help. Not a chance, it was wall-to-wall reality TV. I caught a weather forecast in the morning on a local station. If TWC can’t be bothered reporting the weather, what on Earth do I need them for??
I am a driver, I need forecasts for professional reasons. It helps with trip-planning amongst other things. If TWC goes dark, would anybody notice?
My wife would have the TWC as background noise but she got tired of the global warming spin on every story. Now she leaves the radio on.
I can’t believe DirecTv pays for TWC. Do they also pay for home shopping network? You’d think the 15 minutes of commercials would be enough.
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Good Grief!
If people’s safety is really their concern then instead airing bits telling people to tell DirectTV to keep them they should be telling people to go out buy a good weather radio!
Just checked the listings
“Heavy Metal Moms” – till 6pm
“Prospectors” – till 8pm
“Freaks of Nature” – till 9pm
“Secrets of the Earth” – till 11pm
“Highway Thru Hell” – till a
“Weather Caught on Camera”, – till 1:30am
“Hurricane Hunters” – till 2am
“Weather Classroom” – till 2:30am
…then we have News!!! (But it’s only on till 12noon, tomorrow before back to reality. But hey, thats a solid what, 8.5 of the next roughly 35 hours where I can find weather? Handy…
…so yeah, go ahead and count me in the “cut it” group – “Weather Nation” does seem like a much more useful destination, if I ever needed one (not a single reality show there, other then the reality of the weather outside your door around the time you are watching)
MTV, in the ancient early days, was actually Music TV….a channel that actually played music. Now? Trash.
Weather Channel used to be about weather. Now? Trash.
I don’t recall the writers who predicted that mediocrity would envelop nearly everything, but that is what is happening across many areas of the public square.
WC is just a sadder example than many others.
Weather Channel is on my Charter lineup….
I’ll watch Honey Boo Boo before I waste my time with that AGW-spouting propaganda stream.
(…. come to think of it, Honey Boo Boo has better insights into climate…)
Here we just use Windows.
We stare out of them and that is a pretty good indicator of the weather.
Where I am we have theweathernetwork.com and they have the same kind of programming. They are and have been so imbued with global warming hype that it actually appears to impact their forecasts. Several years ago, I did an experiment with their two-week forecast for about 4 or 5 months and then intermittently after that for a while. We were having less hot summers than during the previous decade and colder winters. Doggedly, their two week forecast trend almost invariably showed a rise in temperature during the final week, I presume to make up for what they believed was a spell of temporary cooler weather in a generally CAGW world.
I started making forecasts for a lark with my family by knocking a degree or two off their distant forecast and writing it down. Lo and behold, I was closer to correct about 70% or more of the time and about half the time I was to high. I wrote an email telling them this and why I thought it was so. I never received a reply. They went on to predict an above seasonal warm winter, IIRC it was the fall of 2007 after the low ice in the Arctic, which probably encouraged them. I, chimerically, predicted the coldest winter in years for friends and family. The arctic ice froze up notably faster (steep slope) than earlier years and soon the coldest weather was upon us. I wish I had recorded all this in detail acceptable for a post. I was newly converted to skeptic at the time and had found WUWT a short while later.
Remarkably, with their parkas zipped up to their noses, they are still explaining global warmings many effects.
I usually get current conditions and forecasts from the National Weather Service for my area or the Oklahoma Mesonet.
Might not be a pretty as some commercial sites, but as reliable.
Great example of the Weather Channel’s global warming hype & alarm published today:
http://www.weather.com/health/climate-change-causes-infectious-disease-increase-korea-cdc-says-20140110
which claims that cases of infectious disease in Korea increased by 20,000 cases between 2012 and 2013, due to the 0.07C global warming during that time
http://www.woodfortrees.org/plot/rss/from:2012/trend
Hunter,
Tried to get History on the History Channel lately?
Luckily they have given us H2 which does air the old History shows (for now) and the Military Channel is great for war stuff.
Shoot, even CNN & MSNBC are reality shows a good chunk of each day, and just short of the entire weekend.
Even disregarding their global warming hype, they lost all chance of my sympathy the moment they asked Big Brother to beat those meanies up for them.
Addison says January 11, 2014 at 11:59 am
” Hiring Sam Champion didn’t help things. ”
So that’s where he went from ABC …
.
If you’ve got a Windows 8 (or 8.1) computer, give the Bing Weather app a go. Live tiles with weather updates, and really nothing beyond forecasts and current conditions. On Windows Phone, I’ve got The Weather Channel, since that’s what I had since WP7. But, looks like there’s a Bing Weather app there, too, which is probably better. I’ll be giving it a go here soon. Never need to watch a TV again for weather, and rarely even need to go to a website.
Wondered how Climate Central’s “TV Mets” program to push linking of local weather to Climate Change and “leverage the power of trusted messengers” to “make Americans feel the power of what’s really happening to the climate” was working out. http://www.cakex.org/directory/organizations/climate-central
Maybe they went right to the top. I see they had an audience with the Meteorologist in Chief http://www.climatecentral.org/news/woods-placky-joins-geeks-for-white-house-hangout-16951
No wait… credit courses for TV Mets. Ben Santer teaching them about tree rings: http://www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org/2013/10/southwestern-u-s-tv-mets-attend-full-day-weatherclimate-workshop/
All expenses paid trips to Denver: http://www.yaleclimatemediaforum.org/2013/11/tv-mets-to-be-invited-to-march-weatherclimate-workshop-in-denver/
But reality is that people watch less and less television, and of that only the things that really matter.
I’m afraid weathermen as we used to know them are in decline. Many stations replaced them with airhead bimbos with big … lungs… and occasional speech disorder when it comes to technical terms.
Myself? I watched news on TV yesterday, and it was after a week or so. Most of my colleagues are cancelling their subscriptions, one after the other.
So – who gives a remote?
Global warming is about as real as the “magnetic men” that bend over backwards so the “metal” won’t fall off. Sticky situation for the Freaks on Nature. Highway Through Hell just froze over. Storm Chasers have caught one. Weather Caught on Camera is at least real. Maybe Prospectors can data-mine a new vain (pun intended) of temperature data.
Perhaps they can move the first church of GAIA with EWTN and TBN and the other religious channels.
@Hockey Schtick;
So that’d be ~285714 case per degree, and while we are being silly let’s extrapolate that one year trend out a hundred years to seven degrees, so that’ll be 2 million by 2113, right? But wait, that’s each year, so let’s integrate that. Wow, 101,000,000 people! Yikes! That’s more people than currently live in Korea!
Isn’t fake science amazing and terrifying?
2014 has had a remarkable start, it seems like not a day goes by where warmies some where are getting some stick. Just maybe the long suffering silent majority have woken up.
DirecTV’s comment “at the best value” is telling. The point of contention is money. Stick to your guns, DirecTV!
I’d hate to lose them … I love their reality shows, and don’t watch their ridiculous weather commentary at all. I mean, they have things like “Coast Guard Alaska”, “Weather Caught On Camera”, and “World’s Wildest Weather”, what’s not to like?
w.
More or less the same story as Greenpeace.
I live on the central coast of queensland Australia and we get the same nonsense on the weather channel as overseasAfew years ago they would show the daily temperatures with the long term average , until the penny dropped. Our daily figures were always half to one degree cooler than long term , summer and winter . I wonder why/
LOL
I refuse to watch them because of this very reason. More about political agenda than the weather itself.
Schadenfreude Interruptus
I gave TWC up as a bad job long ago. Even their app for android is impossible to use now. Overall, I rated them by dropping them several years ago.
desperation on the cusp of madness:
11 Jan: Guardian: Fiona Harvey: David Cameron right to link floods and global warming, say climate scientists
Myles Allen and Peter Stott say prime minister right to make connection between recent weather and global warming
Myles Allen of Oxford University and Peter Stott of the Met Office said on Friday that the prime minister was right to make such a connection, and that increasing levels of climate change would have substantial impacts on rainfall…
Stott said that efforts to make the attribution of extreme events to the effects of climate change were now a major focus of the Met Office’s climate change research, which involves world-leading scientists and super-computers crunching vast quantities of past and present weather data…
Allen called for more scientific effort to be put into exploring the link between human-caused climate change and extreme weather. He said that it could be possible in future to make a case for the attribution of extreme weather events to climate change, if computer data can be more closely analysed.
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jan/10/david-cameron-floods-global-warming-climate-scientists
10 Jan: Smithsonian Smart News: Colin Schultz: The Cold Snap Wasn’t Actually That Extreme, Global Warming Has Just Made Us Wimpy
The recent cold snap wouldn’t have been so unusual in the past
Seth Borenstein, the Associated Press’ science reporter, has had enough of our whining. Meteorologists are annoyed with us, too, he says, especially those of us who, either snarkily or seriously, whined: “Where’s our global warming nowwww?”
The cold snap that gripped the nation, says Borenstein, wasn’t even that cold. It’s just that, thanks to climate change, we’re now so used to above-average temperatures that one little blip of a return to what used to be known as “winter” has us all riled up…
And, anyway, it’s about to warm up. New York’s looking at temperatures in the 50s on Saturday; Toronto could have a balmy winter high of 43 degrees F.
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/cold-snap-wasnt-actually-extreme-global-warming-has-just-made-us-wimps-180949322/
Other than the CAGW BS, I enjoy watching some of the other programs but go to Ch. 361 if necessary to obtain the latest weather information.
“watching” the weather channel. Just doesn’t seem right. I “check” the weather on my iphone.
Not surprised by the movement of the Weather Channel to reality programming – they are in the entertainment business and that’s where the dollars are. However, I long ago stopped watching for the weather news, but only for the entertainment value. It’s incredibly amusing to see how much energy they spend on hyping every snowflake, raindrop, hailstone and breeze above 5 mph to paint a picture of impending doom. And global warming!!! Can’t believe they haven’t got a reality show dedicated to that yet. Unfortunately, when it comes to the weather, so many of their on the scene reporters come off as clowns. Also, the move to younger on air personalities turned me off – I miss some of the older, long serving forecasters who gave you a more honest and serious view of the weather.
9 Jan: SMH: Mary Voice: Don’t shoot the climate change messenger
(Mary Voice is a climatologist and lecturer and was formerly head of the National Climate Centre at the Bureau of Meteorology.)
There are many opinions, floating around the blogosphere and newspaper opinion pieces, that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change lacks integrity and accountability. If this was true to any significant degree, it would be very serious for public policy.
At the same time, it is of paramount importance not to shoot the messenger should that messenger be trying to let you know of something really important.
The climate change panel is a messenger of unwelcome news and, given our human natures, is a classic shooting target – one of the Everly Brothers [from the harmony rock duo] died last week of a smoking-related lung disease, and it reminds me how tempting it was a few decades ago to discount [shoot] the medical research messengers who warned us of the risks of cigarette smoking…
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/dont-shoot-the-climate-change-messenger-20140108-30hgj.html
8 Jan: Forbes: James Taylor: Embarrassed Global Warming Alarmists Sink To Comedic Lows With ‘Polar Vortex’ Excuse
Of course, if global warming alarmists really had predicted that it would cause more frequent and severe cold outbreaks (via Mutant Polar Vortexes, Mutant Teenage Ninja Turtles, Yeti, or whatever), we should see such predictions all throughout the latest United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report. The problem is, it’s not there. Nowhere. Nada. Nunca. Nein. Nyet…
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2014/01/08/embarrassed-global-warming-alarmists-sink-to-comedic-lows-with-polar-vortex-excuse/
Really, REALLY tired of TWC’s whiny handwringing over gorbal warming (oops…climate change) and the naming of winter storms. The only reason I even turn it on is to get the “Local on the 8’s” forecast for the Mat-Su Valley. Otherwise, meh.
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Same here. I turn it on in the morning and hit the mute button. When the local on the 8’s is over at 6:30, it’s time to leave for work. It makes the morning more relaxing not watching the clock but just glancing at the TV now and then.
ObamaWeather
When I see a person or company getting really hung up on a trace gas I go looking for the money. I am about to go to be now, but I would look at the Weather Channel and the people behind it today. What shares in what [co2 scheme, renewable] companies do they hold etc.? It’s usually correct and sometimes wrong. With the weather channel I smell a rat.
the weather channel provides excellent real time monitoring of tornado developments in real time.
I couldn’t imagine living in tornado alley and not having access to their up to date information.
Wait a second…
There really is a “weather channel”?
I don’t have cable or satellite. I’m not even sure I have a TV. That’s the flat thing in the living room with the game consoles hooked up to it, right? I always thought “watching the weather channel” was just a euphemism for being bored.
A,
Thanks for the link to Weather Nation TV!
I’ve been using Weather Underground http://www.wunderground.com/ . I like their animated local and regional radar maps in particular.
http://www.wunderground.com/radar/mixedcomposite.asp?region=a1&size=2x&type=loop
Hm. I get the impression you’re not being entirely forthright and serious. Could it be?
A few years ago, when Heidi Whats’erface started shootin’ her mouth off about punitishing skeptic weathermen, I took a hard look at the Weather Channel and haven’t been back to watch them since. I know she’s long gone, but so are they, afaics.
Tsk. Not very sympathetic for a parent seeing his kid go to the dogs!
Reality tv is a terrible idea. It is amazing that those prospectors just happen to have movie crews along when disaster strikes. Enough already.
I’ve seen the begging on TWC. It’s embarrassing to even watch. DirecTV should pay us what we want because of “public safety”? Really??? It’s even more transparent than the “Do our socialist bidding or the Earth will die!” crap the AGW folks are always selling.
The wife has it on as a sort of background noise a lot. I ask her what the weather is going to be, and she doesn’t usually know. I turn the channel when I can because I don’t want to support the AGW hoax.
Some years ago TWC fired a bunch of real meteorologists in favor of the “personality” clownshow they have now, when they do weather at all. Even with that, their “weather babes” are especially good-looking (actually, they laid off their best looking on at that time).
I read many years ago that being a TV weatherman was one of the worst jobs because you are always being pressured to give bogus alarmist forecasts, to get viewers. It’s slimy. AGW is the ultimate in alarmism, so it’s more a part of their business model, than a matter of whether they really believe it or not.
As if all that isn’t bad enough, then they break into the show with news bulletins from MSNBC, the Obama propaganda network where anchors are constantly competing for who can spew left-wing insanity in the most outrageous way, until they fly too close to the Sun and their wings melt.
Well, “me too”. I can maybe put up with it long enough to get the actual “weather on the 8s”, but have found the local channel to have far more and better weather reporting. The “last straw” for me was finding Prospecting as the main show.
What on earth does digging up rocks have to do with the weather?
So I’ll sometimes “jump” to it (as it is only one channel up from Fox on my particular feed) to see if they have any weather, then leave in seconds. Can’t stand the “reality crap” they run most of the time. Find their pushing of Global Warming to mean they are clueless anyway and likely to join the British Met Office in “always wrong” forecasting.
Unfortunately, I don’t presently have access to that DTV 361 that sounds like a much better alternative. (The place I’m living has the Weather Channel, but it’s a Dish system. I have DTV on the other coast, and that means I can get the remote internet stuff, but need to get an HDMI cable to route it to the TV here… Sigh.) But for now, especially when I really care first thing in the morning, the local Orlando stations have MUCH better weather reporting than does TWC; and without the propaganda aspect nor the reality crap.
Oops. Meant “… AREN’T especially good-looking (actually, they laid off their best looking ONE at that time).” Sorry, I thought I had checked it over.
This from the Daily Mail about the a secret climate propaganda seminar at the BBC is off topic but fun for Saturday evening or Sunday morning reading. And it has the potential to become another climategate.
The BBC has spent tens of thousands of pounds over six years trying to keep secret an extraordinary ‘eco’ conference which has shaped its coverage of global warming, The Mail on Sunday can reveal.
The controversial seminar was run by a body set up by the BBC’s own environment analyst Roger Harrabin and funded via a £67,000 grant from the then Labour government, which hoped to see its ‘line’ on climate change and other Third World issues promoted in BBC reporting.
At the event, in 2006, green activists and scientists – one of whom believes climate change is a bigger danger than global nuclear war – lectured 28 of the Corporation’s most senior executives.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2537886/BBCs-six-year-cover-secret-green-propaganda-training-executives.html#ixzz2q95bnzRI
Dropped the Weather Channel some time ago. I trusted it like I trusted the BBC for international news before IT ‘went south’. WT used to provide local weather alerts that were useful, but it began to put up big red scare warnings that I would have to click through to view (taking ages) that were for anywhere but my zip code. Big waste of time – ‘cried wolf’ one too many times for me. My go to for local weather news is now my local airport weather website. If you can’t trust an airport weatherman, whom can you trust?
Honest, folks. The way to put an end to all this political nonsense on your cable channels is to cancel your cable. If enough of you do it you won’t be without it long because the cable companies will come grovelling back to you and offer you the channels you want to pay to see. Not what they want you to pay for. Until then, whether you watch it or not, you’re paying the salaries for BET, OWN, MSNBC, CNN, Headline News, TWC, Al Jazeera, and all the other crap that tells you how stupid and wrong you are every hour of every day, year after year.
I cancelled my cable years ago and never looked back. Don’t miss it a bit. And I saved a fortune.
The Weather Channel back in the late 80’s and early 90’s was on all the time at my house. I actually liked the fact that I could get a handle on where all the jet stream forks were without having to dig through all the charts myself to piece them together. Their forecasts were generally good and I learned a great deal about weather patterns and the forces that drove them. Then I was busy through the mid to late 90’s playing whack-a-mole with Saddam Hussein and some terrorist (I was in the AF in intel), so didn’t see The Weather Channel much. I finally tuned in again now that I retired and they don’t even post a decent weather chart and use all this very dumbed down language. It is completely useless to look at The Weather Channel to do my own forecasts as they don’t give any meteorological data to work with, even when they are doing their rare weather news segments. I will have to check out channel 361 and see if it does better.
If they cancel The Weather Channel, I really don’t think anyone would miss it.
It is not everyone that can pull 3 different real-time radars off the internet.
There are still lots of tech challenged people out there.
(and they are not reading this).
We’ve had Direct Tv for years. I climbed up on the roof with a small tv and the receiver to zero in on the satellite and we still love it. But NOT the weather channel. NBC wrecked it when they bought it. So many good companies have been ruined by people who can’t leave a successful business alone because of their own hubris.
I hope Anthony and the Mods don’t mind me posting the site that Dr. Roy Spencer is involved with, which is obviously a ‘plug’ for that site:
http://www.weatherstreet.com/
Lots of good things there – I like the ‘3 day temp’ page, where you can just move your mouse across the bottom day/time grid, and see what is forecast. Now being in Arizona, we don’t worry much about the extreme cold fronts/snow, etc., but with in-laws in Iowa and Kansas, I like to keep an eye on what’s going on there.
Now in summer, being Flagstaff, AZ is much better than in the Phoenix area . . !
This is a strong argument for a-la-carte cable. People who absolutely love TWC can subscribe to it, just like HBO. It’s outfits like TWC and ESPN that have helped push cable bills so high in the USA.
NBC used to be owned by GE who always pushed global warming disaster crap. Thought things would change when they taken over by Comcast…..obviously not. Maybe it’s all a cable v satellite spat. The Weather Channel still sucks though.
Anthony, Joe and I are ready and willing to start a new Weather Service for cable and satellite and internet to pad and smartphones streaming video. Put the money on the table and we’ll be on the air in six months. We will stay focused on the current and forecast weather and complete severe weather coverage with no distractions or editorials.
@Mac the Knife says:
Mac (and others) – just drop the “Weather Underground”. They have nothing that other similar sites (Intellicast, Accuweather, etc.) don’t have as well. And you won’t be supporting Jeff Masters’ climate extremism…
Brian H says:
January 11, 2014 at 5:36 pm
Nope. I’m serious. I do like seeing any kind of strange and bizarre weather, it expands my understanding of all the phenomena. And Coast Guard Alaska is a show about the heroes of any Bering Sea fisherman such as myself … like I said, other than their crazy obsession with CO2, I like their reality shows.
w.
I miss the good old days when you could see the local weather parameters updated every second or so on the local cable networks. As far as TWC, I can take it or leave it, but I rarely go there to find weather info. WeatherNation is pretty good. The main reason I have DirecTV is so my wife, who is Korean, can get Korean over-the-air programming. This service is so popular, that DirecTV even has a Korean customer service phone number, and occasionally sends her (snail mail) mailings in Korean.
The last year, when I’ve wanted to see TWC, iit has been carrying programming suited better for National Geographic, Science, or History channels. Uverse could lose TWC and I would not notice it.
Currently TWC channel is showing, “Secrets of the Earth – Tides”, “Secrets of the Earth – Volcanos”, “Highway Thru Hell”. Three hours to Weather Central.
BYE BYE TWC.
Gone with the Wind.
If any of these “climate catastrophists” still believe in the global warming fraud/hoax after the polar vortex episode this winter, I’ve got some beachfront property in Nevada to sell them.
The weather channel is entertainment. They have some great educational pieces but it is a news/entertainment media. Life saving information I don’t really think so. If you are depending on that channel for this you are going to be disappointed. You NEED a weather radio or use your smartphone which can go with you for TRUE life saving information. Mandating we keep an entertainment channel in a line up is just wrong. Weather Channel why don’t you figure out what it takes to improve your product for the money like all other businesses instead of trying to force people to spend money for something they don’t feel they need.
jai mitchell says:
January 11, 2014 at 5:30 pm
Oh you poor thing, Jai. Is it just to top up your beliefs, daily?
Willis is an ‘old sea dog’. Loves the coast guard stuff.
TWC is in the same category as National Geographic Magazine: Every time I succumb to the dramatic pictures and try it again, I end up feeling like a sucker. They ladle up steaming gobs of stewed horse-apples, then ask “do you want sprinkles with that?” No longer subsidizing their advocacy of junk science when I pay my Direct TV bill is just fine with me, though I’ll miss a few individuals whom I think would be better off elsewhere. Sorry, Joe.
I like Highway thru Hell and it’s all I watch on WTV. The real drama of working class people like me dealing with real weather versus the trucking industry that keeps Canada going gives me hope for humanity. At least for the beer-drinking portion of us.
When the Weather Channel started it was a meteorologist’s dream, model runs, expert analyses, jet stream projections, intelligent case studies, thoughtful historical retrospectives. Now it’s a circus of stupid dumbed down idiocy. Please, let’s put it out of its misery and replace it with the Joe Bastardi Show.
We called DirectTV yesterday morning to find out the skinny on this, and the customer service representative’s supervisor returned the call, left a message, told us DirectTV is renegotiating their contract with The Weather Channel, and had no plans to drop TWC.
We were taken aback by the suddenness of this situation on TWC – right out of the blue with a few days notice. TWC channel asking the public to call their congressional representative was a bit of a stretch IMHO. Using the public as a pawn in their business deal was a bit much, and I hope they are learning something from all the feedback they’ve gotten from a SKEPTICAL public on their agenda-driven programming and “reality” programs.
If Congress is to be involved in the weather-climate issue, it had better be in the context in a full-court press in understanding the true nature of the power of solar activity in forcing weather and climate, and they better start kicking the money-grubbing CO2 losers out of government forever by defunding that failed “science” across the board NOW.
I noticed a month or so ago DirectTV brought WeatherNation TV into their lineup. They have a long way to go… TWC is useful for weather in the morning and a few hours in the evening – that’s it. Who has time to wait for a weather report through huge blocks of time for these “reality” shows.
TWC’s “Deadliest Space Weather” series was a big disappointment. The deadliest space weather happens here on Earth, and TWC can’t or won’t make the proper connections between our weather/climate events/levels and the cause of it all, solar activity events/levels.
Paul Douglas, founder/CEO of WeatherNation is also a kool-aid drinking global warming-climate change propagandist. Give it time, and he’ll have his channel spewing forth the same agenda-driven drivel often seen on the TWC.
I credit Stephanie Abrams from The Weather Channel for standing firm in the face of White House and TWC management pressure tactics. She clearly was not going to be buffaloed by the climatologist-in-chief and his “trusty” sidekick Holdren’s efforts to spin the arctic vortex as a CO2 driven global warming event. More and more meteorologists are freeing themselves from the unrealistic expectations of the political “agenda”.
There appears to be a place and need in this world for my “The Electric Weather Channel”. Stay tuned, I’ll be back.
If you don’t like it don’t watch it. I do. If they drop it I will Drop Direct TV.
Just as TWC is overhyping what it would mean to America if DTV dropped their garbage, the endless hype and sensationalism of weather, that 10, 20 years ago was just that, weather.
All this drama is coming from NBC to save their azz for the over paid Al Choker. To save their azz for TWC becoming another channel full of commercials.
Do any of us realize that we viewers, who pay a subsciption fee are paying to watch commercials?
Also, when i need immediate weather info due to locally bad weather, i dont even get a satellite signal……And i pay for this too?….
Enough with Roid rage Cantore’, Cry baby Bettes, Annoying Abrahms, and bimbos who cant seem to put enough make-up on…
Weather divas, who woulda’ thunk’ it…. I dont want to pay a higher subscription fee to pay these morons who use computer generated forecasts anyway. There are only a handful of these drama queens that actually forecast.
Then to boot, new horrendous graphics, music straight out of the elevator, johnny come-lately second rate reality based shows, WTF is going on there?
Wow NBC really knows how to screw up a good thing and let the sh!t roll downhill.
Great business decision DTV. Your paying subscribers are speaking up. Who are you dropping next?…..
I forgot to add, that while i appreciate the attempt at another weather channel on Ch. 361…. It is the Wayne’s World of a weather tv program…. I mean, who’s basement are they filming this show from?….Dtllee, dttlleee, dtllleee as Garth and Wanye would do….
Thanks for WeatherNation on direct tv channel 361. We’ve already switched. Lost interest in TWC a long time ago when they started reality shows and global warming alerts.
Used to run a small cargo airline. Several times, I had pilots tell me the weather was too bad to go flying after they had watched TWC! Always hyping ” the WORST storm of the century!!!” When I would check with US Flight Service, the weather was good enough to go. I flew as an airline pilot for 40 years and only had to actually cancel 3 flights due to weather. TWC is a joke.
Here are some of the weather links I am using lately.
The ensemble forecast from the Global Forecast System (GFS) – temperature anomaly – for the whole world over the next 16 days – animation of every 3 hours.
http://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/gfs-ens/2014011206/gfs-ens_T2ma_global.html
You can zoom-in to any of the continents, North America here. Just the latest GFS model run in this case and not the ensemble.
http://www.tropicaltidbits.com/analysis/models/gfs/2014011206/gfs_T2ma_namer.html
You can take a polar view. Other models are also available. I would like this to be in nominal temperature as well. Is it accurate? GFS is really the best model and most other models are based off of it.
Intellicast’s Weather Active Map – has tons of features. I particularly like the “Temperature” one in the “Overlay” tab. It is the highest resolution I have ever seen down to something like 1 mile. You can watch warm fronts and cold fronts moving in in extremely high resolution – I’m not sure how it is produced. Others have radar down, but this map has tons of other really good animations. You can zoom in, zoom out and save your location. It requires JavaScript. I’m not sure if this link will work.
http://www.intellicast.com/local/wxmap.aspx
Many of the weather models can be accessed here. Takes some time to learn how to use it, but these are the weather models that your local forecast is based on. I mainly use it for the precipitation forecast going out 5 days (and the model that tells whether precipitation will be rain, snow, or freezing rain) because the rest of it is just not user-friendly. These models are getting really good now.
http://mag.ncep.noaa.gov/model-guidance-model-area.php
If someone could put this type of weather info together with just higher resolution numbers and animations that are easy to use, it would be a winner. People are not going to pay or subscribe to it, it needs to run on ad revenue. That is just the way people are and why TV, Radio and the Internet work the way they do today.
I’m a directv customer and the last place I go to get the weather is the weather channel. It’s an interesting place to watch extreme wether events but other than that….
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Ohio may not be tornado alley but my local stations do a better job than TWC when severe weather threatens.
(If one them only developed their own “Weather on the 8’s” ….)
We have Cablevision here, so TWC is sticking around here. However, NO ONE in my household watches it. My dad and his fiance turn to News 12 NJ, and I stick with Jon Carr’s Severe NJ Weather on Facebook, Twitter, and the Severe NJ Weather website. I also read NJ Weather Blogs and EPWA, and weather.gov.
But Jon and the EPWA give us warnings WAY ahead of time, and since they don’t have to answer to any bigwigs or sponsors, they hold nothing back. So when we had a bit of snow here on Thursday morning, those of us who follow Severe NJ Weather already knew about it and already planned for it while everyone else woke up shocked to see that it had snowed and iced overnight because NONE of the tv or radio weather reports told them about this. Including The Weather Channel.
Fine w/me. One might guess twc charges excessively for their “services” — which is mostly feel-good or bad emotional junk. All I use is the local forecast/radar, & that’s available on the “Active” button.
I have been tired of TWC for several years now. If you switch there to check the weather, you have human interest stories, specials featuring TWC stars, Prospecting, CoastGuard missions, cute animals, commercials, commercials, commercials. It should be called The Weather Show. I guess it is fine to go to sleep by, as I have done that several times with the drone going. If they stay, they need two separate channels. One for weather, and one to compete with Opra, Lifetime, History, and Learning channel. Naming cold fronts? Really? What was wrong with names like “this cold front” and “next cold front”? I have the National Weather Service on all computers and devices and have to fire them up to check the weather without having to watch abandoned puppies, snow plows for my truck, cold remedies, mattress salesmen, truck commercials, desk organizers, lawyers hawking their trade,, and those were on just now as I was typing and waiting for news on the weather. Adios TWC.
Just saw a “blurb” on TWC clamoring for folks to call DirecTV and demand it be kept as they were going to be dropped on Jan 13th as things stand. That’s just a day away…
I get the impression that DTV is going to let it drop (as have some other channels) for a few days before closing the deal. Personally, I’d rather they just hired there own Meteorologist and put on their own weather channel. I’m sure there’s a lot of info available to keep a 24/7 weather channel full. Heck, just putting up some global weather reports (for folks flying all over, or dreaming of it) would fill a few hours with real weather…
So I expect that about Wednesday we’ll have a real status once the posturing has hit the drop wall.
Truth is.. the weather channel could cancel all of it’s reality shows, stop naming winter storms, and all you miserable fucks will still find something to bitch about…
Over thirty years ago, while stationed at Chanute AFB for forecaster training we used to watch the local news cast of a Champagne Illinois TV station. This was the old days when a married couple could actually own a TV station (in rural America, before Cable this wasn’t all that unusual). It was an affiliate station with 95% of its content coming from one of the Big 3 networks. However, the elderly couple did their own local news. They wrote, produced and staged the local news, weather, and sports. When I watched them they had to be in their mid to late 70s; maybe even early 80s.
The husband did the weather. It was something right out of Comedy Central. The poor old man used magnets to illustrate centers of high and low pressure. While the old man used to talk about the weather in front of the cameras, a High Pressure magnet over Montana would slide down to the Gulf of Mexico. Of a magnet showing rain showers over New England would begin sliding down towards Bermuda. Hilarity followed, as the poor man became very confused.
I would trade in those old weather casts for what TWC and Accuweather (another Alarmist weather organization) dish out.
I think this is pure negotiation on rates- Direct TV will continue to carry TWC.
Maybe the channel did what it had to do to survive- there obviously is going to be only a small minority of viewers who will watch TWC more than 15 minutes a day, but I find TWC’s programming today to be unrelentingly boring, and I am one of TWC’s original and avid viewers from the launch in 1982. I might watch it now 15 minutes every 2 months- I want the weather, I just go to the website instead to read the details of Winter Storm Pablo, or whatever ridiculous name they have given the next Alberta Clipper.
Too many commercials, global warming crap and not enough weather. Another NBC screwup. New graphics suck. Too many reality shows. Hate MSNBC news. Won’t miss it.
I have QUIT watching ALL channels that hype AGW. NatGeo and most of those held by Discovery have reached the point of absurdity!
I happened on a show that my wife was watching about the rift valleys of Africa. Until the last five minutes it appeared grounded in scientific fact. Then they threw in their obligatory global warming propaganda. Mind you they are in an “active” rift valley, daily earth quakes, seeping gas in places, water unfit to drink in many places, and we get five minutes of how this area is going to change “Due to Global Warming!” Well what about when the rift opens up wider and the nomads fall in or as a minimum can no longer live in the area? What about the fact there is a very high probability that the rift may open enough to cause an opening large enough to cause a flood of ocean water which in turn washes away the intervening land, making a new sea? Which probably has a higher and would happen sooner than the end effects of AGW or CAGW would cause any harm. These things were not even mentioned – just global warming!
I’m sure that the Dish Network will continue to carry TWC IF DirectTV drops them. We camp in an area that requires us to know what the weather is to bring and local channels just don’t have the technology as TWC. Not sure how this other channel will compare!
I stopped watching the weather channel after they began using the word ‘extreme’ to describe pretty much everything.
I remember last Thanksgiving, we were getting ready to drive from Eastern PA to Michigan. My wife watched TWC and became convinced the entire eastern half of the USA was going to be paralyzed, including all of Western PA and northern OH. I checked several cities along the way on the weather.gov site and the worst I could come up with was “light snow, accumulation 1-3 inches possible”. We made the trip. The roads? Some slush, a short stretch of freezing rain, and lots and lots of salt trucks.
Winter storm Hortence, or whatever blathering name they came up, was a non-event for us.
Maybe they should call them all “Winter Storm Nostradamus” and just assingn roman numerals, like they do to hype the Super Bowl.
leave the weather channel on directv
Naming the flippin’ winter storms was the last straw for me. Now, I just look up Accuweather online.
Anthony Watts says:
January 11, 2014 at 12:03 pm
“@pokerguy sorry about that, I call ‘em as I see ‘em. Still may come to pass though, my guess is that DirecTV is asking TWC to take a big pay cut for carrying it, and TWC is strapped as it is. Who will cave?
Or it may reach an impasse, we can only hope.”
That would be my guess as well. With only 60% weather reporting now, a 40% cut in what they pay for the reality show TWC has created would seem about right. Dish network plays the same game but almost always ends up with a “deal” of some kind being made with the subject channel. Don’t know about DTV, but on Dish one can retrieve forecasts by city or zip code with their interactive tool, which I find useful. The AGW propaganda is all pervasive in any media other than FOX. Unfortunately with it on TWC it gains some believeability with the great unwashed masses.
Heidi cullen put the death nail in TWC years ago as far as im concerned. If directv drops Twc/nbc , It wont be missed.
I stopped watching TWC and surfing across their website over 10 years ago. It doesn’t add much to what I need to know about weather. But if I need the “big picture” regarding weather, that’s what AccuWeather is for.
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If they then continued the CAGW hype, you might be right.
If “weather isn’t climate” (unless it can be correctly spun), why does The Weather Channel hype all the “climate change” BS?
French government TV (FT1 thru 4) have chosen a private weather forecast service over their national one. Chosen by tender (appel d’offre)
TWC – Yes they always predict doom and gloom. Naming winter storms – STUPID. Their new look – not very good. Accurate – only if it’s happening right now. When I really want the weather, I can’t find it due to everything else they are showing. Of course, they don’t want to loose DirecTV customers, they will have to lower their advertising rates when they loose 20% of their audience.
Good luck to Weather Nation and hope you stay with the basics – Weather.
The thing I hate the most is how they always interrupt their regularly scheduled program to talk about some severe weather event. Messes up my DVR recording schedule.
Just as bad as Sirius satellite radio dumping TWC from the lineup. I hoped it would have helped out during hurricane evacuations. Sirius now has no US national weather.
Maybe WeatherNation should approach Sirius to get a channel there.
Thank You DirectTV for bringing on Weather Nation, Kind of got sick of The Weather Channel, its nothing but awful shows about the Weather and Experts on an Expert Desk that should be there. Also the naming of Winter Storms became a little much as well. Bravo DirectTV !!
I’m a huge fan of the the forecast discussions on the NWS site. At first it’s like a mini course in meteorology, but once you get used to the tech-speak, abbreviations and acronyms you start to get a better feel for the actual forecast. It’s a great resource during the days leading up to a snowstorm or hurricane. I actually find myself critiquing the local news when they oversimplify a complex and uncertain weather event.
Bill Illis says:
January 12, 2014 at 4:55 am
Here are some of the weather links I am using lately.
Thanks for the links, Bill !!!
Weather Channel is so unfun to watch anymore. I used to like it when they would give local weather info during monsoons here in Tucson. Now you are more likely to have descriptions of nice weather is in the New York to Washington, DC area, instead of how it is storming here. DirectTV…please axe the hell out of them!
“more than 40% of its time” to “reality television shows”. Should that not be 100% of its time?
After all, AGW reporting is firmly in the “reality television” category, i.e supposed to be entertaining, informative and/or funny, but mostly inate and boring.
i do watch the weather channel, thats the first thing i looked up when we got our dish. i did not want to leave COMPUS, husband did. but if you can’t work something out, i have a great chance of getting husband to go back to COMPUS. i am not all that fond of DIRECTV., just haven’t been able to warm up to it. the remote is agravating and just not that great a selection in our package like the simular one was with COMPUS> i know i don’t do well with change so some of it is my problem. but ,by now i should feel better with it. so go ahead and not carry the weather channel, that will help my cause.
The “Weather” Channel has become just like MTV. It used to do what it stated and was a useful service. 24/7 you got WEATHER.
Now you tune in and get weather about 1/3 of the time.
The other 2/3 are reality shows and politics. Climate is not weather. They are feeding the lie of “climate change” and “global warming” by naming every little storm and marketing the heck out of it.
Sorry people of all political beliefs need a place to get a weather forecast that is unbiased.
Thanks for this Sir Watts! I have been unable to stand TWC for over a decade and would have no clue channel 361 was available but for this posting. A search turns up a ‘drive’ by TWC to contact one’s congress man to retain them at DirecTV. I had hoped to send a negatory response, but their software can’t tell who my congressman is from my zip code. Sounds about par for them.
They do have to many commercials and to many reality shows its worse than network TV.
Finally,someone makes sense. I miss the old days when you just watched the weather without all the cute banter and the ridiculous programs you have to sit through waiting on a weather report.Maybe this will wake them up. And by the way are you going to start naming clouds next?Sorry weather channel,your not that important.
TWC tornado emergency coverage is commendable. Much of the rest pretty pedestrian. Reality shows are not terrible, but should go somewhere else.
Ironic that Weather Nation is the product of Paul Douglas, who here in the Twin Cities, Minnesota, is the TV guy who has drank the most global warming kool-aid.
BUT
What an excellent channel. Nothing but weather nerdery for us who remember the Weather Channel’s glory days, or even PBS’s morning weather show, they had before Weather Channel.
Critical life-saving community resource? On DirecTV? You’ve got to be kidding me. What’s the first thing to go out when it rains (let alone storms)? Satellite. Do yourself a favor and get a NOAA weather radio with battery backup.
Does TWC provide local updates through Direct TV? LMAO
Go ahead. Make my day! TWC (and short people) got no reason…
Re Hockey Schtick @January 11, 2014 at 2:40 pm
Great example of the Weather Channel’s global warming hype & alarm published today:
http://www.weather.com/health/climate-change-causes-infectious-disease-increase-korea-cdc-says-20140110
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I note that weather channel has removed the comments to – and the ability to comment on – this article.
If TWC is so confident in their programming why are they doing live weather right now (2:30 EST Mon) instead of the totally inane “Prospectors”? as scheduled?
DROP TWC! Yay to DirecTV for refusing to finance salaries of Al Roker and Abrams. Good riddance!!
The weather channel has become the commercial channel. Now it is fast becoming a reality show. It is worthless. If I want the weather now I use the internet.
Like many of the responses I’ve read here. I too am very disappointed with the Weather Channel’s content. Their decision to add these stupid shows really hit home on two consecutive Saturdays with severe thunderstorms here in Panama City FL. All I could get was Cantori Stories (STUPID) . It’s like they forgot what made them needed in the first place. Which was “Locals On The Eights with looping radar” I could care less about the thundersnow Jim was in or the ten year old weather news or the Alaskian Coast Guard or whatever!!!
Even the vortex is mislabeled; a true polar vortex is a tight system over the pole, with counter-rotating winds vs. the jet stream. It holds in and intensifies polar chill. IF it breaks down suddenly it can dump serious cold to lower latitudes, but that is not what is happening recently. Just ordinary jet stream swings.
‘inate’ isn’t a word. If you meant innate, it means inborn. If you meant inane, you missed.
In BC, Canada on the telco’s TV service, we get The Weather Network (not Channel), pretty much straight weather, but with a fairly heavy advert load. Sympathies.
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About 10 years ago work sent me to Calgary for a total of 6 weeks for computer training.
I remember TWN struck me as a “Celsius” version of TWC. Back then TWC was more like what it was intended to be. Glad to hear TWN didn’t follow in their footsteps.
(If they had, what would their version of “Wake Up With Al” be? “Wake Up With The McKenzie Brothers”?8-)
No real surprise here. There’s precious little history on The History Channel anymore, the cooking shows have disappeared from Food Network (but we get to watch stupid competitions over and over), The Arts & Entertainment Network is now home to Real Wives of Stupiddom Worldwide, and American Movie Classics airs garbage that’s anything BUT classic. Why would we expect to get live weather feeds on The Weather Channel?
When I turn on the weather channel they usually have some stupid reality show on instead of the weather! We need a weather channel that has the weather on all the time otherwise how can you call it the weather channel? They did it to themselves
[Snip. A valid email address is required. ~ mod.]
So what is happening is that Direct TV is getting rid of the weather channel because non believers in the fact that weather is changing, which slaps us in the face every day, don’t want to have or hear it said on TV. Which is Ok. that is their opinion. But my experience is that those that don’t believe are usually the very ones that yell the loudest when something happens and expect to helped before anyone else. Well I wish I could keep a list of those that don’t believe and probably have don’t nothing to help improve the situation with weather change … there by they can be reminded that they did not believe and should be last on the list to be helped
I read all these comments about the weather channel not doing the weather, but Im in the US and I get the weather that is going on at that very minute, in fact I know what is coming a week away and esp with the help of TWC online…. So what am I getting or seeing on the weather channel that everyone else is not getting
Sadly, TWC is a joke and not even a pale version of their former self. Landmark sold TWC to NBC and the bloodbath began. If you didn’t have a plastic surgeon on speed dial, forgetaboutit! I miss getting real weather info from nerdy, atmoshperic scientists. TWC should bring back all the true meteorologist they fired like Mark Mancuso, Bill Keneely, Rich Johnson, etc., These guys knew their stuff. They loved, lived, breathed weather and it showed! They gave us all the weather facts we craved. And they gave us weather info 24/7. Sorry NBC, I’m not tuning into TWC (or Weather Company, as they now like to be called) to watch reality TV. I can watch me some reallity TV elsewhere. On TWC I want to watch weather, not fake TV.
Note to the moderators: Don’t delete this post! All opinions need to be expressed!
jai mitchell says:
January 11, 2014 at 5:30 pm
the weather channel provides excellent real time monitoring of tornado developments in real time.
I couldn’t imagine living in tornado alley and not having access to their up to date information.
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Totally agree. That’s why, even though I don’t have DirecTV, I’m siding with those who are against DirecTV making this bad decision.
As far as climate change is concerned, worldwide news of record heat waves, droughts and other extreme weather patterns is why I believe that climate change is real and not a hoax.
[Reply: You are new here. This may come as a surprise, but this site does not censor different points of view. All comments are posted, unless they violate written site Policy. ~ mod.]
v & PP:
You are unaware that extreme weather events have been moderating [becoming less severe] over the past few decades?
Visit this site more often, and learn. TWC was just trying to scare you, for ratings.
@v
Exactly right! Science and facts just do not matter to these people. It’s an exercise in futility when you’re dealing with them.
[snip – we don’t publicize websites that label people “deniers”, plus you shouldn’t be using your Virginia grade school network to promote such things, see their acceptable use policy and your own responsibilities -Anthony]
Jane Doe says:
“Science and facts just do not matter to these people. It’s an exercise in futility when you’re dealing with them.”
Ah, psychological projection at its finest. Please, “Jane Doe”: tell us exactly which “science and facts” do not matter to readers of WUWT. Be specific.
@v
Right on!
@mods – I don’t have any alternate email to use.
@dbstealey
Rush Limbaugh and other conservatives have bashed the media for its coverage of the polar vortex, saying reporters are using the recent cold snap to push their global warming, quote, “agenda.” I’m seeing the same thing in several comments here. I could post data from NOAA, the IPCC, and other such scientific sources until I’m blue in the face yet the non believers will never ever believe that it’s real. It’s sad to see that we are living in a day and age where science (overwhelmingly supported science at that – 95-97% of scientists all around the world believe in man-made climate change) has become some partisan issue.
Jane Doe says:
January 14, 2014 at 5:14 pm (replying to dbstealey)
Odd, these “facts” things that YOU claim we (skeptics) do not believe.
Now, just what “facts” do you present in your classroom as evidence of global warming?
CO2 has increased constantly for the past 17 years. Global average temperatures (actually measured by satellites!) have been steady or dropping.
Actual summer temperatures measured in the Arctic at 80 north latitude since 1959 by the Danish Met. Institute (DMI) have been steady, despite a consistent increase in CO2.
Antarctic sea ice level have been increasing steadily since May 2011, have been setting new all-time record highs for 1-1/2 years now through ALL phases of the year (summer melt, fall and winter freezing, and spring maximums) while the planet’s CO2 levels have been steadily increasing.
Antarctic sea ice, if it continues to increase at today’s rates, will block the Straits of Magellan and Cape Horn to ship traffic in 8-12 years.
In the past, while CO2 was steady,
global temperatures increased,
remained steady,
and decreased about every 65-69 years since measurement began in the mid 1600’s.
In the recent past (since 1950) while CO2 has increased steadily,
global average temperatures have …
Decreased for 20 years (1945 – 1965),
Been Steady for 37 years
(1935-1945 = 10 years, 1965 – 1975 = 10 years,, and 1996 – 2014 = 17+ years).
And Increased (1975 – 1998) for 23 years.
That single little-bitty period between 1975 and 1998 when both CO2 and temperature have increased at the same time is outweighed by ALL of the rest of the planet’s history since it was formed 14 billion years ago!
Catastrophic global warming IS KILLING people today (25,000 died in the UK alone last year due to high heating costs CAUSED by YOUR CAGW dogma of fear and propaganda. Do YOU accept personal responsibility for those very real deaths?
Do YOU accept responsibility for condemning millions to an early death due to poor food, no storage and no transportation, bad water, bad roads, no sewage treatment, and bad air due to YOUR fear of a theoretical increase in temperature in 100 years?
An natural increase in the earth’s temperature (IF it continues, IF it does not decrease, and IF we are not condemned to a nightmare of another Modern Ice Age) will do no harm, but cause greater food, fodder, farms, fuel, and feasts to billions worldwide as plants and plankton and every living thing on earth prospers.
But YOU teach the partisan self-serving lie that more CO2 will cause harm, all the while denying the measured facts of the case while promoting the government-paid “scientists” using government tax money in government-funded labs running government-funded computer falseware programs to produce and promote government-serving policies to produce more government control and government taxes. Why? (Other than your own salary, of course.)
I’m a student, not a teacher.
I’m Jane Doe’s sister. I’m also a student. It’s our parents who are teachers.
And our parents are not science teachers. Our mom teaches English/literature and our dad teaches Algebra.
My sister and I end this conversation by stating that we agree to disagree that “lies” are being taught in the US public school system.
I agree with one of the responders the weather channel is going further and further away from “real” weather reporting and more to this silly concocted “global warming”, ” climate change” and “polar vortex” myths. If you want to be pro-antipollution and pro-environment I get it as you see it. Its just the idea of men and women who know carbon dioxide is normal and that plant life uses it and makes oxygen yet has gotten totally sold out by this anti-growth socialist money grab that irks everyone. Climate Change farce is about one thing taxing Americans for some myth in which the Earth has endlessly gone through cooling and warming cycles for ions and now saying this particular cycle is humans fault. When it started to cool in the late 90’s suddenly this farce turned from global warming to climate change because the weather wasn’t cooperating at the time. Learn the History channel’s lesson, just report Weather, period!!!!. They learned people weren’t interested in “The Revisionist History Channel” but “The History Channel”. Stop trying to impress your leftist buddies and just report the weather. Stop trying to morph the terms when conditions don’t cooperate, stop coming up with fancy new slogans to describe weather.
Pragmatic Progressive:
As with most modern socialists, and lets face it that’s what the modern democratic party has become. You have to state you’re always for different points of view. Its the pragmatic part of your title that isn’t true. These Democratic Socialists as they also call themselves don’t mind a point of view as long as the opposing point of view is well into the minority. The thing that always puzzles me about your support is even when the numbers don’t support your conclusions you still never say there is speculation as to the results. When the science is loaded with individuals compensated for their conclusions never is the result brought into question. Global warming is the tip of the iceberg with many socialist stances, take Obamacare. Its not meeting what the President said it would and we even found out he knew that from the beginning never once do the communists back away no they double down. Scientists could lying; they still stick with the plastic banana findings. It just irritates modern socialists that we’re not going down the road to their cap & trade law willingly. Its all about taxes and money. Funny how the movement and political philosophy that talks endlessly about people being greedy, seems so interested in reaching into every American’s pocket for their latest and greatest do-good scheme to rob us once again.
TWC does have programming other than constant wx. However, their shows do have a common thread. WEATHER. This is a trusted wx source. Why try to fix what isn’t broken? I travel a lot for work. Before I leave, guess what I watch…TWC. When I get to my hotel room, guess what the first is channel I turn to…TWC. I want to see Jim Cantore hanging sideways from a stop sign yelling into a mic that I need to evacuate! He has done so on so many occasions. TWC keeps people safe. What’s wrong with a few WEATHER related “reality shows” when breaking wx news is IMMEDIATELY expedited. As a licensed FAA pilot and soon to be USCG licensed boat captain, I value the forecasts of the professional meteorologists from TWC. DirecTV is wrong to listen to people to whom wx doesn’t matter.
I used to watch but now its just NBC propaganda about climate change and stupid shows. By the way its odd to see them begging Direct TV customers to keep Weather Channel. Its kind of creepy.
[snip – no fan of the weather channel, but this is crazy talk – Anthony]
I really can’t believe all the folks out there in DirectTV land that would actually switch providers just because of the weather channel. I don’t buy it. In the past, I do remember when the weather channel was a true weather provider without all the needless sensationalism and other programming that we get from them today. Now, I can recall numerous occasions upon turning to TWC just to find that they airing some 1/2hr to 1hr long documentary and NOT the current weather that I want or need.
Weather Channel is now owned by the NBS and is using it to push their political gain on global warming/climate change. When nBS took over the show, everything changed to an msnBS format of enamoring the current president to god-like status, and he along with Al Gore were going to save the nation & world. Weather Nation is the way!