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.
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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.