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.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
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.
================================================================
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.