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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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.