Spring Rubber

I like the look of the wider shots. The shots that get a little tighter, like the "Sweet 16" and the "Suspected Chinese Agents Arrested" examples above, tend to make it look somewhat like a virtual set. But hey, I get it... you gotta do what you can with the space that you have. Still no sign of overall new network graphics, I see.

On the other hand, Since Stephen Morgan didn't get any time off while Bender was out, I'm thinking that Morgan is gonna take a week or two off pretty soon to recharge the batteries.

Steve Bender tweeted that he's back from paternity leave today, so at least the weekday schedule will be back to normal finally.

In general, for both Fox Weather and TWC, they're generally finalizing all weekend staffing and scheduling plans by Friday morning. So on Friday morning, they're looking at the SPC outlooks, and by Friday morning, they need to see: For Saturday Coverage: Need to see a Moderate Risk with at least a 15% tornado risk for Saturday. For Sunday Coverage: Need to see at least an Enhanced Risk with text in the SPC discussion to indicate that a tornado outbreak is likely for Sunday (since a Day 3 Moderate Risk is rare). Sometimes they'll extend coverage for slightly lower criteria, but this seems to be the general threshold they follow. It results in a lot of general Enhanced Risk weekend threats being totally ignored. In a different community, I coined the phrase "Weather Doesn't Happen On Weekends" in reference to TWC earlier in the 2010s to mock this bizarre phenomenon that staffing/personnel/scheduling decisions are only made up until Friday, and if the atmosphere throws a curveball in the middle of the weekend, and weather turns out to be much worse than expected, TWC simply would not cover it because the scheduling decisions are made in advance. It's a shame that Fox Weather has basically adopted this same policy as well.

On Balance w/Vittert debuted from Washington DC tonight, but I'm not surprised... tonight's show was done from a flashcam setup. I'm thinking we won't see the actual new DC studio until the 24th when The Hill debuts.

By the way, for anyone that didn't watch the above video, Vittert confirmed that April 24th is the day that NewsNation goes to a 24-hour cable news format Monday-Friday.

Has it been said what facility NewsNation is using in DC? Is it the same facility as DC News Now?

I see that NewsNation bumped the 8pm-10pm ET (I think) portion of their normal primetime schedule tonight in favor of a NewsNation Special Report on the Trump arraignment co-hosted by Vargas, Cuomo, and Abrams all sitting together on the new set. I also saw on the program guide that they covered the arraignment live in the afternoon, but I didn't catch any of it or see who hosted.

I just noticed that the overnight infomercials and religious programming are gone Monday-Friday, in favor of more reruns of their primetime shows. Not sure how long that's been the case, but I guess that's one step in the direction of the 24/5 schedule they plan on launching by the end of April (maybe on the 24th when The Hill launches).

Wait, so the control room in view wasn't just an image on a video wall? It's real?

Thanks for the pics. I kinda forgot this launch was happening today. I also kinda forgot that the new studio was going to debut. At least the studio is on-brand and doesn't feel like a small shoebox anymore.

Fox Weather is not even covering the severe weather outbreak that's happening right now in Texas. TWC at least is staying fully live from 6pm-10pm ET, but Fox Weather isn't even running automated weather maps or breaking in to cover the severe weather. They are staying with regularly-scheduled long form. Shameful.

It would have been slightly better if they had spent a little bit more money on the Orlando studio's lighting and audio. The standup area, by the time they were done with making improvements, turned out ok, but the sit-down area, which for some awful reason they use way more often than the standup area, is little more than a flashcam setup with iffy lighting and a really drab background. On more than one occasion, I've heard the OCM's audio in Orlando sound a bit muffled or distorted, but that might be due to the OCMs putting on their own mics incorrectly, and no audio engineer, either from NYC or Orlando, present to say anything to them about it. With Katie gone, I'm curious if they: A) Keep the Orlando operation with just Kelly Costa. B) Hire a new OCM to replace Katie, bringing Orlando OCM staffing back up to two. C) Give Kelly notice to relocate to NYC if she wants to remain part of the network.

Stephen is still on his prolonged Fox Weather Live nighttime assignment until whenever Steve Bender comes back from paternity leave. That's been Stephen's standard assignment during the entire paternity leave, so in the meantime, Brigit's co-anchor on any given day is "whoever is available to cover the timeslot". Yesterday, Marissa Torres was off, so Kiyana Lewis worked with Stephen on Fox Weather Live. As of today, I see that Ian is also back hosting the one-hour solo edition of Fox Weather Now at 3pm ET, so it looks like Across America with Brigit and (whoever is available) will probably return to the schedule. Huge severe weather event in the forecast tomorrow, so it looks like today's regular schedule will last for today only, and I'm sure the whole schedule will be extended tomorrow to cover the severe outbreak.

Wednesday 3/29, Fox Weather stayed with the modified schedule yet again. Even though Ian was back from his time off, he didn't appear on Weather Command. Instead, Kelly Costa filled in for him on that show yet again. They stayed with the 3-hour edition of Fox Weather Now from 3pm-6pm ET, where Ian and Brigit were reunited to host the entire 3-hour block together. Across America again did not air in favor of an early start and end to Fox Weather Live from 6pm-9pm ET, and an early start to Fox Weather @ Night at 9pm ET. Today 3/30, Ian is back on Weather Command, so maybe they're going to return to a normal schedule today.

This feels like a case where they probably wanted everything to go live on Monday 4/3, but perhaps the DC studio wasn't ready in time. I can only imagine that due to contractual/personnel reasons, they have to go live with the debut of the NYC morning block on Monday 4/3, and simply out of necessity, they're having to delay the afternoon block a few weeks while they put the finishing touches on the studio. Wouldn't be surprised if that's the case.

Yeah, they ran a super modified schedule today. Ian Oliver was out today and yesterday. They ran a normal schedule yesterday with Brigit Mahoney filling in for him on both Weather Command and Fox Weather Now. Meanwhile, Kiyana Lewis and Kendall Smith hosted Across America. Today, on the other hand, Kelly Costa (in NYC instead of Orlando) filled in for Ian on Weather Command; meanwhile, the standard format of Fox Weather Now was scrapped in favor of a two-anchor, 3-hour version of Fox Weather Now hosted by Kiyana Lewis and Brigit Mahoney at the main anchor desk from 3pm-6pm ET. Fox Weather Live followed, also bumped up by one hour, airing from 6pm-9pm ET. Because Fox Weather Now doesn't normally use the main anchor desk, we don't typically get to see the video wall backdrop for the show. Looks like they basically just used the same background that was previously used for America's Weather Center when it used to be housed in the main studio, just with the show title changed. Given that this was a two anchor show from the anchor desk, with the same hosts that would normally appear on Across America, it's strange that they decided to go with the Fox Weather Now branding today instead.

Fox Weather ended control-room-produced coverage at 6pm ET. They have switched to automated weather maps with Kendall Smith doing live break-ins at the update desk. So far, the only live update was at 6:14 pm ET, and it lasted for like 60-90 seconds.

The on-air staffing shortages are starting to show. It appears that sometime within the past few weeks, Katie Garner has departed from Fox Weather. The link to her bio has been removed from https://www.foxweather.com/personalities - based on the web archive Wayback Machine, her bio was still linked there on March 15th, but now she's gone. Steve Bender is still on paternity leave, and Brigit Mahoney was also out of the office the second half of last week. As a result, they had to work through Friday night's severe outbreak with only 4 on-air mets after 3pm ET. The way they handled it was to have Ian Oliver bookend the coverage by hosting 3pm-6pm ET and then again from 1am ET through the rest of the overnight. Meanwhile, from 6pm-1am ET, they rotated between Kendall Smith, Stephen Morgan, and Marissa Torres in mixed shifts. For example, they started that block of coverage with Kendall and Stephen, then switched to Marissa and Stephen a few hours in, and then switched to Marissa and Kendall a few hours later. Ian did the 1am ET hour from the main studio with a fully-produced show. They sent the control room/production staff home at 2am ET, so Ian moved to the update desk where they can do live break-in coverage that's controlled by the meteorologist. From 2am ET onward, they alternated between automated weather maps and live break-ins hosted and controlled by Ian at the update desk. On Saturday, they extended live coverage until 6pm ET. Craig and Jane hosted the usual 6am-10am ET shift, while the normal second shift crew of Michael and Kiyana moved later to the 2pm-6pm ET shift. The gap was bridged from 10am-2pm ET with a combination of Michael and Stephen hosting in the studio and Amy Freeze hosting from home. As of the 2am ET update from the SPC, the severe threat for today 3/26 has been upgraded to an Enhanced Risk with a 10% hatched tornado risk for this afternoon and evening. With such short notice, I'm unsure if both Fox Weather and TWC will be able to staff coverage for this evening.

And just as I say that, TWC is not running the streaming show tonight. I admire their...inconsistency?

Last week on Thursday 3/16, TWC quietly launched a new streaming show every weekday evening from 8pm-11pm ET. It's definitely available on all of their streaming apps (Roku, etc.), but it's unclear if it's also available on the streamtwc.com site or not, and I can't test it, because unlike the streaming apps, their website doesn't allow you to log in with your TV provider's credentials. You need a subscription to watch via the website. Anyway, the new streaming show is much more off-the-cuff and conversation-based than their TV product. One of the new personalities on the show is Heather Zons, who is one of their behind-the-camera meteorologists. She was given the opportunity to co-host this show on occasion. Last week, the Thursday/Friday shows featured her and Dr. Postel. This week, the Monday/Tuesday shows featured Carl Parker and Todd Borek. Curious to see who will host the rest of the week. It will be interesting to see what happens on Friday of this week when there's a big severe weather event in the forecast. Will they pre-empt the streaming-only show for standard live extended coverage on the linear channel, or will they direct all viewers to the streaming platform? By the way, the new show is so "experimental" right now that it doesn't even have a name. When they come back from break, they just say, "Welcome back to our new streaming show..."

Eh, you know how it goes... the less they make mention of it, the less they figure the viewer will even be aware. I did notice this morning that Amy was doing more dynamic stand-up segments, instead of being confined to the desk like she usually is. She first got up from the desk while on the air, walked to the video wall to present her own stand-up weather segment; then she walked over to the Expert Desk to talk to Ian, and then she walked over to the touchscreen to talk to Britta. I have a feeling that the reason why Amy and Ian were only on-air for one hour (instead of three) yesterday is because they spent most of the day meeting and rehearsing these ideas to make the show feel more dynamic.

Weather Command is back on the air today from the main studio W. It seems like for whatever reason, they simply would not do the show under that title while they were on the temp set. As for why they were on the temp set, I guess either lighting upgrades, or something was physically broken? Nothing appears to be changed with the studio that's visible on-air.

Today was super weird. The whole morning used Studio K as a temp set again. They returned to the main Studio W at 3pm ET with Fox Weather Now. I didn't have much time to watch while working, but I didn't notice anything different about the set from a quick glance. The schedule today was (times EDT): 6am-9am - Fox Weather First w/Kendall Smith and Britta Merwin 9am-10am - Fox Weather First w/Kendall Smith and Brigit Mahoney 10am-11am - Fox Weather Live w/Brigit Mahoney and Kendall Smith (yes, they changed the show title this hour and also swapped their positions at the desk in reverse this hour) 11am-12pm - Fox Weather Live w/Amy Freeze and Ian Oliver 12pm-3pm - America's Weather Center w/Kiyana Lewis and Kelly Costa 3pm-4pm - Fox Weather Now w/Ian Oliver 4pm-6pm - Fox Weather Across America w/Marissa Torres and Brigit Mahoney 6pm-7pm - Fox Weather Across America w/Stephen Morgan and Brigit Mahoney 7pm-10pm - Fox Weather Live w/Stephen Morgan and Marissa Torres 10pm-1am - Fox Weather @ Night w/Kiyana Lewis (pre-recorded, as always) So yeah, just a total mess today. Ian and Amy only did one hour together this morning. Kinda feels like they were in a meeting or rehearsal or something else important enough to keep them off the air for the 9am-11am portion of the schedule. Staffing was so short today that Brigit might as well have pitched a cot there - working a split morning/evening shift. They basically went the whole day with almost every meteorologist either working outside their normal shift or working a double shift. Given that the network did return to the main studio halfway through the day, tomorrow should tell us if the Weather Command branding is alive or dead. (Edited with the rest of today's schedule, plus the fact that I forgot Kiyana Lewis filled in for Michael Estime today.)

The entire rest of programming today has been done from Studio K as a temp set as well. Just like Weather Command, Fox Weather Now did not air today. The 3pm ET hour was billed as America's Weather Center with Ian Oliver and Kelly Costa hosting together.