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DirecTV ready to dump The "Weather" Channel?


tyrannical bastard

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http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-fi-ct-directv-weather-20131226,0,3840158.story#axzz2ob526yxj (from LA Times)

 

I noticed that WeatherNation made their debut a few days back. Now it's being claimed that TWC's deal is about to expire with DirecTV.

It's good to see a channel that actually covers the weather 24/7 as opposed to the manufactured storm names, fake indices, and the other garbage the Weather Channel has slipped into over the past several years.

 

Then again, I think Dish did the same thing a few years back... before WeatherNation was called WeatherNation....

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*siiiiigh*....

 

I hate sounding like I'm advocating TWC's shift to more reality programming. I'm not. I wish it weren't taking up the proportion of the schedule as it is, and that at least they could be like CNBC and just do weather coverage until 8pm EST, then put the reality shows on.

 

At the same time... I don't think there's a valid argument against channel drift anymore. Not when AMC, which is probably the biggest example of channel drift outside of MTV, can boast the second highest rated series on television, "The Walking Dead". Not cable television - ALL of television, broadcast included. Only Sunday Night Football drew a bigger audience.

 

More directly, History and Discovery (the two networks they're trying to target) do INSANELY well in primetime. I hate to say it, but there's an audience for shows like Pawn Trucker Prospectors of the Ice Road Highway to Hell of Alaska. And the Weather Channel covers about 90 million households - they're the number one cable network in terms of reach. That's beachfront property. On a pure business side, of course I'd try to use the network that (when you think about it) is most compatible with that type of programming, and has that type of reach, to go after History and Discovery. Weather, after all, is something you can get on your smartphone, computer, tablet, or other thingie.

 

The problem with this approach is that, when there is severe weather, TWC has to go wall to wall, and on many, many occasions this year they've blown out primetime for coverage. They're trying both to position Weather Channel as a home for weather news while at the same time positioning it as a competitor to Discovery and History. That means that half the time, coverage goes on into the night, the other half of the time, weather coverage essentially stops at 2pm. You can't have it both ways.

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I have turned on TWC several times in the last year to see LIVE weather coverage of events and they weren't on so I turned to CNN. TWC is losing at their own game. If WeatherNation does live coverage, then I would watch.

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What the Weather Channel really needs is true competition. Accuweather ain't sh!t for them. If you had something like WeatherNation start up and eventually begin to take off and steal viewers from TWC because they actually cover the weather without some type of TMZ-like flair to it, then I assure you that TWC would start to get its act together.

 

Of course, the only true way to do that is if DirectTV actually took the Weather Channel off the dial and left WeatherNation there.

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  • 3 weeks later...

From The Hollywood Reporter: Weather Channel, DirecTV Trade P.R. Salvos over Carriage Talks: http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/weather-channel-directv-trade-pr-670046

 

From Deadline Hollywood: The Weather Channel Takes Its Carriage Fight With DirecTV to the People (quote from article below).

http://www.deadline.com/2014/01/the-weather-channel-directv-carriage-dispute/

 

The article has a link called KeepTheWeatherChannel.com.

 

 

 

Today The Weather Channel launched a nationwide campaign to alert DIRECTV customers that they are at risk of losing access to its critical weather programming, and asking them to contact Congress about this public safety issue. The Weather Channel and DIRECTV are involved in negotiations to renew The Weather Channel’s carriage agreement, but to date an agreement has not been reached. If an agreement is not reached by Tuesday, January 14 at 12:01 a.m. ET, DIRECTV viewers will lose access to the 24/7/365 national and hyperlocal weather information that The Weather Channel provides to consumers and communities across the country.

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Now there running commerical ads featuring Jim Cantore presuading viewers to go to keeptheweatherchannel.com to prevent DTV from dropping TWC. They also added a countdown clock on the top of the screen counting down until DirectTV cuts TWC.

 

TWC is getting desperate. They will suffer this consequence if they continue to drop live programming.

 

If I were running TWC, I would do the following things to prevent DTV from dropping TWC:

 

Restore Weather news hours that were cut in the November Relaunch.

Have the National Satellite LDL on at ALL times

Extend LOT8s to 2 minutes.

Add the HD Sidebar to the LOT8s.

Reduce "fluff" or "softball" stories/segments/gimmicks.

Replace Reality Long-Form with Documentary Long-Form.

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This Afternoon Weather Center Live was on when Realty programming was to be and Kelly Cass said for Direct tv people to do that.

 

What they should do is show their Realty programming over night and give like Warren back more hours and Walker and Brown back to 5 days a week,have Champion and Roker together.

 

Accuweather is good.

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Weather Center Live is also on now, during scheduled reality show programming time. Since there's no ridiculously named Winter Storm or anything really severe on the horizon, they're obviously doing this for PR. "See! We're airing weather coverage! We're a life-saving resource!"

 

I've said that this network's problem is that they seem split between being Weather Channel, a network that airs live weather coverage, and WEATHER™, an entertainment network that happens to feature shows that are tangentially about weather and nature. But, now that they're pulling this stunt, and now OUTRIGHT SAYING they're a utility... to me, that means they've chosen to be a Weather Channel.

 

So? Prove it.

 

If you claim to be a critical life-saving resource, then BE ONE. Cover the f***ing weather.

 

Pardon the language, but this is getting out of hand. You can't air reality shows, then go 24/7 nuts with weather coverage, then end it early the next day to show more reality shows. This network is so schizophrenic, it simply cannot build an audience. That hurts both goals.

 

"Critical Life-Saving Resource" means that for the bulk of the day, YOU AIR WEATHER COVERAGE. From at least 5am in the morning until 8pm at night. If you need to "sex up the weather" in order to do this, then go ahead. If you want to air the reality shows, that is totally fine, but air them only after 8pm. No afternoon repeats. No weather coverage ending at 2pm on weekends. You call yourself a utility? Then be a utility.

 

And if you care THAT much about these reality shows, guys, you have a couple of zombie networks lying around. One is Universal HD, which is only watched by my dad because they air WWE repeats all Saturday night... something that WWE will be doing itself in a few weeks. You have Cloo and Chiller, and I doubt you're doing anything with them. Take Universal HD, take one of the SD-only zombie channels, and turn it into Weather2, or Naturality™, or something cute like that that you can trademark. If NBCU wants a competitor to the Discovery Channel, it has ample options.

 

But in convincing viewers that you're needed on DirecTV, if you're pre-empting these shows to prove it, you've made the choice to be The Weather Channel. You've basically made yourself as un-rebrandable as Cartoon Network and Comedy Central. Do the right thing.

 

Rant off. Sorry, this just pissed me off so much.

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Life-saving resource my ass. The Weather Channel now and days is nothing more than a joke.

 

Maybe the management needs to get their head out of their asses and start running The Weather Channel the way it should be run. Besides, they're too stupid enough to realize that covering the weather is serious business.

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I'm pretty much expecting TWC do a commercial with Jim Cantore holding up a puppy by gunpoint and saying "If you don't call DirecTV and tell them you want TWC we'll shoot this puppy. I swear I'll do it!"

 

That's just what this feels like to me, Oh you decide to do weather coverage with a deadline upcoming but outside of that you say screw it let's play ice road truckers outside of that time. That in a nutshell is why I can't wait for TWC to get cut off ASAP!

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This is probably the most desperate "keep our channel on the air" campaign I have ever seen.

 

This is the HD feed of The Weather Channel, as it looked last night:

 

TWCDirecTVPlea-360.jpg

 

As you can see, they really want you to act now and keep this vital, life-saving resource available on DirecTV.

 

Here's the kicker: that was last night at about 11pm. Usually they stop weather coverage at 2pm on weekends. They've been in live weather coverage mode, it appears, since 4:30am yesterday and haven't signed off - they were even live overnight. There's no real big storm out there, or big weather happenings, so they've just been doing weather forecasting non-stop.

 

Additionally, all promotions for long-form/reality programming have been dropped. They're still on the website but on TV they're pretending they've always been 24/7 weather. The spots I do see airing in the promotional slots are either generic IDs, Cantore imploring viewers to visit keeptheweatherchannel.com, and an image campaign that says "THE WEATHER CHANNEL MATTERS". You know, since we've had storms like Sandy and huge tornado outbreaks and freak winter storms, a weather forecasting resource is needed NOW MORE THAN EVER.

 

Nevermind that said weather forecasting resource ends at 2pm on weekends. Nevermind that, up until DirecTV threatened to drop the channel, they were hyping shows like "Highway Thru Hell" to death. DirecTV is threatening to pull what they describe as a service providing crucial public safety and severe weather preparedness programming.

 

By going live all of a sudden and issuing press releases like that, The Weather Channel is ACKNOWLEDGING, whether intentionally or not, that the amount of non-weather programming they have is excessive. Shooting a hole in this whole strategy.

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As you can see, they really want you to act now and keep this vital, life-saving resource available on DirecTV.

 

Here's the kicker: that was last night at about 11pm. Usually they stop weather coverage at 2pm on weekends. They've been in live weather coverage mode, it appears, since 4:30am yesterday and haven't signed off - they were even live overnight. There's no real big storm out there, or big weather happenings, so they've just been doing weather forecasting non-stop.

 

Additionally, all promotions for long-form/reality programming have been dropped. They're still on the website but on TV they're pretending they've always been 24/7 weather. The spots I do see airing in the promotional slots are either generic IDs, Cantore imploring viewers to visit keeptheweatherchannel.com, and an image campaign that says "THE WEATHER CHANNEL MATTERS". You know, since we've had storms like Sandy and huge tornado outbreaks and freak winter storms, a weather forecasting resource is needed NOW MORE THAN EVER.

 

Nevermind that said weather forecasting resource ends at 2pm on weekends. Nevermind that, up until DirecTV threatened to drop the channel, they were hyping shows like "Highway Thru Hell" to death. DirecTV is threatening to pull what they describe as a service providing crucial public safety and severe weather preparedness programming.

 

By going live all of a sudden and issuing press releases like that, The Weather Channel is ACKNOWLEDGING, whether intentionally or not, that the amount of non-weather programming they have is excessive. Shooting a hole in this whole strategy.

 

Those last two paragraphs, Hulkie. It says it all better then I EVER could.

 

It boils downs why TWC's whole issue is of their own making. DirecTV ain't all that innocent, but they have done all the right moves so far even pointing out that about 40% of their programming is reality shows. With them pulling this "Don't yank our asses off of DirecTV" A-Thon. It's just pointing out why they aren't even close to what it used to be and that they are worried about the "new upstart" AKA WeatherNation who could ask for less and do the job of giving the weather better than them.

 

It's all finances, but TWC knows unlike before where they could ask for anything....This time, there is competition, and they want and if they play it right COULD to knock the king off of its perch.

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The only life-saving and necessary resources for weather are NOAA radio and local TV stations.

 

When I heard "life saving resource" my first thought was, isn't local TV that? When there are Tornado warnings in my area, I don't see TWC jumping on to cover towns like Findlay or Upper Sandusky here in Ohio. You know who does? We do, as a engineer/director at a local station WE cover the local weather, not The Weather Channel.

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And right at Midnight on the dot... DirecTV has dropped The Weather Channel.

 

BUT! You could still get the local weather via the red button as of Midnight!

 

EDIT: DirecTV has erased all traces of TWC from their lineup and posted the following on channel 362-1:

 

DIRECTV currently does not have permission to offer The Weather Channel.

 

As an alternative, Please enjoy WeatherNation on Channel 362 for dedicated 24/7 weather coverage.

 

For more information go to www.DIRECTVPromise.com

 

 

And now it is on!

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According to twitter, DirecTV even moved WeatherNation to TWC's now former slot. Just damn...

That was probably DirecTV's plan from the get-go, when they started carrying WeatherNation. Once they saw their opportune time, when the deal wasn't going to be reached, they were going to drop TWC and move WNat in its place.
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