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The Rise of First Alert


Jess

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Is it me or has the amount of stations using some form of "First Alert Weather" exploded in the last year?

 

I mean, it's always been popular, but it just got picked up. IN CHICAGO. ON THE ABC OWNED STATION. (

)

 

A bunch of NBC O&Os picked it up in the last year as well: Philadelphia, Miami, Dallas, and Connecticut all have First Alert. WUSA 9 in DC is using First Alert (an obnoxious version of it) - I think that was post the graphics change last year?

 

Whatever the case, it's been spreading pretty quickly from station to station. It almost seems like the new "AccuWeather". It's not like it hasn't been around, but in the past it was apparently much more difficult to get the license to use the name. I remember that KYW wanted to use "First Alert" back in 2002, but settled for "First Warning Weather" (which it quickly dropped).

 

Also, there's this concept of "Alert Days" that seems to be popping up, both with this brand and without it. I know WCAU declares "Alert Days" a few days in advance, and some of the NBC stations even incorporate it into their regular on-air graphics and bugs.

 

It's just something I've noticed... and I might be just be too "plugged in", but "First Alert" seems to be a thing now.

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A lot of NBC affiliates have been using First Alert period. In the Florence/Myrtle Beach market, WPDE has been using First alert for about 7+ years and all of a sudden, the change to First Warning because WMBF (Raycom) has launched the First Alert theme with the new graphics and it seems like WIS may have been using as well in Columbia.

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A lot of NBC affiliates have been using First Alert period. In the Florence/Myrtle Beach market, WPDE has been using First alert for about 7+ years and all of a sudden, the change to First Warning because WMBF (Raycom) has launched the First Alert theme with the new graphics and it seems like WIS may have been using as well in Columbia.

 

WBTV (note a Raycom station) have been using the using the First Alert weather name since 2012 and also WOIO in Cleveland as well.
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Don't know how long they've been using it, but WTEV/WAWS is using the First Alert branding.

 

WUSA 9 in DC is using First Alert (an obnoxious version of it) - I think that was post the graphics change last year?

It was a few months after the graphics change.
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KMBC has been using the First Alert Weather moniker for I don't even know how long. Has it been over 10 years now? I wouldn't be at all surprised.

 

Personally, I hate it, even more so now that it's spreading like wildfire. It's so generic and cliche and lacks any originality. To me, it's something that stations go to when they want their weather department to be labeled as more than "Channel 1 Weather" but can't think of anything else unique. They also see that many other stations are using it "so it must be popular" and they take it and run.

 

I guess that you could make the argument that in today's world of alerts and push notifications, "First Alert Weather" gives off the impression of you getting an "alert" to your phone or computer, except it's over the air. If that station has a designated weather app that alerts you of severe weather conditions or weather related updates/stories in general, then it truly is a "first alert."

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KMBC has been using the First Alert Weather moniker for I don't even know how long. Has it been over 10 years now? I wouldn't be at all surprised.

 

Personally, I hate it, even more so now that it's spreading like wildfire. It's so generic and cliche and lacks any originality. To me, it's something that stations go to when they want their weather department to be labeled as more than "Channel 1 Weather" but can't think of anything else unique. They also see that many other stations are using it "so it must be popular" and they take it and run.

 

I guess that you could make the argument that in today's world of alerts and push notifications, "First Alert Weather" gives off the impression of you getting an "alert" to your phone or computer, except it's over the air. If that station has a designated weather app that alerts you of severe weather conditions or weather related updates/stories in general, then it truly is a "first alert."

WXYZ and Scripps implemented it in 2011 as

"7 FIRST ALERT WEATHER" replacing "Doppler 7 Weather" and developed "FIRST ALERT STORM THREATS" for summer and new this winter was a "ROAD WEATHER INDEX". They do not have a seperate weather app, which is a better way of doing it. A seperate weather app to alert you is kinda rediculous. They consistently get the warnings out first in their regular app and go into rolling weather coverage for severe weather, breaking into programming and such quite often to cover it. The indexes tend to be very accurate and give a good idea of what's going on generally in the area. I think this is probably one of the better implementations of it. Weather heavy newscasts are not uncommon there and they will just do weather if the severe weather is going on during the news and get back to it every 5 minutes. I'm not sure if there are similar versions of it out there that run the same way and break in that much.

 

Scripps developed the "Storm Sheild" app for the group, all it is really is an automatic weather radio app customizable to the area and that goes well with it and gets promoted at the end of every weather forecast.

 

One of things about the WLS version is the bars showing intensity are horizontal which is harder to read, WXYZ's are vertical and use colors (Green Yellow red to indicate severity) I think colors and graphs are common, not sure on vertical vs. Horizontal. It also has numbers to drive it home. Kind of over the top and helpful at once. First Alert can be good if the station commits to extremely heavy weather coverage and actually follows through on the name. If they don't then it's just a gimmick and more like lip service.

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One of things about the WLS version is the bars showing intensity are horizontal which is harder to read, WXYZ's are vertical and use colors (Green Yellow red to indicate severity) I think colors and graphs are common, not sure on vertical vs. Horizontal. It also has numbers to drive it home. Kind of over the top and helpful at once. First Alert can be good if the station commits to extremely heavy weather coverage and actually follows through on the name. If they don't then it's just a gimmick and more like lip service.

 

Market 4 is probably the prototypical weather crazy market - all of our stations are weather heavy. They have been since, well, either 1991 (when KYW introduced A-block weather on The News Tonight) or 1994 (when WCAU introduced Earthwatch), take your pick.

 

And as for comitting to extremely heavy weather coverage? Since WCAU has had days of storm coverage when they went on at three in the god damn morning... I don't think I have to say anything else. They've also been actually using 10.2 as their backup channel, and they've switched there several times in order to clear Today on 10.1. 10 will, and has, backed up its slogan. (Or slogans - they recently started using "Count On It". 3am news, and a permanent 4am start time backs that up.)

 

On the other stations, WPVI has AccuWeather. Or they use the name "AccuWeather". Honestly I don't know what portion of 6ABC's weather is from AccuWeather and what portion is self-generated. The radar and weather app are branded as StormTracker 6, and WPVI stays away from some of the more annoying AccuWeather things like "RealFeel". (They use dew points rather than relative humility and they do just say 'wind chill'.)

 

CBS 3 has Eyewitness Weather and they provide reports to 1060 outside of morning drive. (Elliot Abrams and AccuWeather still rule there.) I love Kate Bilo, I can tolerate Kathy Orr, I can kind of get through Justin Drabick, and the less said about Katie Fehlinger the better. (Oh yeah, Carol Erickson is awesome too.) Fox 29 - well, they're short staffed always, but I like Scott Williams.

 

Best weathercasters in market? Probably Hurricane, Kate Bilo, and Cecily Tynan, in that order. Outside of TV, though, Gary Statskowski and - wait for it - John Bolaris have been good.

 

Oh, yes, and I have to mention that Bolaris is setting up his own website. Somebody needs to use this as a brand name:

 

WeatherSavior.com.

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Market 4 is probably the prototypical weather crazy market - all of our stations are weather heavy. They have been since, well, either 1991 (when KYW introduced A-block weather on The News Tonight) or 1994 (when WCAU introduced Earthwatch), take your pick.

 

And as for comitting to extremely heavy weather coverage? Since WCAU has had days of storm coverage when they went on at three in the god damn morning... I don't think I have to say anything else. They've also been actually using 10.2 as their backup channel, and they've switched there several times in order to clear Today on 10.1. 10 will, and has, backed up its slogan. (Or slogans - they recently started using "Count On It". 3am news, and a permanent 4am start time backs that up.)

 

On the other stations, WPVI has AccuWeather. Or they use the name "AccuWeather". Honestly I don't know what portion of 6ABC's weather is from AccuWeather and what portion is self-generated. The radar and weather app are branded as StormTracker 6, and WPVI stays away from some of the more annoying AccuWeather things like "RealFeel". (They use dew points rather than relative humility and they do just say 'wind chill'.)

 

CBS 3 has Eyewitness Weather and they provide reports to 1060 outside of morning drive. (Elliot Abrams and AccuWeather still rule there.) I love Kate Bilo, I can tolerate Kathy Orr, I can kind of get through Justin Drabick, and the less said about Katie Fehlinger the better. (Oh yeah, Carol Erickson is awesome too.) Fox 29 - well, they're short staffed always, but I like Scott Williams.

 

Best weathercasters in market? Probably Hurricane, Kate Bilo, and Cecily Tynan, in that order. Outside of TV, though, Gary Statskowski and - wait for it - John Bolaris have been good.

 

Oh, yes, and I have to mention that Bolaris is setting up his own website. Somebody needs to use this as a brand name:

 

WeatherSavior.com.

I would agree with Philly being big on weather, outside of 7 here (which does weather in A and C blocks for every newscast except 6pm) there isn't a huge focus on it. They use "Feels Like" or "Wind Chills", lots of leeway and different graphics and each of the 4 meteorologists has certain versions they prefer so it keeps it interesting. Usually there's a new map version once every couple weeks. For awhile the current conditions were rarely shown in favor of the Next storm that was coming at the 7-day and the days highs etc. Their new WNBC sourced ND is getting back to more traditional structure. Nice to see how things are now every now and then too. 3am is a bit much, they start at 430 here normally and 4 if there's a winter storm or other issue that makes it worthwhile since commuters get up earlier. Otherwise who in the world is up at 3am?

 

One thing that makes Detroit unique and would never justify earlier than 4 or a permanent 4 is that we don't have any mass transit so everybody commutes in their car and things don't really get going till 6 or 630 commute wise. And even then it can take longer than that to get it going some days.

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WABC dropped the Stormwatch name last year in favor of Accuweather Alerts; WNBC's still using Storm Team 4.

 

I've noticed WNYW has picked up on the more "alert" favored special weather reports. The VO now says "From fox 5 news, this is a weather alert". It seems however that they dropped their "new york weather authority" brand that they've used for such a long time.

The best weather people here in NY, in order, in my opinion is this:

1. Craig Allen-WCBS 880 radio and WPIX on weekends (yeah he works at a crappy station like PIX, but he's simply the best in the meteorological world NY really has to offer. He offers great info and most would agree he is right on the ball with his forecasts 90-95% of the time.

2. Bill Evans- very good meteorologists at WABC, great personality and his forecasts are pretty accurate.

3. Nick Gregory- very experienced meteorologist at WNYW, his forecasts are usually right on the money

4. Amy Freeze- WABC, excellent, (let's face it, pretty), very smart and is pretty accurate.

5. Vanessa Murdock- WCBS, excellent

6. Chris Cimino- WNBC, excellent

7. Joe Cioffi- WPIX fill-in, very well known met.

8. Lee Goldberg-very good over at WABC, usually delivers a flawless presentation

9. Janice Huff- she's also very good, and delivers good information over at WNBC

10. Lonnie Quinn- WCBS, very demonstrative, uses great weather analogies and has a great personality. When it comes to his overall presentation, he's made a few mistakes in the weather info., made a few typos in the graphics, etc. But overall he usually does a great job. BTW, he's not degree'd met.

11. Audrey Puente at WNYW

12. Elise Finch- WCBS, very accurate and offers good info. She just has to learn to calm down a little and breathe and take her time if you know what I mean.

There are others at cable stations like Rich Hoffman at News 12 LI that are great as well, and the list could go on forever.

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KENS 5 has had the brand since 2012. Before then it was VIPIR 5. No "First Alert Days" or any other gimmicks like that. Just a brand for them. And the first forecast at the beginning of the show they refer to it as the first alert such as "Jared Silverman is standing by in the weather center with your First Alert".

 

As for being weather heavy, WOAI is the one here, by far. They break into programs if there is light rain in the viewing area (I'm not exaggerating, they can and have broken in during light rain). They have their "4-Zone Forecast", mobile storm chaser, claim Weatherate certified them as "Most Accurate" (the whole Weatherate thing is BS but there's people out there, like a friend of mine, who actually believe them). They have calmed down with the cutins since Sinclair took over but during Newport it was out of control.

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KENS 5 has had the brand since 2012. Before then it was VIPIR 5. No "First Alert Days" or any other gimmicks like that. Just a brand for them. And the first forecast at the beginning of the show they refer to it as the first alert such as "Jared Silverman is standing by in the weather center with your First Alert".

What exactly is a first alert day? We don't use those here so I haven't seen that gimmick yet.
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  • 2 weeks later...
  • 2 weeks later...
On the other stations, WPVI has AccuWeather. Or they use the name "AccuWeather". Honestly I don't know what portion of 6ABC's weather is from AccuWeather and what portion is self-generated. The radar and weather app are branded as StormTracker 6, and WPVI stays away from some of the more annoying AccuWeather things like "RealFeel". (They use dew points rather than relative humility and they do just say 'wind chill'.)

At least in Austin's version of the Fox-AccuWeather deal, the only thing they seem to be doing is cross-promoting each other. There were a couple of (non-)storms this winter when AccuWeather.com was insisting that there would be substantial snow and ice and KTBC's on-air forecast was for cold with a few sprinkles at most.
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