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Digital multicast weather channels


bostonmediaguy

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There are still some TV stations that carry WeatherNation (Some carry the raw feed & others include local weather information.). I think it's pretty safe to say that their popularity has waned, not just due to smartphones, but also due to the internet & streaming (WeatherNation has their own online stream.)

One thing that I've read is that the first TV station to operate a 24/7 weather channel was ABC affiliate, KMIZ-TV, Ch. 17 in Columbia, MO, which launched in late 2003 (It was replaced with MeTV on January 9, 2012.).

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30 minutes ago, Route66Fan said:

There are still some TV stations that carry WeatherNation (Some carry the raw feed & others include local weather information.). I think it's pretty safe to say that their popularity has waned, not just due to smartphones, but also due to the internet & streaming (WeatherNation has their own online stream.)

One thing that I've read is that the first TV station to operate a 24/7 weather channel was ABC affiliate, KMIZ-TV, Ch. 17 in Columbia, MO, which launched in late 2003 (It was replaced with MeTV on January 9, 2012.).

 

I never understood the interest when I could just look up the weather on the AccuWeather app on my smart phone.

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My local CBS station, WSHM, used to have an automated weather look like the one seen on WFSB.  It was replace with Cozi TV in 2015, not that anyone complained. These classic TV reruns are likely drawing in more eyeballs than the weather loop ever did, especially since we don't have MeTV in our market.

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On 11/7/2020 at 5:45 AM, Route66Fan said:

The local 24/7 weather channels kinda predated the popular smartphones by about 4 to 5 years.

This basically summarizes their demise. The idea of having a "local Weather Channel" over broadcast television simply fell apart the moment anyone could use their phone to look up the weather. 

 

NBC giving up on Weather Plus right after they bought into the Weather Channel also said a lot about the longterm viability of these channels. I think that was the peak of these channels. It's been downhill ever sense, with most of them having been replaced by more traditional television channels. WeatherNation seems regulated to the types of -LD's and -CD's that have 13 other channels on them.

 

They weren't even that popular in their very narrow window of relevance. I seem to recall WTMJ's WeatherPlus subchannel just being a constant stream of promos for TV and radio with the occasional paid ad in there. If you were to figure out the cost of taping weather updates for them, they probably lost the station money. Not to mention the systems they ran on (WX+ and Local Accuweather Channel both ran on Scala InfoChannel hardware, which was an early Digital Signage controller) were costly and somewhat unreliable in this role.

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WBAY's is still going strong through four ownership changes, probably because it's on an in-house system (adapted from Young's long-dead software) that all the meteorologists know left-to-right how to fix, there's rural areas in the market where cell phones can be unreliable, and because they have four other subchannel networks they can run off the current multiplexer without much signal loss. It helps that they have a few steady advertisers who bulk-buy with their regular station ads and that the weather department has a sponsorship that comes with the DT2 weather station. But otherwise it's definitely a declining form which a good website/app with the same mapping can easily duplicate.

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Yeah...it doesn't make sense to run a 24/7 weather subchannel if you can get the same info on your phone.

 

WPEC is the only affiliate in South Florida that still has a weather subchannel. That station is tough to get from here (Hi-VHF) in Miami

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  • 3 weeks later...

WoodTV was the first to have a local weather channel that dates back to the spring of 94 which was just radar of the map it wasn't until late 94 when they just added the weather radio to it as Adelphia Commish now Comcast mainly in older neighborhoods on West side of Kazoo county had the channel in 94 which was in there agreement in 93 where cable could've lose the local TV stations. Cablevision which I call Suckvision never did put the local weather channel on and led to a dispute and lose of WoodTV for a year it was pissing match until Jan of 98 a couple days before Super Bowl 32 WoodTV returned to Cablevision only way to watch WoodTV was with rabbit ears. The local weather channel is now WXSP made it a general entertainment in the fall of 99 when it was UPN with Pistons, Redwings & Tiger games. Weather was just on it during late night hours and also a weather update every hour as well when sub-channels became a thing they brought it back which Spectrum aired it on channel 130 until early 2016 Media General moved it to WOTV .4 which was .2 was GetTV 2016 was the last time the local weather channel was seen.

 

I'm kinda surprised that WZZM hasn't gotten rid of the local weather channel with ACCUWeather or moved it out of .2 for Crime True Crime Network & move Quest to .3 Spectrum & Comcast got rid of the OnTarget weather network in 2017 although Spectrum didn't add the WZZM weather network until the summer of 2015 in Kazoo I think Spectrum in Allegan county always had it way back when it made it's debut in mid 2000s.  

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  • 2 months later...
On 11/7/2020 at 8:02 AM, Route66Fan said:

There are still some TV stations that carry WeatherNation (Some carry the raw feed & others include local weather information.). I think it's pretty safe to say that their popularity has waned, not just due to smartphones, but also due to the internet & streaming (WeatherNation has their own online stream.)

One thing that I've read is that the first TV station to operate a 24/7 weather channel was ABC affiliate, KMIZ-TV, Ch. 17 in Columbia, MO, which launched in late 2003 (It was replaced with MeTV on January 9, 2012.).

 

Actually, your wrong. It was WFMZ-TV Allentown who launched the first 24/7 weather channel, in partnership with AccuWeather, back in 2001.

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At the time many of them launched, it was before the smartphone was a part of our daily life and simply, the diginets didn't even exist yet. 

Weather was an easy, turnkey way to start another channel, and many did it with simply putting up their weather radar, or launching a graphical channel with forecast info and short weather snippets (forecasts).

 

By the time multicast networks became available, (and WeatherPlus met its demise), they began fading away.

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11 hours ago, tyrannical bastard said:

At the time many of them launched, it was before the smartphone was a part of our daily life and simply, the diginets didn't even exist yet. 

Weather was an easy, turnkey way to start another channel, and many did it with simply putting up their weather radar, or launching a graphical channel with forecast info and short weather snippets (forecasts).

 

By the time multicast networks became available, (and WeatherPlus met its demise), they began fading away.

 

A few of the stations in Toledo launched all-weather stations on local cable systems back in the mid 2000's. When the transition to digital happened, they became part of the subchannels. Now, only one, (WTVG) still carries a weather-related channel, running WeatherNation.

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WKYT in Lexington still carries a radar loop on 27.4. In 1080 HD too. Used to be on 27.3 in SD, but when they launched Circle, they moved it to 27.4 and upgraded it to HD. Back in the early-mid 2010s, it used to be hooked up to their main MAX box, so you could literally see the meteorologist preparing their show...they'd just have to remember to switch it to radar when they were done.

 

 

Also someone mentioned WCPO, they had a more traditional DT2 weather channel up until sometime in the mid-2010s. Apparently it used to have narrated forecasts by meteorologists, map loops and actual local ads. But sometime between 2013-14 (when I would see it on the rare opportunities that Cincinnati signals would "invade" to my rather southern locale for them), it was switched to just radar with weather radio.

 

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I don't know if it still exists, but WALA used to have a cable-only weather channel for Cox Cable subscribers in the Pensacola area.  Seems odd since they're a Mobile station.

 

WKRG originally had 5.2 as a radar channel with NOAA weather radio audio, but it went away in 2014-15 when it was replaced with Ion.

 

WPMI 15.2 was originally a WeatherPlus staton, but it continued on with graphics modifications and just the forecasts into the Local 15 Weather Network until 2013.

Unlike some of the WeatherPlus affiliates, it didn't get the final revamp (that looked a lot like TWC's look at the time.)  But it was overhauled with the NBC Arthouse package they used until they went HD in 2012.
After that, it's been a WeatherNation affiliate ever since, with local cut-ins, about 9 months after Sinclair (Deerfield) took it over from Newport.

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WFAA in Dallas still has one, on 8.2.  It was partnered with AccuWeather until a few months ago.  Even though "everyone has smartphones", IMO it's good to still have a TV option, if you don't have satellite/cable/streaming, and if you are watching in-between newscasts.  KXAS also had one for a time, but it went away when WeatherPlus folded.

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ACCUWeather finally got rid of local feed I see not many TV station groups carried it anymore I don't think not many carried it when it launched in the mid 2000's. I see that Laura Velasquez is returning home to West Michigan she was the weekend weather met for Wood TV from 2007-14 then went to Denver for one hot minute only stayed for a year then in 2015 went to ACCUWeather I saw her from time to time if I was up in the morning and wanting to get the local weather. I know that Laura is suing ACCUWeather for breaking her contract because of COVID no one else was let go from ACCUWeather but her, Laura is going to be the weather met for WXMI Fox17 she starts up next week Monday Feb 15.

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On 2/5/2021 at 10:25 PM, TheRolyPoly said:

 

Actually, your wrong. It was WFMZ-TV Allentown who launched the first 24/7 weather channel, in partnership with AccuWeather, back in 2001.

I checked & you're right. I had forgotten about WFMZ-TV's 24/7 weather channel. I remember seeing an episode of a PBS travel\folk art show called "Rare Visions & Roadside Revelations", which was produced by one of my local PBS stations (KCPT-TV in Kansas City, MO.) & at the beginning of one episode, the three guys that hosted the show were, I think in a motel room, somewhere in the Philadelphia, PA area & were watching WFMZ-TV's 24/7 weather channel. The episode was made sometime around 2002. Both KMIZ-TV & WFMZ-TV are claiming to have the first 24/7 weather channel, even though WFMZ-TV launched theirs two years before KMIZ-TV's was launched. KMIZ-TV, at least, had the first 24/7 weather channel in Missouri. Thanks for the correction.

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On 2/7/2021 at 1:35 AM, tyrannical bastard said:

WPMI 15.2 was originally a WeatherPlus staton, but it continued on with graphics modifications and just the forecasts into the Local 15 Weather Network until 2013.

KSHB-TV in Kansas City, MO, also did the same thing with their NBC WeatherPlus subchannel on Ch. 41.2, only in 2013, they switched to CoziTV. They have since switched to Grit in early 2020.

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2 hours ago, Route66Fan said:

KSHB-TV in Kansas City, MO, also did the same thing with their NBC WeatherPlus subchannel on Ch. 41.2, only in 2013, they switched to CoziTV. They have since switched to Grit in early 2020.

WFSB and WSHM did the same thing. Both had weather channels, both eventually replaced them with Escape (now Court TV Mystery) and Cozi TV respectively.

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  • 6 months later...
On 2/8/2021 at 2:33 AM, mrschimpf said:

That pretty much makes WMVS/PBS in Milwaukee the only one still running some kind of Local AccuWeather system (of course just the software and maps, not the talent)...we'll see how long it lasts.

 

Actually, not really. I was able to check out Milwaukee PBS' weather channel (WMVT 36.3) thanks to Locast and I didn't see any AccuWeather products on there at all. Just maps, radars, forecasts, traffic cameras and NOAA Weather Radio but that's about it.

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