The Weather Channel

[Georgie56 3059]

The classic LOT8s is back (sort of)…but you’ll have to get up very early to see it.

 

 

[Newsjunkie24 500]

3 hours ago, Georgie56 said:

The classic LOT8s is back (sort of)…but you’ll have to get up very early to see it.

 

 

 

Is this a one-time thing or is this permanent? It's pretty cool to see the retro graphics again. Wish they'd have Allen Jackson's voice on the LOT8's again.

[Georgie56 3059]

21 minutes ago, Newsjunkie24 said:

 

Is this a one-time thing or is this permanent? It's pretty cool to see the retro graphics again. Wish they'd have Allen Jackson's voice on the LOT8's again.

Looks to be permanent, as it’s scheduled for next week as well.

 

There’s another automated program on TWC’s schedule, Twilight LIVE (presumably using the same night maps seen on Pattrn and TWC en Espanol) which airs right after it.

Edited June 27, 2023 by Georgie56

[mightynine 286]

6 hours ago, Georgie56 said:

The classic LOT8s is back (sort of)…but you’ll have to get up very early to see it.

 

 

Well that's....random. With a little bit of tweaking this could be an interesting take on the retro graphics.

 

Or maybe they could just reach out to the Youtubers who got the original hardware up and running and do a different piece of equipment every night of the week!

 

If you're looking for this on your schedule, it's called Retro 8s Live, followed by Twilight Live.

Edited June 27, 2023 by mightynine

[Spring Rubber 609]

I'll be curious to see how many different cities are covered on the Retro 8s. Going to have to remember to DVR it tonight.

 

Also of note, because "Weather Doesn't Happen On Weekends™", both Retro 8s and Twilight Live are only scheduled to air on weekdays; however, because the TWC programming day starts at 5am ET, this means that Retro 8s actually airs Tuesday through Saturday morning at 4am ET while Twilight Live airs Monday through Friday morning at 5am ET.

 

Also, it looks like they have already dumped the Byron Allen game show from their schedule. They must have gotten some backlash for that.

[mightynine 286]

 

Someone has uploaded the full hour to YouTube.

 

They've recreated more than one Local Forecast intro plus there was some limited narration, regional conditions plus satellite and radar and even a travel cities forecast!

 

This is an unusually decent effort for something that runs at 4 in the morning.

Edited June 28, 2023 by mightynine

[Spring Rubber 609]

If only they could have found a way to emulate the text-drawing of the original WeatherStar 4000, especially the clock in the upper right corner that blinks as the seconds tick by. Or heck, even a non-blinking clock in the upper right corner would be cool too.

[east-tx-tv 105]

CBS is partnering with The Weather Channel to provide weather segments/reports during CBS' morning shows and their Evening News.   There will be a viewable Weather Channel feed through CBS' website, also.

 

https://cordcuttersnews.com/cbs-teams-up-with-the-weather-channel/

[Spring Rubber 609]

1 hour ago, east-tx-tv said:

CBS is partnering with The Weather Channel to provide weather segments/reports during CBS' morning shows and their Evening News.   There will be a viewable Weather Channel feed through CBS' website, also.

 

https://cordcuttersnews.com/cbs-teams-up-with-the-weather-channel/

This actually happened a year ago. No idea why that website is publishing this as "news" today. lol

[panewswatcher69 26]

Over this weekend - both on Saturday and Sunday mornings, noticed Reynolds Wolf moving his finger up to his one ear every couple of minutes.  Was he having constant earpiece technical difficulties, earpiece falling out, etc?  Just wondering.

[Megatron81 179]

I wonder when Mollie is coming back I know she had a baby a couple of months ago. Local On The 8s been acting up with Jim kinda going in and out with an echo along with local bug with the 3 countries when it moves can see everything even with the odd bobbing, when it is national forecast with the major cities they don't seem to have that problem. I wonder if that is with Spectrum's end or if that is on The Weather Channel's end.

Edited July 31, 2023 by Megatron81

[Megatron81 179]

I was surprised that Weather Channel was live at 5PM but didn't seem to be an outbreak of severe weather since a lot was just on the slight risk.

[NBC 5 Chicago 164]

Molly McCollum is back from maternity leave. She was doing the weather updates on Pattrn today. Not sure if she was on prior to today. 

 

Also, I've noticed they stopped playing their production music on the Local on the 8s that they've had since 2013. They've instead started playing more jazz music. I think this started around the time when they brought back the Retro 8s hour. 

[TennTV1983 742]

14 minutes ago, NBC 5 Chicago said:

Molly McCollum is back from maternity leave. She was doing the weather updates on Pattrn today. Not sure if she was on prior to today. 

 

Her first day back was this past Monday.

[Spring Rubber 609]

2 hours ago, TennTV1983 said:

 

Her first day back was this past Monday.

Curious to see if she returns to Weekend Recharge and if Lynette remains on that show as well.

[Megatron81 179]

Molly was doing Weekend Recharge Sat & Sun.

[mightynine 286]

I know the two are separate, but The Weather Company is no longer an IBM company - Big Blue sold it to a private equity group.

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/22/ibm-sells-the-weather-channel-and-the-rest-of-its-weather-business.html

 

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/the-weather-company-sold-francisco-partners-1235571884/

 

Quote

The sale marks the end of a seven-year run for The Weather Company at the technology giant, which originally bought the assets as part of a plan to bulk up its data offering and build out its Watson Internet of Things Unit. Now, however, it doesn’t view the asset as part of its core offering. “Over the last few years, we’ve evolved IBM to be a hybrid cloud and AI company,” stated Rob Thomas, svp software and chief commercial officer at IBM, in announcing the sale.

 

Edited August 22, 2023 by mightynine

[Spring Rubber 609]

3 hours ago, mightynine said:

I know the two are separate, but The Weather Company is no longer an IBM company - Big Blue sold it to a private equity group.

 

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/08/22/ibm-sells-the-weather-channel-and-the-rest-of-its-weather-business.html

 

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/the-weather-company-sold-francisco-partners-1235571884/

 

 

It's been such a pain for the last 7 years that The Weather Channel brand is used by two separate companies. While the TV network technically has its own website, they almost never refer to it because they know people will inadvertently go to IBM's TWC website instead.

 

I kinda wish the tech assets and the TV network could get sold to the same owner and unified again.

[mightynine 286]

1 hour ago, Spring Rubber said:

It's been such a pain for the last 7 years that The Weather Channel brand is used by two separate companies. While the TV network technically has its own website, they almost never refer to it because they know people will inadvertently go to IBM's TWC website instead.

Actually, that weloveweather site is dead now so that's why you don't see them mention it anymore.

[Spring Rubber 609]

Just noticed with the Idalia coverage that TWC has switched to Carhartt for their field-reporting gear. Apparently this change went into effect May 2, 2023 with the network's 41st anniversary.

 

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/the-weather-channel-television-network-and-carhartt-announce-new-apparel-partnership-introducing-a-fresh-look-for-the-networks-meteorologists-301813055.html

 

This is the biggest change to date, because gone are the blue raingear outfits previously offered by Lands End, and before them L.L. Bean and Columbia. With the new Carhartt deal, the raingear worn by the field meteorologists is all-black, and during clear conditions, the field mets wear gray Carhartt work shirts. Looks like with this deal, the color scheme is more on-brand with Carhartt itself, rather than TWC. The TWC logo is still featured on all apparel, just the colors are more in-line with Carhartt's typical offerings.

[mrschimpf 2051]

On 8/22/2023 at 1:51 PM, Spring Rubber said:

It's been such a pain for the last 7 years that The Weather Channel brand is used by two separate companies. While the TV network technically has its own website, they almost never refer to it because they know people will inadvertently go to IBM's TWC website instead.

 

I kinda wish the tech assets and the TV network could get sold to the same owner and unified again.

I just want to be able to use my TVE credentials to watch the channel but they have about four different sites and now under ES, it's gotten much worse.

 

And the same confusion exists for Weather Underground, which is both a 'wacky off-the-cuff weather show' on TWC...and a completely boring weather site run by IBM. 

[Spring Rubber 609]

Last week, on Thursday I believe, TWC rolled out a new squeezeback local forecast that airs during programming. It currently takes place at the start of segments at :29, :39, and :59. It does not air at :09 (mid-segment) or at :19 and :49 (directly following the full screen Local on the 8s)

 

 

1) It seems to have all of the features of the full-screen Local on the 8s, aside from the text forecast with narration. But overall, the same weather information is all here, and it also has an hourly forecast, which the Local on the 8s lacks.

 

2) It's interesting that they didn't try to slap Local on the 8s branding on this new feature. This makes me think ownership no longer sees value in that brand and might try to phase it out, which leads me to...

 

3) We've already seen, since Allen Media Group took over in 2018, the Local on the 8s become reduced from "on the 8s of every hour" to a short 1-minute segment that airs only at :18 and :48. I could see this new squeezeback being the precursor to the total elimination of the full screen Local on the 8s segments.

 

Also, within the past ~3 weeks, the Local on the 8s music that had been in place since November 2013 was finally ditched and replaced by what kinda seems like production music.

[NBC 5 Chicago 164]

It has been since I believe around the summer that the music was changed on the Local on the 8s to the jazzier themes. (I actually like them.)

 

The squeeze bar seems redundant when you have the bar at the bottom with basically the same information. Yes it may have expanded capabilities but you have double information. At least it seems like that for the national feed. I have YouTubeTV . It shows current conditions for select cities with the radar at the bottom and cycles through tonight's forecast for those cities. 

 

I was hoping with them doing the retro8s hour and devoting a whole hour to it that they would maybe focus more on one of TWC's main identities and bring more frequent local on the 8s back.  However, like me, more and more people are starting to cut the cord and are streaming. Getting the local weather on streaming isn't possible yet so I could see them phasing it out overall. 

 

In a couple of weeks (11/12) the current graphics and everything will be 10 years old. Yes, they have made tweaks but the overall package and icons will be 10 years old. They've aged well however a refresh would be great. 

 

 

[mightynine 286]

Looks like the Retro Local on the 8s and Twilight Live are dead - schedule now has Heavy Rescue in those timeslots.

[Spring Rubber 609]

With TWC's current set nearing its 10-year mark, it looks like they're committed to renovating the current set instead of building a new one. Both Monday and Tuesday, everything after 1pm ET was housed exclusively in The Lab while work on the main studio is underway. By Tuesday morning, the aging multi-panel stand-up video wall on the right side of the studio was replaced by a brand new single-panel screen.

 

While shows are back in the main studio during the morning hours today, they're not using the telestrator area at all, so it stands to reason that renovations to that part of the set are currently underway. They'll probably move the afternoon shows back to The Lab today while construction continues. I'm expecting it to just be more video screen replacements and maybe lighting upgrades, but we'll see.