Spring Rubber

They are back in the main Studio W for Across America. This show uses a decidedly more middle-America rural backdrop as opposed to the city skyline-type graphics used on all of the other shows. As for the opens and music? It's all the same as the "Across America" segments that feature the regional O&O meteorologists. It's definitely a weird branding decision to have "Across America" continue to be used for both purposes. They are also branding the show as "A New Way to Look at Weather". And what they claim to mean by this is that instead of taking a region-by-region forecast, the show will be focused on each individual storm system as it moves across the country, first explaining how it impacts the west coast, then how it impacts the center of the country, and then how it will impact the east coast. I don't personally think it's anything different than any of the other shows; seems like just a marketing/branding sort of thing.

You can modify the lighting all you want, but you can't make the tiny shoebox of the studio any bigger than it previously was! While John gets a different TV screen away from the anchor desk to stand in front of, Stephen simply has to use the same monitor that they use as a background at the anchor desk! You can see the anchor desk literally right there in front of the TV screen that Stephen uses while presenting. The small size of this set never ceases to amuse me, but they're making the best of it as much as possible! For variety purposes, they are also using the chroma key wall from time to time, just as they also did on America's Weather Tonight last year... EDIT: they just announced that Katie Garner will be surprisingly subbing for Brigit Mahoney on the debut edition of Fox Weather: Across America, and they have updated the graphic accordingly:

Wow, they are indeed back in Studio K for America's Weather Center, which hasn't been seen on-air since America's Weather Tonight was cancelled on 12/9/2021. They have ditched the sit-down desk in favor of a stand-up desk, and they have completely re-done the lighting, making the lighting on the anchors much warmer, as well as adding a ton of lighting embedded into the walls. The lighting is 1000% better now.

Wonder if that will bring an end to any NBC O&O reporting or live cams that would still appear on TWC from time to time.

Katie Garner is hosting Sky Dome from NYC. Wonder if this is just a day 1 arrangement and if we'll see her back at WOFL at any point in the near future.

Quick add-on thoughts: 1) If we want to see all of the proper opens, bumps, everything, we'll have to keep an eye out for all of that today, as it looks like Tuesday is going to be somewhat of a severe weather event in the central-southern plains, followed by possibly a rather intense severe outbreak in the south on Wednesday. So much of the Tuesday-Wednesday opens will probably be Fox Weather Alert opens, and if there's any devastation from the severe weather, Thursday and Friday coverage might be a bit abnormal due to live reports on the aftermath of the storms. 2) I think the daytime automated loop may be completely dead now, as they actually dumped the automated loop from weekends back in December when they replaced it by an all-long form weekend afternoon lineup. 3) With the expanded weekday lineup, I wonder if there's any chance of them bringing back Studio K, the tiny little box set that was used October-December for America's Weather Tonight. They haven't used that studio at all since December, so I suspect that they will avoid it completely and just use the far-nicer main Studio W for all shows, but I guess we'll see.

I always thought Sky Dome was a weird name. I was hoping that branding would be gone and that America's Weather Tonight would be the revived title, but oh well, beggars can't be choosers. With this change, I'm curious if Amy Freeze and Craig Herrera will still have a Monday-Wednesday presence on one of the shows. With the old arrangement, they hosted America's Weather Center Mon-Wed while Ian and Bridget hosted Thu-Fri. Under that previous schedule, Ian and Bridget's role was as secondary co-hosts of America's Weather Now alongside Marissa and Nick five days a week, so that they could still have a full-time presence on the network after America's Weather Tonight got cancelled. I also wonder what Kendall Smith's role will now be, as she used to be full-time host of the 9am-12pm block of Sunrise. Any idea what's airing in the 5am EDT hour? That hour is strangely not accounted for in the lower-right schedule ticker.

They had Katie Garner on as an extra host on America's Weather Weekend this morning. She was just sitting in front of a generic background that was no better than any of the work-from-home setups that they used back in January. It's hard to tell if she was at home or at WOFL, although given the blueness of the lighting, I wouldn't be surprised if she was in the WOFL studio. She wasn't doing any stand-up bits from what I could tell. Whenever she did weather maps, it would just be in a split screen with her remaining seated.

Yep, the moment they ended weeknight weather last year and told Albert Ramon the best they could offer him was weekends, it was all over for any hope of NewsNation covering weather.

Overnight coverage is originating from both NYC with Jane Minar and Orlando with Katie Garner. They are not using a control room and are instead just alternating "emergency override control" segments on their own. As a result, they can't appear on the same blocks together, so they're just alternating blocks. i.e. Jane hosts the A block; uses the touchscreen to end the override and head to break; Katie hosts the B block; goes to break; Jane hosts the C block, and so on. They have revamped the WOFL setup a bit, adding in a background. Also, despite still not having a proper wireless mic and IFB setup, at least now Katie has a bit more slack in her wires so that there's not the concern about moving too far from the wall and pulling a wire. The lighting may need a bit of work. The blue lighting is strongly casting on Katie's arm whenever she uses the touchscreen. They could probably turn that down a bit. She also has to turn off to the side and walk halfway off cam whenever she needs to manipulate something on the computer because they weren't able to get a podium with a computer set up in the on-camera area as of yet. Overall, kudos to them again for staying live all overnight. TWC ended coverage at 1 AM ET.

Methinks they need to put that Cardinals logo on a blue background and/or find a better way overall to represent the Cardinals logo.

I bet the the new MASN graphics are going to be the most generic possible idea of flat design, to the point where it feels like someone thought it up in 20 seconds. (I hope I'm wrong).

The first of former TWC talent to be recruited, I see...

Wow, I'm shocked. I figured Buck would be a Fox lifer. Well, I guess this eliminates any concern about the MNF booth having/not having chemistry. They're inheriting a 20-year pairing of commentators. I guess we'll see how Fox chooses to shift their current talent to make new #1 teams for both NFL and MLB now.

11:30am ET? Yikes!

Sounds pretty beneficial for ESPN. I'm guessing they wanted to get rid of the Monday/Wednesday games because those were always shared with the RSNs and were non-exclusive. Getting the new Wild Card series as a trade-off ought to bring in a lot more eyeballs for those games. Might actually give them a reason to hype up MLB during a time of year that they're normally only talking about football and basketball.

Fox Weather has added one more hour of live programming to their schedule. America's Weather Center now starts at 2pm ET instead of 3pm ET. This appears to be a permanent change, as the show time has been updated accordingly on their "Schedule ticker" that sometimes appears in the lower right corner of the screen.

Well, clearly they have some work to do as far as getting a wireless mic/IFB system set up at WOFL for the Fox Weather meteorologists. Katie Garner took over from WOFL at the top of this hour, and as you can see from behind her head, her mic and IFB are hard-wired into a wall port instead of being wireless. This certainly looks rather uncomfortable and also potentially dangerous if you walk just a few too many steps away from the wall.

There are at least two, possibly three damaging tornadoes confirmed on the ground right now in Arkansas. Fox Weather has been live already for several hours. TWC is again not covering it because to them, "Weather doesn't happen on weekends". Jane Minar did confirm a few minutes ago that the coverage we're seeing at night is from their new WOFL bureau. She mentioned that Katie Garner will be hosting tonight's live coverage from Orlando. So looks like both Kelly Costa and Katie Garner are now in place to start hosting from Orlando. All we saw last night was just that single camera setup with the touchscreen and plain blue background. I'm sure that's again what they'll be using tonight. I'm curious to see if they'll be building a proper set down there in Orlando or just sticking with a very simple setup. I guess it will depend on if they plan on broadcasting there on a daily basis or if they plan on only using a single-cam setup for extended live coverage hours.

Looks like Kelly Costa made her on-air debut at the top of this hour. I don't recognize this studio at all...so is this at WOFL?

There's severe weather with numerous tornadoes happing now in Iowa. Fox Weather is covering it live. TWC is not covering it. Fox Weather is 1000x more attentive to severe weather/tornadic events, while TWC has a massive bias toward tropical systems and winter storms. The execs over at TWC seem to like tropical/winter weather better because they're a "sure bet", and they have multiple days in advance to schedule on-air shifts and send meteorologists out into the field. Severe weather, on the other hand, is more prone to have less days notice in advance, and also a greater chance of being a total bust if the tornado outbreak fails to materialize. TWC seems to have no interest in covering an event that's not a "sure thing". One note about Fox Weather's coverage is that they're not using a control room / main studio / multiple hosts. It's just nonstop solo-hosted "emergency break-in" style coverage with Jane Minar where she stands at the podium near the weather center and controls the broadcast herself using the touchscreen on the podium. I don't know why TWC refuses to do something like this when they're unsure of the potency of a severe weather event. It seems pretty cost effective compared to having a full staff there during off-peak hours, and at least it gives Fox Weather the ability to be live to cover this outbreak, especially when things get a lot more severe than originally forecasted.

Wow, nobody else was available today, eh? Very rare to see your weeknight evening meteorologist have to do a split shift like that.

I can't say I'll ever understand the shifts they use to staff the network. This morning, I saw that John Marshall was filling in for Stephen Morgan in the 9am-12pm block of Sunrise. To my surprise, John Marshall is back on the air now as the "third meteorologist" on America's Weather Center alongside Craig and Amy. I'm surprised they still have him on his usual afternoon spot despite doing the morning fill-in shift, especially considering that Craig and Amy are both in today.

https://www.robertfeder.com/2022/02/24/robservations-fox-32-hires-anita-blanton-morning-anchor-courtney-cronin-cover-bears-espn-len-kaspers-sonic45-releases-video/ Fox 32 brings aboard Anita Blanton to co-anchor Good Day Chicago, but wait, Feder's saying just as part of a rotation and not as a permanent co-anchor? So just to get this right because I don't watch them on a regular basis, they haven't had a permanent co-anchor pairing to date? And they still won't even after hiring Anita?

Wow, that's a surprise out of left field. I see that they have already announced that Katie Garner and Kelly Costa will be the meteorologists based out of that location. Katie Garner has been with them in NYC since December, while Kelly Costa just joined them this past week from WWLP-TV in Springfield, MA. Kelly Costa announced on Twitter that she will be primarily based in Orlando, but she will be also flying to NYC as needed. I'm guessing that Katie Garner will be doing the same. I'm confused why they would even need additional fill-in help in NYC, considering that they already have Kiyana Lewis, Steve Bender, and Jane Minar available as fill-ins, plus they're already super overstaffed Monday-Wednesday because they have Craig, Amy, and John there in addition to everyone else that works Monday-Friday. The only thing I can hope is that the addition of the Orlando bureau means that they'll be adding an additional daily live show from there. I hope they're not planning on only using it on severe weather coverage days.