Spring Rubber

See guys, we're in Times Square so much that we put a camera shot of it on our VIDEO WALL!

Ok, that makes a little more sense as far as splitting up time shifts somewhat more equally. I wonder if that pair will anchor any other shows later today. They're still doing automated weather maps/skyline views as of 12pm ET. I think they also eliminated the :15 and :45 live updates during these hours. I didn't see one at 12:15pm ET. EDIT: A live update aired at 12:45pm ET with Kendall Smith.

Nice that they put city personalization into these opens with the logos and players on various buildings. Pretty cool compared to some RSN opens of the past.

Oh, weird. I think I tuned in during the 12pm ET hour and saw FWW playing. Were they doing the thing there they were interspersing a couple hours of FWW during the nighttime hours? Because I also saw FWW at 3am ET, then Night Light again at 4am ET. Danielle Gersh is today's afternoon update meteorologist. Her update segment right now has been a bit longer - a bit closer to 2 minutes instead of 1 minute, which is nice. Obviously, she's one of their main weeknight meteorologists, so that does make me think that the people who appear on these weekend updates might still be doing their regular 5-day weekday shifts. Guess we'll find out this upcoming week.

So Night Light is still on the air at 1am ET on weekends, and to my surprise, they are still doing live weather updates at :15 and :45, tonight hosted by Kendall Smith. One thing I've observed tonight and earlier today with Stephen Morgan is that these weather updates are being controlled by the meteorologist with no involvement of a control room. The meteorologist has a touchscreen on their podium where they press buttons to go live, to put up lower thirds, to take the maps full screen, and to send the stream back into the automated programming. I guess it's similar to what local station meteorologists do when they go live with severe weather updates, just with slightly more advanced capabilities. That also explains why when they were going live Thursday afternoon with tornado warning updates, the lower thirds for "Fox Weather Alert" were not animated. I guess they were running on this more basic production platform that's being run by the on-camera meteorologist. Now, does it make sense to be doing these live updates overnight when there's not really anything going on? Probably not. The weather geek in me and fan of TWC's old 24/7 format still appreciates it, but I can't imagine that it makes sense to have an on-air personality there for 6 hours overnight just to go live for one minute every half half hour, then sit around until their next 1-minute segment in the next half hour. Seems like a scenario where you would either want the meteorologist to have longer live segments in order to do a fully-fleshed-out forecast, or simply ditch the overnight meteorologist all together unless severe weather merits having someone on standby. Especially when they're in a position where they have to enter into automation on weekday afternoons due to lack of staffing, it seems weird to be burning on-air staff on the overnights.

Interestingly, "Fox Weather Rewind: Aviation Disasters" was recorded in Fox News Studio J instead of inside the Fox Weather Studio W. I would wonder if perhaps the show may have been recorded prior to the completion of the Fox Weather studio.

So it looks like the weekend afternoon schedule is the automated loop from 12pm ET - 6pm ET. Stephen Morgan provided a 1-minute live segment at :15 and :45 throughout the entire 6-hour block. If he's going to be the regular one doing this, I assume he won't be appearing as the third host on the weekday morning show every weekday going forward. Depending on if he does both Saturday and Sunday or just one of the two days, then I think his weekday appearances will be reduced to 3 or 4 days a week. Looks like a rerun of Fox Weather Wild started at 6pm ET after that screen that Georgie posted. Weird that they have that graphic prepared. Wonder if they would consider taking the live stream down at certain parts on weekends rather than doing the automated loop and/or prerecorded programming? Or maybe it's an idea that they considered in the past but ultimately decided to have something airing at all times.

You mean the Houston Buccaneers are not your favorite sports team? I love how they went full screen forecast on a game that will be played indoors. Somebody should do some research on which games are played inside. I'm surprised that they were insistent on a 3-person team for weekend mornings to where they put Jane Minar in this role. I guess it makes sense that they won't need her to work overnights every night of the week when the weather is quiet. I'm actually curious what her weekday role will be now that we're entering a quiet weather pattern, and there's no need for overnight updates. The weekend morning role is actually good for her in order to get her some regular, prominent airtime. EDIT: Just like weekdays, they enter into an automated loop under the "America's Weather Center" branding at 12pm ET. Will be curious to see if they just stick with this until that special that's airing later tonight or if they actually have any live shows prior to that. At the end of the last hour, production didn't bother to update the script on the prompter, so the hosts still read the script that said, "Coming up on the next hour of Fox Weather Skydome..." and did the full teaser for the "next hour" even though there wasn't going to be a next hour. EDIT 2: Stephen Morgan is live providing a weather update at :15 past under the "Fox Weather Sky Dome" branding.

Interesting, so they definitely do want eyeballs tuning into their platform for special coverage regardless of the time of day. I hope they show a continued commitment to this sort of thing going forward.

Came here to post this as well. And the hosts talked about these games just casually like, "Oh yeah, that's an exciting matchup. Really looking forward to that one!" etc, etc. Kind of embarrassing to be served this old content by the production staff and then just start talking about it on the air without any idea that these were last week's games. I'm sure that this was a graphic that was used during rehearsals that they forgot to update. I might be a bit more understanding if it DIDN'T HAVE THE DATE at the top of the graphic that maybe it would be reasonable that a non-college football fan might not realize that this was outdated, but with the date right there on the graphic, it should have served as a major red flag to anyone on staff to notice this and fix the error. Reminds me of the launch day on Monday when they kept saying over and over that game 1 of the World Series was that night, when really, the game was scheduled for the following night on Tuesday. It took them several hours into the broadcast to realize that they had the date of the game wrong. Also, for the entire day, they kept showing the start time of the Seahawks game as 4:15pm PT, when the real start time was 5:15pm PT. Clearly there's much room for improvement in getting the dates and times of their sports games correct. But hey, at least it's casual Friday? Sounds like she'll be working a Saturday-Wednesday shift and that Ian Oliver and Brigit Mahoney will probably be covering America's Weather Center on Thursdays and Fridays in that case... Wonder if Fox Weather will emulate TWC and just do live shows in the mornings only on weekends.

Looks like both Amy Freeze and Craig Herrera are out today. The evening team of Ian Oliver and Brigit Mahoney are anchoring America's Weather Center along with Steve Bender, who covered the break-in live segments for the past three hours. Interesting personnel setup. Also, why the heck does the morning team anchor a 6-hour shift every day, while almost everyone else is scheduled for a 2, 3, or 4-hour hour on-air shift? Especially Brigit Mahoney, who only anchored two hours each day Monday-Wednesday. Oliver at least joined the Fox Weather Wild team for additional coverage afterward. Are they trying to conserve the hours of a couple meteorologists to provide some weekend update segments here and there?

Looks like we now know why the schedule was displayed as "America's Weather Center" starting at 3 PM ET. Looks like now that we're past the opening day and past the severe weather events of the past two days, the plan going forward is to not have live programming from 12pm ET-3 PM ET. At the start of this hour, they entered into an automated loop of live cam and occasional weather maps with 3-day forecasts for various cities being displayed on the bottom of the screen. I can only assume they will be back live at 3 PM ET, and I'm guessing that this is probably what they'll be airing all day on weekends as well. They are still breaking in live with updates on severe weather throughout the automated programming loop, though, just like in the overnights. Guessing they'll probably keep one meteorologist in standby for these scenarios on weekends as well? Automated live cams: Automated weather maps: Live break-in:

Fox Weather is going in-depth on the two tornado warnings in Texas right now. They're pre-empting all commercial breaks and focusing on both of these tornado warnings nonstop, instead of deviating to less-urgent topics. Update 8:41am CT - they are currently simulcasting KRIV's coverage of the tornado warning in Harris County, TX. Presumabily to give the Fox Weather crew a quick break. 8:42am CT - back to the Fox Weather studio.

Glad to hear that. Something that TWC would never do these days. I didn't have the energy to stay up any later to find out, so thanks for watching and letting us know. Was it Jane the entire night, or did they switch it up at some point?

Night Light began at 12am ET. At the end of the previous shift, they said to stay with Jane Minar overnight for more information, so I'm not sure if they mean that Jane will only break in if there's tornado warnings issued or what the plan is. Jane's already been live for like 5 hours already, so I don't see her being around for much longer if that's the case. TWC also ended their live coverage at 12am ET, so I guess it's the race to...be the same. Update: Jane did a quick scheduled 1-minute segment at 12:15am ET, then back to Night Light. So maybe updates at :15 and :45 or something like that...

Indeed, isn't it lovely? How much you want to bet they spend another few years in rotation mode now.

So they've revealed another on-camera area that's being used on these "small studio" shows. Also, with this segment, we saw the introduction of Jane Minar working in this additional space. Unfortunately, the segment was a total disaster, as the maps on the screen were unable to advance. Jane also asked for help in advancing the maps, but to no avail. They bailed out of this segment very quickly, as Jane tossed it back to Ian at the desk to continue to the next topic.

They're using Steve Bender as the third meteorologist on this show, in place of Kendall Smith, who was on at this time yesterday. Kendall was used as a correspondent this morning on the AM shows, reporting on the Nor'easter live from Fox Square, outside their studio. So basically swapping both of their on-air roles between correspondent and in-studio meteorologist.

Interesting, so Steve Bender is only listed on their website as a field correspondent, but here they are using him as an in-studio meteorologist today. Wonder if other field correspondents will also be used in-studio throughout the week/on weekends?

Despite America's Weather Center's first day of coverage originating from the main studio, their second day of coverage is originating from the same "secondary" location where yesterday's edition of America's Weather Tonight originated. I wonder if going forward, the main studio will be reserved only for their "big" shows of Fox Weather Sunrise, Fox Weather Skydome, America's Weather Now, and Fox Weather Wild? I wonder where in the building this secondary studio is. They never seem to do any wideshots in here based on the way last night's coverage west, so I can only assume that this is a pretty tiny setup with probably nothing more than one anchor desk and one stand-up monitor. Some pics of this secondary studio: They are using a chroma key wall on this setup as well... And, uh... nice overhead lights?

Redder than ever... And they have also added a box in the lower right corner advertising their all-night coverage, just like TWC.

Weird, and they just as quickly backed off of it and went back to normal. I think they're definitely toying around with "how RED to we want to go right now?"

The intro graphics used at the top of the hour:

Market competition did not take long to put TWC into action. TWC just announced that they will be live "all evening long" with severe weather coverage tonight. When they say this, that typically means going until 12am or 1am ET. Of note, they are doing this tonight with an Enhanced Risk area and only a 5% tornado probability. In recent years, TWC has only extended their coverage in cases of Moderate Risk 15% tornado probability, and to-date in 2021, they seem to have raised the standard to High Risk and 30% tornado probability, as there were several 15 % Moderate Risk tornado days in 2021 that TWC completely blew off and ended coverage at the usual time. They only did extended severe coverage on March 17th and March 25th this year, both High Risk days. This is clearly a case where they feel the need to stand up to Fox Weather in their 2nd day on the air, trying to win the severe weather coverage game tonight. Will be curious to see how Fox Weather responds after 10pm ET if TWC stays live later than that. EDIT: I just realized they're doing this because of the Nor'Easter instead of because of the severe weather in the plains. That makes a lot more sense. Modern TWC only cares about bad weather in the northeast and the tropics and basically disregards every horrible event that impacts the rest of the country. So this is actually right in line with modern TWC standards. Now I'm actually curious if both networks will blow off the severe weather in the plains and just focus all resources on the Nor'Easter coverage instead. I just tuned into Fox Weather, and they're already in all-red graphics mode "FOX Weather ALERT" for the Nor'Easter coverage.

Looks like Fox Weather Wild repeats at 10pm ET, and it's an exact repeat of the 9pm ET hour, including the severe weather warnings from last hour and everything. That's a pretty bad idea. Wonder if they're just going to repeat this hour over and over again until 1am ET.