Spring Rubber

Fox Weather @ Night returned to the lineup tonight after several nights off the air, as Haley was working various day shift assignments the past few days. Still fun having a show that may or may not air on any given night on this ever-reliable program schedule.

I left the show on in the background throughout the afternoon. The show is almost 100% driven by conversations between Bob and other Fox Weather meteorologists and reporters. Basically every segment featured a different guest: Michael Estime, Ari Sarsalari, Ian Oliver, Kiyana Lewis, Robert Ray, and Greg Diamond (senior weather producer). Every hour is not fully live, but each hour is presented in a different order and with a slightly different arrangement of guests; for example, Robert Ray was not in hour 1, but he was in hour 2 (new) and hour 3 (recording from hour 2). On the other hand, Michael Estime led off hour 1, but hour 2 kicked off with Ari Sarsalari, who was the second guest in hour 1. The segment "Bob's Bet," where the guest who correctly answers a trivia question picks the music for tomorrow's show, returns from the beta test that they did for this show several weeks ago the last time that Bob anchored a full week of America's Weather Center.

Looks like Bob Van Dillen's new show is retaining the America's Weather Center name, but indeed, the show is now housed in the studio adjacent to the Fox News Newsroom. Michael Estime hosted Weather Command today (in for Stephen) and appears to be the first guest meteorologist on Bob's show.

It took me a few seconds to realize BVD was referring to himself and not the brand of underwear. Beyond that, I'm curious about the fact that he's wearing causal clothing, and the fact that the picture was taken inside the Fox News newsroom. I wonder if either of these things have anything to do with the new show. And on a separate note, despite the fact that Haley Meier was there Mon-Wed this week, Fox Weather @ Night did not air the entire week. Haley instead played the second fiddle role on Fox Weather Live while Kiyana hosted the show in Steve's absence. It seems a bit unusual, given that Haley has played the second fiddle role on that show in the past while still hosting Fox Weather @ Night the same evening. Makes me wonder if this is RIP to Fox Weather @ Night for the third time.

TWC rolled out "new" graphics today. Why do I put quotation marks around "new"? Well, that's because they basically said to the graphics designer, "We want the same thing as our current look, but pretend you're a graphics designer working in the mid-to-late 2000s, early HD era." My crappy phone pics likely do not do justice to the glorious, shiny 3D effects...

Haley Meier was assigned to fill in on Fox Weather First Weekend today, so that means that people who may have been tuning in tonight to see their weather for the upcoming work week are not getting that. Instead, Fox Weather switched over to reruns of Park'd at 6pm ET. The fact that Sunday-Thursday evening programming revolves around whether or not Haley Meier (and Kelly Costa before that) is available to record a show in the timeslot is just absurd. I know I said this a few posts ago, but I just cannot get over how stupid this is. I guess I could even respect putting an automated loop of weather maps in this timeslot when Haley is unavailable to do a show, but airing Park'd reruns instead is just terrible.

I woke up a bit early today. I see that Britta was in the third seat for the first hour of Weather Command, while Kendall came in for the second hour (and presumably beyond). Now that Fox Weather First is back to only three hours, I wonder if Britta and Craig will now regularly appear on the first hour of Weather Command, similar to how Britta and Jason used to do the same, the last time that Fox Weather First was a three-hour show.

With the FBN simulcast being added to weekdays, it looks like Fox Weather First has been rescued out of the small old Fox Business studio and moved back into the main Studio W. Also, that simulcasted 5am ET hour is now a two-anchor show instead of Britta solo. Looks like it's usually Craig Herrera as has been common lately.

You might even say that David is doing... Yeoman's work. I'll show myself out...

Over on WGN's side, one thing that stuck me is that on multiple occasions, Micah had to step in and re-focus the discussion, especially as it pertains to "What areas are currently under a warning, and the threat is imminent? What areas has the leading line of storms already cleared, and thus the warnings have been lifted?" This seems like something the meteorologists should be able to do on their own, but on several occasions, I found myself happy that Micah interrupted to get this pertinent information out to the viewers.

I believe last night was the first time that both Brant and Pete were away from the station during major severe weather coverage, right? Definitely a stress test for the young guns. I will say that I tended more toward ABC7 last night as a result.

Ah ok, this will actually help his job security, in that case.

Guess Max Gorden wasn't dramatic enough like Robert Ray to survive the layoffs.

Now can they go ahead and remove her and Jason's bios from the website, or did they lay off the one person who knew how to do that?

I cannot get over what they did stage left with the "blah" colored wall with the CBS eye, and then the set just ends in the middle of the room.

Also, to put things further into perspective, Fox Weather @ Night simply doesn't air on nights that Haley Meier is out. Instead, reruns of Fox Weather Live with Steve Bender (the 6pm ET show) run all night until live programming resumes at 5am ET the next morning. Has anyone else ever heard of a network where a show simply doesn't air on weeknights where the host has scheduled time off, instead of utilizing a fill-in host? That tells me how spread thin the network is. They're not being allowed the resources they need to operate properly.

I don't think they're going to make it. Already, most dayparts are no longer fully live, instead recycling content from the first hour of any given show. It just keeps getting worse and worse.

I saw that NBC's NASCAR coverage is still using the old 2015 graphics as well. This year is the final year of the current NBC contract with NASCAR (they begin a new contract with less races next year), so I'm assuming they're waiting until next year's new contract starts to roll out an overhauled graphics package for NASCAR.

I noticed over the past several weeks that for the solo-hosted shows that originate from the small studio (America's Weather Center and Fox Weather @ Night), they now roll in a monitor behind the host, which displays a background similar to the stand-up desk's background in Studio W. Previously, the hosts of these shows had the small studio's natural background behind them.

They did a simulcast for Hurricane Ian in 2022. I believe it will take a major hurricane of catastrophic impact for that to happen again.

This tells me that he already has inside info that TNT won't be retaining any sort of NBA contact. I'm sure that will be revealed shortly after the NBA Finals end, and then TNT will gear up for its farewell season.

Looks like Fox Weather was surprisingly overstaffed today. Kendall Smith joined Britta and Craig on Fox Weather First today. Can't remember the last time that show has featured three meteorologists before today.

This is now the third iteration of that headline intro graphic (it was originally used on AMHQ last decade before making it to Weather Underground a few years ago). The good news is, the purple background behind the headline text looks a lot more readable than the background on the previous Weather Underground graphic.

I have no idea what's happening with weekends anymore. Fox Weather First was hosted by Michael Estime and Kendall Smith today. As for Fox Weather Live... it's Stephen Morgan and Kathy Orr. (Stephen was given Monday-Wednesday of this past week off to compensate) Both Craig Herrera and Bob Van Dillen worked Monday-Friday this past week. Craig did 4 days on Fox Weather First and 1 day of Weather Command. Bob did America's Weather Center the entire week. It's possible that they might be giving America's Weather Center to Bob. I noticed that on the Thursday edition of the show, they did a segment called "Bob's Bet," which was a trivia question at the end of the show between himself and the guest he was speaking to, with the stipulation that "Closest answer chooses tomorrow's music." This seems like something that you would expect to see if they're trying to shape the show around Bob. As always, I won't hold my breath. We'll see what happens in future weeks.

Looks like nothing's permanent for Fox Weather First. Michael Estime is alongside Britta this morning, and Craig Herrera is going to be on Weather Command instead. It was the exact opposite yesterday. The afternoon America's Weather Center shift is indeed just a rotating cast of meteorologists, with Michael Estime or Bob Van Dillen most common during the early half of the week, and Jane Minar being most common in the second half of the week. Others pitch in as needed. Steve Bender is still the host of Fox Weather Live from 6pm-9pm ET with Kiyana Lewis being a contributing meteorologist to the show.