Spring Rubber

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

Weekend schedules continue to be fluid. Today, Kiyana and Jane swapped places (Kiyana alongside Craig on Fox Weather First Weekend; Jane alongside Michael and Rick on Fox Weather Live). I noticed that Rick has been given a more active role on Fox Weather Live. For the first two hours of today's show, he was a full-on "third" host sharing basically equal on-air time with Michael and Jane. Rick's shift ended at 12pm ET; however, for the 12pm and 1pm ET hours of the show, they re-aired a couple of segments featuring him from earlier in the morning.

So the physical CBS 2 logo on the desk was kept, eh? I figured they would have turned that section into a video screen as well, trying to plan ahead for one day phasing out the CBS 2 logo in the future.

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.

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.

Cuomo officially moved into the big new NYC studio starting tonight. They made a big deal out of it, with him ending the show by walking into the control room and saying hello to the crew in person. Also of note, Banfield originated from the big NYC studio Monday-Friday June 12th-June 16th and Monday-Thursday June 19th-June 22nd. She did the Friday 6/23 show from the traditional flashcam setup, presumably back up in CT. It's unclear if she was just visiting NYC for a couple of weeks or if she's going to start coming there more regularly now. We'll have to wait and find out. During the live toss between Cuomo and Abrams tonight, they joked about how Abrams is still stuck on the old set and that Dan's not "jealous or anything". Side note about Banfield: over the past few weeks, they have slowly evolved the graphical look of the show to remove all of the last vestiges of the original NewsNation dark blue and gold color scheme (the last show on the network to carry those colors), instead switching to a graphics set of varying shades of purple. It took like 3-4 weeks for them to complete the rollout, starting with the logo bug in the bottom right corner, then the double boxes, then the wipes, and finally, on June 12th, the opener. This video from the show last week gives an example of some of the new purple graphic elements, like the wipe and the double boxes. Believe me, you're not missing much with the opener; they basically just changed the logo at the end of it to match the new purple color scheme.

Yeah, they gave Amy Monday-Thursday off last week and had her start the week on Friday. She hosted Weather Command and apparently Outnumbered on Friday, then Fox Weather First Weekend on Saturday, and then Fox Weather Live on Sunday. Weird thing is that on both days, instead of Amy directly filling in for the person who was actually off, they time-shifted the regulars who were present that day. On Saturday, Kiyana was off; however, Jane shifted down to fill Kiyana's slot, while Amy filled in for Jane's normal slot. On Sunday, Jane was off; however, Kiyana moved up to cover Jane's slot, while Amy filled in for Kiyana's normal slot. On both Saturday and Sunday, Rick Reichmuth was a third host on Fox Weather Live. However, unlike back in May when they were having Rick fill-in for the primary hosts, it seems that they're not doing that anymore. There was a significant severe weather event on Sunday afternoon, and again, neither Fox Weather nor TWC went live to cover it. During Fox Weather's first year of existence, they had enough on-air staff to have one meteorologist present on weekend afternoons and evenings to host live break-in coverage without the need for a production staff, which gave them an edge over TWC. Now it seems that they have gotten complacent with just ignoring any severe weather after 2pm ET on weekends. You watch, both Fox Weather and TWC will go live Monday morning with aftermath coverage of Sunday's severe weather, talking about how destructive the storms were. It's hard to take either of the networks seriously when they weren't there to cover it live, when it mattered the most.

Wow, weird to see a total reversion to a previous graphics package in the TV news biz. I've seen cases where someone new takes over shortly after a graphics change, and there's a swift changeover to something completely different (but new), but it's super strange to see a revert back to a previous package. Is there any time in the past that this has ever happened anywhere across the TV news landscape?

This week so far: - They had barely sufficient staffing to run a live full schedule until 10pm ET on both Monday and Tuesday. Amy is out this week, so Stephen has been hosting Weather Command all week. Staffing wasn't great enough to have a three-person show on Monday and Tuesday, so Weather Command was reduced to a 2-person show both days (this has been happening a lot lately). Kiyana had to do a double shift on Fox Weather First/Weather Command on Monday, while Michael had to do a double shift on Weather Command/America's Weather Center on Tuesday. - Brigit is back in NYC, and she indeed appeared on Fox Weather Now both Monday and Tuesday. It's not a full host role, as Ian is still considered the sole host of that show. I guess you could say that she's a "contributing meteorologist" on the show, appearing multiple times per hour. - Jason returned from his initial paternity leave today. Like we saw with Steve Bender earlier this year, I would think Jason will probably defer the rest of his paternity leave until a few months out from now. If that happens, plus we know that Marissa goes on maternity leave in a few months as well, this is a major wake-up call that the network needs to staff up if they have any hopes of functioning in the second half of 2023. idk if they want to hire staffers or just go with freelancers, but they need some sort of plan for when Jason and Marissa are out later in the year.

Sadly, like TWC, Fox Weather buys into the "Weather Doesn't Happen on Weekends" mantra. If severe weather is hitting on a weekday, they'll be happy to cover it all night, but if it happens on a weekend, they don't have the resources to cover it unless it's pre-forecasted to be a major event several days in advance. As for the overall schedule, I never noticed this before, but I see that they actually publish program guide data on the Roku Channel. The new weekday schedule is officially: 5am ET - 9am ET: Fox Weather First (Britta solo during the first hour) 9am ET - 12pm ET: Weather Command 12pm ET - 3pm ET: America's Weather Center 3pm ET - 6pm ET: Fox Weather Now 6pm ET - 10pm ET - Fox Weather Live 10pm ET - 5am ET - Fox Weather (overnight half hour loop - runs later until 6am ET Friday night into Saturday morning) Weekends remain essestially unchanged: 6am ET - 10am ET: Fox Weather First Weekend 10am - 2pm ET: Fox Weather Live 2pm - 1am ET Various long form programming 1am ET - 6am ET Night Light (Only runs until 5am ET Sunday night into Monday morning) As we've seen, on weekdays, the end time of Fox Weather Live is realistically all over the place. When short-staffed, they'll end at 8pm ET. If fully staffed, they *may* go until 10pm ET, but it doesn't seem super reliable at this point. We'll see what happens going forward. So yeah, Fox Weather Across America is officially dead. I'm assuming Stephen will remain on Weather Command going forward. Hopefully Brigit is back from her field reporting this week, so maybe we'll get to see if she also joins Weather Command or if she joins Ian on Fox Weather Now instead. From the two days that I have stayed up/woke up to watch the 5am ET hour of Fox Weather First, it appears that the first segment of the hour is now called "Britta's Basics," to help give some personal ownership to Britta for her solo hour of the show. Edit: Watching deeper into the hour, they also have a segment called "Britta Knows Best" at about :20 past the hour. This one actually has its own lower third graphic. They're definitely trying to brand this new 5am ET hour around Britta. Edit 2: There is a reprisal of the "Britta's Basics" segment at the bottom of the hour as well. Edit 3: Janice Dean joins Britta at roughly :40 past the hour for a discussion-oriented segment. Apparently this is a daily thing, as Britta ended the segment by saying, "See you tomorrow!" At :45 past, the co-host of the 6am-9am ET show (today it's Kiyana) joins Britta at the desk to preview the upcoming 6am-9am ET show.

We previously mentioned how during the month of May, there were several weekends where Rick Reichmuth from FNC co-hosted the weekend edition of Fox Weather Live as a fill-in for Michael or Kiyana. Well, I noticed that on the weekend of June 3-4 and then again this weekend, they have still brought Rick onto the show, this time as a third host, alongside both Michael and Kiyana. From what I can tell, he has a smaller percentage of segments per hour than Michael and Kiyana, but he's still part of the show on what feels like a semi-regular basis. Not sure if the arrangement is going to stay this way, or if it will continue to evolve. We'll see.

Kelly Costa did a mix of live and recorded segments through at least 2:40am ET. The only reason I know this is because right now at 3:40am ET, they mistakenly have a segment in the prerecorded loop from exactly one hour ago, which contains live radar and tornado warnings/severe t-storm warnings from last hour. Same thing that happened last night, where a previously-live segment with active radar and warnings mistakenly aired in the pre-recorded loop an hour after it first aired live. Kelly did record some different non-time-sensitive segments earlier tonight that should be airing right now. Looks like they've got the wrong playback file loaded up.

Tonight, with the severe weather outbreak ongoing and Kelly Costa back, they stayed fully live until 10pm ET and then switched to a mix of live weather updates with Steve Bender plus non-time sensitive material with Kelly Costa that's meant for playback on the overnight loop. Not sure what went wrong, but Steve's live 11pm ET radar update wound up in the recorded loop, and it re-aired at 12am ET, showing a bunch of old radar info and old severe thunderstorms from the previous hour. I hope this doesn't persist through the entire overnight. Edit: They got it fixed for the 1am ET hour.

From everything I can tell, TWC ended their streaming primetime live weather show at the end of May. I went to watch it several weeknights in June, and I saw that it wasn't on. Even tonight with the severe weather outbreak, TWC ended live coverage at 9pm ET on cable, and they did not do a streaming show tonight. I opened their Roku app, and the app claims that there's a separate feed for live severe weather coverage, but when you choose the special feed, it just streams the long form program feed that's currently on the cable channel. Also, on AMHQ this morning, Jen and Alex officially welcomed Dr. Postel to their 9am-12pm shift on a regular basis. He had previously been on the show only every other week, as he alternated weeks with Carl Parker when the streaming show existed.

Brigit co-hosted Fox Weather Now from Dallas today while Ian hosted from the studio. Maybe this means they'll be on this show together regularly...we'll see. Despite Brigit being back, Fox Weather Live still aired only from 6pm-8pm ET. The untitled overnight loop, hosted tonight by Steve Bender, again started at 8pm ET.

12-3pm ET is Kendall Smith Mon-Fri alongside Michael Estime Mon-Tue and then Craig Herrera Wed-Fri. Steve and Marissa start at 6pm ET, but given how weird the schedule has been, it's difficult to determine what their scheduled end time is actually going to be. They went till 10pm ET Monday-Thursday last week, but then ended at 8pm ET this past Friday and Monday due to shorthandedless.

Recap of the day Monday 6/12: - Ian was back from vacation, and he did not appear on Weather Command. Stephen stayed on Weather Command, while Ian hosted a 3-hour Fox Weather Now. This feels like it's indeed the norm now. - No Brigit today, so still no clue where she ends up in this schedule turmoil. - Jason, Brigit, and Kelly were all off today, so the schedule was naturally a total nightmare. Again, just like Friday, regular live programming ended at 8pm ET. Michael was the third host on Weather Command, and then he did his normal America's Weather Center shift immediately afterward. Steve Bender joined Ian on Fox Weather Now as the "sidekick meteorologist" while hosting Fox Weather Live with Marissa immediately afterward from 6pm-8pm ET. At 8pm ET, standard live programming ended, and Marissa hosted the untitled overnight show on loop from that point onward. The untitled overnight show originated from the main Studio W using normal control room production. I was fully expecting another rendition of the show to be recorded at some point later in the night using the automation production like we saw on Friday, but not tonight. Looks like they're gonna run the stuff that they recorded at 8pm ET for the rest of the overnight.

Ok, so Kiyana is still around. She hosted Fox Weather First in for Jason today. The de-linking of her bio is a but strange, although I will say that last year, before John Marshall departed, they did de-link his bio several months beforehand. Also of note, last Thursday when Kelly announced that her show was running until 5am ET, not 6am ET, I set my alarm on Friday and Monday to see what was occupying the 5am ET hour. It turns out that Fox Weather First now starts an hour earlier at 5am ET on weekdays. (The weekend version still starts at 6am ET.) From what I could tell, it seems that the 5am ET hour is solo-hosted by Britta, but I didn't want to stay awake too long to confirm, to avoid not being able to fall back asleep, lol.

For Sunday 6/11, they decided to not bring in a weekday meteorologist to fill-in. Instead, Craig started the morning solo, Michael ended the afternoon solo, and Jane co-hosted with each of them during the middle hours of the morning. If I had to guess, she probably hosted the 8am-10am block with Craig and then hosted the 10am-12pm block with Michael. If Kiyana is truly gone from Fox Weather, this would mean that they no longer have any Monday-Tuesday fill-ins on staff. If anyone is off (and I would definitely expect at bare minimum for Jason to still be off), they would have to either do more double shifts, bring someone over from FNC, or end the programming day early, like they did this past Friday. We'll see what happens.

At some point during the night, unsure what time, they recorded an updated A-block of the Kelly Costa show, produced using the automation system that's normally used for the show. They left the remainder of the show, which was produced by the control room earlier in the night, in tact throughout the entire overnight. The shorthandedness continues today, as Amy Freeze is filling in for Jane Minar on Fox Weather First Weekend. Craig welcomed her back to the weekend morning shift with their reunion this morning, so that was cool. However, apparently this isn't even the end of the shorthandedness, as Amy said that she will also be filling in for Kiyana Lewis on the later shift as well. But um...while I was looking to make sure that I spelled her first name correctly... https://www.foxweather.com/personalities Kiyana's bio has suddenly been de-listed. It was there on May 11th, the last time that the Internet Archive combed that page. https://web.archive.org/web/20230511070451/https://www.foxweather.com/personalities She last tweeted about Fox Weather on June 7th, which was the end of her previous Sat-Wed workweek. However, this de-linking of her bio makes me wonder if that will be her last tweet about Fox Weather ever. Edit: Turns out that Jane is actually the one covering the Fox Weather Live shift alongside Michael today, not Amy. It wasn't super clear from what Amy said earlier this morning.

Ugh, do they have two different templates loaded up with differing fonts, and they're just happily filling out the text without realizing the font difference?

The inconsistency of the schedule has shown up big time yet again. Looks like they're calling it at night early due to short staff this evening. Kelly Costa's pre-recorded show just started at 8pm ET and will presumably run the rest of the night, because Brigit and Steve were the only late afternoon/evening meteorologists available tonight. One thing that always been consistent from mid-February until now, is that whether the show was 1 hour or 3 hours, Fox Weather Now always started at 3pm ET. Welp, even that went out the window today, as America's Weather Center was on the air for 4 hours today, with Fox Weather Now starting at 4pm ET, hosted solo by Brigit. I missed the entire 5pm ET hour, but when I tuned back in at 6pm ET, Fox Weather Live was on the air from the former Fox Business studio, hosted by Steve and Brigit, which ended early at 8pm ET. (It stands to reason that the 5pm ET hour was probably Fox Weather Live with Steve and Brigit as well, but I can't prove it.) Edit: Guess there's only a shortage of staff in front of the camera, but not behind the camera. Kelly's show is being produced out of the normal control room tonight, presumably by the people that normally produce Fox Weather Live at this hour. Kelly's show tonight features the normal lower thirds, not the odd-looking ones, produced by different software, that we normally see on her show. In addition, tonight's show has music beds, a variety of full screen wipes, and also occasional pre-recorded stories, all things we normally don't see during her show.

Thanks, I must have skipped over that in the article.

Does this hit the air tonight, or on Monday? I know Nightly has a history of rolling out changes on Fridays... so maybe tonight?

That looks amazing, especially considering it's a relatively small market. Thinking back to ~2009, which was the last time I saw WMBD in person, it's amazing how far they've come.