Spring Rubber

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?

As for the progression of the presentation of Kelly's new show. It started on night 1 (May 30th) as a stand-up show: On nights 2 and 3 (May 31st and June 1st), the show moved to a seated position in front of the standard Fox Weather Orlando nighttime backdrop: The fun police, seeing that Kelly purchased a pair of glasses that matched the background perfectly, decided that the fun had to end, so on June 2nd and going forward to this day, they have now switched the background to a still picture of the Expert Desk area of the NYC studio: I'm not a big fan of taking a picture of a different studio in a different city and using it as a fake backdrop, but whatever. I liked the standup format they used the first night. Kinda wish they could do at least one stand-up segment per show, even if the rest of it is done sitting down. I'm curious what system they're using to run the lower thirds. It's obviously different and lower-quality than whatever is used on the rest of the shows during the day. Must be some automation software that Kyle David is able to run while simultaneously acting as the weather producer for the show. As for what the sit-down position looks like in Orlando, it's a little more involved than a traditional flashcam setup. https://www.instagram.com/p/CtKOz7qOKbp/?hl=en It kinda looks like a converted radio studio, doesn't it? Did any radio stations previously operate in the WOFL building?

Marissa Torres just announced on the air, while doing a segment about the air quality's effect on children and mothers who are expecting, that she is 4 months pregnant. Congrats!

Well, I believe it just based on the schedule nonsense I've seen on the air. They're constantly changing schedules around every few days. As Jman mentioned above, it makes no sense why you would completely change show names and times just because certain on-air folks have the day off. You need to have sufficient fill-ins available to cover shifts when people are off. Take this Monday, for example, the first day of Jason's paternity leave, Kendall had to cover the entire Fox Weather First and then come back on the air 3 hours later to host her entire normal shift on America's Weather Center. That stuff shouldn't have to happen. The whole network schedule shouldn't fall apart because two OCMs are out. They have lost John Marshall and Katie Garner from the network, and they have moved Nick Kosir to a non-host role, yet no effort has been made to replace any of them. I can't speak for what the behind the scenes folks must be experiencing, but I noticed that many of their on-air staff have become a lot quieter on social media than in the early days of the network.

Seems like something they should have done leading up to the rebrand, not a few months after the rebrand. Very strange to be stuck on a temp set while trying to grow the new branding.

It looks like NewsNation is going to start experimenting with Sunday night special features. This Sunday night 6/11, NewsNation will air We Are Not Alone: The UFO Whistleblower Speaks at 9pm ET, followed by We Are Not Alone: NewsNation Special Report immediately following at 10pm ET. The two shows will re-run at 11pm ET and 12am ET, respectively, before normal reruns of the weekday shows start at 1am ET. NewsNation Prime will be reduced to two hours from 7pm-9pm ET this Sunday, and Prime will not have any scheduled reruns that night.

There might be a new schedule in effect. I noticed that as of this Monday 6/5, other changes took place as well: Fox Weather First has moved into the former Fox Business studio (temporarily? permanently? Hard to say for sure.) Fox Weather Now has been three hours long every day this week from 3pm-6pm ET. Across America has not aired at all. Fox Weather Live has been four hours long every day this week from 6pm-10pm ET. Strangely, the first two hours are hosted in the former Fox Business studio, and then for hours 3 and 4, Steve and Marissa move over to the main Fox Weather studio W. -The new untitled show with Kelly Costa continues this week from 10pm ET throughout the entire night, on a half-hour recorded loop. From what I can tell, it seems that it even airs through the overnight, with Night Light seemingly reduced to weekends only. Schedules are a bit weird right now, because Ian is on vacation, and Jason Frazer and his wife just had a baby on Saturday, so Jason's going to be out of action for a while. But some of this stuff feels a bit permanent, because the 4-hour Fox Weather Live thing is brand new. So far this week, Brigit has hosted the Monday/Tuesday editions of Fox Weather Now from the studio and then hosted the Wednesday edition of the show from the field, with rotating OCMs covering the studio duties (Adam Klotz for hour 1, Steve Bender for hour 2, and Craig Herrera for hour 3). I could see a future where, when Ian returns from vacation, Fox Weather Now becomes his only show for three hours instead of one, and either Brigit joins him as a co-host, or Brigit joins the Weather Command crew. I noticed that due to short staffing, both the Tuesday and Wednesday editions of that show were just Amy and Stephen this week, with no third co-host. We'll have to see how it all shakes out next week. Unlike America's Weather Center(still exists) and Across America(RIP maybe?), which both relocated to the former Fox Business studio several weeks ago and use a huge video wall as a backdrop with barely any physical set visible, the new renditions of Fox Weather First and Fox Weather Live from the former Fox Business studio feature the desk rotated in a different direction, such that almost the entire background is a view of the physical set. The new desk angle can be seen in this video, announcing the birth of Jason and Romney's child:

I wonder if they'll still have Ian and a rotating meteorologist back in the studio. Would have been cool if Ian could have joined Amy on location too.

Well, this is interesting. Tonight they're trying something totally different in the 10pm ET and later hours. Instead of the normal Fox Weather @ Night format with tons of pre-recorded interviews and features, tonight they are doing a full nationwide weather synopsis for the full half hour, hosted by Kelly Costa in Orlando (guess the Orlando studio isn't dead after all). This is reminiscent of the overnight content that TWC used to do back in the 90s and early 00s. No interviews, no features - just a constant in-depth examination of the weather. I really hope they keep this up. Best nighttime format they've tried to date.

I know she showed up earlier this year on several shows to promote her new book, but she didn't host any shows. Given that she hosts weather full time Monday-Friday mornings on FNC (unlike Reichmuth and Klotz who mainly appear on FNC on weekends only), she might be exempt from hosting shows on Fox Weather.

It looks like there's even further work underway to integrate the Fox News weather team with the Fox Weather team. This week, Fox News weekend meteorologist Adam Klotz played the "third wheel" role on America's Weather Center Monday-Wednesday, hosting occasional segments throughout the show each day. And now tonight, Rick Reichmuth is hosting Fox Weather @ Night. None of the Fox News weather team have been added to the Fox Weather personalities page on their website, but it kinda feels like that's right around the corner.

Ashleigh is back in her old digs up in CT tonight. So I guess she's only going to come to NYC occasionally, probably only on nights where they have somewhat high-profile in-studio guests booked. Somehow I kinda figured she wouldn't be down with commuting to NYC every day or relocating closer to NYC.

Tonight's edition of Banfield is coming from the new NYC set that's used for Elizabeth Vargas Reports. Based on the way Ashleigh introduced tonight's show, calling it their "new set," makes me think that this might be the new permanent home for Banfield. To date, wasn't she doing the show either from home or from a flashcam studio somewhere near her home in CT? As the only show on the network not hosted from one of their three studios in Chicago, NYC, and DC, I have to wonder if this was a network decision to bring their last remaining show in-house. I gotta say, the show looks way better in studio.

Thank you for the heads-up. I knew something was up with why Early Morning was being kept with temporary hosts. This explains why... because they weren't quite ready to roll out the new format show, yet they were desperate to cut Carr from the staff. Ouch, that's brutal. I was not surprised when they cut weather out of the evenings, but to cut weather out of the mornings, that comes as a shock to me. My best estimation is more hours of content, but with continued significant turnover in personnel and in the schedule.

I was glad when Fox Weather Wild got canned, simply because it allowed the addition of another hour of live weather programming. I do agree that it should have been kept at least on a semi-regular basis, not as a nightly show. It was cool to see Kendall host the show today from Chicago, not because of severe weather, but because of really nice weather.

I'm looking at their YouTube content, and I'm seeing that after Mitch Carr was laid off, Early Morning has continued on Friday and Monday with Nick Smith hosting. If the plan is for Early Morning to be cancelled, maybe it's pending a retooling of the rest of their morning schedule, perhaps in the week(s) following Memorial Day?

Today, Fox News chief meteorologist Rick Reichmuth worked the 10am-2pm ET shift alongside Michael Estime. Overall, it's not clear what's happening with weekends. Ever since the start of May, Jane Minar has only appeared as a M-F fill-in, rather than on her normal Wed-Sun shift. As a result, all month long, they've been rolling with only 3 regular weekend mets. The first weekend of May, of course, is when Tom Wachs flew in to cover. The second weekend, Brigit Mahoney worked the weekend and then took the ensuing week off on vacation. And now, the third weekend, Rick Reichmuth from the Fox News side is covering. Also, the weekday schedules after 3pm ET remain bizarre, as well. Ever since early April, they seem to follow this general rule: - If there are a total of 5 mets available after 3pm ET, they run with the "normal" schedule: -- 3pm ET: Fox Weather Now with Ian Oliver -- 4pm-7pm ET: Fox Weather Across America with Brigit Mahoney and Stephen Morgan -- 7pm-10pm ET: Fox Weather Live with Steve Bender and Marissa Torres -If there are 4 or less mets available after 3pm ET, they run with a shortened schedule: -- 3pm-6pm ET: Fox Weather Now with 2 mets hosting (some combo of Ian, Brigit, and Stephen, or a fill-in if needed - whoever isn't off. For all intents and purposes, this show might as well be Across America, but they use the Fox Weather Now branding, and it's hosted from the main studio instead of the former Fox Business studio, like Across America normally would be.) -- 6pm-9pm ET: Fox Weather Live with Steve Bender and Marissa Torres With that second setup, live programming ends one hour early. It seems very annoying to have this inconsistent of a schedule, and believe me, the latter setup has been happening a LOT lately. As for Kelly Costa, she's been in NYC a lot more often lately. There's barely been any appearances of Kelly from Orlando as of late. Wonder if the Orlando operation is being phased out.

And now they've added a super tacky "News for All America" tagline on the screen not in one place, but in two places! Both taglines alternate with the channel logo and the show logo. The taglines seem to appear once every minute or so.

So turning into a 24/5 news network means cancelling your live 6am ET show...

With the way that the CNN bug and the lower third are now physically connected, I feel like it would look much better to have the CNN logo aligned with the lower third text. But yeah, without seeing where people's names and titles will be displayed, and how things will look when the lower third isn't up, it's hard to say for sure.