Spring Rubber

Yep, looks like the mini-refresh is complete. New anchor desk. New positioning of monitors in the studio. Apparently the show that's on right now is called Weather Command and not Sky Dome. Ian Oliver is apparently now a morning-shifter, and apparently the show is now a 3-host show with everyone at the anchor desk all at once? Unless it's just for today...unsure. Very heavy usage of red LEDs in studio and red graphics.

Five days later, and they're still doing all shows from the small Studio K. Starting to look like Studio W is getting a refresh even though it's been only 14 months since its debut? Strange. After 4 days of all weather maps being done from a seated position with this new version of Studio K, it appears that today, they finally realized how they could position a camera and some lighting in order to do some stand-up shots for a change.

Wow, I thought it was her left shoulder until you pointed that out.

It's ironic that in the writeup linked earlier, CBS claims that they're being minimalist and not wasting screen real estate, yet the bug is perhaps one of the largest bugs in the industry.

They are still using the small Studio K as of the 9am ET hour this morning. Wonder how much teardown of Studio W they did yesterday just to shoot whatever promos they were doing. (or wonder if something got broken during the process)

TWC is doing extended coverage of the west coast storm tonight, and instead of their own reporters, they are leaning heavily on their relationship with CBS News, featuring live field reports from both KCBS/KCAL (on their final night of the old branding) and from KPIX.

Whatever they did with these promos must have been quite involved, as I've noticed that all programming has originated out of the small shoebox Studio K today. They haven't had any programming in the main Studio W since I first tuned in during the 9am ET hour this morning. They're still using the small Studio K as of the 9pm ET hour tonight. Gee, they sure picked a good day for this...

There's a severe weather outbreak ongoing right now, and Fox Weather is airing a pre-taped special called "Biggest Weather Stories of The Year" as of 12pm ET. This is just baffling. It seems like something that they always must have had plans to air today, and for some insane reason, management refused to reschedule it.

Turns out there was a reason Studio K (the small midday studio) has been off the air for the past 10 days. They have revamped the space. With the new look, the entire show is done with both OCMs seated at a small coffee table-like desk. With this setup, there are no standup weather map segments anymore, as they used every inch of space on this new set layout. Every weather segment is done via double-or-triple boxes with the OCM seated there, just talking through the maps. I think the wide-shot of the set looks good, but I don't think there's any way it's worth the trade-off of having to do all of the weather maps while seated.

Thank you for mentioning the atmospheric river term. It seems like in the past 1-2 years, everything is suddenly an atmospheric river or a bomb cyclone.

Looks like they also dumped America's Weather Tonight again, instead opting to pre-record America's Weather Now and run it all the way through the evening until 1am ET. The pre-recorded show is akin to TWC's Evening Edition West Coast back in the 2000s, such that there's no live radar or current conditions, but plenty of forecast maps and weather summaries. They did the same thing last night as well. Unsure if this is just temporary during the winter storm/holiday season or if this is the new schedule going forward. Due to my current schedule, I haven't been able to tell if they've done any hours of fully live weather content at 7pm or 8pm ET or if they switch to this format right away at 7pm ET.

It was only a few years ago that the RSNs were shelling out record-breaking rights deals to the team owners, banking on there being many more years of huge cable subscription $$$ still ahead. I'm guessing there's no single company to blame for this, as pretty much the whole industry was shelling out big bucks, banking on the RSN model, with a short-sighted outlook of just how quickly cord-cutting would devastate the business model. If you wanted to play ball (ha) in the sports rights industry, you had to sign record-breaking contracts to even stand a chance.

Effective today, the 6am-10am ET weekend show has been renamed to "Fox Weather FIRST Weekend". The 10am-2pm ET show retains the "America's Weather Weekend" branding. This shift in the morning show names appears to be a corporate move to get their branding in line with FNC's morning shows. From looking at the logo design, the "FIRST" is similar to, but not exactly the same as, the Fox & Friends FIRST logo. Similarly, the "Weekend" part of the logo seems to take after the Fox & Friends Weekend logo.

The irony of the old NBC logo that was used in Deadline's cover image for the story.

I tuned in during the 5am ET/4am CT hour today, and they were still airing Night Light. I also see that Jason Frazer, of Fox Weather First, is appearing during the first hour of Sky Dome as a contributor, doing a travel weather segment. I slept during the whole Fox Weather First program's timeslot, lol

I just found a video clip on their website from Monday's Fox Weather First. It's literally just the America's Weather Weekend graphics with a different logo, which itself is just a reskin of the America's Weather Center/America's Weather Now graphics. Let me guess, it's probably going to be the same music as well?

Oh wow, they renamed Fox Weather Sunrise to Fox Weather First? Either way, good to see they're starting early and not removing any other live hours of shows. Any idea what the new graphics and/or music look like? I know they've been in Fox Weather Alert mode Tuesday and Wednesday due to the severe weather outbreak. I wonder if there's any chance of them being back to normal mode by Thursday morning so I can see what the graphics/music are. (Given the duration of this severe event, I could see them waiting until Friday to return to normal graphics and music.)

Looks like a schedule change went into effect today. I see that Sky Dome is on the air as of the 9am ET hour, when it previously started at 10am ET. I'm wondering what else may have changed. My hunch is that they might have moved the start time of all shows up, so that the live programming day might end earlier again. I guess we'll have to see throughout the day.

One year into Fox Weather's existence, one of the major barriers between Fox Weather and FNC has been broken. Today, Amy Freeze was tapped as a guest host on FNC's Outnumbered. When she says "joining", she doesn't just mean a single segment; she was actually a guest co-host (filling in for Harris Faulkner) for the full hour today.

I'm thinking they're waiting until September 2023 when the new NBC Sports college football deal starts, but hey, color me surprised if something happens sooner than that.

Well, that didn't last long. Fox Weather seems to have killed off the smooth jazz automated weather maps after just one week. Starting tonight, America's Weather Tonight is now a 30-minute show, rerunning continuously throughout the 10pm-1am ET timeslots. With this change, Ian Oliver and Brigit Mahoney now co-host the show instead of alternating nights solo-hosting it. Well, I mean, I guess you could say "days" solo-hosting it, as based on the Fox Weather Alert System behind the hosts, this was recorded around 3:47pm, shortly before Ian and Brigit start their actual live Across America show at 4pm ET. (Please forgive the awkward face Ian is making in this screencap. The first screencap I took had their eyes closed, so I went for a second one and got this. By the time I tried to take a 3rd screencap, they were already off the screen.)

I second the motion of renaming the thread and removing the corresponding tag that matches what's currently in the title.

Yeah, I'm not seeing it listed in the Chicago market any longer, either.

Yep, automated weather maps on weekends is dead. It's all long form after 2pm ET now.

Brigit Mahoney is hosting tonight's edition of America's Weather Tonight. I'm guessing her and Ian will rotate on a nightly basis. Also, I was surprised to see that this rotation of America's Weather Tonight and Fox Weather Live now starts at 10pm ET instead of 11pm ET, so this means that the 10pm hour formerly occupied by Fox Weather Wild and assorted long form specials is now gone. The pre-recorded America's Weather Tonight segment airs at :00 and :30 of every hour from 10pm-1am ET, and it's the same segment each time, so it does feel a little stale over time. Tonight's edition was still just a couple of weather maps and 90% stories and pre-recorded reports and interviews from earlier in the day. There was a little less Hurricane Ian aftermath coverage tonight and a little more assortment of stories. Every hour from 10pm-1am ET is structured as: :00 America's Weather Tonight :15 Fox Weather Live - automated maps :30 America's Weather Tonight :45 Fox Weather Live - automated maps