Spring Rubber

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

A couple of updates. I'll start with the bad news and work up to the good news. 1) It looks like John Marshall has parted ways with Fox Weather. When they were shorthanded during the overnight hours for Hurricane Ian coverage, I was thinking to myself, "Wow, I can't believe they're not putting John Marshall on the air to help with the overnights and weekends." From checking his social media, he updated his bio to say, "The forecast was delivered for ch.2 ch. 4 & Fox Weather." in the past tense, and he changed his profile pic from a Fox Weather headshot to a personal pic. Based on his Twitter, he suddenly stopped posting Fox Weather material after September 16th, so that must have been his last day with them. https://twitter.com/johnmarshall_wx 2) This past weekend, they aired all long-form programming after 2pm ET instead of automated weather maps. Live weather didn't return until 1am ET when Night Light started. I sure hope this was just being done to make up for no long form being aired during Hurricane Ian coverage. I have my concerns that it might be permanent. Seems like the execs keep flip-flopping on long-form programming versus automated maps. We'll have to see what they do this upcoming weekend. 3) After a 10-month hiatus, America's Weather Tonight has returned in a new format. It is now a pre-recorded show with a runtime of ~13-15 minutes, airing during the 11pm-1am ET slot that used to house "Fox Weather Live" automated weather maps. I didn't tune in and see it until 12:30am ET last night, so I don't know how often it airs. I'm guessing top and bottom of the hour? The show is solo-hosted and pre-recorded earlier in the day. Last night's show was hosted by Ian Oliver; unsure if they'll have rotating hosts or if he'll always be the main host. There were only short weather map segments detailing the national forecast for that evening plus the forecast for the following day. Much of last night's show was spent airing pre-taped field reports from Hurricane Ian's aftermath. I'm curious how the format will evolve when there's less big stories going on; if they'll keep airing mostly taped reports or if they'll mix it more weather maps on slow nights. After the 13-15 minute America's Weather Tonight ended, there was a commercial break, followed by Fox Weather Live automated weather maps to round out the half-hour block from 12:45am-1:00am. Fox Weather Live didn't go without changes itself; they have replaced the background music they've been using since Fox Weather's launch with smooth jazz instead. It's definitely music with a more modern feel than what TWC used to use. I'm having a hard time telling if it's commercial music or if it's perhaps production music. I'll have to tune in tonight, if I remember, to see if this format holds true for the entire 11pm-1am ET block.

I guess if there's one thing that doesn't change with the radio landscape, it's cruel and sudden format changes that happen right in the middle of the broadcast day as soon as the execs pull the trigger.

Fox weather did finally do overnight nonstop coverage last night Wednesday into Thursday, and a major factor may have been the fact that management decided to simulcast Fox Weather on Fox News Channel from 1am-4am ET. During the daytime hours on Wednesday, Fox Weather shuffled up their OCM schedule around the landfall. Ian Oliver and Kelly Costa (in for Brigit Mahony) moved up from the 4pm timeslot up to the 2pm ET shift and were on the air as Ian ironically made landfall in Cayo Costa, FL. The normal 1pm ET crew of Stephen Morgan and Kendall Smith moved down to somewhere around a 5pm or 6pm ET start (unsure), while Nick Kosir and Marissa Torres moved down from their normal 7pm ET start to instead begin their coverage at 10pm ET so that they could help support the overnight shift. The makeshift team of Michael Estime and Jane Minar picked up coverage at 3am ET before the normal morning crew started. Looks like they're continuing with modified shifts today, as Ian and Kelly took over at 2pm ET again. I'm assuming that coverage will continue live a tad bit later into the night, but I'm doubting that there would be any overnight coverage tonight.

Fox weather called it a night at their usual weeknight end time of 10pm ET. They switched to "Fox Weather Live" automated maps with top and bottom of the hour updates only. TWC is staying fully live until 1am ET tonight and will begin 24/7 live coverage starting tomorrow at 6am ET and continuing through after the landfall. Will be interesting to see if Fox Weather will do the same, or if they're going to continue writing off coverage during the nighttime hours. Ever since Fox Weather invested big time in that overnight coverage for the December 2021 tornado outbreak, it seems like they've been super reluctant on doing more than top/bottom of the hour updates with automated maps during the nighttime hours. I know when it comes to extending coverage, one thing TWC does is extend every on-air shift to four hours instead of three. I wonder if Fox Weather has the contractual leverage to do that, or if they're bound to keeping certain shifts at 3 hours. Either way, for a big event like this, I'll be sorely disappointed if Fox Weather doesn't begin 24/7 live coverage starting tomorrow.

Good find. Definitely interesting timing on this.

I can't help but notice that in his goodbye message along with that photo, he says "Thanks for letting me fill in with you Michelle Relerford Kye Martin Iisha Scott Alicia Roman" Is he implying that his tenure on the show was never intended to be permanent? Looking back on Feder's old posts, I only see that it says he was named 11am anchor back in 2020, but never a mention of him being named official morning anchor after Zoraida left. It's weird to start changing it up when a new permanent anchor hasn't been announced.