The Weather Channel 2019: Major Graphics Overhaul in Progress

[TennTV1983 807]

As of this morning, beginning with AMHQ Early, The Weather Channel has started phasing in a complete and total overhaul of its on-air graphics. The first noticeable change is that the reverse L-bar is gone, the lower 3rds have been redone, and the weather ticker at the bottom of the screen is now smaller. Also, the maps have been updated.

 

Any other observations, thoughts, and opinions are welcomed.

 

UPDATE: The Intellistar graphics during Local on the 8s are currently unchanged; however, the typeface has been changed.

[LOWERCASE GUY 283]

I like it. Never was a fan of the L bar. I felt like way too much stuff was going on at once. However, the old package did age well.

[jrh1985 57]

Looks like the LDL from the Watch TWC App

[NEOMatrix 1307]

The graphics remind me of Tegna and CNN/HLN. As far as the ticker, it’s fine, except that overscan May take it up.

[mightynine 290]

L-Bar had become completely useless with the dropping of the ticker and putting only radar and almanac on the sidebar, so ditching it is a great idea.

 

So far, good upgrade IMO.

[ehatt493 33]

I like the idea of the graphics overhaul. I like switching from a dull light blue to a dark blue/gray...but the typeface needs work. Akko suited them much better. Pairing the old graphical elements with what looks like Roboto Condensed is, uh, bad.

[Georgie56 3326]

Looks pretty good and cleaner. The Tegna influence is noticeable.

[T.L. Hughes 903]

57 minutes ago, Georgie56 said:

Looks pretty good and cleaner. The Tegna influence is noticeable.

The redesign of the LDL makes it so that they don't really have to make the LDL's background translucent during TWC "long-form" programming in prime time and on weekends.

[rkolsen 1686]

I’m always curious how the update the hundreds of Intellistars seemlessly overnight. 

 

However I do miss the radar on the side. 

[DellFan3030 1]

I like how The Weather Channel always makes interesting changes to their graphics whenever they do them. It makes them unique compared to other channels (including ones that deal with the weather).

[WCAUTVNBC10 413]

55 minutes ago, rkolsen said:

I’m always curious how the update the hundreds of Intellistars seemlessly overnight. 

 

However I do miss the radar on the side. 

 

My guess is these days, they're pushed out like mobile phone updates. Probably a lot more involved in the WeatherStar days though.

[PelicanGuy 117]

I definitely like it. It's much better on the eyes.

[WCAUTVNBC10 413]

I'm glad they went back to topo maps for at least the live radar. Never understood why they went with flat maps for everything. 

[mightynine 290]

1 hour ago, rkolsen said:

I’m always curious how the update the hundreds of Intellistars seemlessly overnight. 

 

However I do miss the radar on the side. 

 

I think it's pretty similar to a Windows Update, and the Intellistar knows what to do. Last time, it went from one graphics set to another seamlessly.

 

 

[ehatt493 33]

19 minutes ago, mightynine said:

 

I think it's pretty similar to a Windows Update, and the Intellistar knows what to do. Last time, it went from one graphics set to another seamlessly.

 

 

So starting in 2010 or so, The Weather Channel started displaying their national "lower display line" under all programming instead of leaving the job up to local STARs. Notice after the cut-over, the national weather remains on the bottom and the local weather doesn't yet appear. Those STARs are taken offline for the update. I think mine (on the SD side, at the time when still having a separate SD and HD feed was widespread) took about an hour to update. Maybe the new models in use today that push out SD and HD simultaneously are quicker.

 

Another thing I've noticed, any normal commercial gets a squeezeback so the constant LDL doesn't cover up anything important, but they don't do this for their own promos, so the bottom is always cut off. The closest comparison I can make is to an ESPN/FS1 situation.

[broadcastfan9751 140]

Looks pretty good, especially with the L-bar gone. 

 

Also, the SD Intellistars are using a larger LDL similar to what they had before:

 

https://youtu.be/36s7peooSG8

 

[DellFan3030 1]

4 minutes ago, broadcastfan9751 said:

Looks pretty good, especially with the L-bar gone. 

 

Also, the SD Intellistars are using a larger LDL similar to what they had before:

 

https://youtu.be/36s7peooSG8

 

The modern outlook with their channel seems pretty interesting, now that I finally looked at since July of this year.

[nathannah 2502]

Goodbye to the awful white maps without any geography...they won't be missed at all. Though my local headend still has never upgraded the HD channel for local conditions, so I'm still stuck watching the SD feed for local conditions (but at least the text on that screen pretty much acknowledges that it's probably going to be stretched out).

[jrh1985 57]

Looked at it during longform tonight, it looks the same. So, hopefully no more LDL disappearing  during longform like it used to from time to time! Rollseyes!

 

The only thing I'm disappointed about is they still haven't figured out how to do local LDLs on DISH. All I had to do on roku is put in my Zip and I got a local LDL like what cable users have.

[ABC 7 Denver 1729]

Looks like a blatant TEGNA ripoff. Blah.

[Journalist 894]

Man, I'll miss those 2013 era graphics and all of its delicious Akko goodness. They were pretty good at cleaning up the visual nightmare that was TWC of the past, and the 2013 era design language still looks aesthetically pleasing up to now. I'm surprised they were able to keep up the consistency for this long, but alas.  

 

The new ones are...serviceable. They could've chose a better font than Roboto; but hey, it works. At least it ain't DIN. The horror.

[ns8401 957]

Not DIN! Oh the humanity...

 

I still wish they had a 24 hour weather wheel... you knew what time to tune in for a storm update or a tropical update no matter the hour... their graphics were unbelievably simple at the time though... 

[DellFan3030 1]

15 minutes ago, ns8401 said:

Not DIN! Oh the humanity...

 

I still wish they had a 24 hour weather wheel... you knew what time to tune in for a storm update or a tropical update no matter the hour... their graphics were unbelievably simple at the time though... 

Maybe they didn't think of putting it in because they didn't thought a lot of people were watching their channel at 2 in the morning waiting for the latest hurricane updates when most of them are sleeping.

[ns8401 957]

8 hours ago, DellFan3030 said:

Maybe they didn't think of putting it in because they didn't thought a lot of people were watching their channel at 2 in the morning waiting for the latest hurricane updates when most of them are sleeping.

Yeah but the whole point of the channel used to literally be weather forecasts on a rotation with segments at set times every hour... not reality based programming with some weather here and there... I get that the internet can give you a forecast but it doesn’t explain it nearly as well as a human... so they could have doubled down on the cool explanations but instead they started showing “when weather changed history” while tornado outbreaks were happening...

[DellFan3030 1]

26 minutes ago, ns8401 said:

Yeah but the whole point of the channel used to literally be weather forecasts on a rotation with segments at set times every hour... not reality based programming with some weather here and there... I get that the internet can give you a forecast but it doesn’t explain it nearly as well as a human... so they could have doubled down on the cool explanations but instead they started showing “when weather changed history” while tornado outbreaks were happening...

I could get that they should have a Local on the 8s or something like that, if people were watching the channel at say, 2am. I find LOT8s to still be very fascinating despite TWC taking less depth on them for a while now. Although at least the news programming is somewhat relatable to weather stuff. I also agree with you on how the Internet doesn't give you exact detail on weather compared to stuff like the local news or even The Weather Channel. Which is why I felt disappointed on not having The Weather Channel on my cable package when FiOS took it off from it in 2015.