Fox Weather

[GoldenShine9 1513]

2 hours ago, Georgie56 said:

With Bryon Allen about to purchase TEGNA, he could easily respond to this criticism by simulcasting a TEGNA station's severe weather coverage on TWC overnights in the future.

That wouldn't be a bad thing.

[NBC 5 Chicago 191]

43 minutes ago, GoldenShine9 said:

That wouldn't be a bad thing.

It wouldn't be bad.. however it would be sad. TWC has been the original 24 weather station. What is has become is just plain sad. The only thing they've had great coverage of is hurricanes where they go 24 hours around the clock for days. They need to take that same approach to severe weather events. THEY KNOW WHEN THEY"RE COMING. I hope this is a wake up call for TWC to provide better service and coverage of severe weather going forward. Long form programing is fine. I like their shows but it should be later in the day or just on weekends. There needs to be more live weather coverage.  

 

With that said I've quite enjoyed Fox Weather and what they're trying to do. Their coverage of severe weather has outdone TWC a lot of the time. Once they get their staffing up and if they get on cable, they are going to be quite the competition for TWC if not supersede them. 

[tyrannical bastard 3951]

Hopefully WHEN Allen Media takes control of Tegna, TWC can be more of an asset.  As it is right now, it was castoff by NBC/Bain after their malignment of the channel trying to "fill time".  Now, this "time filler" is the norm after hours and they dropped the ball on this coverage.

The local stations could assist TWC in covering the weather where it happens on the ground, and TWC should be able to step in with additional coverage and analysis of weather when it happens for a local station should they be affected by the storm itself.

 

There really needs to be more weather coverage OTA.  It's largely gone away in favor of other diginets.  You have an AccuWeather or WeatherNation channel here and there, but it's very sparse, and it really hasn't been good coverage ever since NBC's WeatherPlus went away.  And that played second fiddle to TWC and could have cause the same with WeatherPlus taking some of the "Weather" out of TWC.

 

Distribution-wise, it's a challenge since the grids (power & data) could be affected by the storm itself.  Going digital seems to make it harder to get the information out since cell phone networks could be toppled by a tower collapse or data failure somewhere in the chain.  And even the most well-intentioned backup plans can be felled by a bad storm.

[Spring Rubber 703]

Looks like Fox Weather is currently airing the long-form shows that would have normally aired last night, in lieu of the usual automated weather maps that would normally air at Noon ET.

[Spring Rubber 703]

Forgot to mention this earlier, but Fox Weather bumped Fox Weather Wild off the schedule tonight, presumably because hosting a lighthearted show would not seem appropriate given the recent events. They opted for reruns of weekend long-form shows instead for this evening.

 

Also, for whatever reason, the show that's normally  America's Weather Tonight used the America's Weather Now branding and was done from the main studio instead of the small studio. I understand using the main studio, but I don't understand the reasoning behind using the Now branding instead of Tonight.

[Spring Rubber 703]

Fox Weather Wild remained off the air Tuesday night, with a live hour of America's Weather Now at 9pm ET with Nick and Marissa, still covering the aftermath of the deadly storms.

 

The SPC just issued a Moderate Risk area for Wednesday (10% Tornado, 45% Significant severe damaging wind threat) for IA/MN/WI. Looks like another very damaging severe weather night ahead, this time mostly a damaging straight-line wind threat with some embedded tornadoes possible. Either way, it looks like both Fox Weather and maybe TWC should plan for another busy night of coverage.

[Spring Rubber 703]

Looks like Katie Garner (pictured right), formerly of Fox 8

WGHP, has joined Fox Weather.

 

It also looks like Fox Weather has started enforcing social distancing in the studio as of today. The meteorologists have not been sitting together at the anchor desk all afternoon.

[Spring Rubber 703]

Fox Weather Wild returned to the air tonight for the first time since December 9th. Ever since the December 10th tornado outbreak, they had been airing an extra hour of America's Weather Now (still with Nick & Marissa) in that timeslot.

 

The 7pm-9pm ET block is still in the America's Weather Now name and is still originating from the main studio instead of the small studio. Looks like both the America's Weather Tonight name plus the regular usage of the small studio might be a thing of the past.

[Spring Rubber 703]

And you can add another meteorologist to the mix - Kiyana Lewis, formerly of News 12 Bronx/Brooklyn.

 

 

Edited December 24, 2021 by Spring Rubber

[Georgie56 3304]

Fox Weather is doing a Christmas Yule Log.

[Spring Rubber 703]

Looks like they may have simplified their schedule even further? The Sky Dome show is gone as of today, and the 9am-12pm ET block is under the Sunrise branding instead.

 

For the past two weeks, we observed that the America's Weather Tonight show branding was gone, as the entire 5pm-9pm block was being billed as America's Weather Now.

 

Of course, at the beginning of the month, the weekend morning block was completely renamed as America's Weather Weekend, ditching the Sunrise and Sky Dome branding. 

 

At this point, I would not be surprised if they ditch the America's Weather Center branding and also merge that with America's Weather Now since it's just a two hour block. Unless maybe they won't do that because they count the 3-hour automated block as America's Weather Center, technically.

[Spring Rubber 703]

I thought that last week's scaled-back schedule might be due to the holidays, but now it seems that last week's schedule change might be permanent? Both last week and today, live programming ended at 8pm ET every weeknight. No America's Weather Tonight, and no Fox Weather Wild. The latter show just did that one special Christmas episode on December 23rd, and that was it. No other episodes since December 9th.

 

The 9am-12pm ET block is still called Fox Weather Sunrise. Looks like the silly Sky Dome branding is gone for good. That's about the only one of these changes I can get behind. Otherwise, the fact that the amount of live hours per day is cut down to just 6 hours in the morning every day and 5 hours in the afternoon on weekdays...not good.

 

Also effective today 1/3, the network moved from simple social distancing (implemented on 12/22) where each meteorologist hosted from a separate side of the main studio, to now exercising full separation of the meteorologists in separate rooms. For the whole day today, they had only one meteorologist in the main studio while the other meteorologist hosted from the stand-up podium near the behind-the-scenes weather center.

[mightynine 290]

13 hours ago, Spring Rubber said:

I thought that last week's scaled-back schedule might be due to the holidays, but now it seems that last week's schedule change might be permanent? Both last week and today, live programming ended at 8pm ET every weeknight. No America's Weather Tonight, and no Fox Weather Wild. The latter show just did that one special Christmas episode on December 23rd, and that was it. No other episodes since December 9th.

 

The 9am-12pm ET block is still called Fox Weather Sunrise. Looks like the silly Sky Dome branding is gone for good. That's about the only one of these changes I can get behind. Otherwise, the fact that the amount of live hours per day is cut down to just 6 hours in the morning every day and 5 hours in the afternoon on weekdays...not good.

 

Also effective today 1/3, the network moved from simple social distancing (implemented on 12/22) where each meteorologist hosted from a separate side of the main studio, to now exercising full separation of the meteorologists in separate rooms. For the whole day today, they had only one meteorologist in the main studio while the other meteorologist hosted from the stand-up podium near the behind-the-scenes weather center.

Perhaps they are dealing with their own COVID outbreak and staffing levels are impacted?

[Spring Rubber 703]

1 hour ago, mightynine said:

Perhaps they are dealing with their own COVID outbreak and staffing levels are impacted?

That's a good point. Maybe we'll have to wait and see what happens after a few weeks, maybe longer if it's a prolonged outbreak in the building.

 

EDIT: I just checked in on their automated programming block. They have removed every show from the little advertising slider in the lower right except Sunrise, America's Weather Now, and America's Weather Weekend.

Edited January 4, 2022 by Spring Rubber

[Spring Rubber 703]

I guess the COVID isolation woes keep progressing. Effective last Wednesday 1/5, over half of the meteorologists are anchoring from home, and today, even the FNC newsroom was used as an alternate hosting location. (oddly enough, the behind the scenes Fox Weather Center was not used today. Wonder if they're now having to avoid that area due to an outbreak or something.)

[nathannah 2429]

Anyone see any signs or promotion of the planned O&O subchannel launches? I expected the switch at least by 1/3, but WITI still has Antenna TV (and picked up HSN OTA on a new subchannel because free $$$), and I don't see that any other FTS stations have done it...maybe they pushed it because of the current staffing situation?

[Georgie56 3304]

Appears FBN has moved up the America's Weather Weekend simulcast to 7-9am ET.

[Spring Rubber 703]

2 hours ago, Georgie56 said:

Appears FBN has moved up the America's Weather Weekend simulcast to 7-9am ET.

Do we know if the show is still starting at 6am ET on the streaming platform or if they adjusted the entire show's start time to later?

[Spring Rubber 703]

Looks like Fox Weather Wild returned to the air this week, and based on the graphic on the bottom of the screen, I'd say that the new episode must have aired on Wednesday. They're airing it in reruns right now on the stream. That's another brand new thing at Fox Weather this week: They decided to start utilizing something akin to TWC's LDL (lower display area) to display at the bottom of the screen a rotating forecast for cities across the country. Since launch day, they've used this only during the daytime automated blocks, but as of this past week, it's now being used during all live shows. The problem? It's being run from the control room on the chyrons, unlike TWC where it originates from master control. So now you've got this awkward situation where the outdated forecast bar is displayed on anything that they choose to rerun at a later date - be it reruns of Fox Weather Wild or any clips of their severe weather coverage that they might reuse on a special someday. The other quirk is that since it's built into the lower thirds, it disappears momentarily anytime an opener or a transitional effect runs over it.

 

During the first block of this episode of Fox Weather Wild, Nick and Marissa expressed how good it was to be back but that it's a bit awkward to be doing the show remotely and having to deal with some of the delay in the feed as they talk with each other and with the guests. I got the impression that they were planning on keeping the show off the air until Fox lifted their remote work COVID protocols, but after being off the air for 4 weeks and still no lift in protocols, they must have decided that they should go ahead and start producing the show remotely. I do have to wonder if it's only going to be weekly instead of nightly at this point. I didn't catch if they said anything about that.

 

 

[PTVNews 194]

7 hours ago, Spring Rubber said:

The other quirk is that since it's built into the lower thirds, it disappears momentarily anytime an opener or a transitional effect runs over it.

 

That's more than just a quirk. It's bad implementation.

[Spring Rubber 703]

Looks like they stopped the work from home today and went back to same-studio social distancing. The setup with the monitors appears to be the in-studio Fox Weather Command area, except they covered the area where the producers usually sit with a monitor to display the show's backdrop.

 

Edit: While two-person shows are fully in studio, looks like they're still using work from home if there's a third host. Marissa Torres is at home tonight while Brigit Mahoney and Ian Oliver are in studio.

Edited January 24, 2022 by Spring Rubber

[Georgie56 3304]

Appears the Fox Weather OTA distribution is starting. KCPQ has added it to their subchannels.

[Georgie56 3304]

 

[Briella 234]

The fact that they actively promote fox news shows is a turn off. I didn’t care to see Jesse Watters promoting his show while watching storm coverage. They should have kept it separate.

[DENDude 217]

FOX Weather has been okay so far during the blizzard back east this weekend, however I think TWC has been doing a lot more in-depth coverage.