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The Weather Channel

K

kyscott

Guest
Remember the days when The Weather Channel was apolitical? It was nice, didn't have to worry about if the forecast you were getting was constructed through some sort of political prism. Well, those days are over. It didn't register with me until tonight they have been pushing this green initiative that NBC Universal has been pushing on all of it's owned networks. It finally hit me when I tuned across NBC's coverage of the NFL just now and the stupidest thing I ever saw was on the air. First, they turned off all the lights on the set, now everything is green.

What moron at NBC thought this was a good idea? I suppose it's onto weather.gov for my weather information now.
 
kyscott said:
Remember the days when The Weather Channel was apolitical? It was nice, didn't have to worry about if the forecast you were getting was constructed through some sort of political prism. Well, those days are over. It didn't register with me until tonight they have been pushing this green initiative that NBC Universal has been pushing on all of it's owned networks. It finally hit me when I tuned across NBC's coverage of the NFL just now and the stupidest thing I ever saw was on the air. First, they turned off all the lights on the set, now everything is green.

What moron at NBC thought this was a good idea? I suppose it's onto weather.gov for my weather information now.
Click to expand...
You might want to try www.intellicast.com. I especially like the radar.
 
I stopped using TWC for my weather information some time ago, but I'm not concerned if the weather forecast is colored by politics. I don't use weather.com because of the pervasiveness of the advertisements. I don't need a ski or golf forecast!
 
PTBoardOp94 said:
I don't use weather.com because of the pervasiveness of the advertisements. I don't need a ski or golf forecast!
Click to expand...

Use the Firefox browser. They have an ad-blocking extension that hides the ads on most web pages. I'll probably never use IE again.
 
kyscott said:
Remember the days when The Weather Channel was apolitical? It was nice, didn't have to worry about if the forecast you were getting was constructed through some sort of political prism. Well, those days are over. It didn't register with me until tonight they have been pushing this green initiative that NBC Universal has been pushing on all of it's owned networks. It finally hit me when I tuned across NBC's coverage of the NFL just now and the stupidest thing I ever saw was on the air. First, they turned off all the lights on the set, now everything is green.

What moron at NBC thought this was a good idea? I suppose it's onto weather.gov for my weather information now.
Click to expand...

Yes, the Weather Channel jumped the shark long ago with the hiring of Dr. Heidi Cullen and her intolerant rants on "global warming" - which continue unabated despite recent data that adds doubt to the subject. This was the woman who once endorsed the idea of stripping AMS certifications from meterologists who were GW "deniers." And, it's gone downhill from there.

This NBC-U nonsense of turning everything green and that NFL game with no studio lights just highlights the absurdity of it all. As if turning off the studio lights would somehow compensate for all of the energy used to convey the signal from the studio to the control room, uplink it to the satellite, downlink it to hundreds of affiliates with hundreds of transmitters and thousands of cable headends to millions of widescreen TVs.....

What did they save, 0.002% of the electricity that was being used at that moment? Or, more realistically, with all of the promotion and energy used to paint everything green, they probably used as much carbon as ever! A total example of symbolism (and stupidity) over substance.

Dumb enough when it's the entertainment guys, but the mets at the Weather Channel should (theoretically) be above it. There's no reason to mix politics with the national forecast or 'weather on the 8s'! If there was ever a platform that should be above the fray, its TWC. But, no.

The shame of it is that all this was totally unnecessary.

Pity that, under NBC-U's ownership, it will only get much worse. I can't wait to see Chris Matthews' first weather cut-in featuring his legs that famously tingle for Obama! ::)
 
ansky212 said:
Use the Firefox browser. They have an ad-blocking extension that hides the ads on most web pages. I'll probably never use IE again.
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I have used Firefox for half a dozen years, but not the ad-blocking extension. Sometimes I find advertisements useful :)
 
Furthermore, how much energy did it take to fly Ann Curry, Meredith Viera, Al Roker, and Matt Lauer to the "ends of the earth"? And how much more energy did it take to broadcast three hours of live television from the "ends of the earth"?

I'm not stupid enough to question global warming. We should be very concerned based on the dramatic changes at the North and South poles. But, hey, we're Americans and we can do whatever the h**l we want to! ::)
 
We have Weather Now on a digital subchannel. Does the job with no politics or specials. Ill save energy by turning NBC off this week.
 
TWC updated the Intellistar headend computers to show a green Weather Channel logo on both TWC and WeatherScan for this week's "Green Is Universal" week. (All NBCU logos are green again this week).

Also..."Forecast Earth" will be shown every day this week on TWC.

Some of the tactics may prove to be counterintuitive (like when a local TV reporter here in Atlanta took a full bottle of water and poured it out on the ground during a live newscast to make a point about the drought we are under here). But the green trend is big. There is now a whole TV network dedicated to green living (Discovery's Planet Green), and there are college majors and MBA concentrations in sustainability.

The Weather Channel went downhill for a while...and once they launched HD we thought they were going to go with more weather programming. The problem is the long-form programming. They managed to get rid of "Storm Stories", but they now air ad-nauseum repeats of "If It Could Happen Tommorrow" from 2-4 PM every weekday. That is a two hour slot right before PM drive that people might need a weather forecast...only to get doom and gloom on a repeating loop.

Get rid of the long form first...then worry about other issues.
 
TWC updated the Intellistar headend computers to show a green Weather Channel logo on both TWC and WeatherScan for this week's "Green Is Universal" week. (All NBCU logos are green again this week).
Click to expand...

I still can't believe that they had to take it offline for an hour to do that. The entire green logo thing is ridiculous anyways and doesn't bring any awareness to anything (and I love how last year when they did it for St. Patrick's Day NBC couldn't get the Olympic Rings green).

I usually use wunderground.com for my weather. It's pretty much straight from the NWS anyways and has weather radio feeds and for $10 the first year ($5 after that), no ads and free gadgets for the Vista Sidebar. Much better than the $30 fee for Desktop Spywa--I mean Weather Pro.
 
jal41 said:
Some of the tactics may prove to be counterintuitive (like when a local TV reporter here in Atlanta took a full bottle of water and poured it out on the ground during a live newscast to make a point about the drought we are under here). But the green trend is big. There is now a whole TV network dedicated to green living (Discovery's Planet Green), and there are college majors and MBA concentrations in sustainability.
Click to expand...

What I have found really ironic, is during ozone action days, the stations will send reporters out to do live shots. With the big, ozone producing satellite and microwave trucks! I guess telling us from the newsroom, or back porch, that it's hot outside just doesn't cut it anymore.



Get rid of the long form first...then worry about other issues.
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The long form programming is really irritating because it comes at a time when I'm wanting to find out the forecast for the next day.
 
formeraa said:
I'm not stupid enough to question global warming. We should be very concerned based on the dramatic changes at the North and South poles. But, hey, we're Americans and we can do whatever the h**l we want to! ::)
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I'd be a little more skeptical and inquisitive if I were you. The data indicate that this issue is far from decided, as the Earth's temperature is cooling a bit now. Yes, it had warmed significantly over the past 150 years - but there's absolutely no proof that CO2 is the sole reason (and it probably isn't). In fact, it may only contribute a small percentage to the recent warm-up - which was also an extension of a natural pattern. A pattern that dates back to our emergence from the Little Ice Age. One thing that is a constant for the Earth's climate is that it is always in a state of flux. There's a lot more going on here, and the Earth's atmosphere and climate is comprised of a very complicated system of inputs and feedbacks.

Do yourself a favor and don't take Al Gore's kids' book literally. ::) The jury remains out on this.

gr8oldies said:
The long form programming needs to go..especially in severe weather season. Let it go to a sister network.
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Agreed 100%. These shows are NOT the reason why people watch the Weather Channel. Put 'em on Nat Geo. TWC should be 100% weather coverage. The long spot breaks are bad enough (but at least justifiable)!
 
With all this "green" talk, I think we should all just let "Marvin the Martian" claim the Earth in the name of Mars
like in the cartoon and be done with it! I know how we can stop global warming, tell all the greenpeace people to shut up. With all the hot air coming out of their mouths, if they would just shut up, the earth's temperature would drop to a safe level and we would be just fine. ;D
 
Has the Weather Network in Canada gone downhill from there as well? Their channel is simular to the glory days of the Weather Channel. What do you think?
 
KyDXIn said:
kyscott said:
Remember the days when The Weather Channel was apolitical? It was nice, didn't have to worry about if the forecast you were getting was constructed through some sort of political prism. Well, those days are over. It didn't register with me until tonight they have been pushing this green initiative that NBC Universal has been pushing on all of it's owned networks. It finally hit me when I tuned across NBC's coverage of the NFL just now and the stupidest thing I ever saw was on the air. First, they turned off all the lights on the set, now everything is green.

What moron at NBC thought this was a good idea? I suppose it's onto weather.gov for my weather information now.
Click to expand...
You might want to try www.intellicast.com. I especially like the radar.
Click to expand...

The thing is that WSI-Intellicast (which is a great site) is a sister company to The Weather Channel. They provide the graphics and computer systems which you see on TWC. WSI tends to target industry more than the average consumer.
 
dgendvil said:
Has the Weather Network in Canada gone downhill from there as well? Their channel is simular to the glory days of the Weather Channel. What do you think?
Click to expand...

At last check no. They were pretty straight with the weather coverage and not much else. I like it. Go back 5 - 10 years and it seemed primitive when compared with TWC. Now, it's refreshing to watch. They do a fine job of covering the weather throughout Canada and get pretty detailed.

Then again, their format (50% English, 50% French) doesn't permit much time for shenanigans as we see with TWC here. It's interesting how they do it - the English met presents, then you get local weather in English. Meanwhile, on the French WN feed, the French anchor presents while the local weather is given in English. They flip it back and forth. You can easily see it if you're in a location where both language feeds are offered (like around Ottawa). Quite a clever way to do it, actually.
 
BRNout said:
Then again, [The Weather Network]'s format (50% English, 50% French) doesn't permit much time for shenanigans as we see with TWC here.
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Actually, they're separate channels now. TWN and MeteoMedia received separate channels in the mid-1990s. Shortly after that, TWN moved to Mississauga, Ontario, while MeteoMedia stayed in Montreal.
 
Donnyg--

May I please quote you on your Greenpeace comments?
 
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