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The Weather Channel's Dave Schwartz dies
- Thread starter mvcg66b3r
- Start date
well, it's a sad day for The Weather Channel and also, if you didn't know, he was battling cancer for a while and sadly, it must had gotten worse in the last couple of weeks. he will be missed.
Wow. Just...wow. Another one gone. I grew up seeing his face on TWC in the '90s, then through the '00s before NBC Universal took over. Mr. Schwartz was entertaining, funny, but serious when it came to national weather. This was back when TWC was an informative network to watch!
May he live in forever peace. Condolences to friends, family, and his former OCMs and colleagues. So young.
May he live in forever peace. Condolences to friends, family, and his former OCMs and colleagues. So young.
I like to divide The Weather Channel up into two distinct eras ... Before NBC, and After NBC (2008).
In the Before NBC era, Dave Schwartz spent about six years as anchor of a show called "Evening Edition West Coast." In 2001, The Weather Channel chopped up their day parts, and tried to separate out into unique, differentiated shows with a different feel for the different times of the day and what the viewers valued most.
Evening Edition was the prime-time show, and the East Coast slot had Paul Goodloe, Jim Cantore, and Jennifer Lopez / Alexandra Steele. After that show wrapped, there was an hour of Storm Stories, and then it would restart with live programming for the West Coast viewers (what a concept). This was the show Dave anchored, from, IIRC, 10-Mid ET.
I lived on the West Coast, and was wrapping up high school or in college during his run on Evening Edition West Coast. He had a number of co-anchors over the years (Sandra Diaz, Hilary Andrews, Sharon Resultan as well as regular fill-ins Warren Madden and Mike Bettes), but he was really the star of that show. Working well into the evening, he was funny and informative, and could really make a broadcast special. After all, we are talking about weather... He made it interesting, funny, and relevant.
When he was diagnosed with cancer around 2006, he disappeared from that time slot. He worked mostly weekends, on a fill-in basis, while he battled pancreatic cancer the first time. And just about the time he was healthy again, NBC let him go in the first round of blood letting after they acquired TWC.
In the after NBC era, TWC has really struggled. They went away from the core competency, and discovered, as many others have, that their product requires quite a bit of investment to keep on the air. The substitution of "original programming" has decimated their ratings, and of course, the internet has reduced the need for actual weather programming. They rehired Dave Schwartz about two years ago, and many, including myself, were very happy to see him back.
He was as good as it gets.
This summer I had the opportunity to see him on air, during middays a couple of times. He was obviously very sick. In fact I've never seen anyone look worse, on the air, than Dave did about two months ago. I hadn't seen him for a couple of weeks, and worried that his health had turned.
There are some touching tributes out there. Surprisingly, TWC appeared to be caught a little off guard by his death. It was announced on Saturday evening when they no longer have live programming. But Sunday morning, for the first two hours of AMHQ, the two anchors voiced over some clips and expressed their sadness at his passing. By the third hour, they had a package put together, but most of the clips were pulled off of Youtube, and not ones from the archive. I was fairly surprised they didn't have something ready to go, "in the can" so to speak. I will say it was awfully touching to see the clip of Reynolds Wolf and Kelly Cass silhouetted at the anchor desk, the lights on the set having gone to black as AMHQ ended on Sunday morning. You can see Kelly wiping her eyes, and Reynolds saying a little prayer before he reaches out to comfort Kelly. The two of them held it together for four hours of reporting on his passing, and at the last one, they let go a little bit. Here's the clip from Sunday's last hour of AMHQ - https://youtu.be/hgMB6tMC6Jw.
On Weekend Recharge after AMHQ yesterday, Paul Goodloe and Maria LaRosa spent some time sharing memories and pictures of Dave. Again, no prepared package. I did see a clip from today's AMHQ, with a great tribute from Jim Cantore. They finally got some video from the vault and put a good piece together (https://youtu.be/f8E3M6aDQEY).
A nice tribute in a Washington Post blog today from a coworker at TWC: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...st-one-of-its-best-in-dave-schwartz/#comments
And finally, Saturday when the news broke, Dave started trending on twitter. As I read through the tweets, what was really incredible was how many TV meteorologists that are around my age (late 20s, early 30s) said that Dave was one of their heroes growing up, and he was someone that really made them want to do the weather on TV. He really had an impact on the "next generation" of weathermen. Unreal.
In the Before NBC era, Dave Schwartz spent about six years as anchor of a show called "Evening Edition West Coast." In 2001, The Weather Channel chopped up their day parts, and tried to separate out into unique, differentiated shows with a different feel for the different times of the day and what the viewers valued most.
Evening Edition was the prime-time show, and the East Coast slot had Paul Goodloe, Jim Cantore, and Jennifer Lopez / Alexandra Steele. After that show wrapped, there was an hour of Storm Stories, and then it would restart with live programming for the West Coast viewers (what a concept). This was the show Dave anchored, from, IIRC, 10-Mid ET.
I lived on the West Coast, and was wrapping up high school or in college during his run on Evening Edition West Coast. He had a number of co-anchors over the years (Sandra Diaz, Hilary Andrews, Sharon Resultan as well as regular fill-ins Warren Madden and Mike Bettes), but he was really the star of that show. Working well into the evening, he was funny and informative, and could really make a broadcast special. After all, we are talking about weather... He made it interesting, funny, and relevant.
When he was diagnosed with cancer around 2006, he disappeared from that time slot. He worked mostly weekends, on a fill-in basis, while he battled pancreatic cancer the first time. And just about the time he was healthy again, NBC let him go in the first round of blood letting after they acquired TWC.
In the after NBC era, TWC has really struggled. They went away from the core competency, and discovered, as many others have, that their product requires quite a bit of investment to keep on the air. The substitution of "original programming" has decimated their ratings, and of course, the internet has reduced the need for actual weather programming. They rehired Dave Schwartz about two years ago, and many, including myself, were very happy to see him back.
He was as good as it gets.
This summer I had the opportunity to see him on air, during middays a couple of times. He was obviously very sick. In fact I've never seen anyone look worse, on the air, than Dave did about two months ago. I hadn't seen him for a couple of weeks, and worried that his health had turned.
There are some touching tributes out there. Surprisingly, TWC appeared to be caught a little off guard by his death. It was announced on Saturday evening when they no longer have live programming. But Sunday morning, for the first two hours of AMHQ, the two anchors voiced over some clips and expressed their sadness at his passing. By the third hour, they had a package put together, but most of the clips were pulled off of Youtube, and not ones from the archive. I was fairly surprised they didn't have something ready to go, "in the can" so to speak. I will say it was awfully touching to see the clip of Reynolds Wolf and Kelly Cass silhouetted at the anchor desk, the lights on the set having gone to black as AMHQ ended on Sunday morning. You can see Kelly wiping her eyes, and Reynolds saying a little prayer before he reaches out to comfort Kelly. The two of them held it together for four hours of reporting on his passing, and at the last one, they let go a little bit. Here's the clip from Sunday's last hour of AMHQ - https://youtu.be/hgMB6tMC6Jw.
On Weekend Recharge after AMHQ yesterday, Paul Goodloe and Maria LaRosa spent some time sharing memories and pictures of Dave. Again, no prepared package. I did see a clip from today's AMHQ, with a great tribute from Jim Cantore. They finally got some video from the vault and put a good piece together (https://youtu.be/f8E3M6aDQEY).
A nice tribute in a Washington Post blog today from a coworker at TWC: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...st-one-of-its-best-in-dave-schwartz/#comments
And finally, Saturday when the news broke, Dave started trending on twitter. As I read through the tweets, what was really incredible was how many TV meteorologists that are around my age (late 20s, early 30s) said that Dave was one of their heroes growing up, and he was someone that really made them want to do the weather on TV. He really had an impact on the "next generation" of weathermen. Unreal.
One more memorial video from the end of Weather Underground tonight. Mike Bettes worked a ton of evenings with Dave years ago, Alex Wilson was his partner when he came back up until a few months ago. Very nicely done.
https://twitter.com/mikebettes/status/760281724848861185
https://twitter.com/mikebettes/status/760281724848861185
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