When I want the local weather forecast, I always just go to TWC's Weatherscan which we get on digital cable. However, a lot of people do not have access to this channel and are stuck with TWC's main feed. As it is, less than 40% of their day seems to be dedicated to actual weather forecasting/reporting. Not only do you have the long-form shows, but there are features/vignettes which are often barely associated with weather that are stuck into the already short weather segments. Then, there is the heavy spot load. Basically, they come out of local weather on the 8's at the 0 mark; spend 3 to 4 minutes on weather, then into 4 to 5 minutes of spots before another local on the 8. From what I can tell, they're running about 25 minutes of spots in an average hour.
As someone with a background in weather, I feel strongly about this one in that the Weather Channel's once excellent credibility has suffered mightily under NBC/Universal. Weather with Al? What a joke. Even Stephanie Abrahams can't save that mess (and she's getting a little bit of an ego these days too). The previous owners would never have approved of having a clown like Al Roker (who knows very little about the weather) being a high-profile anchor on their channel. They have become increasingly irrelevant and installing movies on this once great channel will just seal the deal and make them no better than the likes of CMT or "SyFy."
What a pity. And, what a fine example of the RUINING of a once-great channel.
Now, all I have to do is sit back and wait for someone here to accuse me of living in the past and wanting to Weather Channel to be as it was "in 1969" (yes, I got that about TV Land) or some absurd argument like that.....
