The Weather Channel has a number of issues that need to be addressed for it to regain relevance. This channel has lost its way.
First off, we all seem to agree that the movies, docudramas and other long-form programming needs to go. Trash 'em. That's a given, so we'll leave it at that.
So, when they're actually showing weather there are other problems that have rendered this channel difficult to watch. For one thing, the commercial load is so heavy that, during some 10 minute segments, you get 2:30 of weather, 2:00 of local on the 8's, and 5:30 of spots! It's so bad that I decided to time it out one day and that's how it was. Other segments feature more like 3:00 or 3:30 of weather, but it still adds up to between 50% or 55% of the time. And that timing includes some anchor-delivered non-sense that isn't always relevant. All in all, weather reporting has been trimmed down to a small slice of any given hour on this channel. This has been the dirty little secret which is why a lot of people no longer watch - not enough relevant weather reporting.
How to change it? Well, perhaps getting back to basics would help. TWC's Weatherscan service, offered on many digital cable systems, is more relevant and useful to most of us than the main channel. Yes, it's perhaps a little too bare-bones in some ways - but it gets the job done. However, it's no good for travel - which is a popular reason for people to tune into the Weather Channel. Perhaps an approach like the Weather Network does up in Canada and, as the Weather Channel used to do here: stick with the weather. Lots of local cut-ins and little else but weather and a few spots. Without a lot of the filler and without trying to be too many things to too many people, budgets can be trimmed and spot time can be rolled back a bit. That would help a lot. This is a service channel, so you need to be not more than 90 seconds away from weather content at any given time. That's the unspoken consumer expectation. Do that and you'll have more viewers and they will stick around longer (something that is tough to do as it stands now).
As for the competition, it's still at ground zero. Those network O & O subchannels with weather are still a joke. They're taped, clearly low budget and often out of date. Accuweather? Lousy audio/video with 1980s style graphics. NBC local weather? Basically a full-screen radar (between ads) with out of date forecasts delivered by chyron. In a word, they're weak.
TWC still has the field to itself, it just needs to grab the ball and run with it.
