Shull said it makes more sense for the network to appeal to these fans than to offer programming that they could find elsewhere. The network is having success with " WUTV," a two-hour early evening program for weather geeks that grew out of The Weather Channel's acquisition of the Weather Underground service, he said.
An estimated 89 million homes have access to The Weather Channel, but that's more than 10 million less than at the beginning of the decade. That's due to a combination of cord-cutters and the end of the network's agreement with Verizon FIOS customers to carry the service. The network is also feeling the squeeze from other weather-oriented television services, like one from AccuWeather.
Copyright The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed. Skip to content. Latest Entertainment. Most Read. Niziol mans the so-called expert desk, a workstation in the heart of the newsroom that bristles with monitors displaying weather data. A telestrator allows him to illustrate for viewers the movements of cold fronts and low-pressure systems using an electronic pen, which he flips into the air and catches between takes.
In , the Weather Channel began naming winter storms, a practice the National Weather Service had previously reserved for hurricanes—and previously reserved for itself. The thinking was that naming is a powerful tool for disseminating information about dangerous storms. Meet, for instance, Winter Storms Iago, Orko, and Q—named, respectively, for the Othello villain, the Basque god of thunder, and, for some reason, the Broadway express train.
The internet-using public, by contrast, found the whole thing hilarious. This year, the Weather Channel has chosen to use Greek and Latin names, which gives the practice a patina of science.
A few weeks later, another storm paid a visit to the Northeast, this one named Janus, after the Roman god of transitions. Redditors gleefully posted screen captures of a Weather Channel graphic that had inadvertently obscured the J in Janus, and a thousand jokes about the crappy weather were launched.
Niziol stands by the utility of storm-naming, but there was a perception, among the weather community and viewers alike, that it was a thinly veiled effort to brand the weather, to turn weather systems into tempestuous reality- TV stars.
It played into an existing concern that the Weather Channel has abandoned its core mission of delivering smart, sound forecasts in favor of airing whatever would get viewers to visit the channel, regardless of the conditions outside.
It was perhaps after watching one of the more questionable episodes of Freaks of Nature —a show that offers breathless profiles of men like Heinz Zak, an Austrian who defied the elements by slack-lining across a blustery alpine pass in a Tyrolean hat—that executives at DirecTV took the drastic step of dropping the Weather Channel.
They want to know the temperature outside. Between forecasts, they cut to a static map of temperatures across the country accompanied by elevator music heavy on alto sax.
No one, in other words, could accuse Weather Nation of having too many bells and whistles, though it does still have some kinks to work out. Consider this update on conditions in the Midwest:. As we head through the weekend, some impressive snow totals. May make for some tricky travel conditions. Which Weather Nation transcribed thusly for the hearing-impaired:. By the time Sam Champion takes the air at 5 p.
Roads that were congested at midday are now choked closed. School buses are marooned in the ensuing snarl, and several schools in the metro-Atlanta area will end up sheltering kids overnight; stranded parents will take refuge on the floors of Home Depot or CVS. The situation is so dire that Diane Sawyer decides to lead her broadcast with the storm, if apparently at the last minute.
Champion kicks off his block of live coverage by checking in with Weather Channel reporters dispatched into the field. Reporting live from the Low Country is Jim Cantore, the popular, macho meteorologist who has set up near the College of Charleston.
As he delivers his update, a piercing howl is heard off-camera, and, a moment later, a young man flashes into the frame, running toward Cantore as if to maul him. I should have trusted his forecast: I, which would normally be buzzing with rush-hour traffic, is instead a frozen wasteland littered with helpless Optimas, Altimas, and other cars purchased for their moon roofs, not their traction control. Drivers floor it trying to ascend the slightest incline, then run out of gas from the futile effort.
Like me, they were trapped at the Weather Channel headquarters, but they knew a driver hardier than most who was willing to pick us up in his SUV if we were game to hike a mile to the interstate, sparing him the even-worse conditions on the side roads. His truck makes quick work of the accumulating snow, but every quarter-mile or so, my companions and I are obliged to disembark, run out onto the road, and join the roving bands of Good Samaritans helping to get stuck cars unstuck.
Weather Channel people often talk of having had a formative childhood experience with the elements. Jim Cantore marveled at the snowpack of his Vermont boyhood; Sam Champion found his calling after tornadoes leveled the town where his grandparents lived. Jogging up the snow-hushed interstate, a municipal bus fishtailing in my direction, I experience in equal measure the wonder and terror of their childhood brushes with nature, and it occurs to me that this is what the Weather Channel offers: a first-person experience, the thrill of being there.
Such are the epiphanies one has while inhaling the exhaust of a Ford Fiesta spinning its tires on an ice patch, the elevated musings that are said to precede an acute attack of snow rage. Already a subscriber? Log in or link your magazine subscription.
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