TWC Poll

[Mike M]

I'm curious since a lot of people have mixed feelings about TWC, so I figured it would make sense to make a poll here. I would like everyone to vote and to give their own, personal, honest opinion without stating what the average viewer prefers.

I rate it a 2, simply because of its lack of music variety, delays on playlist changes, poor production skills, excessive longform, not focusing on weather anymore, and replacing a lot of its good OCMs with poorly talented ones. Just to name a few. That's why I go to mainly weather.com now and nothing else.

[wxntrafficfan]

Mike, you stole the words right out of my mouth. I rated it a two as well.

[gt1racerlHDl]

i give it a 1 because TWC is so unbearable to watch anymore.

[Drobbins]

As mentioned in many of the dish network discussions I have seen around the web, they have totally lost focus. In my opinion, there is too much hype, fluff and watching it reminds me of a infomercial or listening to a used car salesman. I also belong to a weather forum relating to my website. When I posted about the dish situation, mostly all the replies were about how they haven't watched TWC for years. To me that states a lot when a bunch of weather enthusiasts do not watch a channel "dedicated" to the weather.  It also just as amazing that a forum dedicated to TWC fans even has a poll like this and looking at the few results so far, a large amount of their own fans give a poor rating. 

My son is having a pool party today, so last night I wanted to see how the weather would be today. The flash flood in Arkansas is definitely tragic, but they re-hashed the same footage over and over for the whole time. Nothing new was added. My wife commented about how Alexandra Steele could have such an ear to ear smile on her face while covering this loss of life. I replied that her face is basically stuck that way. Also, The oil disaster in the gulf is not weather related in any shape or form!! Why do they keep showing that same webcam of the leak? Being as i am a dish customer, the local on the 8s does not do me much good so I usually wait for the weekly planner. After watching and waiting for about a hour, TWC did not provide me with any information about the weather for today's party. 

They are definitely not the best weather channel - they are the only one. I am in a good mood this morning so I voted a 2. If I were given another choice for weather, I would take it.

[toxictwister00]

I give it a 5, being generous, if I wasn't able to overlook the reasons I'm able to explain now I would have easily said a 2 or 3. I'm able to let certain things past over me that I don't like such as WUWA  existing (which should be called "Wake Up With Whoever the Hell Shows Up That Day"), the unnecessary number of layoffs and trying to cover it up by hiring newer, cheaper, inexperienced OCMs *coughing* Uhhh Todd Santos, and when they falsely call themselves "The Severe Weather Authority" and they're showing 6 hours of s*** long form programming instead. Overall like I said before I just don't watch or pay attention if I'm bothered by something that I dislike. It's ironic, I wish we could go back 5 years back then when I THOUGHT TWC was really going downhill. Oh boy how I was wrong on that. Oh well there's still some things TWC hasn't screwed up yet and that's Hurricane Coverage even during last year's dull season I was surprised they did live coverage from FL during TS Claudette and coverage during Hurricane Ida (Nor'Ida), the bi/tri-monthly playlists don't bother me regardless if they're good or not, that's the way the format was prior to 2000 and some longer than that. I still enjoy seeing certain OCMs whenever I do bother to watch, and the format of them being more newsy doesn't get to me as much anymore except when they purposely drag on and on with the same old info I heard about 4 hours before when I watched then. So to wrap up this lengthy rant, I'm basically on the fence. I don't like the direction TWC is going, but the same can be said for half the networks on television now. It's usually when network execs want to recreate a network that's evolved around one thing for years that the network sinks or starts jumping the shark and unfortunately TWC is a victim of that like any others.

[curtjr4]

I also rated a 5. I guess I was too generous, should have rated it a 2. I am just mad since they are so off-base with what they should be doing. An example is this oil spill. Yes, it is a big thing, but it is barely even weather related. It seems like they talk about it every 2 minutes

[Localonthe8s]

A 2, only because there is some indie jazz on the playlists, if they ever come back to normal again. I hardly watch TWC anymore because I lost interest in the network. And WUWA is something that I never watch during the mornings, I have weather reports from local news stations to cover that.

[wxmediafan]

I rated TWC a 6.   I think they have way too much long-form (duh), too much going on at the bottum of the screen, and too much news (I love my news, but love my weather more ).  Like "Drobbins" mentioned, they tend to spend a lot of time showing and repeating the same story over and over again, especially the tragic ones.  I agree that people should know about it, but don't let us know unless there is NEW information.  Tell people to log onto weather.com to read the story or something.

However, when they do have weather coverage, I believe they do a pretty good job overall.  I am always impressed with their severe weather and hurricane coverage, not too mention they have 2 experts who are intelligent in their field.  I could care less about what music plays on Local on the 8's..so that had nothing to do with my score.

[tpirfan28]

A 5 because a) it could be much worse and b) it could be much better.

[twcclassics]

I gave it a "1" because I haven't really watched since 2005 or so. My reasons why...

Lack of weather programming

Lack of in-depth coverage (ie. jet stream, the map w/the isobars, etc).

Firing good OCMs and keeping dull ones like Alexandra Steele and Al Roker.

Too many programs that have nothing to do weather (movies and shows).

Lack of music variety during local forecast. I love Ryan Farish, but I think we can try other artists. And by other artists, I don't mean Joe Blow who made a CD in his basement.

Firing artists in favor of graphic/video experts.

Making needless changes and additions to the newer STARs.

Talking about politics (ie. climate change).

[LFMusicFan]

I put 5. While I still like TWC, it's not in the way that initially hooked me. To me now, it's just a place for me to get my weather forecast.

[Zach]

I put 5. While I still like TWC, it's not in the way that initially hooked me. To me now, it's just a place for me to get my weather forecast.

Same way lol.

As for me, I have 2 opinions.

In the place of a fan, it's a 1. 1 because they don't really show much weather anymore and are focused on the same places over and over, severe weather or not. The music is another thing, too. Rock on TWC, especially with narrations for you XL and IS viewers disrupts the vocals that want to be heard. With ratings, Landmark preempted long form and excessively covered severe weather where it was happening nationwide instead of sending out dual feed to the areas.

In the view of a regular viewer, it's a 5. Many people are more focused on news and could care less about weather. To me, the news part is the way NBC can keep TWC's ratings up. Also, the average viewer has no view of the music, all they want is their local weather 6 times an hour on the 8s.

[CartoonJazzLover]

1 because of showing the oil thing over and over again, no more monthly playlists, showing news/politics which I avoid looking/watching, which is why I watch LOT8s more than live programing. Still watch live programing sometimes unless it weather related.

[jtmal0723]

The Weather Channel gets a mid 6-7 in my books. I'm ok with this, no network is perfect in my eyes.

PS: I lol @ the people giving 1s and 2s, but I respect your opinions.

[TWCToday]

I was that insane lunatic who gave it a 7

+
Local Forecast Music
Local Forecast
STAR Technology
On Air/ LF Graphics
On air personalities (the majority anyway)
Hurricane coverage
Staff I know who are really great people

-
Less variety in local forecast music
Loss of OCM personalities
Loss of Landmark as owner
Loss of show personality
WUWA
Longform