Messages

1

Local Forecast / Re: What lf songs do you wish to have?

« on: May 19, 2020, 12:52:56 PM »

"All There Is (Sunny Day)" by Yvonne (Leon) Ayers (Feat. Daft Punk) - June+July 2010

Um, what?

2

Contributions / Re: 'WeatherScan' like app now in beta preview

« on: January 13, 2020, 12:33:34 AM »

Everblack and luesjo12 - I sure hope neither of you felt I was bothered by your feedback.  Just the opposite - I'm very happy to have it.  There have only been a few people who have seen the project so far and I'm anxious for additional opinions and suggestions.

luesjo12 - I'm concerned about what you mentioned with your zip code.  To be honest that sounds like a bug and I want to get it addressed.  I'll take a look and see what I can figure out.  McAllen certainly should be in there as a city.  I appreciate you letting me know.

Thanks again, guys!  I really do appreciate any feedback.  Even negative feedback is OK.  We really are committed to doing whatever we can to make this little app of ours as useful as possible.  In order to do that we need other opinions besides our own.  After staring at it for hundreds of hours over the course of a year you develop a type of tunnel vision that sometimes makes things hard to notice.

Scott

I am one of those who has seen this in action, and Scott has done a tremendous job with this app. I was actually the one who suggested the different music playlists, and some other tweaks and additions that have been introduced since it was launched in beta. Seeing that you've implemented some of my suggestions was very exciting to notice!

This project has nowhere to go but up, and I have a feeling that it will become quite a success once it's out of beta.

3

Programming and Graphics / Re: TWC New Graphics

« on: August 21, 2019, 06:24:08 PM »

the survey i mentioned showed you a few different types of maps, some more detailed than others, some real clean and basic, some in between.. which did you like best,

then each map with a different location  nameplate if you will, in different font and formats, asking which combination you liked..

i dont remember what some of the other questions were though

Was Interstate an option?  (Although I do miss seeing that font on-air...)

Seriously though, I feel like I'm one of the few people here who doesn't mind them switching from Akko to Roboto for their main graphics. It's much cleaner to read.

Personally, it would've been great if they could've updated the LOT8s graphics as well. Changing the font only doesn't do much.

EDIT: weather.com apparently doesn't have the new graphics. Yes, they're separate now, but you'd think that there still would be some graphical continuity between the two companies...

4

General Discussion / Re: The Front Porch

« on: August 03, 2019, 04:13:25 PM »

I still poke around here (I even updated my artwork thread a couple weeks ago), but as Mike said, those of us who had a vested interest in TWC lost most, if not all of it years ago for various reasons. Personally, I'm too busy to pretend to give a crap about what they do nowadays, especially since I'm going to college now. There is simply too much for me to concern myself with, and all of it is much more important than what some cable network does.

I don't even think I've watched more than an hour's worth of TWC this year, and I haven't watched it at all these last few months since I once again dropped my cable provider. WeatherNation has replaced TWC as my source of background noise, and the severe weather, hurricane, and winter weather coverage that they provide is damn near close to old-school TWC standards, IMO. For those rare times that I'm on a nostalgia kick, I'll just cast the Weatherscan emulator or the 4000 sim to my TV.

Once I dropped cable, I never looked back. They offer Xfinity (I think) at my university for free, but I am *not* dealing with them ever again. Hulu, Netflix, Amazon, YouTube, and all of the other apps on my Roku give me more content than what cable ever did, and I'm not being gouged for it.

/end rant 

5

TWC Fan Art / Re: Jonathon's Artwork

« on: July 28, 2019, 09:51:50 PM »

Moved over to Mac, so I started to make some artwork again.

I made a few adjustments to this, mainly with adjusting the size of the containers and the fonts. I forgot to include the temp on the LDL (a minor oversight on my part), but otherwise I think it came out fairly well.

Lemme know what ya think! 

6

Local Forecast / Re: What lf songs do you wish to have?

« on: July 28, 2019, 08:46:33 PM »

Ryan Farish - Forever Loving You, Highland

Jeanne Ricks - The River, Cold Comfort

Chris Geith - First Gust, Heat Index, High Season

Drew Ley - Heaven's Touch

7

TWC and your Cable Company / Re: The Weather Channel coming back to Verizon Fios

« on: June 19, 2019, 08:13:13 PM »

Trust me, I'd love Verizon to add Weatherscan back. I think that it'd be stupid of them not to add it back. But I stepped back from the position of a fan to the perspective of the bean counters (which I think made me lose a few IQ points). To them, it wouldn't make sense to bring Weatherscan back, as they'll have both TWC *and* AccuWeather now. Weatherscan would seem redundant in that respect. And Local Now would be redundant.

Hopefully they do add it back. It might force TWC to give it some sorely needed attention.

EDIT: Byron Allen is known for using rather unorthodox techniques to get his networks on cable lineups...no doubt that's what he did to get TWC back on FiOS. I wouldn't be surprised if there was a clause to have *all* ES networks on the lineup now, so Weatherscan might get put back on...but I still have my doubts.

8

TWC and your Cable Company / Re: The Weather Channel coming back to Verizon Fios

« on: June 19, 2019, 03:51:56 PM »

Looks like The Weather Channel will be returning to Verizon FiOS starting next week. 

https://www.multichannel.com/news/the-weather-channel-inks-verizon-fios-carriage-deal

Awesome!

I have missed watching TWC on FiOS so much!
Hoping they also bring back Weatherscan to FiOS too...

It's doubtful that Weatherscan will come back. TWC doesn't show any interest in maintaining it anymore (they're only doing it because they have to), and Verizon probably doesn't care enough to get Weatherscan back on the lineup. Not saying it won't happen, but I'd be surprised if it did happen.

More than likely you'd see a simulcast of Local Now in place of Weatherscan. It'd be cheaper, and they wouldn't have to worry about maintaining a computer that's almost 20 years old for a channel that's damn near obsolete.

9

Local Forecast / Re: TWC Songs you've heard in other places

« on: June 18, 2019, 07:17:40 PM »

I heard "Westside Hotel" by Craig Chaquico at a hotel a few months back. It was quite fitting.

10

TWC Fan Art / Re: weatherfan_2013's Wx Graphics

« on: June 06, 2019, 05:45:23 PM »

impressive. 

how were you able to get access to a MAX machine?

11

Weatherscan Discussion / Re: Weatherscan Topic

« on: June 20, 2018, 06:24:19 PM »

Came across a transcript of a recent Comcast shareholders meeting where the CEO was asked if Weatherscan would return to Xfinity headends:

https://seekingalpha.com/article/4180780-comcast-corp-cmcsa-ceo-brian-roberts-hosts-annual-meeting-shareholders-transcript

The juicy quote from the meeting (for those who don't want to go thru six pages):

Arthur Block

Next question. In view of the recent unusual weather and the fact that the weather channel fails to provide radar and other important local information, why can’t Comcast restore weather scan to its viewers? Seeing a crawler with local information is not adequate.

Brian Roberts

Thank you for your comment. I will pass it on to our cable division. But I don’t believe we have plans to return on weather scan at this time but thanks for the input.

Hey, at least it got a mention...although we all knew what answer to expect.

12

Programming and Graphics / Re: The Weather Channel Acquired by Entertainment Studios

« on: March 22, 2018, 10:04:36 PM »

It's a shame to see how devalued TWC is. Going from $3.5 billion in 2008 to only $300 million ten years later?! While I'm not surprised, it's very upsetting to see how far it's fallen.

Who knows, maybe the new owners will turn stuff around there...but like most of you, I have my doubts. Considering the "quality networks" they own now (I use that term very loosely), I don't have high hopes for the future of TWC. But I don't think it'll be this doom-and-gloom, apocalypse-type scenario that some people have been suggesting.

Let's take a wait-and-see approach with this.

And since willh699 mentioned WeatherNation, I've noticed that they've improved a lot these last few years. Most of their on-air mets are very polished and professional, and know what they're talking about. They've definitely come a long way.

I think it's worth it to consider that TWC's digital assets aren't owned by TWC, those were sold off to IBM. So now without the digital assets, the value of the channel drops drastically.

Ah yes, forgot the brains of the group were sold off last year. IBM made a really wise decision to only purchase the digital portion of the company.

Still, I figured the network itself would've easily been worth at least anywhere from $500-750 million. Entertainment Studios lucked out here...imagine if they tried to put in a bid like this ten years ago. That would've been their financial end.

However, I will wish Mr. Allen and company the best of luck with this endeavor. Hopefully, they bring TWC back to where it should be... let's hope that they do.

13

Weatherscan Discussion / Re: Weatherscan Topic

« on: March 22, 2018, 08:50:21 PM »

Even though I’m in college now 100 miles away, I still like to keep up with what’s going on with the cable system at home and I saw their meeting agenda a couple of days ago included a “Weather Channel Renewal” section and assumed that any renewal of their TWC affiliation agreement would include the forced removal of Weatherscan. This is apparently not the case. The agreement (negotiated through the NCTC) actually extends carriage of both TWC and Weatherscan from the original cut-off date of February 28, 2019 to February 28, 2022. Also, by entering this agreement a year early, allows them to save money on buying the channels wholesale. Seems like my theory is correct in that TWC isn’t forcing anything and they’re just letting cable companies decide when to get rid of it based on viewership numbers, bandwidth concerns, overhead costs, etc. This may change in the future, but it does appear Weatherscan will live in Frankfort for a few more years.

I think in your case in Frankfort, Weatherscan has more decent views due to it being in a lower channel number (19) and being in a lower tier. Most Comcast markets required one of the highest digital packages and had the channel in the 100s or higher; that alone (but also other reasons) didn't draw a lot of viewership.

And that, I think, is the big takeaway. But with new owners, who knows what will happen now.

Hey, maybe Weatherscan will get an upgrade! (sorry, I had to)

More than likely, they'll just leave it as is. Only change I could see is more of Cantore's narrations being added, if that hasn't already happened yet.

14

Programming and Graphics / Re: The Weather Channel Acquired by Entertainment Studios

« on: March 22, 2018, 08:39:37 PM »

It's a shame to see how devalued TWC is. Going from $3.5 billion in 2008 to only $300 million ten years later?! While I'm not surprised, it's very upsetting to see how far it's fallen.

Who knows, maybe the new owners will turn stuff around there...but like most of you, I have my doubts. Considering the "quality networks" they own now (I use that term very loosely), I don't have high hopes for the future of TWC. But I don't think it'll be this doom-and-gloom, apocalypse-type scenario that some people have been suggesting.

Let's take a wait-and-see approach with this.

And since willh699 mentioned WeatherNation, I've noticed that they've improved a lot these last few years. Most of their on-air mets are very polished and professional, and know what they're talking about. They've definitely come a long way.

15

Weatherscan Discussion / Re: When will all Xfinity Weatherscan units be back?

« on: December 26, 2017, 11:52:49 PM »

That was a half-assed attempt by TWC to fulfill those FCC requirements. In the end, all it did was cause confusion as to what counties were under a warning - especially if the weatherscan unit served a large area - and made the severe weather mode functionality practically useless (those issues have been brought up here numerous times).