AccuWeather Channel

[TAFKA wacowx]

Any opinions? I find it much more watchable and the mets are more professional than what I can find on WxPlus. Some of the WXP talent seem to not exude a lot of confidence and don't give off the vibe that they know a lot about weather, whereas on the AccuWeather Channel, I have yet to encounter any so-so talent. The presentation is nice....though not live...which would be my biggest concern. The local talent do reports just like for NBC WeatherPlus. All ABC O&Os have this as a digital subchannel as do multiple other stations across the country.

Anyone else get to watch this and can offer comparisons/opinions?

[hamdaman23]

For the most part its not too bad as long as you can deal with one or two mets that go a little overboard at times.

[TAFKA wacowx]

Originally posted by hamdaman23:
For the most part its not too bad as long as you can deal with one or two mets that go a little overboard at times.Jim Kosek can be a wildman! graemlins/icon_kidra.gif

[Nyquist]

The dominant station in my market has that. I watch it from time to time, but normally tune out until the locals come up.

[TVS]

Is this channel available for viewing anywhere on the web, like you can see WX-Plus (yawn) on many NBC affiliate web sites?

[TAFKA wacowx]

If it's the same thing, I know www.wfmz.com (http://www.wfmz.com) streams it. Years ago, it used to be a specialized local channel, but it may now be a full-fledged version now with AW national content.

I can't check it out because I don't have access to RealPlayer here at work.

[Schwenneker]

We have it here. It's alright. You can check ours out at:

http://www.thepittsburghchannel.com/video/11422491/index.html

I think because the Accu-Wx stuff is computer files, sometimes it's not as clean as a broadcast feed. It just looks compressed.

Some of the youngin's broadcasting there also need to check their pronunciations. The other day one of the ladies was talking about weather headed toward Me No, North Dakota. :rolleyes:

[weatherdood]

We have it...and have been pretty happy with it..we're streaming it at wifr.com

[Almost Virga]

We're starting it soon. Anybody doing this with less than 4 people? PM me if you would rather.

[Almost Virga]

Great.

[MI_Wxman]

Jim Kosek is on one of our local channels here and as long as he's on TV, then our station will be number 1 in weather. if they get someone better - then we're screwed. :D

Not really - but he's good for a laugh. I've seen the serious side of him.

[TX WX guy]

My station's been running a local AccuWeather Channel for a number of years now. I think the one benefit is AccuWeather lets you customize a lot.

We actually don't run much of the AccuWeather-fed videos. We pre-record a few local weather casts. But instead of dropping in and out of other feeds...we run a constant loop of a lot of local info plus some state and national content. Over this, we run the audio from our news/talk radio station.

Also, with a couple mouse clicks, we're live on the air for severe coverage. I'd say you can get as much out of the product as your weather and engineering teams would like to invest.

[wxornot]

Any other opinions on Accuweather channel? How about the Weather Central and WSI options on the market?

[Bureau Chief]

Hey Schwenneker. check your PMs please!

[Lightweight]

My last station had Wx plus and in my current market I have access to the Accu-Wx Channel. So I've had a chance to follow both.

Overall on the national Accu-Wx channel the talent looks pretty confident and knowledgable. A few have really thick north-east accents which I believe could hold them back on the national level.

Wx Plus at first looked pretty solid graphics and talent wise. But the last thing I remember is a few new hires looking really green and lacking confidence on the air.

In my opinion... When it comes to graphics and content Wx Plus comes out on top. Talent wise Accu Wx is little more on top of things.

[forecastguy]

Any other opinions on Accuweather channel? How about the Weather Central and WSI options on the market?

Huh? :confused:

[McFish]

In my market, we have digital 24 hour weather channels from AccuWeather, WxPlus, WSI/Intellicast, and an all local content channel powered by a WxCentral box. I see pros and cons of all 4. The real question is... are viewers watching these? I get the sense the answer is not many around here. When I flip around through these, I often see outdated content at least on the local inserts. Does anyone have a real success story or viewer feedback for any of these channels? Is anyone using these for extended severe weather coverage not shown on your main channel?

[qryche]

I've been told that there is no real way to gauge how many or how few people are watching these channels. All we have to go on with ours is whether or not we get phone calls or emails about it...and those are few and far between. There's also supposed to be someone in master control to keep an eye on it to ensure it's still on the air, but that never happens. It's pretty much up to our weather office to police the whole thing.

I'm not sure the bean-counters care who's watching, as long as they can sell ads on it. And any money brought in is a profit at this point...it's not like it's costing much to operate the broadcast.

[AntMan]

IF you guys any questions pertaining to this channel I can most certainly help you out as I work exclusively with the Local AccuWeather Channel product.

[Stormtracker_Tony]

I can't really judge too much as I haven't watched enough of it to get a feel for how good the content is....Just at first glance, however, the video quality struck me as lacking..Seems as though it's compressed at a low frame rate and smoothed somehow...It's almost as if watching a youtube video on a big tv screen...It's hard to explain but the motion of the mets giving the forecast seems very un-natural...Like I say, I can't judge content as I've not watched enough, but at first impression it seemed as though it was at least as good as any of it's competition.

[AntMan]

I can't really judge too much as I haven't watched enough of it to get a feel for how good the content is....Just at first glance, however, the video quality struck me as lacking..Seems as though it's compressed at a low frame rate and smoothed somehow...It's almost as if watching a youtube video on a big tv screen...It's hard to explain but the motion of the mets giving the forecast seems very un-natural...Like I say, I can't judge content as I've not watched enough, but at first impression it seemed as though it was at least as good as any of it's competition.

The media is hitting many boxes before it hits your tv. All Videos now have been updated with WMV files. I'm not sure if this is the compression that you are seeing. WMV was suppose to add to the quality. AccuWeather will soon begin broadcasting in HD and that should help as well.

[TAFKA wacowx]

Yes, what seperates this from the other weather channels...like TWC and WeatherPlus, is the AW videos are not a live feed, they are delivered content that is played back. I too, have not been extremely happy with the compression...even on Bloomberg, it seems a poorer quality compared to their live news information.

HD will help, but if bandwidth is a problem (as it must be looking at the current level of compression) it can't possibly get any better with much larger files being created and 'piped' to the various systems across the country.

Has AW investigated doing this channel live or is that not cost-effective? It certainly would help in major breaking weather situations.