Posted by
Catmman on Friday, October 23, 2009 1:50:35 PM
The Weather Channel has had issues for years. They went 'Green' (read eco-wacko) some years ago. Their 'greeness' blew up in their faces a few years ago with the activism of one of their meteorologists, Heidi Cullen. She had an openly leftist-activist show on TWC, The Climate Code, and received harsh criticism after stating any meteorologist not carping for global warming should lose their meteorological certification. Her show didn't last after widespread outrage forced TWC to have Cullen assume a less public role.
TWC has also turned to alarmist programming with such shows as "It Could Happen Tomorrow" about how mega-disasters could affect large metropolitan areas. Fires, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes, etc. With this type of programming, TWC has tapped into the relatively short memories of it's viewership. All of these so-called "ICHT" scenarios
in fact happen all the time. California and other areas of the country are ravaged by fire every year. Hurricanes hit almost every year. Tornadoes hit cities every year. Floods, likewise. So what's the point of these shows? Not only do they attempt to suck in ratings, these shows take the opportunity to throw in a little bit of eco-activism here and there. You see, these programs show what could happen - if we don't do something about global warming, etc.
I have also written about how TWC has turned to more 'reality' based programming as opposed to doing, well,
the weather. I suppose I can forgive TWC to a point for trying to get ratings with such programs, but I could care less about watching 'storm chasers'. More than once over the past six months I have turned to TWC to get info on sever weather happening around where I live - I appreciate the radar shots during local weather. Quite a few times I have tuned in just to get these radar images and have been treated to the latest iteration of "Full Force Weather" (or other such show.) I know people's stories about surviving weather related disasters can be compelling, but at 2:30 in the morning when a sever thunderstorm is raging outside, I don't care about how Billy Joe Jim Bob got all his goats into the cellar during a tornado outbreak thirty years ago. Seriously, cut the programs to accommodate the "Local on the 8's" or pre-empt the programming during sever weather outbreaks.
Anyway, now it seems TWC is
going to go a bit further in marginalizing their original mission. They are going to start showing movies in prime time:
The guys over at /Film
are reporting that The Weather Channel (yes, THE Weather Channel) will
start showing movies starting the day before Halloween, October 30th,
and every Friday thereafter. So what sort of movies will the channel be
showing? Well, weather-related movies, of course! What else? Starting
off the series - which runs from the end of October to the end of
November - is the George Clooney and Mark Wahlberg disaster movie, The
Perfect Storm, coinciding with the anniversary of the actual 1991 storm
that the movie is based on.
Is there anyone who is going to turn into TWC to watch movies? I have about thirty channels which play nothing
but movies. Why would I tune into TWC, a channel ostensibly to report, er, the
WEATHER to watch a movie? And does anyone think that TWC host for these films
won't take the opportunity to throw in a bit of eco-activism ?
TWC has already turned me off by having two hours of Al Roker and MSNBC on in the mornings. I and millions of others don't tune into TWC for the purpose of entertainment or even info-tainment. I tune in for one simple reason - to get the weather forecast.