THE WEATHER CHANNEL

Just FYI. Don't post anything on Twitter about Directv that is not in TWC favor. They will delete it. They only keep post bad mouthing Directv on their.

 

They are definitely doing that. It is pretty sad!

 

So much armchair indignation for a failed carriage license agreement regarding a channel that few people watch. :hurah:

 

One has to wonder what a full page in the national edition of The New York Times costs. The Weather Channel's ad and BP still running propaganda about how the cleaned up the Gulf of Mexico and are now more "environmentally friendly". Comes on teh tails of a full page a"apology" from Target.

Anyway, The Weather Channel was not providing what it claims it was; the weather. It has morphed into a reality channel, with weather thrown in. I gave up on them a long time ago and just go to Weather Underground or the NOAA site on the internet. As for "alerting in emergencies", one can tune to a local station (if it is in their area) or CNN. They had great coverage of the F5 tornado in central Oklahoma last year and did so without running ads. On the other hand, tune to The Weather Channel, ads, news about OKC, ads. When we had flooding here, last September 11 - 15, The Weather Channel was AWOL.They are teh last place i would tune to in an emergency. NBC Universal should just turn it into a 24/7 WWF channel,

 

Anybody know how to block their URL from search page results? The Boolean trick of adding a - in front doesn't work too well.

 

The letter will go with anything you put in it, including the Subject line. It isn't read by anyone.

At the same time, I'm sure TWC counts any e-mail as being pro TWC and con DIRECTV. A copy goes to DIRECTV, which has a bot set up to reply nicely.

 

+1 Bye

 

So after I submitted two comments, one negative and one positive on the TWC website, guess what, the positive made but the other one did not. what a bunch of crooks....

I copied the text from the latest post which was from "Julia" and made mine "Julious"

Click for large view - Uploaded with Skitch

 

I tried also with a sorta favorable one, but I never got acknowledgement and it certainly didn't get posted. I think they have my IP address on their blacklist. (I tried before with a question or two.) My "email" did go through, being acknowledged by both DIRECTV® and TWC.

 

Add to that anyone is allowed to click the red pledge to switch option on their website.

 

I did not get an email as I used a bogus email address. Dont want to start getting garbage from these idiots

 

You DO know that TWC owns Weather Underground, right?

 

I am sure he does, but he also said WU's website. TWC's website is also useful, unlike their TV panderings.

 

Contract negotiations are apparently not going all that well with DirecTV. They have booted them from the lineup, and replaced them with a knock-off service that they ginned up a few years ago for a different squabble.

TWC says this is a public service issue, which is total bull, because they provide weather coverage some 120 hours a week, while the new service provides equivalent coverage 168 hours a week. They might have a bit of an argument were there some weather catastrophe somewhere like Sandy, as TWC probably has the money pile and resources to cover that better and provide a bit of better help, but not really. And besides, that money pile came from you and me. Also, the weather is instantly available on every smart phone, and the internet, and is typically covered multiple times by local station sub-channels in most markets, not to mention "The Current Temp Is..." graphics most of the day.

Back in the early 80’s, when channel slots were opening up faster than niche networks could be created to fill them, I still thought an entire channel devoted to weather coverage was a stupid idea. Now that all of the niche channels from the 80’s are established and have changed their focus to covering whatever they can find, to the point of them no longer being niche at all, plus due to the now-ubiquitous nature of constant inescapable weather coverage in general, I think it is even a stupider idea, especially since a national weather channel currently has no technical hope of being able to automatically display my local weather whenever I first tune in. But I get that elsewhere, because other vendors such as the internet and a thousand free apps can and do provide that option.

TWC is grasping at straws, saying DTV should waive cancellation fees for those cancelling because their precious TWC is no longer there. Again, bull. The replacement is better, number one, and every provider contract has to have a clause in it that allows the vendor to change the lineup without it being a get-out-of-jail-free card for its subscribers.

IMHO, DirecTV needs to do 3 things in this battle:

1. Stick to their guns. This is their’s to win. TWC’s argument that every other vendor in the country carries them only underlines the fact that then not every vendor, such as DTV, needs to carry them.
2. Add the new service to their interactive weather. Once they do that, they are providing everything they had with TWC.
3. Open up and carry the weather-related subchannels in LIL markets. That might cost a little bit in infrastructure (actually, just stop muxing those channels out of the spot beams and update the channel guide database), but it would serve the customers better and they should still be able to save a bundle on not having to pay TWC anymore.

And TWC needs to do three things as well:

1. Stop whining
2. Realize that they can’t charge DTV for a service that is virtually useless and can easily be replaced (and already has been) and is available everywhere, then lower their rates to something reasonable. What they are doing is equivalent to charging for fresh air.
3. Shut up.

 

Cut one, cut them all.

Cut them to the core.

I cut all ties to WU and Intellicast once they got assimilated.

 

There is no battle. The channel has been dropped and won't be reinstated.

 

I had one stray thought.

I wonder how much the weather channel pays the local stations that provide reports during storms?

 

Drop the weather channel is now on Facebook.

https://www.facebook.com/DropTheWeatherChannel