AccuWeather Network


The AccuWeather Network is an American cable and satellite television network that is owned by AccuWeather. The network broadcasts live and pre-recorded national and regional weather forecasts, analysis of ongoing weather events, and weather-related news. The network's studio and master control facilities are based at AccuWeather's headquarters in State College, Pennsylvania.

History

AccuWeather, which for many years had distributed its forecast content to participating broadcast television stations around the United States, launched its first 24-hour television venture in 2007, with the launch of The Local AccuWeather Channel, a network distributed via the digital subchannels of various commercial stations, primarily featuring pre-recorded short-form local, regional, and national forecast segments. The Local AccuWeather Channel, which peaked in distribution in the early 2010s, remains available on a small and declining number of stations.
On January 13, 2014, AccuWeather announced that it would launch a new national weather channel, tentatively named "AccuWeather Channel", in the third quarter of that year. The channel aimed to focus its programming on forecasts and other weather information, designed as an alternative to The Weather Channel, which, since its purchase by NBCUniversal, Bain Capital, and The Blackstone Group in 2008, shifted towards a mix of forecasts and reality series which had a tenuous or limited connection to weather.
Plans to form a competing network began to be developed by AccuWeather in 2013; however, the company did not intend to publicly announce the launch until later the following year, with founder and president Dr. Joel N. Myers citing the decision to announce the launch earlier based on the limited "availability of quality forecasts on TV", and a then-ongoing carriage dispute between The Weather Channel and satellite provider DirecTV to make notice of the new service. Barry Lee Myers, chief executive officer of AccuWeather, cited the company's decision to start the new channel as it had already offered "coverage in virtually every other medium" and, because of its existing digital presence, created a channel that would have the "look and feel of a digital device". AccuWeather Network was announced as a multi-platform service that would be streamed on the internet and mobile websites of AccuWeather and on its affiliate partners, in addition to cable and satellite distribution. The channel's launch was eventually delayed until the channel was able to secure carriage on pay television providers.
The network was launched on March 10, 2015, with Verizon Fios as the first provider to offer the new network; Verizon Fios began carrying AccuWeather Network on channels 119 and 619 after the provider's carriage agreement with The Weather Channel and its sister network Weatherscan expired without a renewal. Ironically, Verizon's decision to replace The Weather Channel with AccuWeather Network was despite its claim that the former's removal was a long-term business decision based on the increasing consumer availability of weather information on digital media, although the need for weather coverage without filler programming to pad periods when no significant weather was occurring was also cited.
On July 11, 2018, AccuWeather Network, following a similar move of NY1 8 months earlier, launched three programming blocks on weekdays: "AccuWeather AM" with Bernie Rayno and Laura Velasquez from 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.; "AccuWeather Early PM" with Geoff Cornish and Brittany Boyer from 3:00 p.m. to 9:00 p.m., and "AccuWeather PM" with Paul Williams and Melissa Constanzer from 9:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. All of the programmes follow the all-live nature, thus allow for faster reaction when significant weather events break, following criticism of viewers that the network was too slow to switch to live wall-to-wall coverage during these events, due to its mostly pre-recorded format. Mid-morning and weekend hours remain unbranded and still maintain the live-and-recorded nature.
On August 1, 2018, DirecTV replaced WeatherNation TV with the AccuWeather Network, thus becoming the second provider to offer the latter network. The AccuWeather Network is carried on DirecTV channel 361.

Programming

AccuWeather Network provides national, regional, and local weather forecasts as well as specialty forecasts, meteorological analysis, severe weather information and weather-related feature segments. They are presented by on-camera personalities and meteorologists employed by AccuWeather to provide forecasts for the company's website and the Local AccuWeather Channel broadcast service.
AccuWeather Network also displays continuous weather information on a "L"-shaped ticker placed at the lower and left-sides of the TV screen, which is visible at all times. The left top third of the ticker displays current weather conditions with sky condition and both actual and RealFeel temperature displayed at all times; while the bottom two-thirds of that area cycles between additional observations and six-hour forecasts for each city. The bottom of the ticker displays descriptive 24-hour forecasts as well as five-day forecasts for individual cities below a rundown bar containing segments and forecast locations.

Local forecasts

At launch, all Verizon FiOS customers were provided with the same feed that focused on the cities where FiOS provides service, which is mostly across the Northeastern U.S.
Regional feeds of the network were launched for FiOS customers in the Northeast on September 10, 2015. One feed covers FiOS customers in the Washington metropolitan area. The other feed covers customers in the New York tri-state area, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts.
Local forecasts aired on AccuWeather Network are generated by a computer unit installed at the provider's headend, which inserts data over the channel's national feed. The localized segments provide current weather observations, and high and low temperatures observed since 12:00 a.m. local time for a given city; MinuteCast forecasts, incremental forecasts for the next hour; at-a-glance forecasts for the current day and the day after; extended forecasts ; almanacs ; and computer models showing forecasted sky conditions and temperatures in the surrounding metropolitan area and region for the succeeding 24- to 36-hour period.