“My job is to be the champion of our news directors, our news leaders across the country, and the stress that they are under is different than I’ve ever seen before,” said Ellen Crooke, Tegna’s SVP of news. “So many of the day-to-day conversations that I have with news leaders are about dealing with the stress of the journalists due to the type of stories they face.”

Frequent mass shootings and other dangers have forced TV-station newsrooms to carefully consider every decision to send a news team out to cover an event and even to reduce exposure by choosing not to report from the field when it’s not deemed necessary.

“That’s one of the things I think that’s changed the most,” Crooke said. “When I started, news leaders were in charge of safety and security. It’s too much now.”

Newsrooms today are employing security consultants and teams and holding careful conversations to determine the best course of action before sending teams out in a knee-jerk reaction to breaking news.

“Good leaders will evaluate every story, every assignment, every situation to ensure that when we need more than what we have, we’re providing that,” said Barb Maushard, SVP of news, Hearst Television.

And those conversations aren’t only around news teams, but around all teams going out to cover any event, including the weather.

“A few years ago, we hired a head of security, but we also mandate that security teams go with every single crew that’s out in the field,” said Nora Zimmett, president, news and original series, Allen Media’s The Weather Group.

Weather is another area that’s changed dramatically in recent years, as reporters and producers increasingly face dramatic weather situations.

“I was raised in the business when it was like ‘suck it up,’ but we don’t do that anymore,” Zimmett said. “There is no mandate to go out and cover anything. We have people who are like ‘OK, I’ll do snow and hurricanes, but I no longer do tornadoes,’ or ‘I’ll do tornadoes and snow. I don’t do hurricanes,’ and that’s OK. Because there is nothing worth that level of stress, that level of PTSD.

“It was a shift for myself, my direct reports and our executive leadership team that just because we were taught that you just deal with it, that doesn’t mean it’s right,” she added. “And that also certainly doesn’t mean you’re going to get the best out of your employees. If you have a reputation in your shop for throwing caution to the wind, you’re not going to retain the best talent. That is not a way to lead your team. I think the news industry has to evolve out of this sort of militaristic attitude of ‘it’s our way or the highway.’”

Newsroom leaders also have had to take steps to support employees’ mental health, which can become fragile while performing difficult jobs in stressful situations.

“Back in the day, it was ‘go do this and write this and send it in,’” said Sam Singal, group VP, Charter Communications’ Spectrum News. “Now I find that we spend a lot of time walking through the newsrooms, pulling up a chair and talking to people and understanding what they’re going through.”

Companies also have made mental health services available to employees.

“We’ve made sure that our employees have places to go to seek support for those who want to stay in and want to be able to manage the challenges of the job,” Maushard said.

Of course, part and parcel of these conversations is the issue of pay — journalism has always been a notably low-paying field except for perhaps the biggest names. But companies have recently been forced to increase salaries as it’s become harder to retain employees.

“We are actively and constantly looking at equity and analyzing what are our competitors paying what our colleagues paying just to make sure that we’re up to par with everybody else,” Singal said.

“We have to pay the right amount of money for the jobs, whatever that amount is supposed to be,” Maushard said. “But I think it’s more than that. It’s about the benefits. It’s about the environments we create. It’s about the purpose. It’s about people wanting to do this and then us having to make these into the kind of environments where they’re going to want to be because our communities depend on it. Democracy depends on it.”

Adding to the stress is the cadence of the 24-hour news cycle — including at TV stations where streaming apps and FAST channels have increased the content burden — as well as the pressure to stay connected with audiences through social media. Technology that automates some of those tasks can help, said Joe DiGiovanni, head of North American sales at The Weather Company.

For example, if a station group like Tegna, which owns 64 stations in 51 markets, is covering one weather crisis in one market and a completely different one in another, technology can help stations communicate with and assist one other.

“There may be somebody out West who is an expert in wildfires, while there may be somebody down South who’s an expert in hurricanes. That’s still a news story in other markets, but they may not have that content. So, through our cloud technologies, they can grab that content from those markets and use it in other places,” DiGiovanni said.

In addition, storing content on the cloud in searchable databases means it’s easy to find in crisis situations.

The Weather Company also provides weather forecasting technology that helps meteorologists tell weather stories to viewers in a way that’s comprehensive but also easy to understand. That type of technology has become increasingly essential as climate change has become a central focus of newsrooms’ ongoing coverage.

“Our job at the Weather Channel is to predict the future, and this uncertain future is scary,” Zimmett said. “We view our job now as not just to predict what’s going to happen in terms of extreme weather, but what’s going to happen to your mortgage, what’s going to happen to your insurance? That is something that is now a fabric of our coverage.”

“It’s not about climate change from where we sit. It’s about climate and weather impact,” Maushard said.

When covering anything from climate change to financial markets, political campaigns or even local traffic, technology remains both a useful tool and a potential threat, especially as newsrooms experiment more and more with artificial intelligence (AI).

“We look at AI in three different ways,” Crooke said. “The first is ethics: How will we as journalists use AI appropriately and transparently? Second: how can we innovate using AI? And third, which is what worries me most: How will we be duped by AI, especially in the 2024 presidential election?”

To avoid the third scenario, Tegna is training all of its journalists in the first quarter of 2024 on how to detect and deflect disinformation propagated with the use of AI.

Because journalism is more stressful and challenging than ever, it’s even more driven by the passion and purpose of those who pursue it, panelists said. That’s the secret sauce that keeps people in the business.

“News really is a calling. You have to have a passion and want to do it because you’re gonna make sacrifices,” Maushard said.

“One of the things that makes people stay in their jobs is feeling that they are part of a purpose, that they are doing work that matters,” Crooke said. “I think we’ve seen so much loss in journalism because there’s not always strong work happening that’s making a difference in our communities. The more we focus on purpose, the better our retention will be.”

Read more coverage of NewsTECHForum 2023 here.

Watch this session and all the NewsTECHForum 2023 videos here.

The post News Leaders Focus On Journalist Protection, Stress In Fraught ’24 appeared first on TV News Check.

The 2023-24 winter storm names include an assortment of names from A to Z:

Winter storms are known for brutal, frigid temperatures that freeze and burst pipes, snow and ice that create dangerous driving conditions and can impede power sources, as well as strong winds. And as with any type of weather system, multiple winter storms can be developing simultaneously, so the use of winter storm names allows The Weather Channel television network’s meteorologists to differentiate storm systems and delineate each system’s potential impact.

The Weather Channel says that as these storms move through various regions, “viewers can track them by name in order to make informed decisions for their families and property. Naming storms raises awareness of the impending hazards and makes it easier to monitor the storm’s progress and forecasts, especially on various social media platforms.”

Dr. Matt Sitkowski, science editor in chief at The Weather Channel television network, said: “This winter, the strength and persistence of El Niño, a large area of warm water over the equatorial Pacific Ocean, will be an important factor in weather across the country, but it is not the only one, and in recent El Niño winters there have been a variety of outcomes. That said, one feature that does seem to consistently show up during El Niño winters is an energized subtropical jet stream, which can help fuel winter storms and even trigger severe thunderstorms when conditions are warm enough.”

Winter storms are named based on either meeting — or the expectation to meet — at least one of the following criteria:

• NWS winter storm, blizzard, or ice storm warnings covering at least a population of 2 million.
• NWS winter storm, blizzard, or ice storm warnings covering at least an area of 400,000 square kilometers, or slightly larger than the state of Montana.

Winter storm names exclude any current Atlantic and eastern Pacific hurricane names on the National Hurricane Center lists for the next six years, and any retired hurricane names.

The post Weather Channel TV Network Reveals 2023-24 Winter Storm Names appeared first on TV News Check.

Biden has said that climate change is the “number one issue facing humanity” and that combatting climate change is a core tenet of his presidency.

Byron Allen, founder/chairman/CEO of Allen Media Group, said: “Climate change and global warming are the greatest threats to human beings on planet Earth and that is why this interview is so important. Understanding the effects of climate change and the actions necessary to combat it can help save lives. Saving lives and protecting property is the core mission of The Weather Channel. We are proud to be leading the climate conversation with the president of the United States and other world leaders.”

The Weather Channel will air the full interview on Wednesday, Aug. 9, during its flagship morning show, America’s Morning Headquarters at 6 a.m. ET. Subsequent airings will take place throughout the day on The Weather Channel and via The Weather Channel Streaming TV App.

The post President Biden Talks Climate Change On The Weather Channel appeared first on TV News Check.

“Millions of VIZIO users will now have access to the 24/7 The Weather Channel streaming app from America’s most trusted news source,” the release said.

The Weather Channel streaming app includes customizable local weather information, on-demand original programming, and other features. The app’s functionality allows subscribers to customize local weather information, live stream current news, and view on-demand original programming with the following features:

• Real-time weather observations plus hourly, daily, and weekly forecasts along with pressure, wind speeds, and more.
• User choice of up to 5 favorite locations for easy access.
• A complete suite of full-screen maps for user control.
• Live radar, satellite, alerts and more.
• Severe weather alerts and future forecasts for subscribers.

“We are pleased that millions of VIZIO users now have access to America’s most trusted news source,” said Byron Allen, Founder/Chairman/CEO of The Weather Channel parent company, Allen Media Group, in a statement. “Through this agreement with VIZIO, we are able to expand our reach to include millions of VIZIO users who can now access personalized weather tracking and best-in-class weather, news, and entertainment content on the Weather Channel streaming app.”

“VIZIO TVs are the heartbeat of the home and weather plays an integral role in our users’ daily routines,” added Katherine Pond, Group Vice President, Platform Content & Partnerships at VIZIO.  “Extending our relationship with the Allen Media Group with the launch of the Weather Channel app adds a valuable dimension to VIZIO as a daily trusted source for weather and additional programming with customizable features where it matters most.”

The release also said that for a limited time, The Weather Channel is offering a 7-day free trial for new app subscribers. Viewers who have access to The Weather Channel via their cable and satellite provider can subscribe by authenticating their accounts using their provider credentials.

The post The Weather Channel Streaming App Launches On Vizio appeared first on TV News Check.

While preserving all that old video sounds like an overwhelming project, only by doing so can broadcasters learn what assets they have access to, industry experts said during the Mining the Archives for New Shows panel at TVNewsCheck’s Programming Everywhere event on April 16 at the NAB Show.

Fox did a proof-of-concept preservation project of 5,000 tapes to convert the magnetic tapes and apply metadata to old video, Ben Ramos, VP, Fox Archive, field and emerging technology at Fox News, said.

Some of the content was damaged, and about 5% of the original conversions failed, but what made it through the process “was just pure gold, amazing content that hasn’t seen the light of day in 40 years,” he said.

The organization saw a return on the investment within nine months, he added, and expanded the project by an additional 45,000 tapes.

“It’s not until you make an effort, touch it, make an effort, that’s when you find how many assets you really have,” Ramos said.

A 60-minute tape costs Fox about $100 for the “Cadillac version” of conversion and tagging, Ramos said, while the “Kia version” with no bells and whistles runs around $20. But the higher-end version can yield “so many products” such as three seconds of New York City taxi cabs from 1977 and frame grabs of famous people, he said.

But Fox is also “reaching out to old news directors and photographers and assignment editors and people who were there that day” and asking them to provide detailed metadata on the old videos, Ramos said.

“It’s onerous and expensive,” he said, but added that the company “thinks it’s necessary with this specific subset of product,” although the return on investment for this undertaking remains to be seen. He called it a “curated white glove service that AI can’t replicate” that makes the quality of Fox’s archive “that much more special.”

Overall, he said, he needs “around $100 million” to digitize all the archives, but the steps to date have led to significant funding for more preservation efforts.

Nora Zimmett, The Weather Channel president, news and original series, said her organization has thousands of tapes in climate-controlled storage and is in the process of digitizing them.

“I didn’t appreciate how much of a process that is,” she said. “It’s not just the process, but the metadata, where to put it, and where to store it and how much to download.”

The metadata is critical, she said. “Your archive isn’t worth anything if you can’t find video by keywords,” Zimmett said. “It’s one thing to digitize and put it in the cloud, it’s another if there’s a user experience so producers and users can find the materials.”

The Weather Channel is bringing archived content into its current projects.

“You can slice and dice it so many different ways,” she said. “One piece of content can have so many lives now that we are well beyond a linear environment.”

And there’s no time like the present to focus on making the archives easier to use. “Every hour that goes by, we’re creating more video,” although that is being better tagged in the moment, she said. “It’s like the roadrunner — you’re never caught up.”

Zimmett said she wonders whether licensing an organization’s content to a big studio devalues the content. “After you answer the question of ‘can we,’ sometimes we wrestle with ‘should we?’” she said.

Jon Accarrino, VP of transformation and strategic initiatives for Capitol Broadcasting Co., said much of his company’s early content was destroyed due to improper storage, but in 2014 CBC digitized all of its tapes. It took truckloads, he said, to move the 36,000 tapes that needed to be converted.

“We sent off all these trucks, had all that content digitized and they mailed back this tiny little hard drive” full of SD video, he said.

In 2007, the company moved into fully digital operations with Bitcentral’s Oasis, and as such is working through archiving that content as well.

“A lot of it is older, MPE2 formats we need to recompress and move to new archive system we’re building,” he said.

And while a lot of companies are opting to store their archives in the cloud as a primary location, despite the egress costs, CBC relies on two physical locations with cloud as the backup. CBC is soft-launching its archives soon, he said.

Sam Peterson, Bitcentral COO, said many of the industry’s archives are not very organized. “The state of metadata and how interconnected it is, and the process they used to get it there, runs the gamut,” he said. “Some are thinking for the long-term, but some do not have the foresight.”

It is important to work with the end in mind. “What do we want to end up with, and how do we get there are thing you have to work through pretty quickly to not make it worse,” he said.

Peterson cautioned that archives maintenance can be simple but is not complete once a project is over.

“Know it will be iterative approach” because tools are rapidly evolving, he said. “The main thing is not to lose any more content. Let’s get it captured, at least.”

Read more from Programming Everywhere here.

The post News Organizations Find ‘Pure Gold’ In Their Archives appeared first on TV News Check.

Ben Ramos, VP, Fox Archive, field and emerging technology, Fox News; Nora Zimmett, president, news and original series, The Weather Channel; Jon Accarrino, VP of transformation and strategic initiatives, Capitol Broadcasting; and Sam Peterson, CTO, Bitcentral, will join moderator Michael Depp, chief content officer, NewsTECHMedia and editor of TVNewsCheck for the 3:15 p.m. panel.

“News organizations have realized what amazing material they’ve been sitting on for years, and the more progressive among them have been digitizing and metatagging that content for numerous applications,” Depp said. “This discussion will look at the processes they’ve employed to get a handle on their archives, the technology that has enabled them to do it and the original new shows and revenue opportunities they’ve developed from their efforts.”

Programming Everywhere gathers industry leaders to talk about the evolving business of content creation and distribution, with a focus on new development, reinventing local and national news and extending media brands on streaming.

TV station group senior executives will join programming, news and marketing leaders, syndicated programming executives and streaming media and technology leaders to take on issues such as the changing economics of syndicated programming, the relationship between FAST channels and the evolution of broadcasting, transforming television news and strategies for creating a programming everywhere business.

Participants will also consider their No. 1 challenge: creating more content for a multimedia audience, and how technologies like artificial intelligence, the cloud and IP production platforms can free up creative talent while streamlining costs.

Panels include FAST Channels and the Evolution of Broadcasting; Syndication’s Changing Business Model; Rethinking Genres: Games, Travel, Talk and More; Fresh Approaches to the News Franchise; Strategies for Building A Content Everywhere Business; and In Conversation: Anthony Zuiker on Creating New Shows That Break the Mold.

Register here for Programming Everywhere.

The post Finding Content Gold In Your Archives At Programming Everywhere appeared first on TV News Check.

Barry Nash, head of the Barry Nash & Co. talent coaching group, recently tested a series of weather forecast packages with viewers in a study sponsored by FX Design Group. It featured the same on-air talent presenting the same data, but in different positions on the screen.

“The more intimate settings won head-to-head every time,” Nash said during a panel discussion, Reinventing News Presentation and Presenters in a Multimedia Ecosystem, at TVNewsCheck’s NewsTECHForum in New York on Dec. 13. Digital 3X3 framing scored significantly higher than a weathercast presented in a 3×6 array, for example. One viewer Nash polled went so far as to say the broadcast was “easier to understand” when the weathercaster was positioned closer to the camera.

The lesson: Viewers warm to new presentation tech, but the presenter’s role remains crucial.

Meanwhile, inside The Weather Channel’s studios, wildfires rage, floodwaters rise above anchors’ heads, hurricane winds pick up cars and slam them down next to cringing forecasters. The destruction may be simulated — thanks to the power of immersive mixed reality technology — but its impact on viewers, Weather Channel producers believe, is as profound as it is important.

“We need[ed] to bring the weather, for a visual, visceral experience, inside the studio,” said Nora Zimmett, president of news and original series at The Weather Channel. “What we have found is that it’s really paid off in terms of the engagement from audiences.”

The “cinematic” graphics have a “wow factor” for viewers, Zimmett said, but they also generate “a-ha moments” for them. Providing an example, she said viewers responded to 3D exhibitions of climbing storm surge waters by saying it helped them better understand why authorities request evacuations during extreme rain events.

“That’s been huge,” Zimmett said. “We’ve also seen a ton of interest from advertisers and distributors, and that’s been a really interesting part of the industry that we didn’t expect, that people are coming to us because they want to be a part of these environments as well.”

It doesn’t hurt that the overall quality of the virtual reality graphic technology The Weather Channel integrates into broadcasts has grown by leaps and bounds. The speed at which it can be deployed has also increased dramatically.

“We now do this live,” Zimmett said. “You give us a scene and we’ll give you the real weather conditions … live on the fly without any editing, from fog to rain to snow, without cutting away.”

She said at one point such productions took up to five months of preparation. In terms of the station’s ability to present stories, Zimmett called this innovation a “game-changer.”

But Nash noted the technology’s full potential was undoubtedly not realized overnight — not before the on-air talent were appropriately trained to use it and engage with it.

“In research, viewers are quick to criticize [on-air talent] who look awkward and uncomfortable,” Nash said. “You’ve got to get into a mindset that ‘I’m not treating my talent as set dressing. If I’m going to have the tools, I’ve got to let my talent use them and they’ve got to be comfortable using them.’”

He observed that The Weather Channel’s on-air meteorologists all moved about the set with confidence while delivering their reports in tandem with the VR graphics. It certainly took time for them to “own it” on the air, Nash added.

The panel yielded other insights into evolving presentational best practices, and chief among them was to give talent permission to be authentically themselves.

An exemplar of that idea is Christian Bryant, anchor of Scripps News/Newsy’s In the Loop. Moderator and TVNewsCheck Editor Michael Depp observed that Bryant “does not come across like a traditional anchor in any way.” Viewers won’t see him in a suit and tie, and the sleeves of his collared shirt are typically rolled up. They will also hear him address them directly, with his sense of humor on display whenever appropriate. “Casual” is the best word to describe his general on-air persona.

“I get the chance to bring my whole self to the table,” Bryant said. “It seems to resonate with some people.”

He called In The Loop the “dive bar of news shows” because, like such an establishment, it’s “devoid of pretentiousness.”

Presenters also stressed TV news shouldn’t be afraid to provide behind-the-scenes access to the news producing process.

The curtain is continually pulled back on the set of Gray Television’s Hawaii News Now show This Is Now. Produced, directed and hosted by Jonathan Saupe, the show is a mix of short news items with later stretches of conversation between Saupe, a co-host and guests. It’s available to stream in audio-only as well as video formats, where viewers get to see Saupe work his relatively low-tech production controls in real time, much to their delight.

“It [is] so fascinating how literate our viewers are to how TV works,” Saupe said. “The magic is gone. They understand how video is edited; everyone does it on their phone every day. They understand what I’m doing when I’m pressing my buttons, so I think [we’re] just honest with them in our presentation.”

Saupe re-edits packages from other newscasts, often using footage left on the cutting room floor for This Is Now before they giving way to more lengthy discussion segments of the program. Behind just a couple of monitors and a microphone, Saupe delves deeper into the stories with his co-host and guests — stories he says are chosen for the most “viral possibilities.”

But the scant equipment requirements make for an agile production as well with breaking news capabilities that were recently on display when Saupe provided real-time updates on a volcano eruption.

“I hope that what comes across when we’re presenting news is that we care about our community,” Saupe said. “What we’re doing is really coming across conversationally; we’re talking to people in a real way.”

For more NewsTECHForum 2022 stories, click here.

The post Viewers Embrace Novel News Presentation Modes, But Presenters Themselves Are Key appeared first on TV News Check.

Panelists are Christian Bryant, anchor of Newsy/Scripps News’ In the Loop; Nora Zimmett, president of news and original series, The Weather Channel; Jonathan Saupe, host/producer/director of This.Is.Now at Gray Television’s Hawaii News Now; and Barry Nash, talent coach, Barry Nash & Co. TVNewsCheck Editor Michael Depp will moderate the 2 p.m. panel at the New York Hilton.

“This discussion will tease out two of the most important strands of TV news’ reinvention – the news presenter’s role and the rapid advancements in presentation technology, along with viewers’ evolving expectations of each,” Depp said. “Christian is carving out a singular identity for himself as an anchor at Scripps News. Jonathan is creating a whole new type of program at Hawaii News Now, where his work has already been recognized with a Murrow Award. And Nora is overseeing some of the most dramatic advances in augmented reality today at The Weather Channel, revolutionizing the way weather and climate are presented.”

Nash will present new original research, commissioned by FX Design Group, to study the impact on-set technologies have on viewer perceptions of newscasts and newscasters. The study features head-to-head comparisons of viewer reactions to the use of traditional monitors, touch screens, 3×3 and 3×6 arrays, large and seamless LED arrays and AR/VR sets and graphics. Viewers also shared their opinions on the authoritativeness of anchors who stand compared with that of anchors who sit behind a desk.

NewsTECHForum’s theme for 2022 is Reimagining the News and How It’s Made, and panels include Blowing Up the Newscast in Order to Save It; Creating More Content For A Multimedia Audience; Building Tomorrow’s News Studio & Workflows; Field and Remote Production’s Multiplying Options and the Quest for More Stories; and New Frontiers in News Production. The keynote interview is Radical Moves: Inside CBC’s Reinvention of TV News. The event is co-located with the Sports Video Group Summit.

Register here for NewsTECHForum.

The post NewsTECHForum: Reinventing News Presentation And Presenters appeared first on TV News Check.

The five networks are: The Weather Channel (live now), Comedy.TV (live now), The Weather Channel en Español (carriage coming soon), JusticeCentral.TV (carriage coming soon) and TheGrio Television Network (carriage coming soon).

“Partnering with Hulu is another major step in the continued growth and expansion of our Allen Media Group television networks,” said Byron Allen, founder/chairman/CEO of Allen Media Group. “Hulu is a phenomenal platform showcasing excellent content. We are thrilled to add our networks to the Hulu + Live TV lineup, and we look forward to a long relationship for years to come.”

The post Allen Media Group Television Networks Launch On Hulu + Live TV appeared first on TV News Check.

In Fast: Home Rescue, married couple Cody and Felicia Walker lead a team of first-responders, military veterans and construction and design professionals who augment local expertise to accelerate relief efforts. Each episode features a different deserving family and each build happens in just five days. It premieres, Saturday, Sept. 17, at 8 p.m. ET.

Fast: Home Rescue is produced by Fight or Flight Studios and is executive produced by Rob Hill, Noah Mark and Sam Wasserman. Noah Mark also serves as showrunner. Episodes of Fast: Home Rescue  will be available to watch on-demand after airing on broadcast via The Weather Channel’s connected television app, which is available on Amazon Fire TV, Android TV, Roku, Samsung and Xfinity Flex.

The post The Weather Channel Sets New Series, ‘Fast: Home Rescue’ appeared first on TV News Check.

“Savvy marketers increasingly need to reach precise audiences, and having the right data, technology and interoperable partnerships is essential. We are proud to partner with Amobee and expand our existing relationship with OpenAP to make audience-based campaigns easier for advertisers to plan, execute and measure,” said Barbara Bekkedahl, President, ad sales and client partnerships, Weather Group at The Weather Channel.

The Weather Channel says that by leveraging Amobee’s planning platform for advanced data insights and targeting capabilities, its clients “will be able to push the boundaries of linear television to create engaging and compelling ad experiences while minimizing ad waste and duplication. Additionally, they will be able to uncover new and data-informed opportunities in real-time to reach the audiences they care most about based on advanced learnings.”

“We are thrilled to partner with The Weather Channel as it looks to provide its advertisers with the tools it needs to optimize campaigns while providing granular insight into target audiences which will ultimately advance campaign storytelling,” said Stacy Daft, Amobee GM, enterprise commercial business development.

“By expanding our partnership, The Weather Channel will leverage the interoperability of platforms to enable consistent audience definitions to be used for linear optimization planning, targeting and measurement,” said Chris LoRusso, OpenAP chief business officer. “Advertisers can leverage first- or third-party data to build optimized media plans to drive incremental reach and take a more holistic approach to data activation.”

The post The Weather Channel Partners With Amobee And OpenAP To Deliver Data-Driven Linear Ad Campaigns appeared first on TV News Check.

Video walls do more than serve as a set element or assist in storytelling. They make virtual and multi-use sets possible. As more studio set designs feature video walls, whether they are LED or LCD, it’s important that all the content displayed on these walls shines. That’s a bigger task than at first it appears, and different technologies come into play to ensure content looks great today and that broadcasters are futureproofing their video wall choices for tomorrow.

“The price has come down so much over the last five years that set designers and studios are starting to integrate them into their design,” Neoti CTO Aaron Kipfer says.

Video Walls As Design Element

At first, LED walls were being used as a screen replacement, he says, “but as designers started getting more creative, they’re being used for more than backdrops.”

They are being used as scenic pieces, columns and in places where light boxes once were, he says.

“The advantage is that everything becomes a display,” Kipfer says.

Sony’s Rich Ventura, VP of B2B, says the use of curved and rounded video walls is “really opening up set design.” It gives “an artistic look and feel with curves or shapes or angles that you’re not able to do with a traditional LCD display.”

Mack McLaughlin, CEO-creative director at FX Design Group – Giant Octopus, says some stations are using video walls to create an environment, such as a living room or kitchen, and he expects to see more use of video walls for scene setters in addition to their use as storytelling devices.

Chanan Averbuch, Primeview’s EVP Americas, sales & marketing, says over the last five years, “more customers want video walls than ever before.”

In addition to being used to tell stories, they “give the downtown experience” when used as a background, he says.

Planar demonstrated an extended reality stage at NAB 2022, featuring Planar CarbonLight VX Series indoor LED video wall and flooring displays.

Robert Detwiler, director of LED products at Planar, says one of the trends has been the move from LCD backdrops to full immersive LED walls that “can truly fill a camera’s image” and are being used as a design element as well as for content delivery.

While FX has done a number of retrofits that saw LED walls replace LCD displays, LCD is still being used. FX recently installed LCD displays at the KHON Honolulu  studio.

Video walls often display graphics to support storytelling.

VR, AR And XR’s Role

Detwiler says he is seeing broadcasters move toward using the walls to incorporate virtual reality (VR) and extended reality (XR) in storytelling.

“The Hollywood market has already adopted it, and the bigger studios are looking at it. Places that can embrace all the technology that has to go with it,” he says.

Averbuch says augmented reality (AR), mixed reality (MR) and VR are being integrated into the studio experience. He called The Weather Channel, which installed a Primeview video wall some years back, a trendsetter in using AR in weather storytelling.

“It’s a dynamic experience,” he says.

McLaughlin says the Weather Channel is “doing VR and AR all day long, and still the local stations say, ‘We can’t do that.’ But you can and you should.”

Averbuch says video walls are being used for ceilings and floors as well, such as sports studios using walkable LED floors that facilitate AR experiences.

Enabling Virtual Sets

Video walls can also enable virtual sets, Kipfer says. Talent can be inside a cube or a two-sided wall that joins together, making the entire background the set, he says.

“The advantage is you can change the set and design as quickly as needed,” he says. “Some studios are converting their entire studios to virtual sets with no other elements, just a giant video wall that they are using in creative ways.”

That’s a trend Ventura has noticed.

Broadcasters typically had huge sets dedicated to individual shows, Ventura says, but he’s seeing a shift toward using video walls to create multiuse, multipurpose sets.

The flexibility gives broadcasters the “ability to do a lot more” with their studios, he adds.

Content Strategy’s Necessity

But choosing a great video wall is only part of the picture, Kipfer says. Broadcasters need to think about the content they put on the video walls.

“It’s great to put a 100-foot LED wall in your studio, but if the content you’re putting on it isn’t taking advantage of the resolution of the wall, it can do more harm than good,” he says. “You can have the best video wall on the planet but if the content doesn’t match that professional look, you miss out on having some of the advantages of using LED in the first place.”

Making sure the video looks great is easier said than done. One reason is that video walls aren’t all standard sizes, which can present a problem when content placed on them isn’t standard resolution or a standard aspect ratio, Kipfer says.

Measuring more than 22 ft. x 8 ft. and with a 5K x 2K resolution, Sony’s Crystal LED direct view display at Fox TV’s news studio in Turkey offers plenty of space to accommodate the expansive presenting style of their anchors, who make full use of the studio during broadcasts.

Widescreen shots from a video camera might need to be displayed on a narrow LED strip, leaving broadcasters to need to stretch or crop content to fit a specific space, he says.

In short, he adds, content development for an LED world of various sizes needs to shift from content development for LCD displays which were standard aspect ratio sizes.

“They have to shift their mindset,” he says. The question becomes, “How do I get content to all those resolutions and make it look good?”

Synchronizing image signals across the full video wall helps to maintain frame rate and color, Ventura says. Sony’s Crystal LEDs feature genlock inside the unit, rather than via external boxes. With genlock, the modules “know when a frame starts and ends,” he says. That helps avoid jumpiness, skipping, flickering and other issues that can crop up if the image signals are not synchronized, he says.

Planar recently introduced its CarbonLight VX series, intended to increase compatibility between displays and cameras. Detwiler says when creatives may record in different refresh rates it’s important that displays span different refresh rates to match the camera recording so anomalies and “digital footprints” don’t show up on the video walls.

“Anomalies kind of throw off the storytelling because you notice it really is a display,” he says.

The CarbonLight VX series can accommodate refresh rates from 24 to 144 vs. 240 and have a range of settings and functions, allowing them to be compatible with different cameras, he says.

Detwiler says customers have also indicated interest in moving to video walls with a slightly finer pixel pitch than they had been using.

“Our broadcasters have been in the 1.8 space, trying to move to 1.5, and even dabbling with something smaller to allow cameras to get closer and to allow for better imagery behind the talent,” he says.

Falling Prices

And prices for LED walls are less expensive now than they were a decade ago, McLaughlin says. About 10 years ago, FX was working on a project for Back 9 golf that called for a 15-foot by 60-foot LED wall that was going to cost about $2 million. That wall, he says, never got put in, but “that same wall today would be less than $200,000. It’s changed a lot in the last 10 years.”

Primeview’s Zero Gravity floor walkable LED technology enables studio designers and broadcasters to elevate the way the tell stories or share the news, now available from 1.2mm, 1.5mm, 1.9mm and 2.6mm pixel pitch LED.

When broadcasters are pricing studio projects or upgrades of video walls, Averbuch says they should think about what the technology will look like in three years, not just what it looks like today.

“Think about where the technology is going for the next three to five years, not what your budget can afford today,” he says. “If you can only afford tier two tech, wait another year if you can. Wait and do it the right way.”

Waiting a year to accumulate the budget, he added, can mean the “difference between a good studio and a great studio.”

He sees a future where video walls are increasingly immersive.

And, as McLaughlin puts it, “They are here to stay and they’re only going to get bigger and bigger and cheaper and cheaper.”

The post Video Walls, Now Cheaper, Broaden TV’s Studio And Storytelling Prospects appeared first on TV News Check.

For $2.99 a month, app subscribers have access to The Weather Channel’s live stream and on-demand library of original programming, as well as interactive features such as local forecasts, 24/7 weather alerts, real-time maps and radars. For a limited time, the network is offering a seven-day free trial for new app subscribers.

And at no cost, viewers who have access to The Weather Channel via their cable and satellite provider can receive the same upgrades by authenticating their accounts using their provider credentials.

“This is a huge step for The Weather Channel television network, as we expand access to our best-in-class weather news and entertainment content,” said Byron Allen, founder/chairman/CEO of The Weather Channel parent company, Allen Media Group. “Our upgraded app allows subscribers to tailor their TV viewing experience to their location and needs. As many regions in the country prepare for the start of the Atlantic Hurricane Season, it was very important to launch this new app experience to ensure that our life-saving weather information is available to everyone, 24/7.”

The Weather Channel CTV app is currently available on Amazon Fire TV and Android TV and will be coming soon to Roku, Samsung Smart TV, Vizio, and Xfinity Flex. Viewers seeking weather news now have access to America’s Most Trusted TV News Network, regardless of whether they are current cable customers or cord-cutters.

The post Weather Channel Upgrades CTV App, Adds Paid Subscription Offering appeared first on TV News Check.

During her tenure at The Weather Channel, Zimmett led the team responsible for production of the network’s flagship morning show America’s Morning Headquarters, Weather Center Live and many original shows.

In addition to creating original series for The Weather Channel, Zimmett has developed broadcast syndication programming for Allen Media Group, such as Storm of Suspicion. Zimmett also led the network to two national News and Documentary Emmy awards in 2019 and 2021.

In addition to continuing to drive the editorial and creative direction of The Weather Channel, Zimmett spearheaded the content development and team building for The Weather Channel en Español, set to launch this spring. She also created and launched the Pattrn streaming network, a brand dedicated to climate and environmental reporting. Pattrn can be found on multiple AVOD, social media and digital platforms.

Prior to her seven years at The Weather Channel, Zimmett held positions at CNN, Bloomberg TV, HDNet and Fox News Channel. Zimmett graduated with honors from Harvard University with a bachelor’s degree in English.

The post Nora Zimmett Named President Of News And Original Series For Allen Media’s Weather Group appeared first on TV News Check.

Debuting Sunday, Nov. 7, at 9/8c, Uncharted Adventure takes viewers on a weekly one-hour adrenaline-filled journey visiting exotic destinations and showcasing incredible scenery. Hosted by world traveler and adventurer, Mike Corey, the series is the network’s first foray into the travel genre and is exclusive to The Weather Channel.

Debuting Sunday, Nov. 14, at 9/8c, Frozen Gold gives viewers a front row seat to the world of gold exploration. This weekly adventure series follows six Americans who embark on a dangerous quest to uncover wealth on an Arctic journey through uncharted land. Frozen Gold highlights one of the many impacts of global warming, as the resulting melting ice sheets have exposed land in Greenland believed to be filled with large pockets of untouched gold.

“Our viewers keep asking for more adventure and travel programming on The Weather Channel and we are delivering,” said Nora Zimmett, EVP and chief content officer at The Weather Channel television network. “These new weekly series are fun and entertaining but also inform, educate and invite audiences to travel vicariously to places they may have never seen. With the global pandemic shutting down vacations worldwide, now our viewers have the chance to explore the world from the safety of their homes.”

The post The Weather Channel To Debut Two Original Series appeared first on TV News Check.

“Deep Water Salvage takes our viewers to the depths of the sea for exhilarating adventures and in Season 2 we have even more inside access to the salvage missions, intensifying the thrilling ocean rescue stories,” said Howard Sappington, vice president of original programming at The Weather Channel.

“Audiences around the world will be drawn in by this universal drama of the high seas and the perseverance of the crews, which is available for international licensing outside of the U.S. via Blue Ant International,” says Julie Chang, EVP, international co-productions.

Deep Water Salvage Season 2 is an original commission for The Weather Channel and is co-produced by Saloon Media, a Blue Ant Studios company, and Renowned Films.

The post The Weather Channel Greenlights Second Season Of ‘Deep Water Salvage’ appeared first on TV News Check.

This level of improvement makes the use of AR and virtual sets viable on an everyday basis, according to broadcast experts who gathered last week for the TVNewsCheck webinar, AR/VR State of the Art, moderated by this reporter.

Mike Chesterfield

The Weather Channel started experimenting with AR and virtual sets as a storytelling tool about six years ago, using them to supplement the large flat panel displays and video walls in its Atlanta studios to describe and explain weather events. But the network quickly faced difficulties.

“We recognized almost immediately that what we were doing at the time, which was using a traditional broadcast graphics engine, was not going to be sustainable,” said Mike Chesterfield, senior director of weather presentation for The Weather Channel (TWC). “It was just too hard of a process, mainly due to the rendering that it took to get these things done. The biggest improvement, and really the key to where we are at today, was the emergence of real-time graphics engines.”

TWC uses Epic’s Unreal gaming engine, whose real-time capabilities remove a “major blocker” in the production process, said Chesterfield, and has developed “bridge” applications that link Unreal to traditional broadcast systems and allow the network to play out the photorealistic virtual environments to air [TWC uses Zero Density virtual set software]. The end result has been a much more efficient workflow.

Immersive Mixed Reality

TWC has expanded its use of AR/VR graphics with what it calls Immersive Mixed Reality, which relies on a new virtual set that blends into a conventional set in its studio and allows talent to walk seamlessly between the two environments. As shown in a TWC video clip, a meteorologist can stand in what looks like a conventional studio and have virtual video walls of weather maps or 3D graphics of daily temperatures pop up behind or in front of them, or even under their feet. TWC talent can also be instantly placed on the ground in big cities like New York, Philadelphia or Miami through “Virtual Views,” photorealistic renderings of those locations that can depict current or future conditions.

“It’s powerful enough to handle basically anything we want to throw at it,” Chesterfield said. “Our goal all along has been to create hyperrealism within these experiences. We want for the audience not to realize what’s fake or real, really, so they can place themselves into these situations.

“The real-time functionality is really what took this to the next level, because on a production pipeline we were able to work in real time and make changes on the fly without having to stand down and wait hours and hours for a rendering process to occur,” he said.

“Teleporting” Reporters

Ruben Ruiz

Spanish software firm Brainstorm has been in the broadcast virtual production space for almost three decades, dating back to its founding in Madrid in 1993, and its eStudio 3D graphics engine, Aston 2D/3D motion graphics and InfinitySet virtual set products are used by major broadcasters including ESPN, CNBC, the BBC and NFL RedZone. For example, CNBC runs around 7,000 or 8,000 daily AR and motion graphics daily using Brainstorm’s software, said Ruben Ruiz, EVP of sales for U.S. and Canada for Brainstorm.

The company can work with both the Unreal and Unity engines to generate photorealistic real-time renderings. But it is farther ahead in its use of Unreal, which has been quicker in its development, Ruiz said.

“We introduced Unreal Engine into our product line probably about four or five years ago,” he said. “Now we have our own engine, and we simultaneously run Unreal Engine under the hood. So, you actually have access to both while you’re running our software.”

Ruiz also shared a clip of Brainstorm’s TeleTransporter solution, which allows live video of geographically dispersed talent to be “teleported” to a virtual set where they can talk and interact as if they were sitting in a real studio. Working in conjunction with Google, Brainstorm has also created a news-specific version of this capability for remote reporters called TelePorter, which runs off a mobile phone application.

“It allows reporters to appear in-studio, so placing reporters together with interviewees, regardless of their physical location,” Ruiz said.

Tool Vs. Toy At CNN

Pallavi Reddy

CNN started playing with live augmented reality way back in 2008 for its presidential election coverage, when its “hologram” graphic allowed correspondent Jessica Yellin to magically appear alongside Wolf Blitzer in the network’s New York studio, even though she was covering a rally in Chicago at the time. Since then, the internal narrative about AR, virtual sets or any new production technology has been divided into “tool versus toy,” said Pallavi Reddy, senior director of new media for CNN.

“That’s something my team and I talk about a lot, how we are using technology as a tool versus just kind of a toy,” Reddy said. “Not that there won’t be playful aspects of the technology to be used, to make it more interesting, but the basis of it always has to come down to editorial use cases of it.”

In 2012, CNN developed its first green-screen studio. It soon began to be used on a daily basis for “explanatory journalism,” where Reddy’s graphics and editing team are tasked with turning around a piece in less than six hours, start to finish, with 3D elements that help explain the news of the day.

Since then, the technology has become easier to work with and vendors have become more responsive to broadcasters’ needs, Reddy said. She shared a clip of CNN’s 2020 presidential election coverage from the Iowa caucus, where correspondent Tom Foreman could be seen inside a college gymnasium explaining a bevy of AR graphics displaying real-time voting results that dynamically appeared amidst the rafters, walls and bleachers.

Virtual Production and ‘Extended Reality’

Planar is best known for its LED video walls and large LCD displays that are used by broadcasters like NBC Olympics, Golf Channel and Canal+ for live sports and news production. But the company has also been expanding into “virtual production” and “extended reality” with its Planar Studios arm.

Planar Studios markets the company’s LED video walls as a way to display photorealistic backdrops that live talent can stand in front of or on top of, thus creating the experience of an immersive world that can be captured by digital cinema cameras for film and TV production [this is how the Disney+ hit The Mandalorian was produced, using LED walls instead of a conventional set]. Planar has introduced a new series of LED walls aimed specifically at virtual production, the VX Series, and also offers optical tracking technology for virtual production through its sister company NaturalPoint.

Kathy Skinski

“We’re even seeing people use LEDs as green screens,” said Kathy Skinski, general manager for broadcast, media and virtual production for Planar. “One of the advances there is that they can actually interact with the content directly, so they see the content. It’s kind of a game-changer, and a little easier to work with.”

Training Talent On AR/VR

Learning to work with AR/VR systems isn’t necessarily easy for talent, though Chesterfield said TWC meteorologists’ traditional green-screen training has helped them feel comfortable with the virtual set environment. They have eagerly taken to the network’s AR/VR technology as a way to more readily explain the weather and educate viewers about severe weather threats, such as showing a visualization of a storm surge rising 10 feet above their head during a hurricane or dodging a 3D graphic of flying debris from a tornado.

“For the first time we can now put our talent into situations that we would never otherwise put them in,” Chesterfield said. He added that such visualizations help get people to act, such as evacuating an area facing flood warnings.

To give talent a reference monitor, TWC uses projectors onto the green screen space with every color blocked out but green, so they can actually see the image when they turn around and look behind them to get a sense of where they are in the scene. There are also additional monitors placed on the periphery of the studio to give them additional reference points.

Reddy said that some talent takes more readily to working with AR than others. She described Foreman as a “master class” when it comes to a traditional news journalist presenting in a green-screen environment, speaking to live graphics that he can’t see but looking very comfortable when doing it (she noted that Foreman credits his childhood hobby of magic as being helpful to working with AR).

There is a six-person team that produces CNN’s AR and VR graphics not only for the network’s broadcast air but also its digital products. Reddy said that none of them came from technology or graphics backgrounds, but instead were all former news producers. Over time they’ve learned what the AR/VR technology can do, as well as its limitations, and that helps them communicate with other CNN staff about what is possible and what isn’t.

“That’s been our secret sauce to our success,” she said. “It’s not just creating a team that works with LED screens, or our tech operations people or our studio operations people, and … producers who are just going to tell them what to do. It’s also understanding the limits and capabilities of all of these technologies, and the story itself and how that presents out.”

The post Gaming Tech Drives AR/VR Adoption In TV appeared first on TV News Check.

“A thorough analysis of the different broadcast monitoring offerings available in the market today led us to Actus Digital as the solution best suited to our needs,” said Michael Smereski, vice president of broadcast engineering at The Weather Channel. “Performing tasks beyond mere compliance, the Actus Digital platform serves our broadcast monitoring needs now and will support us in the future with enhanced new workflows for content repurposing and AI integration.”

Actus Digital’s supports mandatory compliance features such as SCTE-104/35, loudness, closed captions, and NAVE while providing The Weather Channel with real-time alerts on a host of A/V impairments. Using multiple load-balancing servers, the platform ensures uninterrupted, redundant, and timely response for users.

The platform is also fully integrated with The Weather Channel’s automation system, expanding content search and navigation and allowing the broadcaster to accurately track the loudness of each asset. To enhance system security and user authentication, the platform is fully integrated with OKTA sign-on.

The Actus Digital system allows The Weather Channel to record content at high bitrates and resolutions, enabling the network to edit and export high-quality clips to a variety of destinations.

“The Weather Channel is the most trusted news source in the U.S., and we are thrilled to add them to our roster of customers,” said Gary Learner, executive vice president of business development at Actus Digital. “We look forward to continuing our collaboration on future enhancements to address their evolving compliance, monitoring, and content repurposing requirements, as well as adding new use cases to the deployed platform.”

The post Actus Digital Helps Weather Channel Drive Workflow Efficiency appeared first on TV News Check.

The picture of a brightly-raincoated correspondent shin deep in floodwaters and lashed by howling storm bands is a fixture of our weather-wrought disasters. But in the quieter calamity of the coronavirus, the network has held just as sure a footing.

In an interview with TVNewsCheck Editor Michael Depp, Tom O’Brien, The Weather Channel’s president and EVP of Allen Media, its parent company, says long experience with remote production under duress has held the network in good stead for the current crisis. Other than readying about 90% of its workforce to work remotely, he says programming has continued unabated with the addition of new hourly segments targeted to kids now schooling from home.

O’Brien says the network even managed to pull through a planned traffic system change while gearing up for the coronavirus’ deadly impact.

An edited transcript.

Have any of your employees tested positive?

Knock on wood, we have been lucky. Our team continues to be healthy.

What percent of your staff is now working from home?

I would say 90% have the capability of working at home. We have gotten a lot of our folks out. We have minimal crews and have found a way to do a lot of what we do in studio in a remote fashion.

How involved was that as a process?

We had some of it in place just being a 24-hour news network used to covering storms and significant weather events. We have infrastructure in place that can help our teams in remote situations with regards to bandwidth and VPN access. We are used to working in extreme situations in the field, and that knowledge has helped us greatly as we have applied it to what we are doing on the pandemic front.

One of the harder things are the graphics. Are you capable of maintaining that same level of graphic presentation if you end up with most of your people doing their reporting from home?

Absolutely. We are doing a lot of it now. We have systems in place that keep the network redundant in a number of scenarios, this being one of them.

Who is still left at the facility? Who is indispensable to be there?

A lot of our crew is indispensable. As we look at crews, we have limited meteorologists between studios and home. We have small production crews that are physically in control rooms and we have cut the number of people in there so that we have plenty of room for people to work. We have a number of different places where we can move people around to prevent contact so that we can socially distance while they are doing their jobs.

Are your anchors mostly still working from the studio?

Felicia Combs

We have a mix. We are doing more remote, so we can put people in different studios. We have people spread out more. We have fairly large production areas and are able to set up a work environment that makes sense for the times that we are in.

Are those remote locations always your staffers’ homes?

We have been focusing right now on our meteorologists’ homes. We have just about all our meteorologists with in-home setups. This is a team that is used to being on the air for hours at a time talking about weather patterns and translating sophisticated weather data into understandable information. The good news is this is what they do on a day in, day out basis.

Jennifer Carfagno

We have our graphics, we have a camera and remote package that we have perfected over the years with some of our field crews applying that now to the in-home setup. It has helped a great deal.

How will you handle an extreme weather event differently if one happens while you are in this largely remote configuration still? 

We have already had it. We had significant tornados in Alabama. We have some very sophisticated modeling tools and our meteorologists from various locations have been able to follow the storm and provide the necessary warnings.

Our localization capabilities are still fully functional so our ability to isolate the network and find very specific storm-related information in effected areas remains intact. In those events, there is a team of stringers in the field that we use on a regular basis that continue to operate, so it hasn’t affected our ability to be accurate and to cover storms that people need to know about.

The Weather Channel was in the process of introducing some very complex immersive graphics into much of its broadcasting recently. How has that been impacted? 

We are doing a little bit of it. Right now that is not the priority. Our priority is making sure that we are keeping our team safe and we are continuing to provide the level of forecasting and weather news information and science that we are known for.

We have added some educational programming. We are trying to use our scientists, understanding that there are a lot of people at home with kids trying to home school. So we are providing some additional programming, doing science experiments. The fact that we are a network that you can watch with your kids is something that we take seriously, and we have found a way to provide a very distinct need in the marketplace right now.

How has your programming grid been affected by the pandemic?

It really hasn’t. We are still live all day long. We have our original programming running in primetime. We now have the ability to provide programming that makes sense for families so some of the new stay-at-home audience such as kids and teens can get more out of it.

Tell me about how that new instructional programming came together and what is involved in that.

We are meeting with the team every day to talk about the latest going on around the COVID-19 virus and what we are doing operationally to make sure that we are staying ahead of the game. Early in the process, we were talking about the fact that we have a lot of people whose lives are impacted with kids home from school and working from home.

We get notes from viewers saying it’s great that our network is something that they feel safe watching with their kids, and that gave an idea if people are home with their kids and we have a tremendous team of scientists that work at The Weather Channel, what can we do to produce some programming knowing that traditional viewing patterns are different these days?

How can we add more value to the audience? So we started an educational series a couple of weeks ago. At 50 minutes after the hour, we have a series of segments covering different areas of science, different experiments you can do with your kids.

In addition, our Local Now business, which is our streaming service, has done a lot since mid-March, taking a 360-degree approach from the standpoint of adding a lot more family-friendly programming on how to stay safe, stay healthy and how to be productive with links to the Johns Hopkins data site.

Have you spun up any other programming on the Weather Channel related to the coronavirus itself?

We have a show coming up this week that will spend a more time on what is going on around the coronavirus.

Across the board, television has taken a huge hit on advertising. How bad has it been for The Weather Channel?

Right now, we are doing pretty well. We have had a lot of advertisers stick it out, very smartly changing copy to ensure that they are effective in marketing during a pandemic. There’s still a need for a lot of products and services as people are working from home, and we are capturing that.

What is your strategy for talking with advertisers? There is so much uncertainty that they are facing themselves. 

There is still business, as we have seen with past events. Right now, people are turning to television even more on a general basis and continuing to keep your message out there with good, smart creative is something that will pay dividends in the long run. This is why people advertise. They see the benefits of it.

There is damage here, though. What do you see is the path out of this damage when we are on the other side of this crisis? 

The principles of what we do every day don’t change. We are doing what we can to super serve an audience, and with that there are people that want to market to that audience. That doesn’t change.

Will the coronavirus now impact the timeline for your Spanish-language channel launch?

We haven’t made a determination on that. Right now, we are focused on making sure that our people stay healthy and that we are continuing to expand what we do. We are all managing through this on a day-by-day basis.

As the president leading a media company in an unprecedented crisis of an uncertain duration, how are you holding it all together? How do you keep a stressed out, largely remote staff connected?

We are spending a lot of time communicating from all levels of the company with a lot of frequency. We started that early. We are keeping people engaged, leveraging a great management team.

Just to give you an example of that, we had a traffic system change for the network planned for April 1, and the team still launched it [as scheduled]. Anybody in the media industry knows how difficult a traffic system change is. The team at Allen Media, The Weather Channel and Local Now all pulled together and were able to get the change through. That is a great example of how the tools, planning, great communication and strong management can really help weather a storm, no pun intended.

The pandemic wasn’t enough? You needed to throw another fire stick into the juggling act?

It’s tough to stop once that ball gets rolling when you have a traffic system conversion and you are two weeks out. The team didn’t want to stop it. That is the great thing about the team: people going into this with a great attitude. The team rallied and found a way under a much more difficult situation than we originally planned and got it done. You are seeing this across America, where people are coming together and doing some extraordinary things.

The post The Weather Channel Finds Its Pandemic Shelter appeared first on TV News Check.

Bekkedahl will oversee all advertising sales, advertising solutions, and advertising partnerships for The Weather Group media portfolio. Bekkedahl will work collaboratively with President of Advertising Sales for Entertainment Studios Networks Cindy Kelly, and President of Advertising Sales for Entertainment Studios Syndication Darren Galatt.

Bekkedahl’s prior experience includes NBCUniversal, where she was VP of client solutions, leading business partnerships with top clients and representing the NBCU portfolio of television and digital properties.

Prior to that, she managed the national advertising sales team for the NBCUniversal Bravo cable network.

Bekkedahl holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Colgate University.

The post Barbara Bekkedahl Named Weather Ch. President Of Ad Sales appeared first on TV News Check.

For more than a decade, Steele has held strong meteorologist and host positions for a variety of TV stations and brings years of experience to the network. Prior to joining The Weather Channel, Jordan served as chief meteorologist and Take 5 Host for KING Seattle.

Weather Today is a new show from The Weather Channel that will debut on the highly-anticipated, mobile-first short-form video platform Quibi. It will be a three-to-five minute show airing seven days a week that features the most important weather news stories of the day as well as a national forecast.

Weather Today will be part of Quibi’s Daily Essentials slate, offering curated news, entertainment, and inspiration giving viewers everything they need to know and – why it matters.

“We’re excited to debut Weather Today on Quibi and know that Jordan will do excellent work reporting the important weather stories from around the country to keep Quibi’s mobile audience up to date on the latest weather news,” said Tom O’Brien, president of The Weather Channel television network.

“After months of searching for the right talent for this unique product, I’m thrilled we found Jordan and that he will be the weekday host of Weather Today,” said Nora Zimmett, chief content officer and EVP for The Weather Channel.

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Zero Density will provide its cutting-edge virtual studio and augmented reality technology for The Weather Channel’s Immersive Mixed Reality presentations that use the latest technology to create awareness among its audiences with visually-striking disaster scenarios.

Zero Density said its hyper-realistic graphic renderings and Hollywood-level visual effects “will communicate the vital message of the channel to their audiences more effectively.” And The Weather Channel can do this all live.

The Zero Density Reality Engine is a Native Unreal Engine, node-based compositor which delivers photorealistic 3D virtual studio and augmented reality products.

“In our effort to continually evolve and enhance weather presentation and storytelling across all platforms, we’ve added Zero Density to our technology lineup for our Immersive Mixed Reality experiences,” said Michael Potts, VP of design at The Weather Channel. “This addition will make our offerings even more dynamic and engaging.”

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The campaign’s most prominent climate change skeptic — President Donald Trump — declined an invitation to participate.

The hour-long special, scheduled to debut Nov. 7, interviews candidates at various sites chosen to illustrate the impact of climate change. Sen. Bernie Sanders, for example, speaks at the site of a devastating California wildfire and Sen. Kamala Harris along a flood-prone area of the Mississippi River.

The Weather Channel has done specials on the impact of climate change in Alaska and along the Louisiana coast, for example, but this is the first time the network has gotten involved directly in a political campaign.

“It gets the conversation going in a big way,” said Rick Knabb, the network’s on-air hurricane expert and former director of the National Hurricane Center. He and meteorologist Stephanie Abrams traded off on the interviews.

The Weather Channel wanted to do the special through its own scientific lens, said Nora Zimmett, the network’s senior vice president for content and programming. Although other networks inquired about joining and doing a town hall-style event, TWC turned them down.

“We didn’t want to have a food fight about whose plan is better,” she said.

While the special is something new for the network, Zimmett said executives weren’t concerned about turning off weather fans who view it as a refuge from politics, or people like the president who see less urgency in addressing the issue. Despite a “vocal minority,” surveys show most viewers want to learn more about the issue and potential solutions, she said.

Trump may not be there, but the special won’t ignore him or what his administration has been doing, Knabb said.

Trump recently mocked Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg on Twitter for a United Nations speech to world leaders and skipped a UN meeting on the issue.

All three announced Republican challengers to Trump — Joe Walsh, former Illinois congressman, Bill Weld, former Massachusetts governor, and Mark Sanford, former South Carolina governor and congressman — are interviewed. For time reasons, organizers chose the top seven Democrats in the polls: in addition to Sanders and Harris, Sen. Cory Booker, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, former Rep. Beto O’Rourke and Mayor Pete Buttigieg. Former Vice President Joe Biden was not interviewed; his campaign said it was a scheduling issue.

Knabb said the interviews have taught him a lot about the complexities of proposed solutions.

“The public is going to learn a lot from this,” he said.

The Weather Channel’s show is separate from the Covering Climate Now initiative, which encouraged news organizations to do more stories on climate change. There’s been some criticism that the issue hasn’t received enough attention during the presidential debates.

“We’ve been lonely here on these issues,” Zimmett said, “and all we can do is hope that our friends at other media outlets join us.”

The post Weather Channel Wades Into Climate Debate appeared first on TV News Check.

“We are happy to bring Fios TV customers another trusted resource for weather information with the addition of The Weather Channel to our Fios lineup,” said Erin McPherson, Verizon’s head of content strategy, acquisitions and programming. “Our customers are increasingly impacted by severe weather, and The Weather Channel will be a welcomed addition for our viewers,” she added.

“For nine consecutive years, The Weather Channel has been voted ‘TV news brand of the year’ and for 37 years has provided vital information to protect and save lives 24/7,” said Byron Allen, founder-chairman-CEO of Entertainment Studios, which bought the cable channel in 2018. “I am very proud to extend our partnership with Verizon by adding The Weather Channel to the Fios TV channel lineup, as well as the renewal of the portfolio of Entertainment Studios Television networks.”

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She will continue to report to Tom O’Brien, president of Weather Group and EVP of Allen Media.

In addition to continuing to drive the editorial and creative direction of The Weather Channel, Zimmett is adding the content development and team building for The Weather Channel en Español  to her portfolio.

In her prior role as SVP of content and programming for the network, Zimmett led the team responsible for production of The Weather Channel’s flagship morning show AMHQ (America’s Morning Headquarters), Weather Center Live, its original shows, and its storm coverage.

Zimmett has also been instrumental in developing segments by taking data and turning it into tangible information for viewers through use of its immersive mixed reality (IMR) technology.

Last year, Zimmett was named one of the most creative people in business by Fast Company and one of the most powerful women in television by Cablefax.

She is active in Women in Cable Telecommunications and is a fellow at the Betsy Magness Leadership Institute, the flagship leadership development program of the cable and telecommunications industry.

Zimmett graduated with honors from Harvard University with a bachelor’s degree in English.

The post Weather Ch. Promotes Nora Zimmett To Chief Content Officer appeared first on TV News Check.

Karen Di Piazza alleges Kelley Williamson and Randall Yarnall, who had a show called “Storm Wranglers,” ran a stop sign on a road southeast of Lubbock in March 2017 as they were chasing a tornado.

The lawsuit claims the pair collided with a vehicle driven by Di Piazza’s son, 25-year-old storm chaser Corbin Lee Jaeger.

The suit, filed Tuesday in federal court in Lubbock, contends that the network knew of the reckless driving habits of Williamson and Yarnall, who also died in the crash.

The Weather Channel said in a statement that it can’t comment on pending litigation.

The post Woman Sues Weather Channel Over Storm Chaser Son’s Death appeared first on TV News Check.

O’Brien reports directly to Allen and will work closely with Entertainment Studios Networks President Janice Arouh.

O’Brien joins The Weather Channel with a strong operating background across broadcast, cable and digital. Most recently, he was a corporate officer of the Nexstar Media Group. Initially joining Nexstar as EVP, digital media and chief revenue officer in 2013, O’Brien was responsible for accelerating Nexstar’s transformation into a next-generation, multimedia company, expanding its digital portfolio and developing new strategies and business models to drive holistic growth across the company.

Prior to Nexstar, O’Brien worked for more than 14 years in senior leadership roles at NBCUniversal. His most recent role at NBC was as CNBC’s EVP-chief revenue officer, where he was responsible for transforming the revenue strategy to fully monetize this global, multi-platform brand, growing their digital capabilities and diversifying revenue.

O’Brien moved to CNBC from NBC’s Television Stations division where he was president-GM of the NBC flagship station, WNBC New York. Before WNBC, O’Brien was the president-GM of the NBC O&Os KXAS Dallas and WVIT Hartford, Conn.

Recognized for his work in the industry, Tom received the 2015 Technology Leadership Award from Broadcasting & Cable magazine and was named a 2014 Broadcasting & Cable Digital All-Star.

O’Brien graduated at the top of his class from Syracuse University’s S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and the School of Management.

The post Tom O’Brien Named Weather Channel Chief appeared first on TV News Check.

City Attorney Michael Feuer said Friday that users of the popular app are misled to think their location data will only be used for personalized forecasts and alerts.

Feuer says The Weather Channel intentionally obscured its motives in a lengthy privacy policy that got four-fifths of users to agree to share geolocation data.

The lawsuit comes as companies such as Facebook and Google are under fire for sharing users’ information.

Feuer says The Weather Channel sold data to at least a dozen websites for targeted ads.

A spokeswoman for the company, which is a subsidiary of IBM, didn’t immediately return messages seeking comment.

The post L.A. Sues Weather Ch. For Selling App Users’ Data appeared first on TV News Check.

The markets with an upgraded experience for users: Atlanta, Austin, Baltimore, Boston, Charlotte, Chicago, Dallas, Denver, Houston, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis, Nashville, New York City, Orlando, Philadelphia, Phoenix, Portland, Raleigh, San Antonio, San Francisco, Seattle, Tampa and Washington. These markets were chosen based on specific criteria, including target audiences and their status as major metropolitan cities.

Additionally, Local Now has now launched two new video series for all users and all markets. The first new segment is focused on health and wellness and titled Body & Mind. The content highlights exercise, recipes and healthy living, which is resonating very well with Local Now users.

The second new segment is Mom Life, hosted by a California native and Los Angeles-based mother, Adrianna Costa, and follows her journey of motherhood.

“Local Now is the premier local streaming news service in the market today,” said George Callard, president, The Weather Channel. “Launching the upgraded experience in these 25 markets and adding engaging original content further ensures Local Now users have the best experiences possible.”

Local Now delivers real-time, localized information about current events, weather, lifestyle, sports, business and traffic to hundreds of markets across the U.S.

“Local Now is supported by a one-of-a-kind technology stack that allows our internal teams to deliver highly-custom locally-relevant content to our users which is unmatched by any other content provider in the market,” said Jeremy Jones, head of product and innovation, Local Now.

Recently, Local Now re-launched on Sling TV, which is one of the largest platforms for Local Now consumption.

The post Local Now Upgrades In 25 Markets, Adds New Series appeared first on TV News Check.

This expansion into live and local cable news is the latest step ES has taken in expanding the global reach of its programming and content. ES now includes: broadcast television syndication, production and distribution of more than 41 programs, eight 24/7 cable television networks, theatrical motion picture production, acquisition and distribution, digital movie acquisition and distribution, and global news.

The Weather Channel is one of the largest cable television networks not owned by a major conglomerate and ranks No. 1 in weather news. Harris Poll has ranked The Weather Channel as the “TV News Brand of the Year” for eight years in a row, and the network is the nation’s most trusted resource for daily weather information.

“The Weather Channel is one of the most trusted and extremely important cable networks, with information vitally important to the safety and protection of our lives,” said  Allen. “We welcome The Weather Channel, which has been seen in American households for nearly four decades, to our cable television networks division.  The acquisition of The Weather Channel is strategic, as we begin our process of investing billions of dollars over the next five years to acquire some of the best media assets around the world.”

“We are excited to join Entertainment Studios, and we are especially proud to be part of one of the largest emerging global media companies,” said Dave Shull, CEO of The Weather Channel. “Byron Allen’s purchase of our innovative and forward-thinking organization will increase the value we bring to our viewers, distributors, and advertisers.”

The post Byron Allen Buys Weather Channel For $300M appeared first on TV News Check.

Coleman died Saturday night at home in Las Vegas, said his wife, Linda Coleman, who did not give the cause of his death.

The Texas native got his first TV job while still a student at the University of Illinois. He worked at several local stations in Chicago and the Midwest before joining “GMA” when it launched in 1975, staying with the program for seven years.

The post Weather Channel Founder John Coleman Dies appeared first on TV News Check.

WBIR, Tegna’s NBC affiliate in Knoxville, Tenn., will also be featured on Facebook Live during the company’s #EclipseLive special. Tegna says that with its national footprint of 46 television stations in 38 markets, it is “uniquely positioned to provide complete minute-by-minute coverage of this once-in-a-lifetime event, from Oregon to South Carolina.”

The solar eclipse will pass through several Tegna communities:

• KGW, Portland, Ore. — Peak eclipse at 1:18 p.m. ET
• KTVB, Boise, Idaho — Peak eclipse at 1:33 p.m. ET
• KUSA, Denver — Peak eclipse at 1:47 p.m. ET
• KSDK, St. Louis — Peak eclipse at 2:18 p.m. ET
• WBIR, Knoxville, Tenn. — Peak eclipse at 2:34 p.m. (ET
• WLTX, Columbia, S.C. — Peak eclipse at 2:43 p.m. ET

As part of the collaboration with The Weather Channel for its “Chasing Eclipse 2017” live stream, special coverage from Tegna’s solar eclipse communities will be featured on weather.com, on The Weather Channel app and across social media.

The “Chasing Eclipse 2017” live stream will integrate live local eclipse content from Tegna. Viewers can access the live stream beginning at noon ET on August 21 at http://features.weather.com/eclipse.

“We are thrilled to be working with The Weather Channel to bring Tegna’s compelling and unique eclipse content to a worldwide audience across platforms,” said Ellen Crooke, Tegna VP of news. “The eclipse will directly pass through several Tegna communities, from Oregon to South Carolina, and we will be there every step of the way, offering our audiences insightful, meaningful and innovative coverage of this once-in-a-lifetime event like no other local broadcaster can.”

All Tegna stations, regardless if they are in the direct path of the eclipse, will have dedicated and enhanced coverage on-air, on their website and mobile apps. Content includes interactive guides to the eclipse, information on how to take the best pictures, a ZIP code finder to see how close you are to the path, information about local events, the science and history behind the eclipse and more.

In addition, Tegna will offer a continuous live stream of the eclipse from coast to coast on station’s Facebook feeds.

Tegna’s eclipse markets will also provide live, wall-to-wall coverage and analysis across platforms on Aug. 21. In addition to sharing content across Tegna’s markets and covering the impact the eclipse will have on tourism, traffic, cell service and other emergency responses, highlights of local coverage will include:

• KGW will be the first Tegna market in the path of the eclipse. KGW will be the only local crew on a plane in the Pacific Ocean to get exclusive views of the eclipse as it first appears. The station will be live beginning at 4:30 am (local time) and on-air for at least eight hours.

• KTVB will produce a two-hour television special from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. (local time) from Weiser, Idaho, where thousands are expected to gather to catch Idaho’s first view of the eclipse. KTVB, the Western Idaho Fair and the Idaho Lottery are also teaming up to throw a party, Total Eclipse of the Fair, and special broadcast at the Western Idaho Fair grandstand stage.

• KSDK will be live in Carbondale, Ill., at a NASA official viewing location. This is where the eclipse will occur for the longest duration, two minutes and 40 seconds. It will be one of more than a half dozen locations where KSDK will have live coverage. KSDK is also partnering with local organizations to create unique, shareable content across their digital and social platforms. In addition, KSDK is teaming with Tegna’s KUSA in Denver to have special coverage of a flight from Denver to St. Louis during the eclipse.

• WBIR coverage will be included on the #EclipseLive Facebook Live stream at 2 p.m. ET. WBIR’s live coverage will begin at noon ET and run until the evening news.

• WUSA Washington will be hosting the Great Eclipse 2017 Watch Party at a local aviation museum. WUSA meteorologists and anchors will be on hand to answer questions, hand out ISO-certified eyewear and compete in science-related trivia with viewers.

The post Tegna, Weather Ch. Join On Eclipse Coverage appeared first on TV News Check.