The Weather Channel

Does anyone have any memories of watching this short lived channel in the mid 90s? Had this forum been around at that time, I imagine it would have been a popular talking point.

I know Carol Kirkwood and Louise Lear appeared on the Weather Channel before joining the BBC, but did any other big names start out on there?

Do you think that the failure of this channel was because it started a bit before it's time, with the limitations of the Sky analogue system and the very limited broadcasting hours?

If it had launched as a full 24 hour service on Sky Digital and then later on Freeview, do you think it'd still be broadcasting in the UK today?

There's a little bit about it on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Weather_Channel_internationally#The_Weather_Channel_UK

As the article suggest, it was stymied somewhat by its broadcasting hours; and thanks to being on satellite, localisation was out of the question.

I'm not sure what the viewing figures are like, but my perception was that, as a brand, it's huge in the US. Earlier this year, I was in a bar in New Orleans. There was a torrential downpour outside, and those people who weren't watching the Weather Channel on TV were looking at weather.com on their iPhones. It was funny to see, because for all the British are supposed to be obsessed with the weather, it seemed to pale in comparison to the Americans'.

I suppose having such a channel does come into its own during localised weather events: last night's storm-force winds in Scotland, perhaps. Not too interesting if you're in a sunny and breezy London, but if you're watching parts of trees fly past your window in Glasgow, you'd probably consider it worthy of rolling coverage.

The rest of the time though, is there really an audience?

I remember watching it was dull as dishwater, there was nothing on it.

It like the Clock channel; Coming up This evening; Six O'clock!

I'm sure it was on Cable too... have this dim memory of watching it on what would have been CableTel / Cable & Wireless in south London in-and-around 95-97??

Andrea McLean was also a forecaster on The Weather Channel.

central weather was provided by the weather channel (previously wsi, litton, the weather department) iirc from jewelery quarter or hagley road in bham.

was this just an out-post for central and htv forecasts, or did output for the channel itself come from bham too?

http://www2.tv-ark.org.uk/otherchannels/weather.html

^ A bit of presentation.

I've always been baffled by how the US version manages to produce endless amounts of weather-related content 24 hours a day. I could understand if they were just playing forecasts all the time but they somehow manage to successfully fill newsroom type programmes with hours worth of weather stories!

Relating to the US version, one thing that looks interesting is the system they use to generate local forecasts. There are pages and pages of articles on Wikipedia about various systems that each cable transmitter site uses to generate these forecasts. Some larger areas seem to have modern systems, smaller areas old fashioned teletext style systems. In a pre-internet age this would have been invaluable information.