by Jimmy Flatbush

Created on: April 12, 2010

Somebody needs to put the weather back into The Weather Channel (TWC).

TWC has evolved from programming exclusively devoted to weather into another insipid display of crass commercialism. You want weather? You are better off navigating TWC’s comprehensive website for detailed information about not only today’s weather, but also explanations by the likes of Dr. Greg Forbes and Dr. Steve Lyons. The two weather experts have been supplanted on the television side of TWC by Al Roker and an assortment of topics that have nothing to do with forecasting precipitation, temperatures, and imminent severe weather.

Roker was brought in to spice up the morning show, joining the legions of morning shows that spend more time on human interest stories than the topics they are supposedly meant to program. The TWC between six and ten in the morning now resembles the content broadcast on the Today Show, which is no coincidence, since the Today Show is where Al Roker reports on human interest stories. During the nine o’clock hour this morning, Roker anchored a broadcast on TWC that featured stories on spring fashions, Tiger Woods, and an array of financial news. The only weather related programming was the local forecast.

Weather aficionados have to be disappointed with TWC’s recent decision to dumb down its core audience. The allure of TWC for years has been the channel’s ability to break down weather phenomenon happening in the US and project how the phenomenon would affect people throughout the country. TWC invested in live broadcasts when particularly intense weather was imminent by sending their reporters and anchors out into the field. The live broadcasts gave veracity to the immediacy of an intense weather event, and provided astute analysis by meteorologists trained to dissect weather data. Now, live feeds are brought to us not by meteorologists, but by people who make a living, like Roker, entertaining us with one liners and glamour shots.

Stephanie Abrams and Mike Bettes recently soaked up a part of TWC budget by reporting live for one week from Destin, Florida. Their reporting was not about a hurricane or tropical storm, but about spring break along the Florida panhandle. They both unabashedly came off more like tourism officials than trained meteorologists. Back in the studio, jolly Al was anchoring the guffaws and yuck-yucks. The time spent on forecasting the seven day period for the nation lasted about two minutes, while Bettes and Abrams

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