NBC Weather Plus

NBC Weather Plus was a 24-hour, commercially sponsored, weather-oriented broadcast/cable television network jointly owned by NBC Universal and the local affiliates of the NBC network. It debuted on November 15, 2004 and shut down on December 31, 2008.^[1] The network's headquarters was initially located at the MSNBC World Headquarters in Secaucus, New Jersey, and then CNBC Global Headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey after MSNBC's move to 30 Rockefeller Plaza with the broadcast side of NBC News, where Weather Plus staff also appeared within the new MSNBC studios to deliver forecasts and interact with NBC News personalities in person. The service was broadcast on digital subchannels of certain NBC affiliates in the United States, and was available on digital cable systems in Standard Definition (SD) format.

Prior to 2008, NBC Weather Plus competed with The Weather Channel, which was itself acquired by a consortium led by NBC Universal in September 2008, as well as a similar digital service offered by AccuWeather, The Local AccuWeather Channel. Shortly after the acquisition of The Weather Channel on October 8, 2008, NBC announced that Weather Plus would be shut down by December 31. The remaining on-camera meteorologists from Weather Plus are now referred to as "Weather Channel meteorologists" during their NBC and MSNBC appearances, while The Weather Channel's main Atlanta staff appears more on NBC News programs, either from TWC's Atlanta headquarters, New York, or on location from a weather event. NBC Weather Plus's forecast system and maps continued to be in place until 2010 for studio segments on CNBC and MSNBC with Weather Channel branding along the top-third banner, then replaced entirely with Weather Channel graphics by mid-2010.

The service effectively shut down operations on December 31, 2008. The remaining affiliates received a computer-updated loop of satellite/radar images, current weather conditions and temperatures, and daily forecasts for major regions of the country. As of December 31, 2008, some stations opting to carry a locally derived weather information operate under the local name, NBC Plus. This option allows using the local equipment that had been used to insert content with the now defunct national feed of NBC Weather Plus.

Programming

Local forecasts

NBC Weather Plus's programming schedule provided frequent local-forecast segments. Included were recorded reports from meteorologists associated with the local NBC affiliates. Viewers could see current weather conditions for their location and surrounding areas, forecasts, Doppler radars of their region, and the day's actual high and low temperatures.

Internet viewers who saw the national feed, including those in areas where the network's website did not supply their city's Weather Plus feed, instead saw a segment including daily forecasts for each region of the United States, along with satellite loops and Doppler radars of the Northeast, Southeast, Midwest, Northwest, and Southwest. The national feed of NBC Weather Plus was not carried on DirecTV, Dish Network, or C band satellite, which differed from the practices of those satellite providers with respect to The Weather Channel.

Music associated with the local-forecast segments came from commercial sources, including 615 Music, which composed the music package (mostly the tracks from Positive Pop Grooves, with the other tracks being DJ Gruv, Voccho, Sneez, and Pyraflex) used by NBC Weather Plus' weather radar forecasts post-2005.

Most local stations labeled the NBC Weather Plus service as "Weather Plus" with the station branding before it, often being used in combination with the local station's on-air weather branding during newscasts. After the shutdown, many NBC affiliates continued to use "Weather Plus" as part of their on-air weather branding.

WNBC in New York was the test station for NBC Weather Plus.

National programming

NBC Weather Plus did not air its programming entirely live, and it used a digital video jukebox system to shuffle certain segments of the weathercasts unless severe weather breaks. This system was especially true with the seasonal outlooks, weather news segments at :24 and :54 minutes past the hour, and with late night programming. If one watched NBC Weather Plus closely in any given day, one might have found the same weather news segment that originally aired in the morning repeated long into the night, the same weather information airing at 11:00 p.m. airing at 4:00 a.m., and the same seasonal outlook (severe weather, tropical weather, or winter weather) segment that originally aired in the morning repeating long into the late afternoon. In the latter case, this is problematic due to the fact that if severe weather of either category occurred (unless it is very significant), updated information may not have been available.

Appearance on other networks

The channel's staff also provided weather updates for fellow NBC Universal cable channels CNBC and MSNBC, and MSNBC aired 'sample' hours of the channel in holiday periods during the morning hours. In addition, Weather Plus was promoted during Football Night in America, and was used to provide gametime temperature and conditions for the later NBC Sunday Night Football game. Increasingly during times of significant national weather events (such as a major winter storm system), Weather Plus meteorologists have appeared live on NBC Nightly News to provide analysis. The Weather Channel now provides these services.

The "L" Bar

NBC Weather Plus used an "L-Bar" across the left side third and bottom third of the screen to continuously air local weather information, even during commercial breaks, national weather, and Weather Plus University.

The left side of the bar was reserved for sponsorship of Weather Plus programming on the top left (sponsors of NBC Weather Plus's programming was more often seen on local feeds), the middle left displayed the sky condition, temperature, wind speed/direction and humidity for each city and the bottom left was reserved for station identification (on local feeds, featuring the NBC affiliate's logo augmented above the Weather Plus portion of the logo) and current time was on the lower left, along with permanent text for station identification on some stations. (During Weather Plus University, the sponsorship tag was removed.)

The cycle for each city's weather information display was as follows:

• The current condition display cycle for one city ran for 20 seconds.
• The 24-hour forecast cycle ran 10 seconds.
• The five-day forecast cycle ran 10 seconds.

However, the above did not hold true for the left side of the L-Bar on Sacramento NBC affiliate KCRA. Instead, the current conditions cycled continuously and the time was on the right-hand side in the lower-third.

The bottom of the bar to the right of the time and station ID displayed the forecast for the next 24 hours featuring sky condition, temperature and estimated precipitation, followed by the five day forecast showing sky condition and predicted high and low temperatures. Occasionally, the current conditions display showed the icons telling the sky condition with the icon displaying sun despite it being nighttime. This also occurs on The Weather Channel but usually only in the hour following sunset. Not all cities where the current conditions were displayed on the left side of the "L" bar featured that city's forecast and may instead have used the conditions of the closest reporting station to that community. Example: Dallas NBC affiliate KXAS' Weather Plus feed displayed the current conditions for Fort Worth Alliance Airport but showed the forecast for Dallas-Fort Worth.

Digital television and cable viewers were able to see current weather conditions and weather forecasts for their location and surrounding areas, while internet viewers who watched the national feed instead of a local feed saw current conditions and daily forecasts for 50 U.S. cities.

Former NBC Weather Plus Personalities

• Bill Karins (continues to be based in New York as Weather Channel forecaster for MSNBC and CNBC programming)
• Gary Archibald (now with The Weather Network)
• Jackie Meretsky (now with ABC)
• Jeff Ranieri (now with San Francisco NBC-owned station KNTV)
• Todd Santos (now an OCM at The Weather Channel in Atlanta)
• Raphael Miranda (now WNBC Meteorologist)
• Samantha Davies (now at KXAS-TV Dallas Fort Worth)
• Britta Merwin (now at KCRA-TV
• Jim Nichols (now with Baltimore NBC affiliate WBAL-TV)
• Ibby Carothers
• Kristen Cornett (now with St. Louis CBS affiliate KMOV-TV)
• Elise Finch (now with New York City CBS-owned station WCBS-TV)
• Michelle Grossman (now with Philadelphia NBC-owned station WCAU)
• Sean McLaughlin (now with Phoenix CBS affiliate KPHO-TV)
• Byron Miranda (now weather anchor at KGTV)
• Rob Jones (most recently freelancing at WTSP)

Programming schedule

The following list was the channel's programming wheel (until October 2008).^[2] Note that some network segments had a different title at times due to a sponsor for the forecast such as State Farm Road Coverage, which replaced Coast To Coast Forecast.

During severe weather, stations could choose to drop the national segments for news simulcasts or a constant radar display, with NBC able to show a local station's coverage nationally during the Coast To Coast Forecast or the Plus Five Forecast, depending on what part of the programming cycle the network was.

NBC Weather Plus also aired the "NBC Weather Plus Weather Alert," which interrupted regular programming for constant coverage of a weather event.

To fulfill FCC E/I requirements, NBC Weather Plus showed Weather Plus University on Saturday and Sunday afternoons.

Closure

NBC announced on October 7, 2008 that Weather Plus would be phased out by December 31, after the NBC affiliates expressed a desire to shut the service down.^[3] Though NBC cited its purchase of The Weather Channel as a factor in the shutdown,^[4] it has been stated that the closure would have happened even if the acquisition had not happened.^[3]

On-camera personality segments ended on October 24, 2008. From then on until the network's sign-off date, only a loop of various national maps with music, local maps by the affiliates, and Weather Plus University were shown. With this, the remaining OCM staff of the channel were referred to on other NBC News programs as only "NBC meteorologists", then eventually as being staff from the Weather Channel.

Prior to the shutdown announcement, the staff at NBC Weather Plus was planning a revamp of their L-bar. At least one former Weather Plus affiliate, WKYC-TV in Cleveland used this revamp since the closure of Weather Plus as part of their localized version, until abandoning the Weather Plus format for looping local radar.^[5]

In early December 2008, Weather Plus's website became a redirect to The Weather Channel's website.

Until 2011, several NBC O&O stations ran a barebones variant of WeatherPlus, which was finally replaced with their local Nonstop channels. Other stations have ended their use of Weather Plus in order to take advantage of upgraded weather technology after their high definiton conversions, or moved over to a subchannel network with a traditional programming schedule more palatable to different advertisers.

Affiliates

+ This affiliate converted to the AccuWeather Channel operations when WeatherPlus shut down.

References

External links

• Archive copy at Internet Archive
• NBC Weather Plus Live Stream