NBC Weather Plus
NBC Weather Plus was an American weather-oriented digital broadcast and cable television network owned as a joint venture between NBC Universal and the local affiliates of the NBC television network. The service, which was broadcast in standard definition, was carried on the digital subchannels of many NBC affiliates and on the digital tiers of cable providers.
Overview
NBC Weather Plus primarily competed with cable network The Weather Channel, as well as a similar digital multicast network, The Local AccuWeather Channel.The network also provides forecast content for both NBC News and MSNBC's news programs; Weather Plus staff also appeared on most of the programs. In 2006, after MSNBC moved its operations to 30 Rockefeller Plaza in New York City's Midtown Manhattan district, Weather Plus moved into fellow sister network CNBC's Global Headquarters in Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.
In addition to the network, Weather Plus staff provided weather updates for CNBC and MSNBC; MSNBC also aired "sample" hours of the network during the morning hours on certain major holidays. In addition, Weather Plus was promoted during NBC's NFL pre-game show Football Night in America, and was used to provide the temperature and weather conditions at gametime for each week's NBC Sunday Night Football game during the NFL season. During significant national weather events, Weather Plus meteorologists conducted live reports for NBC Nightly News to provide analysis.
History
NBC Weather Plus was unveiled at the NBC affiliate meeting in 2004. The network debuted on November 15, 2004, with NBC's New York City owned-and-operated station WNBC serving as the test station. At the time, the network was operating out of the offices of NBC News' affiliate newsgathering service, NBC News Channel, in Charlotte, North Carolina. NBC and MSNBC weather anchors and meteorologist staff the network to start. Raycom Media agreed by April 2005 to affiliated its 13 NBC stations' subchannel with NBC Weather Plus,On March 30, 2005, Sunbeam Television, Liberty Corporation, Sunbelt Communications and Bonneville International announced that 30 stations of their station would launch the network bring coverage up to 67% of U.S. households. Weather Plus was moved to NBC News division in 2007 after NBC Station Group President Jay Ireland returned to General Electric.
Closure
In September 2008, Landmark Media Enterprises sold The Weather Channel to a consortium of NBC Universal, and private equity firms Blackstone Group and Bain Capital. Shortly afterward, on October 7, 2008, NBC Universal announced that it would phase out Weather Plus by December 31, 2008, after the NBC affiliates expressed a desire to shut the service down. Though NBC cited its purchase of The Weather Channel as a factor in the shutdown, it was stated that the network's closure would have occurred even if the acquisition had not happened.Segments featuring on-camera personalities were discontinued on October 24, 2008. Afterwards until the network formally ceased operations, it ran only a loop of various national satellite, radar and temperature maps accompanied by music, local weather maps inserted by the network's affiliates, and Weather Plus University. With this, the remaining on-camera meteorologists from Weather Plus were referred to on other NBC News and MSNBC programs as only "NBC meteorologists," before eventually being mentioned as being part of the Weather Channel's staff. The Weather Channel's main Atlanta staff also began appearing on NBC News programs, either from the cable channel's Atlanta headquarters, NBC's New York City operations or via satellite on-location during weather events. In early December 2008, the website of Weather Plus was redirected to The Weather Channel's website.
The service formally shut down operations on December 31, 2008. While some of its affiliates switched to other networks, the remaining affiliates running them as local weather services. Many operating under the unofficial brand, "NBC Plus". This option allowed the equipment that had been used to insert local content onto the former national feed of NBC Weather Plus to remain in use. The network's forecast system and maps continued to be used until 2010 for studio segments on CNBC and MSNBC, with Weather Channel branding along the top-third banner, before being replaced entirely with graphics used by The Weather Channel by mid-2010.
Until 2011, several NBC owned-and-operated stations ran a barebones variant of Weather Plus, which was finally replaced with a localized news and lifestyle service called NBC Nonstop. Other stations have discontinued their use of Weather Plus in order to take advantage of upgraded weather technology after converting to high-definition news production, or switched to an entertainment-based multicast network featuring programming more palatable to different advertisers. WVIR-TV kept the Weather Plus look until reportedly May 2015 when it was replaced by WeatherNation.
Programming
National programming
From its launch until the network discontinued on-camera segments in October 2008, NBC Weather Plus maintained a wheel format for its forecast segments, which were scheduled at fixed timeslots each half-hour:NBC Weather Plus' programming is mostly not live; a digital video jukebox system is used to shuffle certain segments, except in the event of severe weather of particular significance ongoing in the United States. A viewer that watched NBC Weather Plus in any given day would be able to see a weather news segment that originally aired in the morning repeated long into the night, the same weather information that aired at 11:00 p.m. airing at 4:00 a.m., and the same seasonal outlook segment that originally aired in the morning repeating long into the late afternoon. In the latter instance, this was an issue as updated information may not have been available during any type of severe weather that was ongoing.
Some of the segments featured on the network used different titles at times if it is a sponsored forecast segment such as State Farm Road Coverage, which replaced Coast To Coast. The network also produced Weather Plus University, a half-hour program focusing on educating viewers about weather, and featured segments from NBC News a nd NBC affiliates relating to climate.
During severe weather events, stations could opt to replace the national segments with news simulcasts or a constant radar display, with the national Weather Plus feed showing a local affiliate's coverage nationally during the "Coast To Coast" and/or "Plus Five Forecast" segments. During the network's "Weather Alert" mode, specifically when a major severe weather event was occurring or a dangerous hurricane is preparing to make landfall, regular programming was interrupted to provide constant coverage. Most of NBC Weather Plus' affiliates used a respective combination of the station and "Weather Plus" branding, for both the subchannel and for the station's general weather branding during newscasts and weather updates on the NBC affiliate's main channel. After the shutdown of the digital network, many NBC affiliates continued to use the "Weather Plus" brand as part of their on-air weather branding, although most have switched to other brands in the succeeding years.
Local forecasts
NBC Weather Plus gives 24 minutes of programming time per hour to its affiliates to air pre-recorded local forecast segments conducted by weather staff from local NBC-affiliated stations, running eight times an hour. In addition, current weather conditions for a given area and surrounding areas within the affiliate's viewing area or state; regional and five-day forecasts; and almanacs were also provided during the local segments., showing an ad in the top-left corner, local branding above the Weather Plus logo, and time in the bottom-left.
The forecast segment seen in place of the local forecasts on the national feed cycled through daily forecasts and composite satellite/radar loops for the respective regions of the Northeastern, Southeastern, Midwestern, Northwestern and Southwestern United States. Music associated with the local forecast segments came from commercial sources, including 615 Music, which composed the music package used by NBC Weather Plus' weather radar forecasts from 2005 to 2008.
The "L" bar
The network utilizes an on-screen graphic, known as the "L-bar," to display local weather forecasts on the left and bottom third of the screen to provide local weather information on a continuous basis, even during commercial breaks, national weather segments and Weather Plus University. The sidebar displayed sponsorship tags on the top left, current weather conditions for the affiliate's city of service and other cities within the viewing area or state on the middle left; station identification on the bottom left ; and the current time and on some stations, perpetual station identification text on the lower left. The bottom right two-thirds of the bar displayed 24-hour and five-day forecasts for each city.Similar to The Weather Channel's Local on the 8s segment in the hour after sunset, an occasional bug in the "L-bar" displayed weather icons incorporating the sun when detailing the current sky condition for some observation sites at night. If an observation site was located within or near a larger city, the forecast for the next closest reporting station would be shown instead. The current conditions for a single city cycled for 20 seconds; while the 24-hour and five-day forecasts cycled for 10 seconds. In the case of Sacramento affiliate KCRA, the current conditions cycled continuously and the current time was placed on the right-hand side in the lower-right third. The national feed featured a different "L-bar," which cycled through current conditions, 24-hour and five-day forecasts for 50 major U.S. cities.
Prior to the announcement of Weather Plus' shutdown, the network had planned to revamp the "L-bar". The redesigned graphic was adopted by at least one former Weather Plus affiliate, WKYC-TV in Cleveland, Ohio, following the closure of Weather Plus when it reformatted its weather subchannel into a local format, before the station converted the subchannel into a local radar loop.
Notable former on-air staff
- Gary Archibald
- Bill Karins
- Sean McLaughlin
- Byron Miranda
- Raphael Miranda
- Jim Nichols
- Jeff Ranieri
Affiliates