Re: The Weather Channel
Indrany
Newbie

Now that Time Warner is losing New York City customers (unless they made a deal) why can’t Fios negotiate a good rate for The Weather Channel? The widget is better than the forecasts on Fios. I understand people use apps now but my app is still The Weather Channel app. In these days and times of serious weather changing patterns it is important that we have a channel that can go all around th United States covering the weather. 

Please someone consider it or offer it and see what feedback you get.

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Re: The Weather Channel
CRobGauth
Community Leader
Community Leader

FiOS statement on this was viewership did not meet costs.

What is it that you can get from twc in TV that you can't get online?

That was their point.

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Re: The Weather Channel
JoeCoolOBX1
Enthusiast - Level 2

Probably the main reason for them not to put TWC on is that it is owned by Comcast, their direct competitor. I think Verizon has a vested ownership of the dumb weather channel they are airing...which I forgot their name because I never go on it. I mainly use the TWC App on my phone now. Once my contract is up (soon), I might consider switching to Comcast, now that they put faster lines in my neighborhood.

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Re: The Weather Channel
CRobGauth
Community Leader
Community Leader

Accuweather has been around much longer than TWC.
They continue toprovide weather forecasts to radio and tv stations around the country.

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Re: The Weather Channel
frkaz911
Enthusiast - Level 1

I'll add my displeasure with FIOS for dropping TWC for Accuweather.    Nobody in my family likes the change.....Accuweather's programing is horrible, the information is often not local,  and the graphics are unreadable.    I gave it some time with the thought that I may get used to it,  but it's actually gotten worse.  Verizon,  please start listening to your customers.....I'll bet if 10% of them actually liked the change that would be a lot.   If you need to save money do it somewhere else and get rid of channels that have almost no audience,  but don't put lives at risk,  because many people relied on TWC for their safety. 

Re: The Weather Channel
Dan_Miller1
Enthusiast - Level 3

Rob, I'm curious.

Why do you find it necessary to continuously defend Verizon's obviously unpopular decision? This is by far the biggest thread in the programming section of the forum. And you are easily the biggest commenter in this thread; and alomost every one is basically telling people to take their comments and go home. What is the use of this forum if the people who post honest and valid opinions are getting shut down almost as soon as they post anything?  Do you work for Accuweather?  I'm simply asking because you defend them constantly.

The AccuWeather channel isn't anywhere near the quality of TWC. Period. No one can argue that. You can make up inaccurate viewership figures that can easily be researched like I did months back. Yet you defend them as if you have some vested interest. Would you lose your job if TWC returned to FiOS?

What is it that you can get from TWC on TV that you can't get online? Did someone actually ask that question? That is so ridiculous that it almost can't be answered without laughing... On TWC you get live 24/7 coverage of major weather conditions, with on-air personalities that some people might have grown up with. You get accurate forecasts for where you live every 10 minutes. Unfortunately the online version of TWC is much like any weather app, with tons of ads and rarely is anything live. But that's to be expected online. 

Let's flip that question back to AccuWeather. What do you get from them on television that can't be gotten online?

Honestly, if a customer wishes to go online, they can pretty much get almost anything that virtually any TV channel offers, so that comment is really moot.

There is another thread on this forum about AccuWeather where someone asked for comments and suggestions. It was started pretty much when accuweather started up on FiOS. Maybe you're familiar with it. I read the whole thread, because it isn't very long (unlike this one). I didn't recall one person besides a certain MVP forum member defending them. No one cheering the decision.

And as far as AccuWeather being around longer than TWC, that kinda depends on your point of view, doesn't it? AccuWeather started in 1962. As a service provider. TWC began in 1982. So I guess you're right. NOT.

TWC began in 1982 as a basic cable and satellite channel. The AccuWeather Channel began in 2007. So I guess TWC has been around longer. But wait, it gets better. We don't watch the AccuWeather channel. we watch (or don't, as the case may be) the AccuWeather Network, which began in 2015. Three years ago. And guess which company was the first to carry it?

I understand how it must frustrate you to have your AccuWeather constantly berated here. But honestly, defending them, or Verizon's decision to carry them over TWC as being benign and something that subscribers won't even notice, much less care about is silly. People DO care, as evidenced by the size of this thread. And I would guess that there are tons of subscribers who either don't know about this forum, or are too apathetic to comment.

If there was a place where a petition to bring back TWC actually stood a chance of being heard and possibly acted on, I think it would surprise quite a few at VZ.

Re: The Weather Channel
CRobGauth
Community Leader
Community Leader

Not shutting anyone down.

Just presenting the side that Verizon put forth when they dropped twc.

AccuWeather as a company has been around since 1962.

A lot of local channels subscribe to their service for their local weather.

And on the AccuWeather channel, you can local info at least as often as every 10 minutes. More often if you consider other nearby towns.

Yes, they are not the most polished channel.

I know I personally had quit watching twc before it was dropped.

There are plenty of other weather sources online.

And if you see some of my previous posts, ratings for twc have been falling. They were recently purchased for a much lower price than what they were bought for years ago.

Cable companies pay for every subscriber whether they watch or not.

Verizon made a business decision.

We all pay for channels that we don't watch. Sometimes the channel you like is dropped or moved to a higher tier. Next time it could be a channel I like. You can upgrade to the higher tier, do without or change providers (another cable or streaming service).

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Re: The Weather Channel
tns2
Community Leader
Community Leader

I thought I'd give some additional info that Verizon gave about this.  The decided to drop The Weather Channel when TWC asked for a very large price increase.  It didn't help that TWC was going to more and more non-weather programs during normal broadcasting.

They had already made this decision when Accuweather announced they planned to launch a channel and offered it to Verizon for virtually nothing.  So appeared to users as though the had made the decision to replace TWC with Accuweather, but this was not the case. 

The widget for accuweather predated these changes.  Accuweather being the older and more widely used weather service.  However the channel is relatively new and not widely carried.

FIOS Weather Features are terrible
Slice4444
Enthusiast - Level 1

FIOS refusese to pay for The Weather Channel which has great local forcasting ("Weather On The 8's"). Instead they have an Accu-weather channel which is too general since it's national forcasting, not local.  They also have 2 weather "widgets". One is Accu-weather but is takes time to wait for the different screens to load, and the other is "The Weather Bug" which you can click through the screens, but the radar almost never works... I called to have this repaired 3 times. The first time, I got an email saying the problem was solved 2 days later - and it wasn't. The second time I got a promise from support on the phone that it would get fixed and that someone would get back to me in 24 hours. A week later I got another email saying the problem was resolved and.... It wasn't.... The third time I got a guy who could barely speak English and was nearly impossible to communicate with.  I would explain the situation and/or ask questions and there would be long pauses of dead silence with no response where I'd have to ask if he was still on the line with me. When he did respond it either was non-relevant or wasn't understandable. In the end, he decided to send a signal to my box. All that did was delete all my favorite channels I had loaded! So, finally I scheduled a technician to come to my house. The day of the scheduled appointment, the technician called me and told me that there was nothing that could be done about this radar issue because it is a "glitch in the system that they are aware of" and that when they send out updates to fix these glitches that it generally makes things worse not better -  and that I just had to deal with it.  What kind of support is that? I feel they should either offer The Weather Channel, or fix the services they have. I AM paying for it after all... At the very least, they could have informed me that nothing could be done on the first phone call and they certainly shouldn't send out emails stating that things are "resolved" when they aren't... I'm sure to many people this all seems trivial... But FIOS isn't cheap. The least I should be able to expect is to have things work properly. PS: I was on hold for almost an hour every time I called... Customer service is awful... I think a refund is in order and I am likely going to switch back to Spectrum which offers The Weather Channel.

Re: FIOS Weather Features are terrible
CRobGauth
Community Leader
Community Leader

Where are you located?

My Accuweather channel has rotating info for lots of local areas around me.

Haven't timed it, but I get my local area at least once every 10 minutes.

I have always found the widgets to be useless.

If I want that info, I either use the equivalent app on my mobile device or log on to Internet.

Which is why Verizon dropped TWC?
They didn't see enough viewership to justify the cost.

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