Weatherscan Track 3

[Thedore Rosa]

Weatherscanoriginally called Weatherscan Local) was a sister network offered by The Weather Channel (TWC) from 2003 until 2022. Weatherscan featured uninterrupted local weather information in graphical format on a continuous loop. All content was produced by a separate IntelliStar unit at the cable company's headend and, unlike The Weather Channel, Weatherscan did not feature on-air talent of any kind.

At its peak in the late 2000s, Weatherscan was once available in many top markets around the United States, though its availability was less than that of TWC. At the time, many cable companies offered Weatherscan on their digital cable lineup, although a few companies provided the channel on their basic cable lineup, on which The Weather Channel was also offered.

On September 12, 2022, it was announced by a letter from Weather Group Television to the National Cable Television Cooperative stated the company's intention to discontinue the Weatherscan service entirely on or before December 9, 2022.[3] Though, a Weatherscan IntelliStar unit in Beckley, WV on December 10, 2022, mentions that the nationwide shutdown for the last remaining Weatherscan units was scheduled for December 12, 2022.[4]

In 2003, the predecessor of the modern Weatherscan channel, known as Weatherscan Local and which ran on the older Weather Star XL localization platform, was replaced with the current product as Weather Star XL units for Weatherscan were replaced by IntelliStar units.

At its peak, Weatherscan was found in many major markets around the United States, though its availability was never as widespread as that the main network. Many cable providers offered Weatherscan on their digital tiers, although a few providers carried Weatherscan on their basic tier (where TWC is also offered). On June 29, 2011, Dish Network became the first and only satellite provider to add Weatherscan in selected markets until June 2015. The carriage of Weatherscan on Dish Network was only available in the Oklahoma City, OK, Phoenix, AZ, Salt Lake City, UT, and Tuscon, AZ media markets.

Verizon FiOS dropped Weatherscan (on channel 49), along with parent network TWC, from its lineup from March 9 to March 10, 2015, after the two parties were unable to come to terms on a new carriage agreement. The service was replaced by a local WeatherBug "widget" in some markets. No public announcement was made regarding this issue until over 12 hours after the discontinuation. Verizon said that its reason for dropping such services was because many customers turn to the internet and mobile apps for weather any time of day. This makes Weatherscan widely absent in one of the top 5 markets, especially where cable clusters don't carry this network.

Little had been done to update Weatherscan after 2006 but was still being offered to cable companies until recently despite this. Comcast (Xfinity) began to drop the channel from its cable systems in October 2017 and fully removed it by December 10th of the same year. Most of the last remaining providers were scheduled to remove Weatherscan by its shutdown on December 12, 2022, due to The Weather Channel's decision to discontinue the service.[5]

Weatherscan ran on a first-generation IntelliStar unit, a custom computer solution used by The Weather Channel for display of local weather information which is installed at local cable companies. It differs primarily from the IntelliStar units formerly used for The Weather Channel network proper, referred to as domestic IntelliStar units, because of its custom software used for generating the content seen on Weatherscan. Remaining Weatherscan IntelliStar units were the last of the original IntelliStar units, as domestic IntelliStar units were retired in favor of the models of the IntelliStar 2 (especially the IntelliStar 2 xD and Jr.) on November 16, 2015.

The IntelliStar unit used by Weatherscan was configured differently than the domestic units, featuring different graphics, additional weather products, and continuous 24/7 runtime. A different set of Vocal Local narrations from those used on domestic IntelliStar units introduces several segments, including "Your current conditions," "The local doppler radar," and "Your local forecast." Unlike those from the domestic IntelliStar 1, Weatherscan's narrations were originally voiced by Amy Bargeron until November 10, 2015, when the narration was phased out on most regular segments, while severe weather narrations from long time TWC Storm Analyst Jim Cantore were added along with an updated warning tone to match with that of the IntelliStar 2 line. These severe weather narrations were added due to the FCC requiring critical severe weather alerts to be read aloud, which the IntelliStar was incapable of due to its lack of secondary audio program (SAP) support.

First-generation IntelliStar units as a whole, but especially those remaining in official service that solely ran Weatherscan prior to its shutdown, are beginning to feel the effects of slowly failing capacitors, due to their motherboards being manufactured during the capacitor plague era in the early 2000s. As a result, most Weatherscan IntelliStar units that were still remaining in the field at the time of the channel's existence were not expected to remain alive in the next few years. To fix this issue would require the recall of all remaining units and installation of new capacitors in each, an action which The Weather Channel did not take.

In late 2021, Wyandotte Connex revealed that The Weather Channel had stopped providing support or replacement Weatherscan IntelliStar units[6] to cable providers, signaling the gradual end of the service, which would later be revealed as occurring in December 2022.[7] The last few remaining providers that still had working Weatherscan IntelliStar units continued to operate them regardless of support status prior to Weatherscan's shutdown.

When Weatherscan was launched on the IntelliStar platform, it received an entirely new graphical design heavily featuring the color blue, with accents around the border varying by segments (yellow for local forecasts, orange for traffic, blue for travel and airport, green for garden and golf, teal for health, purple for ski & snow). The only deviation from this was during "severe weather mode" when an active warning was in place for all or part of the unit's served area. This package swapped blue with yellow accents for gray with red accents.

The main typeface switched from Akzidenz-Grotesk to Frutiger. Background images were changed from a neighborhood scene to a city scene for forecast segments. This graphical scheme re-introduced a title/copyright screen that was unseen since around 2000. The screen features an image of the main reporting site's skyline with "weatherscan" rendered in blue Frutiger typeface. The Weather Channel logo dissolves into the bottom right with the cable affiliate's logo in the upper right opposite the text "Weatherscan is only available on [name of cable affiliate]." This text then dissolves to the copyright tag " [year] The Weather Channel, Inc. All Rights Reserved." For rural areas, the background image for this screen features a white picket fence in a neighborhood scene.

The entire screen was in a faux-letterbox style, with black bars at the top and bottom of the screen. The top of the screen featured rudimentary observation and forecast data in yellow Frutiger and Frutiger Light font with the cable affiliate logo on the upper right-hand portion of the screen. The bottom bar featured the date and time on a blue background above the plain text "weatherscan" logo and next to The Weather Channel logo. To the left of the Weatherscan logo was space for an advertising crawl, which was presented as white Frutiger text. If no advertising crawls were loaded into the system, it simply displayed "Coming Up Next... [next segment]" in yellow. The only exception is again in "severe weather mode" with a red bar appearing just above the crawl space containing the type of warning with NWS warning text crawling under it. To make more space for crawling the warning, The Weather Channel logo would be removed and the Weatherscan logo would be shifted to the right.

On September 27, 2005, Weatherscan received its last major graphical overhaul. To match TWC's then-current on-screen presentation, the main typeface changed to Interstate. The main panel from the original IntelliStar graphics package is reduced to a smaller but still prominent window in the upper middle of the screen, with most graphical elements inside this remaining the same, including retaining the Frutiger typeface. Above this is a horizontal "rundown" bar featuring the current package being displayed and the next 4-5 products coming up.

Around this, an "L-bar" feature was introduced, including non-stop current conditions for the main observation site (with temperature and icon then other pertinent observation data rotating below) and a long-range three-hour radar loop. Next to this is a horizontal bar alternating between a condensed text-based forecast for the current and next daypart, a graphical daypart forecast and a graphical 5-day forecast. On the lower third of the screen, next to the cable affiliate logo (sometimes replaced with logos for advertising businesses) are two crawls stacked on top of one another. The lowermost crawl, featuring black Frutiger typeface on a blue background is an advertising crawl for local businesses. If no businesses advertised, the bar is either left blank or features promotions for programs appearing on The Weather Channel itself. The thinner bar above it features a crawl of local and regional observations and forecasts for the next daypart in white Interstate Condensed font (changed to Interstate Bold in July 2010), as well as local airport observations and delays.

During severe weather mode, the main window still switches to a gray and red color scheme, with the rest of the graphic remaining blue in color. For the duration of the warning (limited to flash flood, severe thunderstorm and tornado warnings), the radar in the L-bar is replaced with an expansion of the current observation data. The main window only shows the metro radar product, alternating every minute with the message "Weatherscan and [name of cable affiliate] bring you this message because of severe weather in your area." The warning text (until 2015, when it was replaced by generic hazard crawls) was featured on a red background replacing the advertising crawl, with the warning product name on the top line. Similar to the Weather Star XL and IntelliStar units seen on The Weather Channel, the alert crawl also had a yellow variant for severe thunderstorm and tornado watches and an orange variant for special weather statements (known after 2010 as "weather statements") and any other NWS advisory that was not otherwise covered.

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