Viewers Furious With The Weather Channel for Running Canned Programming During Historic Storm

Ken MeyerDec 12th, 2021, 3:46 pm
 

The Weather Channel has come under criticism from those who took issue with the network running canned programming in the early hours of Saturday morning as tornadoes ravaged a number of states.

At least 90 people have been confirmed dead due to the flurry of tornadoes that swept through Arkansas, Illinois, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri and Tennessee. Emergency efforts to aid survivors are ongoing, and Kentucky Governor Andy Beshear (D) offered a grim account, Sunday, of how things are looking after the storm’s impact on his state.

The Weather Channel tracked the situation as it unfolded until the tornadoes touched down in the early hours of Saturday morning. A Mediaite review of The Weather Channel’s feed on the media monitoring service TVEyes shows that after their midnight report, they offered approximately one-minute updates on the storm every half hour, but those periodic updates were interspersed with reruns from various docu-series about surviving in extreme weather.

By 6:00 a.m. ET, The Weather Channel reverted to wall-to-wall coverage of the storm. However, some critics took issue with The Weather Channel on Twitter, asking why they didn’t maintain steady coverage on the storm as it was happening in the early morning.

It should be noted, The Weather Channel’s national correspondent, Justin Michaels, defended the network’s coverage on the storm as he engaged accusations from a critic on Twitter.

Michaels has also posted plenty of pictures since then, showing the extent of the devastation in the midwest.

Steve Bender, a meteorologist for Fox Weather, swiped at his rival network by noting that his team stayed on the air throughout:

Watch above, via The Weather Channel.

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