TFTP Cable: Miscellaneous Clips from The Weather Channel (1990)

Posted to YouTube by user 'Bryan Farr'
Length - 7:56

This set of clips from The Weather Channel from 1990 is mostly a series of title graphic sequences showing what the introductory titles to different kinds of segments looked like. Segment titles include "Local Weather", "Weather & You", "Pacific Regional Forecast", "Special Presentation", "Today's Forecast", and "International Weather".

Because of the then-current build-up in advance of the 1991 Gulf War, presumably for the benefit of the families of service members, there is also a title graphic for a segment called "Mideast Weather" (in a suitably Arabic-looking font).

In addition, there are some more prosaic graphics (just plain white text on a blue background) of local weather reports and a somewhat choppy sequence near the end of various Weather Channel personalities in the opening seconds of weather reports. Much of the material in this set of clips, including the local weather report mentioned above, comes from the cable system in Elmira, New York, from Thursday, October 11, 1990.

TFTP Local Weather Round-Up! WHBF/Quad Cities, IA/IL, WLS/Chicago (1973), KING/Seattle (1982)

Posted to YouTube by user 'fromuncle' (top), 'Steve Newman' (middle), 'robatsea2009' (bottom)
Length - 3:46 (top), 3:55 (middle), 3:13 (bottom)

Weatherman Doug Dahlgren in clip #1 (top) of this local weather round-up looks like he bought his suit jacket at the same place that "Mary Tyler Moore Show" weatherman Ted Baxter shopped, what with the light blue color and the patch on the left pocket. This 1966 clip from WHBF in the Quad Cities area of Iowa and Illinois utilizes what looks like back projection of overhead transparencies to present the weather, supplemented by a series of number dials to present the temp, humidity, etc.

Clip #2 features weatherman Steve Newman of WLS in Chicago, who apparently shopped at the same store as Baxter and Dahlgren (these blazers were all over the place in the 1960s and early-1970s). Newman, in a 1973 clip, has a rotating four-sided presentation board on which his various weather charts are displayed (and there must be someone on the back side of it putting in new charts, because Newman turns the thing more than three times with a new chart every time).

The last clip, clip #3, with Don Madsen of KING in Seattle from 1982, apart from being a morning weather report, is done almost entirely using electronic graphics, with Madsen offscreen doing voiceover for virtually the entire weather report. As a wintertime weather report in a mountainous state, Madsen's weather report includes additional information such as snow conditions for skiing and the status of various mountain passes.

As you watch these weather clips from different eras, you realize two things about the evolution of local weather: first, there becomes less and less emphasis on technical aspects of weather such as fronts, barometric pressure, etc. (which are hardly ever mentioned in TV weather reports now); and second, there used to be a lot more reporting on national weather, something that is minimized if it is presented at all in most local weather reports these days.

TFTP Local Weather Round-Up! WBAL/Baltimore (1959), KAKE/Wichita (1974), WAGA/Atlanta (1982)

Posted by YouTube users 'EyeLikeTooWatch' (top), 'Troy Diggs' (middle), 'radioman1968' (bottom)

Here is the inaugural TFTP Local Weather Round-Up, a periodic feature in which we will round up a few clips of weathercasts from local TV stations. Typically, the Local Weather Round-Up will consist of three clips, one from the 1950s or 60s, one from the 1970s, and one from the 1980s.

Local weather reports are fascinating to watch now, due in part to the folksy charm that many of them exhibit, in part to the variety of techniques that were used over the years by different stations, and due to the way in which weathercasting technology evolved in the decades between the 1950s and 1980s.

Clip #1 above is from April 12, 1959, on station WBAL/Baltimore. The single-sponsor method of sponsorship, common in the early days of TV, is evident in this clip from the ways in which Luby's Chevrolet is integrated so closely into the weathercast, which utilizes entirely a chalkboard method of weather presentation. Clip #2 is from KAKE/Wichita in 1974. Apart from being in color, the main difference here is a slightly more sophisticated presentation of the weather, largely using a suitably seventies-ish round board with several layers that are progressively revealed (the last couple seemingly utilizing chroma-key). Use of weather radar has begun in this mid-1970s era as well. Finally, the third and final clip--from WAGA/Atlanta from April 3, 1982--is from a time when chroma-key technology has been fully embraced as the chief (although not exclusive) weathercasting technique (as it remains today). (Gotta love those rotating sections of weather map!)

TFTP News: "11 Alive Newsroom" from WXIA/Atlanta (Apr. 13 1980)

Posted to YouTube by user 'NewsActive3'

From Apr. 13, 1980, is the local newscast--titled "11 Alive Newsroom"--from WXIA-TV in Atlanta, which at this time was the Atlanta ABC affiliate but later in 1980 would switch its affiliation to NBC, which it retains (along with the "11 Alive" branding) to this day. Curious local news tidbit: the painted portraits of newsmakers that are utilized as graphics in several of the stories here.

Stories featured in this newscast: demonstrations related to racial strife in the town of Wrightsville, GA; Ted Kennedy wins the Arizona primary in the 1980 Democratic presidential race in his run against incumbent president Jimmy Carter; a local rodeo in the Atlanta area; final results from the 1980 Masters golf tournament; flooding in Louisiana; and details related to severe weather in the Atlanta and north Georgia region, including a recent tornado watch.

Most of the commercials and interstitial elements have been edited out here, with a few significant exceptions: there is a Cadillac ad at the very end, an ad for the regional Krystal fast food chain midway through, and at the very beginning there is a brief bumper promo for local syndicated airings of "Star Trek".