
The Weather Channel has stopped publishing video on Facebook - petethomas
https://digiday.com/media/the-weather-channel-has-walked-away-from-facebook-video/
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cs702
"We went along for the ride every single step of the way [with Facebook]...
But we noticed, over the course of two years, that we were being paid in all
types of currencies — followers, shares, views — that did not feel like
money."

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reaperducer
_> “It has been good for Facebook, but it hasn’t been good for us.”_

I hear this more and more from my friends in publishing and broadcasting.
Sales likes to brag about "followers" and such, but it never translates into
real money.

~~~
bartread
This isn't just a problem with facebook, but with marketing in general. People
care about a lot of metrics (e.g., media metrics such as positive/negative
buzz) that don't make a jot of difference to the top line of a company, and
make a difference to the bottom line only because of the amount of money spent
on trying to move them[1].

[1] Of course, there are exceptions: arguably Ratners jewellers in the UK
would be an example.

~~~
duxup
I sat in a meeting where the VP of marketing was touting the rate of users who
viewed the entire YouTube ad for some new ads we put out, as opposed to users
skipping the ads. This was a huge success, VP and CEO repeated this great news
for a good year.

Almost every ad was below the threshold where YouTube would put up the "skip"
option at that time, so users really had no choice but to watch it all.
"Success" was guaranteed purely based on the length of the ads.

No effort was made to actually tie anything to sales, money of any sort,
except MOAR marketing staff and budget... hiring freeze for tech support and
so on...

~~~
gamblor956
Sounds like it was a terrific success based on the metric tested. They wanted
viewers to see the entire ad, and making a shorter ad guaranteed that...

Video advertising doesn't generally trigger an immediate call to action; it's
always been a tool of brand awareness, so why would you want to have a longer
ad if most users simply skip over it?

~~~
duxup
It was a success based on the metric. It also could not have had any other
result than success based on the % of ads that could not be skipped. There was
no other possible outcome.

~~~
tazard
I usually close the tab if a YouTube ad starts. I rarely care about a video
enough to sit through an ad for it.

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Zelphyr
Hopefully advertisers are waking up to the fact that Facebook is as much a
bait-and-switch for them as they are their users.

~~~
niftich
There's a confusion and conflation of terminology here, even if the original
meaning can stand on its own too.

The Weather Channel isn't an advertiser here. They're a user -- a corporate
one, but they supply content they want others to view. Facebook has scaled
back the organic effectiveness of creator-owned pages in an effort to drive
more traffic to paid advertising. The Weather Channel is simply noticing that
they're giving away content for free, and whatever benefit they derive from
this content on this particular medium doesn't make up for how much it costs
to produce.

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orbitur
Facebook needs to start treating their video platform more like a YouTube
competitor, that pays content-creators real dollars.

If they stay on this path where they try to force all consumers and creators
to be on their platform without incentivizing, people will eventually get
upset enough to leave.

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eksemplar
One of the major Danish news papers is e perimenting with not using Facebook.
So far their visitor count is diwn, but by less than they expected and the
visitors they get spend more time and more money, so it’s looking like a win
win.

Ironically you can still share their articles on Facebook by clicking the big
blue Facebook button at the top of an article, but hey it’s a start at least.

~~~
nift
Do you have the name of the media you are referring to? Thanks!

~~~
eksemplar
Yes, information.

I’ve got a link for you as well, but it’s in Danish.

[https://www.information.dk/indland/2018/05/tag-dit-
newsfeed-...](https://www.information.dk/indland/2018/05/tag-dit-newsfeed-
tilbage-information-dropper-facebook)

------
amelius
> The Weather Channel found it was only making $28 per minute of video
> produced. For comparison, Katz pointed out how the CBS reality show
> “Survivor” cost $45,000 per minute to make in 2009.

Can they make up for it by hosting the content themselves, combined with
advertising?

~~~
thwarted
How are these a comparison? One is revenue, the other is cost. How much
revenue resulted from the $45k/min cost?

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patrickaljord
I'm surprised that with 500 millions followers on facebook they were not able
to grow some revenue. Plenty facebook broadcasters make 6 figures with way
less followers by doing product placement or by sharing other channels
contents for a fee. Was the Weather Channel forbidden to do these kinds of
partnerships and if not why didn't hey do some?

~~~
dabockster
> Was the Weather Channel forbidden to do these kinds of partnerships and if
> not why didn't hey do some?

They probably didn't reshare anything because they are already a part of NBC
Universal. Thus, they already have other sources of funding that would dwarf
anything that product placement or paid placements could achieve.

Keep in mind that video itself is ultimately TWC's main product, not whatever
they post on Facebook. As long as they can broadcast their video somewhere,
they will be okay.

There's also the clickbait issue. Pages that begin to repost as a revenue
generator face a death spiral down to clickbait posts. TWC probably wanted to
cut it off before such a thing ruined their brand.

~~~
chipperyman573
>There's also the clickbait issue. Pages that begin to repost as a revenue
generator face a death spiral down to clickbait posts. TWC probably wanted to
cut it off before such a thing ruined their brand.

There's already a lot of clickbait on weather.com.

>Runaway Boat Sucked Into Dam, But the End is the Best Part

>Is Your Home's Electricity Safe? 5 Things to Check

>6 Tips To Allergy-Proof Your Home For Spring

There's also an article with this[0] image and the title "Odds of Development
Increasing - here's what we know".

These all have a CSS class "js-sponsored-title", so there probably is some
kind of kickback installed

[0]
[https://dsx.weather.com/util/image/map/DCT_SPECIAL9_1280x720...](https://dsx.weather.com/util/image/map/DCT_SPECIAL9_1280x720.jpg)

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nimbius
ive never cared much for the weather channel. After the whole snafu about
their own pet names for winter storms I think they lost a good deal of
credibility as anything more than a paid wrapper for noaa.gov.

wttr.in is a good service you can get on nearly any device.

~~~
a3n
I'm a long distance trucker (my 6th career), and I'd like an app or site that
will give me weather over two or three days along a 1000 to 2000 mile path.
Anyone?

IIRC, I found something somewhere under weather.gov, but it was
difficult/tedious to use on a smallish android phone; the associated API
seemed more promising, but for the moment I'm either driving, decompressing or
sleeping.

~~~
toomuchtodo
[https://www.weatheronwheelshome.com/](https://www.weatheronwheelshome.com/)

~~~
a3n
Thanks. Google play doesn't seem to be able to find it, not by a search, and
not by the link from their web page. I tried getting weather from their web
page for a trip I'm starting soon, but I just got a "this is embarrassing"
response.

But, google play suggested other apps, so I'll try them. I appreciate your
pointer.

~~~
zrobotics
My dad is a farmer, and uses DTN for weather information. It's a paid service,
not 100% sure of the price, but it provides excellent weather information. I
see they offer a product tailored for transportation:
[https://www.dtn.com/industries/weather/transportation/](https://www.dtn.com/industries/weather/transportation/)

Their mobile site isn't the greatest, but it is usable. I've used it for trip
forecasts before, it works well. Edit:one great thing is no ads, weather.com
is unusable w/o an ad blocker, but this being a monthly payment=no ads to deal
with.

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jarjoura
Sounds very similar to Disney wanting to go alone and pull out of Netflix.
Content creation is expensive and digital platforms either need to create
their own stuff or pay up.

[https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/08/disney-will-pull-its-
movies-...](https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/08/disney-will-pull-its-movies-from-
netflix-and-start-its-own-streaming-services.html)

~~~
notriddle
That doesn't seem comparable. Netflix and YouTube both have specific
monetization systems, where a cut of the revenue goes to the content creator.

Facebook doesn't seem to have anything like that. You can pay to appear on
there, you cannot _get paid_ to appear on Facebook.

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Theodores
Funny story regarding The Weather Channel back in the day when cable
television was the new thing in the UK.

Two networks doing just weather launched at approximately the same time - The
Weather Network and The Weather Channel. The Weather Network sold to the many
cable operators that existed then (before they merged into what would
eventually be rebranded into Virgin Media) and The Weather Channel paid to be
on Sky - essentially a satellite operation.

The Weather Network had boxes in the cable head ends that did local weather
inserts, all done by computer with some music, glorified 'pages from ceefax'
mixed in with presentations from the studio for weather in the UK and
internationally. The Weather Channel had no localisation.

The Weather Network offered a legit service, who doesn't want to find out what
the weather is from their TV? Particularly if it does have the local details.
This could be done on a budget as the partners that setup the company already
had the data from forecasting for airports etc. as well as the fairly simple
boxes for the cable head ends. The product sold itself and never had ambitions
to be competing with the big shows on the BBC for eyeballs. It was a simple
service that did what it said on the tin.

Meanwhile, The Weather Channel paid top dollar for presenters, paid to be on
Sky and had quite a lot of people marketing the service. So adverts were paid
for in newspapers, on the Tube trains and elsewhere. They had left the product
behind so they decided to buy The Weather Network and use that tech.

So the companies merged and still the marketing hubris ruled the roost. The
people with clipboards and power suits were in control, hiring more minions
and interns. At The Weather Network there were none of those people, the
forecasters ruled the show and the presenters invariably had a background in
meteorology, gained from working in the Royal Navy or with a decent degree
from Reading University (the place for meteorology).

Then, one day, boss man from The Weather Channel came over from the USA.
Realising that the lunatics had taken over the asylum he decided to close the
whole lot down. That was the end of that, plug pulled.

The better presenters actually made good careers for themselves because the
BBC had launched News 24 and needed weather presenters. So these guys got
lucky and no longer had to work for the marketing people. They could actually
do weather (which is more like betting on horses than anything scientific -
you read the 'form' and place your bets).

Not sure what happened to the marketing folk but I am sure they have lots to
say about themselves on LinkedIn.

What was unfair in the UK market was the government. In the USA if the
taxpayer pays for something then it is free for the citizens to use. In the UK
with the Conservative government the idea was for the Met Office to compete,
giving them a huge advantage over genuine private enterprise.

This also happens more generally with the BBC. How can anyone operate a news
website when the BBC do a pretty good one for free, with no adverts? It is not
fair.

Anyway, I am pleased to hear that The Weather Channel are again prepared to
pull the plug on lousy business propositions after giving a bit of time for
things to run their course. It keeps them innovating (even if they are under
different ownership now).

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paraplegic
Fake news? ;-)

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rosstex
Can I take this opportunity to complain about how poor the
[http://weather.com](http://weather.com) search autocomplete is? "Princeton"
doesn't list New Jersey, and "France" has no results in France.

